Law Commons^™

Locating The 'Nanny' In Legal Theory, Akshat Agarwal

National Law School Journal

Paid domestic workers pose a challenge to legal theorists since they occupy the unique intersection of the market and the home. While being paid for the ‘care’ they provide, their work is characterised by a high degree of informality and is usually also considered emotive. I use India as a case study to show how attempts to include paid domestic workers within formal labour law protections have been consistently unsuccessful, which demonstrates the unique nature of paid domestic work. At the same time, academic arguments for the inclusion of such workers in family law frameworks raise several practical concerns and …

Foreword, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Family law goes beyond divorce cases, often requiring the family law practitioner to advise and assist on matters involving children and young persons, and protection orders. These can be some of the most challenging issues which a person can face and it is not always obvious to someone needing help that they can turn to the law for assistance in appropriate cases. This makes books like this one crucial in spreading the word that help is available, preventing a situation where people facing difficulties might have to suffer in silence.Fung Peen’s first two books on Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) …

Removing Barriers--Not Children: How West Virginia Can Prevent Further Harm To Children, Emily R. Mowry

West Virginia Law Review

West Virginia has one of the highest rates of children in foster care—and thus removed from their families—in the United States. Recent scientific and social science research has shown that removing children from their parents’ home is a traumatic event in and of itself, causing further harm to children already experiencing abuse and neglect. Federal legislation in the past ten years requires that states make reasonable efforts to address issues of abuse and neglect prior to removing children from their homes. West Virginia, for many reasons, is not doing so. West Virginia’s state child welfare agency, Department of Health and …

Invisibility And Dis-Identification Of Algerian Women: Feminist Jurisprudence Eyes On The Legal Provisions Related To Personal Status And Criminal, Sophia Lina Meziane

Theses and Dissertations

Much of the debate around women’s rights in legal systems focuses on the increase of protection as a legal mechanism for approaching and guaranteeing gender equality. Yet, what extensive or comprehensive analysis has been done on how effective such laws are when applied? This thesis discusses the extent to which a feminist legal theory, separate and distinct from the patriarchal legal system, can demonstrate how an Islamic or Napoleonic order is conceptually another male rationality. While one could possibly identify inefficiencies of laws proclaiming equality and protection for women, the context of the question is inevitably entrenched in the very …

Playing God In The 21st Century: How The Push For Human Embryonic Germline Gene Editing Sidelines Individual And Generational Autonomy, Anna E. Melo

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Every four and a half minutes a child with a genetic birth defect is born in the United States. For some, these conditions are treatable and manageable, but sadly for others, they are a death sentence. Congenital malformations and chromosomal abnormalities are the leading cause of infant mortality. CRISPR-Cas9 presents hope for the future, a liberation from the heritable genetic shackles that a child would otherwise be trapped in. With such optimism for future applications of germline gene editing, there are also great concerns with what national and global limitations and auditing must be in place to permit “genetic hedging.” …

Covid-“14-17”: A Case For Florida Teens To Choose The Covid Vaccine Without Requiring Parental Consent, Kait Ramsay

Child and Family Law Journal

The novel COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge disruption to almost everyone, forcing many individuals to adapt to entirely new ways of life. In the United States, COVID safety protocols and restrictions, such as mask and vaccine mandates, have been met with huge political polarization and resistance.[1] Even as COVID variants have kept infections in a perpetual cycle of rising and falling, Florida has lifted mask mandates for businesses and schools, and its governor has been one of the largest vocal opponents to requiring vaccines for school attendance.[2] Furthermore, with the passing of Florida’s Parental Consent for Health …

Frozen Embryos, Male Consent, And Masculinities, Dara E. Purvis

Indiana Law Journal

Picture two men facing the possibility of unwanted fatherhood. One man agreed to go through in vitro fertilization (IVF) with his partner, but years later has changed his mind. Despite the fact that the embryos created through IVF are his partner’s last chance to be a genetic parent, a court allows him to block her use of the embryos.

