Family Law Commons^™

Forced Marriage At The Cambodian Crossroads: Eccc Can Develop A New Crime Against Humanity, Cameron Christensen

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abolish Fault-Oriented Divorce In Ohio - As A Service To Society And To Restore Dignity To The Domestic Relations Court, John D. Cannell

Akron Law Review

A PROMINENT COMMON PLEAS JUDGE, who for 10 years has been presiding in the Domestic Relations Division of the Court of Common Pleas of one of Ohio's more populated counties, was recently heard to say: "Ohio's divorce law is hypocritical, lousy and archaic." About Ohio's divorce laws it has also been said: "Perhaps there is no statute in Ohio more abused than the statute concerning 'divorce and alimony.' Perhaps there is no statute under which greater imposition is practiced upon the court and more injustice done to individuals." These were the words of Judge Hitchcock of the Ohio Supreme Court …

From Orphans To Families In Crisis: Parental Rights Matters In Maine Probate Courts, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the sources of the contemporary problems associated with the adjudication of parental rights matters in Maine’s probate courts and identifies specific reforms to address both the structural and substantive law problems. The Article first reviews the development of Maine’s probate courts and their jurisdiction over parental rights matters. It traces the expansion of jurisdiction over children and families from a limited role incidental to the administration of a decedent’s estate to the current scope: a range of matters that may result in the limitation, suspension, or termination of the rights of living parents. Maine probate courts now …

Splitting The Baby: Immigration, Family Law, And The Problem Of The Single Deportable Parent, Timothy E. Yahner

Akron Law Review

The purpose of this article is not to suggest that the Fifth Circuit was wrong in upholding the dismissal of Monica’s case. Indeed, the court was faced with a dilemma that would give King Solomon pause: what to do when two parents claim one child. This article’s purpose is to show that a regulatory solution is preferable to forcing the courts to make impossible choices between parents. Part II discusses the factual and procedural history of Castro. Part III details the policies and rules of law of immigration and custody at play in the case. Part IV explains why the …

Eliminating Financiers From The Equation: A Call For Court-Mandated Fee Shifting In Divorces, Bibeane Metsch-Garcia

Michigan Law Review

Divorce can be prohibitively costly. Many struggle or simply cannot afford to pay divorce attorneys’ fees, and the economic effects of divorce on women are particularly acute. In the past few years, financing firms have emerged to fund nonmonied spouses, mostly women, who cannot afford to litigate divorces from their wealthy spouses. The services provided come with a hefty price tag: firms take large fees, and their involvement may lead to unethical and potentially damaging practices. This Note explains what third-party divorce finance firms are and why the use of firms is problematic, and offers an alternative, more equitable method …

An Incurable Malaise: Commonwealth V. Australian Capital Territory And Baskin V. Bogan As Symptoms Of Early-Onset Dystopia, Neville Rochow

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Concubinage And Union Libre: A Historical Comparison Of The Rights Of Unwed Cohabitants In Wrongful Death Actions In France And Louisiana, Robert F. Taylor

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Foreign And Religious Family Law: Comity, Contract, And The Constitution, Ann Laquer Estin

Pepperdine Law Review

The article focuses on role of the U.S. courts in confronting religious laws in dispute resolution of various cases of domestic relations, contracts, and torts. Topics discussed include role of secular courts in maintaining constitutional balance between the free exercise and establishment clauses, constitutional challenges faced by religious adherents, and importance of legal pluralism in the U.S.

Religious Tribunals And Secular Courts: Navigating Power And Powerlessness, Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin

Pepperdine Law Review

In this article, the author discusses the ways such as common law, and contracts employed by religious systems for navigating their relationship with legal systems of secular states. Topics discussed include the role of religious contracts in helping religious systems negotiate with secularism, the role of religious contracts in protecting autonomy of religious systems, and the structure of marriage and divorce in Jewish law.

Children's Rights In The Midst Of Marriage Equality: Amicus Brief In Obergefell V. Hodges By Scholars Of The Constitutional Rights Of Children, Tanya Washington, Susannah Pollvogt, Catherine Smith, Lauren Fontana

Scholarly Articles

Many scholars have called for the acknowledgement and treatment of children's rights as constitutionally protected and enforceable, and Supreme Court precedent establishes that the government may not punish children for matters beyond children's control. Same-sex marriage bans and non-recognition laws, which are collectively referred to as marriage bans, impose prohibited punishment on children for being born into, or parented by, same-sex families. States argue that marriage is the optimal familial environment for children, yet marriage bans categorically exclude an entire class of children -- children in same-sex families -- from the legal, economic, and social benefits of marriage. In response …

