Law Commons^™

Family Law, Allison Anna Tait

Law Faculty Publications

In the past year, Virginia courts have addressed a range of family law questions—new and old—that reflect the changing landscape of families and marriage. Questions related to same-sex marriage and divorce have begun to appear on Virginia court dockets, including an important case the Supreme Court of Virginia decided this year with respect to same-sex couples cohabiting and the termination of spousal support. Family law courts also saw shifts in gender norms—wives paying spousal support to their husbands and fathers being awarded physical custody of their children. These legal questions tested the limits of statutory language and helped to expand …

Understanding Your Domestic Relations Rights In Virginia, 2016-2017, Julie Ellen Mcconnell

Law Faculty Publications

The Metropolitan Richmond Women’s Bar Association has published this booklet to help you understand the general legal circumstances that you may face in resolving domestic relations problems under Virginia law. Each person faces unique circumstances that may not be specifically addressed in a broad overview. This booklet is not intended to provide specific advice to you or to address your specific situation. You should use this document only as an introduction to understanding your legal rights.

This booklet is based on laws in effect in Virginia on July 1, 2016. Because laws are always subject to change, you should consult …

The Return Of Coverture, Allison Anna Tait

Law Faculty Publications

Once, the notion that husbands and wives were equal partners in marriage seemed outlandish and unnatural. Today, the marriage narrative has been reversed and the prevailing attitude is that marriage has become an increasingly equitable institution. This is the story that Justice Kennedy told in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which he described marriage as an evolving institution that has adapted in response to social change such that discriminatory marriage rules no longer apply. Coverture exemplifies this change: marriage used to be deeply shaped by coverture rules and now it is not. While celebrating the demise of coverture, however, the …

Divorce Equality, Allison Anna Tait

Law Faculty Publications

The battle for marriage equality has been spectacularly successful, producing great optimism about the transformation of marriage. The struggle to revolutionize the institution of marriage is, however, far from over. Next is the battle for divorce equality. With the initial wave of same-sex divorces starting to appear on court dockets, this Article addresses the distinctive property division problems that have begun to arise with same-sex divorce and that threaten, in the absence of rule reform, to both amplify and reinscribe problems with the conventional marital framework. Courts have failed to realize the cornerstone concept of equitable distribution-marriage as an economic …

How Child Abuse Hotlines Hurt The Very Children They’Re Trying To Protect, Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

The recent media obsession with “free range” parenting has illuminated a policy issue which rarely affects parents who debate free range parenting: the exploitation of child abuse reporting hotlines.

Marriage And Divorce: Legal Foundations, Azizah Y. Al-Hibri

Law Faculty Publications

A six-volume work, this set constitutes a major revision and massive expansion of the 1995 Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. In addition to covering Islamic societies in the modern world from the eighteenth century to the present, as the earlier four-volume set did, it will add a depth of historical background going back to the pre- Islamic era. The new reference also covers the full geographical extent of Islam by focusing not only on the countries in which Islam is dominant, but also on regions in which Muslims live as minorities, such as Europe and the Americas.

Separation, Custody, And Estate Planning Issues Relating To Companion Animals, Rebecca J. Huss

Law Faculty Publications

This article first discusses the domestication of companion animals, including the impact of anthropomorphism and neoteny on how animals are viewed in U.S. society. Second, it reviews the current legal status of animals. Third, it considers the voluntary and involuntary separation of companion animals from their human families. Fourth, it examines custody issues in the context of the placement of animals after the divorce of the human family members. Finally, it analyzes estate planning issues relating to companion animals.

The Ali Principles: A Farewell To Fault--But What Remedy For The Egregious Marital Misconduct Of An Abusive Spouse, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

The fundamental premise of this commentary is that the ALl has erred in not including appropriate nonfinancial fault-based factors in the Principles for three major reasons: 1) other no-fault laws, including no-fault automobile insurance law, no-fault workers compensation law, and strict liability in tort law, have all incorporated a number of fault-based exceptions to their general no-fault framework for serious or egregious conduct, and American divorce law should likewise have a similar fault-based exception for serious or egregious marital misconduct; 2) a substantial number of states continue to recognize and utilize a number of fault-based statutory factors in divorce for …

Marriage And Divorce: Legal Foundations, Azizah Y. Al-Hibri

Law Faculty Publications

This unique reference is a comprehensive encyclopedia dedicated to the institutions, religion, politics, and culture in Muslim societies throughout the world. Placing particular emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World contains over 750 articles in four volumes on Muslims in the Arab heartland as well as South and Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

An invaluable resource, the Encyclopedia offers extensive comparative and systematic analyses of Islamic beliefs, institutions, movements, practices, and peoples on an international scale. The alphabetically arranged articles range from brief 500-word essays to major interpretive and synthetic treatment …

Foreign Migratory Divorces: A Reappraisal, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Article is to review and reappraise the important legal principles involved in foreign country migratory divorces; to discuss the various public policy rationales behind them; and to suggest possible remedies to alleviate much of this ambiguity and confusion.

In undertaking this evaluation, the author is mindful of dual responsibilities-that divorce law in this area should be predictable and uniform in order to maintain the authority of legal precedent; but at the same time it must attempt to approximate, as closely as possible, the clearly demonstrated needs of society.

Divorce Planning In Antenuptial Agreements: Toward A New Objectivity, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

Within the past fifty years, there have been numerous articles written about the validity and enforceability of antenuptial agreements. Such agreements are generally favored by the law when prospective spouses privately contract to vary, limit, or relinquish certain rights which they would otherwise acquire in each other's property or in each other's estate by reason of their impending marriage. Traditionally, this antenuptial agreement is typically made by older people who are about to be remarried, and who have acquired considerable property from a prior marriage that they wish to control.

However, unless the antenuptial agreement provisions fall squarely within this …