By contrast, another couple’s sexual relationship broke the law. The woman was a legal adult, and her partner was a child under the age of eighteen. Their encounter was thus statutory rape. Her crime led to pregnancy, and after she gave …

Taking The "Fam" Out Of Family: Adjudicating The State Department's Discriminatory Treatment Of Same-Sex Parents On The Merits, Camrin M. Rivera

Maine Law Review

Cisgender same-sex male married couples, unlike cisgender opposite-sex married couples, will always require artificial reproductive technology (ART) for at least one of the spouses to attain biological parenthood. Due to legal and financial barriers to ART, many of these couples turn to international ART services to grow their families. In doing so, these families may face immigration battles when they apply for recognition of their child’s United States citizenship. For example, a prior State Department policy sparked three lawsuits after the State Department refused to recognize children as United States citizens from birth because the children were not biologically related …

Citizens For Strong Schools, Inc., Et Al. V. Florida State Board Of Education, Et Al.: How The Florida Supreme Court Decision Will Have Distressing Effects On Public Education For Vulnerable Children, Kristen Calzadilla

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Free public-school education is fundamental aspect to many citizens life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness in the United States. As states add constitutional provisions guaranteeing a public education, there are still great disproportionalities in the adequacy pf education provided to underrepresented students. Such are the issues at the heart of the recent Florida Supreme Court case, Citizens for Strong Schools, Inc., et al. v. Florida State Board of Education, et al. Citizens for Strong Schools throws its hat into the contentious debate over equitable educational standards. However, despite other state supreme courts’ rulings that similar provisions in the state constitutions …

The Hidden Foster Care System: A Parallel System In Legal Limbo During A Deadly Pandemic, Megan Schmidt

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

In 2020, Josh Gupta-Kagan’s article on the American Hidden Foster System challenged the welfare system to face its coercive practices that effectuate in a child being removed from the home without formal state intervention and court oversight.1 Families find themselves struggling to stay together as child protection workers utilize threats and safety plans to force the removal of a child from the home and into the custody of a family member.2 The children’s, the parents’, and the kinship caregivers’ lives are forever impacted by the welfare state, yet they receive insufficient benefits or protections afforded to families, caregivers, and children …

English Courts And Transnational Islamic Divorces: What Role For Personal Liberty Of Muslim Women?, Ilias Bantekas

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

English courts consider the validity of a talaq obtained abroad on the basis of the lex matrimonii, without examining whether the circumstance of the divorce, both factual and legal, offend English public policy. An anthropological inquiry into talaq obtained in most Muslim nations reveals that androcentric culture – as opposed to religious prescription as such – largely distorts the Quranic vision of this institution. This author suggests that English courts and the scholarly/religious community should entertain the notion of the contractual nature of nikah (marriage) in order to assess the consequences of the talaq. If a nikah is entered into …

First Comes Love. Then Comes Marriage. Then Comes A Baby In A Baby Carriage: An Application Of Protective Surrogacy Laws To The Tarheel State, Justin Lo

Seattle University Law Review

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and determining parentage have a common feature: each is governed by state law or the lack of such laws. This lack of statutory regulations presents significant legal challenges to gay men who wish to start a family. Because same-sex male couples seeking to become fathers through ART and surrogacy are the most likely demographic to be impacted when determining parentage, laws that influence the direction of surrogacy will undeniably facilitate whether both males will be deemed a father. To provide same-sex male couples with a pathway to parenthood, North Carolina should (1) develop robust, protective surrogacy …

When Patients Are Their Own Doctors: Roe V. Wade In An Era Of Self-Managed Care, Yvonne F. Lindgren

Faculty Works

The Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade framed the abortion right as a right to make the abortion decision in consultation with a “responsible physician.” Under this framing, doctors were cast in the role of medical “gatekeepers” to mediate patient access to abortion. In the ensuing years, the doctor-patient relationship has become the site of restrictive abortion regulations in many states. This Article argues that Roe’s framing suffers from a foundational flaw: While the gatekeeper framing may have been appropriate in the Roe era when abortion was surgical and non-clinical abortions were potentially lethal, today, medication abortion—a two-drug non-surgical regimen …

Sexual Agreements, Susan Frelich Appleton, Albertina Antognini

Scholarship@WashULaw

Few would find it surprising that an agreement for sex falls outside the bounds of contract law. Prostitution—defined as an exchange of sex for money—has long been a crime, a point that courts often make in declining to enforce agreements between unmarried partners. In fact, courts routinely invalidate contracts when sex forms the basis of a couple’s bargain, whether married or not, and whether the sex is explicit or inferred from the relationship itself. A closer look at the legal treatment of sexual agreements, however, tells a more complicated story. Although courts reject sex as consideration for being “meretricious” or …

A Pioneer Of The Law & Society Movement: One Eyewitness’S Reflections, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

There is arguably no more seminal a figure in the field of law and society than Professor Marc Galanter. That a Special Issue featuring dedications to several leading academic lights would be hosted by the University of Chicago Law Review is especially significant in terms of Marc’s inclusion because Chicago is where Marc came of age as a student.