Anna Moscowitz Kross And The Home Term Part: A Second Look At The Nation's First Criminal Domestic Violence Court, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

(Re-)Grasping The Opportunity Interest: Lehr V. Robertson And The Terminated Parent, Lashanda Taylor Adams

Journal Articles

In 1997, an Ohio court terminated Peggy Fugate’s parental rights to her sixyear-old daughter, Selina. At the time, Ms. Fugate, an incarcerated drug abuser, did not fight the order, believing her daughter would be adopted into a clean, stable home.1 However, Selina was never adopted. For the next seven years, Selina had trouble with the police and ran away from her foster home numerous times. While Selina’s life was going downhill in many respects, her mother was rehabilitating. She entered recovery, married, obtained full-time employment and was living in stable housing with enough room for her daughter. Recognizing the strides …

What’S Law Got To Do With It? Confronting Judicial Nullification Of Domestic Violence Remedies, 10 Nw. J. L. & Soc. Pol'y. 130 (2015), Debra Pogrund Stark

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

In 1982, the Illinois legislature passed the Illinois Domestic Violence Act (the Act) and most recently passed an updated version in 2012. This Article examines how the specialized domestic violence courthouse in Chicago implements these laws.

Where the courthouse falls short, this Article will explore why, what can be done, and consider implications for other jurisdictions seeking to implement similar resources for survivors of domestic violence. The results from this empirical study are mixed. On the positive side, the data reflect that judges are properly applying many important aspects of the new order of protection laws and granting a high …

Marriage Equality Comes To America, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Marriage equality is sweeping the nation. Four appeals courts recently affirmed district judges’ opinions which invalidated numerous state laws proscribing same-sex marriage. Yet, the Sixth Circuit reversed a number of district jurists, prompting a circuit split that provoked Supreme Court resolution. Because marriage equality’s status is unclear, this piece assesses disposition of the litigation and recommends how to clarify marriage equality.

Certiorari And The Marriage Equality Cases, Carl Tobias

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Marriage equality has come to much of the nation. Over 2014, many district court rulings invalidated state proscriptions on same- sex marriage, while four appeals courts upheld these decisions. However, the Sixth Circuit reversed district judgments which struck down bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. Because that appellate opinion created a patchwork of differing legal regimes across the country, this Paper urges the Supreme Court to clarify marriage equality by reviewing that determination this Term.

When Disciplines Collide: Polygamy And The Social Sciences On Trial, Jodi Lazare

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article draws on the Supreme Court of British Columbia's Reference re: Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada [the Polygamy Reference] as a concrete example of the benefits and limitations of intense judicial reliance on social science evidence in the adjudication of constitutional rights and freedoms at the trial level. By examining the evidence tendered, I suggest that the current adversarial model of adjudication is illsuited to combining the legal and the social scientific endeavours. The divergent values, methodologies and objectives of the legal and scientific enterprises severely limit the benefits that the former can yield, thus compromising …

Lawrence V. Texas: The Decision And Its Implications For The Future, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Scholars Of The Constitutional Rights Of Children Susannah W. Pollvogt, Catherine E. Smith, And Tanya Washington As Amici Curiae In Support Of Plaintiffs-Appellants And Reversal: Robicheaux V. Caldwell, Catherine E. Smith, Tanya Washington, Susannah W. Pollvogt

Scholarly Articles

Amici are scholars and professors of family law and the law of equal protection. Amici submit this brief to respond directly to arguments advanced by the State of Louisiana that its laws prohibiting same-sex marriage2 are justified because they advance child welfare. Specifically, the State asserts that its laws advance child welfare by promoting Louisiana’s interest in: (1) linking children with their biological parents to prevent the social stigma associated with being “illegitimate” and (2) establishing the child as a member of an intact family resulting from the marriage of the mother and alleged father. These purported justifications express and …

Commentaries On The Iaals' Honoring Families Initiative White Paper, Barbara A. Babb

All Faculty Scholarship

Family courts are not likely to disappear, as they currently constitute the largest proportion of trial court filings in most states. It appears as though family courts have become an emergency room for family problems. Thus, we need to enhance our efforts to improve the family justice system. In order to revamp family courts most effectively, there must be a focus on the creation of unified family courts that are grounded in therapeutic jurisprudence and the ecology of human development. This framework allows for a more responsive and holistic approach to families' legal and underlying nonlegal needs. The goal of …

Divorce Involving Domestic Violence: Is Med-Arb Likely To Be The Solution?, Dafna Lavi

