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Full-Text Articles in Law
Religion And Child Custody, Margaret Brinig
Religion And Child Custody, Margaret Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
This piece draws upon divorce pleadings and other records to show how indications of religion (or disaffiliation) that appear in custody agreements and orders (called “parenting plans” in both states studied) affect the course of the proceedings and legal activities over the five years following divorce filing. Some of the apparent findings are normative, but most are merely descriptive and some may be correlative rather than caused by the indicated concern about religion. While parenting plans are accepted by courts only when they are in the best interests of the child (at least in theory), the child’s independent religious needs …
Result Inequality In Family Law, Margaret Brinig
Result Inequality In Family Law, Margaret Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
To the extent that family law is governed by statute, all families are treated as though they are the same. This is of course consistent with the equal protection guarantees of the US Constitution as well as those of the states. However, in our pluralistic society, all families are not alike. At birth, some children are born to wealthy, married parents who will always put the children’s interests first and will never engage in domestic violence. Many laws benefit these children, while, according to some academics, they either further disadvantage other children or at best ignore their needs.
This presentation …
Does Parental Autonomy Require Equal Custody At Divorce?, Margaret F. Brinig
Does Parental Autonomy Require Equal Custody At Divorce?, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
This paper considers the affect of amendments to state divorce laws that strengthen their joint custody preference. It does so in the context of suits by noncustodial parents challenging substantive custody standards not requiring equal custody at divorce. The complaint is that most custody laws, by using a best interests standard rather than equally dividing custodial time, violate substantive due process. Further, two states, Iowa and Maine, have recently amended their custody legislation to strongly presume joint physical custody.
After setting out the constitutional problem and describing the legislation in some detail, this paper tests the effects of the change …
The One-Size-Fits-All Family, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock
The One-Size-Fits-All Family, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock
Margaret F Brinig
Family policy and the law based on it assume universals. That is, if marriage improves the welfare of the majority of couples and their children, it is worth pushing as a policy initiative. Further, laws will be written (or kept on the books) that privilege marriage over other family forms. Similarly, research that tells us that divorce harms children except following the relatively small number of highly conflicted marriages, spawns efforts to preserve troubled marriages or even to roll back liberal or relatively inexpensive divorce laws. With yet another example, since adopted children mostly do better than children left either …
Does Mediation Systematically Disadvantage Women?, Margaret F. Brinig
Does Mediation Systematically Disadvantage Women?, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
No abstract provided.
Substantive Parenting Arrangements In The Usa: Unpacking The Policy Choices, Margaret Brinig
Substantive Parenting Arrangements In The Usa: Unpacking The Policy Choices, Margaret Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
Policy makers in the US currently debate whether to keep discretionary child custody standards, that is, “best interests of the child” clarified by some factors, or to move to a more rule-based system, such as a presumptive shared parenting regime. This article briefly sets out the problem, theoretical and evidence-based ways of approaching it, and some new results from a study of court documents from one US state indicating that a strong presumption of shared custody is associated with an increase in post-decree domestic violence. While presumptions or de facto rules should facilitate bargaining, these results may tip the balance …
Penalty Defaults In Family Law: The Case Of Child Custody, Margaret F. Brinig
Penalty Defaults In Family Law: The Case Of Child Custody, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
This paper considers whether an amendment to state divorce laws that strengthens its joint custody preference operates as a traditional default rule, specifying what most divorcing couples would choose or as a penalty default rule the parties will attempt to contract around.
While the Oregon statutes that frame our discussion here, like most state laws, do not state an explicit preference for joint custody, shared custody is certainly encouraged by Section 107.179, which refers cases in which the parties cannot agree on joint custody to mediation and by Section 107.105, which requires the court to consider awarding custody jointly. In …
Unhappy Contracts: The Case Of Divorce Settlements, Margaret F. Brinig
Unhappy Contracts: The Case Of Divorce Settlements, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
This paper examines a particular type of contracts that is, sadly, increasingly frequent: the agreements produced by divorcing couples. They are unhappy contracts, agreements produced as a necessary part of exit from what is now suboptimal marriage. They are virtually required by many states and are, in theory at least, closely monitored by courts since, when children are involved, they will be incorporated into court orders.What parties to unhappy contracts do is attempt to minimize losses, rather than maximize gain. How are contracts structured that will do this, and how does a difference in the size or power of the …
No-Fault Laws And At-Fault People, Margaret F. Brinig, F. H. Buckley
No-Fault Laws And At-Fault People, Margaret F. Brinig, F. H. Buckley
Margaret F Brinig
Absent transaction costs, the Coase Theorem suggests that divorce reform would work no change in the frequency of divorce but perhaps would alter the distribution of marital wealth. However, divorce does involve substantial process costs, which no-fault lowered. This paper explores the question of what happened to state divorce rates because of the legal changes wrought by the family law revolution that began in the 1970s, isolating the effect of the legal variable from other demographic and social factors that might also explain the variation in divorce rates across states and across time.
Property Distribution Physics: The Talisman Of Time And Middle Class Law, Margaret F. Brinig
Property Distribution Physics: The Talisman Of Time And Middle Class Law, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
No abstract provided.
Feminism And Child Custody Under Chapter Two Of The American Law Institute's Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution, Margaret F. Brinig
Feminism And Child Custody Under Chapter Two Of The American Law Institute's Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
No abstract provided.
Child Support Guidelines: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Margaret F. Brinig, Douglas W. Allen
Child Support Guidelines: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Margaret F. Brinig, Douglas W. Allen
Margaret F Brinig
Child support guideline systems do more than simply determine the amount of income to be transferred from the noncustodial to the custodial household. They create incentives, one way or another, for spouses to divorce and seek custody and support payments. We examine three cases found in North America, and find that the common method of income shares provides a decent guideline that does not create any perverse incentives for divorce. Percentage-of-obligor-income methods do worse than other systems, and can cause increases in divorce rates for families in which one spouse earns a high income. Finally, the Canadian system, which is …
Trading At Divorce: Preferences, Legal Rules And Transactions Costs, Margaret F. Brinig, Michael V. Alexeev
Trading At Divorce: Preferences, Legal Rules And Transactions Costs, Margaret F. Brinig, Michael V. Alexeev
Margaret F Brinig
No abstract provided.
Belonging And Trust: Divorce And Social Capital, Margaret F. Brinig
Belonging And Trust: Divorce And Social Capital, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
To whom do spouses belong? Do they belong to their communities as well as each other and their immediate families? These questions are explored in an empirical paper demonstrating ways in which social capital in communities may affect even the marriages of people living in them.
The Role Of Socioeconomics In Teaching Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig
The Role Of Socioeconomics In Teaching Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
No abstract provided.