Professor Richard Abel, some years back, chronicled Marc’s educational journey in Hyde Park. As Abel tells it—and as Marc has told me over the years—after finishing his B.A. and while continuing to work on his master’s degree from Chicago, Marc enrolled …

Mommy, Baby And Rapist Makes Three? Amid Abortion Bans, The Pressing Need For A Nationwide Lower Standard To Strip Parental Rights, Regardless Of A Rape Conviction, Melanie Dostis

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Among the fundamental rights recognized in the Constitution are the rights of parents to raise their children. While never interpreted as an absolute legal privilege, courts have exercised wide discretion in preserving this right and historically ignored the reality that not all parents are deserving of this right. Even though the family law system has protections in place to terminate parental rights for atrocities like abuse, it largely neglects an uncomfortable area of parental origin: parental rights regarding children conceived by rape. This is not only to the detriment of children, but, as this Note argues, at the peril of …

The 100-Year Life And The New Family Law, Elizabeth S. Scott, Naomi Cahn

Faculty Scholarship

This draft book chapter, prepared as part of a symposium on The 100-Year Life by Linda Gratton and Andrew Scott, reflects on the future of family law in an era of longer lives. Our analysis leads us to conclude that the 100-year life is indeed likely to have an impact on the nature, scope, and definition of family law, but that families will continue to function as the primary setting for intimacy and for caregiving and caretaking, whatever form those families take. Further, the importance to both individual and social welfare of family support throughout life points to a need …

The Rise Of Zero Tolerance And The Demise Of Family, Mariela Olivares

Georgia State University Law Review

This article explores the intersection of immigration law and family law and argues that the current regime dedicated to decimating immigrant families in the United States does not comport with the history and spirit of immigration law and policy. Policies shifting away from family unity and towards an inhumane treatment of immigrant families is anchored in the political rhetoric that normalizes the oppression of immigrants. By characterizing immigrants as nonhuman—even “animals,” as described by President Donald Trump—the current slate of anti-immigrant policies that specifically target families is normalized. Part I discusses contemporary immigration law that terrorizes the family unit and …

A Dangerous Inheritance: A Child’S Digital Identity, Kate Hamming

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment begins with one family’s story of its experience with social media that many others can relate to in today’s ever-growing world of technology and the Internet. Technology has made it possible for a person’s online presence to grow exponentially through continuous sharing by other Internet users. This ability to communicate and share information amongst family, friends, and strangers all over the world, while beneficial in some regard, comes with its privacy downfalls. The risks to privacy are elevated when children’s information is being revealed, which often stems from a child’s own parents conduct online. Parents all over the …

The Birth Of Fertility Fraud: How To Protect Washingtonians, Sarah Chicoine

Washington Law Review Online

Doctors in multiple states have been accused of using their own sperm to impregnate patients without the patient’s consent. Because most states do not have laws prohibiting fertility doctors from using their own sperm to impregnate their patients, families have not been able to seek meaningful legal remedies. State legislatures enacted new fertility fraud laws to deter, criminalize, and provide a legal civil cause of action to those harmed by these actions—but only after these allegations came to light. If the Washington State Legislature creates a law before any similar allegations come to light in Washington, those patients harmed in …

Whatever Your Thoughts On Marriage, Gay Divorce Is A Concern, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

For Richer Or Poorer, 'Til Decree Do Us Part - A Spouse's Entitlement To Division Of Pension Funds And Professional Degrees As Marital Property, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Employment Division V. Smith For Family Law, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

Misused Concepts And Misguided Questions: Fundamental Confusions In Family Law Debates, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

Diagnosing Liberal Resistance To Needed Child Welfare Reforms, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

Children's Interests In A Family Context - A Cautionary Note, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

No abstract provided.

Why We Should Raise The Marriage Age, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

Principles Of U.S. Family Law, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

What explains U.S. family law? What are the origins of the current chaos and controversy in the field, the home of some of the most vituperative debates in public policy? To answer these questions, this Article identifies and examines family law's foundational principles. It undertakes a conceptual analysis of the legal practices that govern families. This analysis has yet to be done, and its absence hamstrings constructive thought on our family law. The Article develops a typology that conceptualizes U.S. family law and exposes its underlying principles. First, it identifies the significant elements, or rules, of family law. Second, it …

Expressing Community Values Through Family Law Adjudication, Vivian E. Hamilton

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

A Constitutional Right To Home Instruction?, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.