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Full-Text Articles in Law

The 100-Year Life And The New Family Law, Elizabeth S. Scott, Naomi Cahn Jan 2021

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 …


Paternity Un(Certainty): How The Law Surrounding Paternity Challenges Negatively Impacts Family Relationships And Women's Sexuality, Susan Ayres Mar 2017

Paternity Un(Certainty): How The Law Surrounding Paternity Challenges Negatively Impacts Family Relationships And Women's Sexuality, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

It is popularly believed that false paternity rates are 10-30%, and that thousands of unsuspecting men are supporting children who are not theirs. These reported rates of false paternity have become urban legend, demonizing women as over-sexualized partners who shouldn’t be trusted. This in turn has influenced laws regarding paternity, which have evolved to allow men to dis-establish paternity years after a child’s birth, even when there has been an adjudication or acknowledgment of paternity. This article argues that society should be cautious about elevating science as the highest consideration in truth claims about paternity. It examines the incoherent and …


The Intersection Of Civil And Religious Family Law In The U.S. Constitutional Order: A Mild Legal Pluralism, Linda C. Mcclain Dec 2015

The Intersection Of Civil And Religious Family Law In The U.S. Constitutional Order: A Mild Legal Pluralism, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter considers how civil and religious family law intersect in the U.S. legal system and how U.S. constitutional law shapes and constrains the accommodation of religious pluralism as it pertains to family law. To the question, “Is there too much or too little pluralism in U.S. family law?,” I answer that family law appropriately embraces a mild legal pluralism, while clearly distinguishing between civil and religious marriage. After illustrating this distinction in the context of the recent controversy over same-sex marriage, I consider two categories of cases: (1) cases in which courts consider whether to enforce terms of Jewish …


Modern Odysseus Or Classic Fraud - Fourteen Years In Prison For Civil Contempt Without A Jury Trial, Judicial Power Without Limitation, And An Examination Of The Failure Of Due Process, Mitchell J. Frank Apr 2012

Modern Odysseus Or Classic Fraud - Fourteen Years In Prison For Civil Contempt Without A Jury Trial, Judicial Power Without Limitation, And An Examination Of The Failure Of Due Process, Mitchell J. Frank

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


A Primer On The History And Proper Drafting Of Qualified Domestic-Relations Orders, Terrence Cain Jan 2011

A Primer On The History And Proper Drafting Of Qualified Domestic-Relations Orders, Terrence Cain

Faculty Scholarship

The divorce rate in the United States is slightly more than one-half the marriage rate. Divorce is a fact of life in this country, and will likely be so for the foreseeable future. On August 23, 1984, the divorce lawyer’s job got more complicated when Congress created the Qualified Domestic Relations Order ("QDRO") as part of some significant amendments to ERISA. QDROs are necessary because before those 1984 ERISA amendments, a lot of divorced persons discovered that they could be deprived of their marital or community property interest in their former spouses' retirement plans. For most divorcing couples, the two …


Pregnant Man?: A Conversation, Darren Rosenblum, Noa Ben-Asher, Mary Anne Case, Elizabeth F. Emens, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Vivian M. Gutierrez, Lisa C. Ikemoto, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Jacob Willig-Onwuachi, Kimberly Mutcherson, Peter Siegelman, Beth Jones Jan 2010

Pregnant Man?: A Conversation, Darren Rosenblum, Noa Ben-Asher, Mary Anne Case, Elizabeth F. Emens, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Vivian M. Gutierrez, Lisa C. Ikemoto, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Jacob Willig-Onwuachi, Kimberly Mutcherson, Peter Siegelman, Beth Jones

Faculty Scholarship

I'm a law professor who works on gender, sexuality, and culture in the international and comparative context. That's my head working. In "real" life, my partner, Howard, and I have been engaged in having a baby together for several years, a project that came to fruition with the birth of our daughter Melina. Of course, such a project evokes intensely complex feelings and thoughts. Beyond a simple transposition of the personal onto the political, I feel so fortunate to have engaged in myriad conversations with a variety of friends and colleagues who think much more carefully about the family and …


All In The Family, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Jacob Willig-Onwuachi Jan 2010

All In The Family, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Jacob Willig-Onwuachi

Faculty Scholarship

Your essay “Pregnant Man?” highlights many significant issues concerning the intersection of law, gender, sexuality, race, class, and family. In an earlier article A House Divided: The Invisibility of the Multiracial Family, we explored many of these issues as they relate to multiracial families, including our own. Specifically, we, a black female-white male married couple, analyzed the language in housing discrimination statutes to demonstrate how law and society function together to frame the normative ideal of family as heterosexual and monoracial. Our article examined the daily social privileges of monoracial, heterosexual couples as a means of revealing the invisibility of …


A Beautiful Lie: Exploring Rhinelander V. Rhinelander As A Formative Lesson On Race, Identity, Marriage, And Family, Angela Onwuachi-Willig Dec 2007

A Beautiful Lie: Exploring Rhinelander V. Rhinelander As A Formative Lesson On Race, Identity, Marriage, And Family, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores the past and present social meanings of what occurred during a 1920s New York trial court case, Rhinelander v. Rhinelander. Rhinelander involved a claim by Leonard Kip Rhinelander, a white socialite, who filed for annulment of his marriage to Alice Beatrice Jones, a woman of racially ambiguous heritage. Leonard claimed that Alice committed fraud that went to the essence of their marriage by failing to inform him that she was of "colored" blood. According to legend, Leonard and Alice were madly in love, and Leonard filed the lawsuit only because of his father, who refused to accept …


My Two Dads: Disaggregating Biological And Social Paternity, Melanie B. Jacobs Oct 2006

My Two Dads: Disaggregating Biological And Social Paternity, Melanie B. Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

Examines the question of what the basis for establishing fatherhood should be. Explores how legal parentage is determined, examines the two-parent paradigm, and compares biological and social paternity in order to recognize two legal fathers.


Undercover Other, Angela Onwuachi-Willig May 2006

Undercover Other, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay argues in favor of legally recognizing same-sex marriages by exploring the similarities in passing between members of same-sex marriages/relationships and interracial marriages/relationships. Specifically, this Essay unpacks the claim that the ability of gays and lesbians to pass as heterosexual distinguishes the ban on same-sex marriages from former bans on interracial marriages. Part I of this Essay first describes policy-based critiques of a Loving-based argument for legalizing same-sex marriage, or as one scholar has coined, of playing the Loving card by analogizing the racism that motivated anti-miscegenation statues that the Supreme Court struck down in 1967 to the anti-gay …


The Use Of Prebirth Parentage Orders In Surrogacy Proceedings, Mary P. Byrn, Steven H. Synder Jan 2005

The Use Of Prebirth Parentage Orders In Surrogacy Proceedings, Mary P. Byrn, Steven H. Synder

Faculty Scholarship

Prebirth parentage orders are often sought by parties to surrogacy agreements to formalize the intent of the parties to the agreement before the child is born. Such orders declare the intended parents to be the legal parents of the child. This article discusses the benefits of such orders, as well as the difficulties in obtaining them. The availability and efficacy of prebirth parentage orders depends on many factors including the type of surrogacy arrangement, the state law that governs the proceeding, and whether the parties are in unanimous agreement. This article analyzes the various factors which impact whether obtaining a …