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

After an introduction in chapter one, the second chapter of this article presents statistics regarding the phenomenon of domestic violence and presents the definition of “violence” (with its attendant difficulties). The third chapter presents the existing problems regarding the judicial handling of divorce cases in general and those involving violence in particular. The fourth chapter analyzes the academic discourse regarding the issue of mediation of divorce cases involving violence (the position of the proponents and the opponents, as well as the problems of the current situation). The fifth chapter proposes med-arb as addressing the issue of divorce mediation in the …

A Difficult Situation Made Harder: A Parent's Choice Between Civil Remedies And Criminal Charges In International Child Abduction, Donyale N. Leslie

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Families Matter: Recommendations To Improve Outcomes For Children And Families In Court, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger

All Faculty Scholarship

The Families Matter initiative was designed as a major, multi-year undertaking to develop legal practice methods and approaches to reduce the destructive consequences of the family legal process. The initiative was intended to respond to the need for deep and meaningful reform of the family law process.

Convened in June 2010 by the University of Baltimore School of Law Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC), the Families Matter Symposium brought together an interdisciplinary group of family law experts for two days at the University of Baltimore to identify problems regarding the practice of family …

The Immigrant "Other": Racialized Identity And The Devaluation Of Immigrant Family Relations, Anita Maddali

Indiana Law Journal

This Article explores how current terminations of undocumented immigrants’ parental rights are reminiscent of historical practices that removed early immigrant and Native American children from their parents in an attempt to cultivate an Anglo-American national identity. Today, children are separated from their families when courts terminate the rights of parents who have been, or who face, deportation. Often, biases toward undocumented parents affect determinations concerning parental fitness in a manner that, while different, reaps the same results as the removal of children from their families over a century ago. This Article examines cases in which courts terminated the parental rights …

Investigating Integrated Domestic Violence Courts: Lessons From New York, Jennifer Koshan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Extensive law and policy reforms in the area of domestic violence have occurred in the last several decades in the United States and Canada, the latest being the development of specialized domestic violence (DV) courts. DV courts typically operate in the criminal realm, particularly in Canada. A recent innovation that is relatively unique in the United States is integrated domestic violence (IDV) courts, where criminal, civil, and family matters are heard together in a one judge/one family model. This article examines the literature on DV and IDV courts in Canada and the United States, and situates these reforms in the …

Transgender Inpportunity And Inequality: Evaluating The Crossroads Between Immigration And Transgender Individuals, Alexandra Caggiano

Seattle University Law Review

Despite being married to a U.S. citizen, non-citizen transgender individuals and non-citizen spouses married to transgender U.S. citizens still face deportation today due to current immigration policies. When forced to return to their home countries, transgender individuals are likely to encounter violence from those who perpetuate hate towards transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Instead of protecting these individuals, the United States continues to send people back to their native countries solely because those individuals do not fall within the narrowly constructed definition of marriage some states use that is legally recognized by federal courts. Transgender individuals receive disparate treatment as …

The Ninth Circuit’S Treatment Of Sexual Orientation: Defining “Rational Basis Review With Bite”, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

When the Ninth Circuit handed down Witt v. Department of the Air Force, President Obama and then-Solicitor General Kagan declined to take an appeal to the Supreme Court. At the time, it seemed that most advocates of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” believed that the administration made that decision because it was afraid the Supreme Court would reverse the Ninth Circuit. If that fear was perhaps well-founded in 2009, it is certainly less so now. In the wake of SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories, as well as recent District Court decisions, opponents of federal constitutional protection for gay people …

Introduction: Invited Essays On The Implications Of Windsor And Perry

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Further Standing Lessons, Heather Elliott

Indiana Law Journal

Professor Elliott wrote a piece for the Indiana Law Journal in 2012 (available here). In this article, she updates her analysis and explores the implications of both the health-care and marriage equality cases on the Court’s standing doctrine.

Windsor, Shelby County, And The Demise Of Originalism: A Personal Account, Dawn E. Johnsen

Indiana Law Journal

Essays on the Implication of Windsor and Perry

Evolving Values, Animus, And Same-Sex Marriage, Daniel O. Conkle

Indiana Law Journal

In this Essay, I contend that a Fourteenth Amendment right to same-sex marriage will emerge, and properly so, when the Supreme Court determines that justice so requires and when, in the words of Professor Alexander Bickel, the Court’s recognition of this right will “in a rather immediate foreseeable future . . . gain general assent.” I suggest that we are fast approaching that juncture, and I go on to analyze three possible justifications for such a ruling: first, substantive due process; second, heightened scrutiny equal protection; and third, rational basis equal protection coupled with a finding of illicit “animus.” I …