Family Law Commons^™

Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health And The Post-Roe Landscape, Yvonne F. Lindgren

Faculty Works

This Article examines some of the important takeaways of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision and the likely reverberations it will have on other areas of law and reproductive healthcare more broadly. The Article proceeds in three parts. Part I examines the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions to consider what they reveal about the new standard of review for abortion, the shift in power among the members of the Court itself, as well as what the opinion signals might come next. Part II explores the future of abortion in a post-Roe landscape as the abortion rights movement moves from …

Standing By To Protect Child Abuse Victims: Utilizing Standby Counsel In Lieu Of Personal Cross-Examination, Claire Murtha

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Child abuse is a pervasive problem in the United States. Often, the abused child’s word is the only evidence to prove the abuse in court. For this reason, the child’s testimony is critical. Testifying can pose a challenge for the abused child who must face her abuser in the courtroom, especially if that abuser personally questions her.

The United States Supreme Court has recognized the legitimate and strong interest the state has in protecting the psychological and physical well-being of children. When a child will face significant trauma and cannot reasonably communicate in the courtroom, the child can be questioned …

Care In The Time Of Covid: Addressing The State Of Family And Medical Leave In Light Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Emily Kowalik

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

Gestational Surrogacy Contract Terms Under The 2017 Uniform Parentage Act, Jhonell Campbell

Child and Family Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Equity Over Equality: Equal Protection And The Indian Child Welfare Act, Lucy Dempsey

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In 2018, a Texas District Court shocked the nation by declaring the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) unconstitutional pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The decision was overturned by the Fifth Circuit but may well be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The ICWA provides a framework for the removal and placement of Indian children into foster and adoptive homes in such a way that attempts to reflect the unique values of Indian culture and supports the autonomy of the tribe. In doing so, the law treats Indian children differently than it would White children. But …

The Stability Paradox: The Two-Parent Paradigm And The Perpetuation Of Violence Against Women In Termination Of Parental Rights And Custody Cases, Judith Lewis

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Despite changing family compositions, entrenched in family law is the antiquated idea that a two-parent household, or its approximation vis-à-vis a shared custody arrangement, promotes stability and integrity and, thus, is in the best interest of the child. Yet, the concept that the two-parent household (or shared involvement of both parents in the child’s life if the parents separate) promotes stability for the family and is best for the child is a dangerous fallacy. When rape or intimate partner violence (IPV) is present, or the re-occurrence of violence remains a threat, the family unit is far from stable.

This Article …

Duress In Immigration Law, Elizabeth A. Keyes

Seattle University Law Review

The doctrine of duress is common to other bodies of law, but the application of the duress doctrine is both unclear and highly unstable in immigration law. Outside of immigration law, a person who commits a criminal act out of well-placed fear of terrible consequences is different than a person who willingly commits a crime, but American immigration law does not recognize this difference. The lack of clarity leads to certain absurd results and demands reimagining, redefinition, and an unequivocal statement of the significance of duress in ascertaining culpability. While there are inevitably some difficult lines to be drawn in …

The Small-Er Screen: Youtube Vlogging And The Unequipped Child Entertainment Labor Laws, Amanda G. Riggio

Seattle University Law Review

Family vloggers are among the millions of content creators on YouTube. In general, vloggers frequently upload recorded videos of their daily lives. Family vloggers are unique because they focus their content around their familial relationships and the lives of their children. One set of family vloggers, the Ace Family, has recorded their children’s lives from the day they were born and continue to upload videos of each milestone, including “Elle Cries on Her First Rollercoaster Ride” and “Elle and Alaïa Get Caught Doing What!! **Hidden Camera**.” Another vlogging couple, Cole and Savannah LaBrant, post similar content, including videos titled “Baby …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Lessons Learned, Lessons Offered: Creating A Domestic Violence Drug Court, Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, Dr. Stacy Speedlin Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Conceptualizing Legal Childhood In The Twenty-First Century, Clare Huntington, Elizabeth S. Scott

Michigan Law Review

The law governing children is complex, sometimes appearing almost incoherent. The relatively simple framework established in the Progressive Era, in which parents had primary authority over children, subject to limited state oversight, has broken down over the past few decades. Lawmakers started granting children some adult rights and privileges, raising questions about their traditional status as vulnerable, dependent, and legally incompetent beings. As children emerged as legal persons, children’s rights advocates challenged the rationale for parental authority, contending that robust parental rights often harm children. And a wave of punitive reforms in response to juvenile crime in the 1990s undermined …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

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 …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Back To The Future: Marriage And Divorce Under The 2017 Tax Act, Mark Cochran

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

The Separation Of Migrant Families At The Border Under The Trump Administration’S Zero-Tolerance Policy: A Critical Analysis Of The Mistreatment Of Immigrant Children Held In U.S. Custody, Dhillon Ramkhelawan

Child and Family Law Journal

This article provides a critical analysis of the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy that separated migrant families at the Southwest United States border from April to June 2018. It will provide a statistical analysis regarding the number of migrant children that were separated from their parents during this time period, and it will describe the poor living conditions that many of these children were subjected to as they waited for their parent’s immigration cases to be decided. Additionally, this article will also critically analyze the United States’ history of mistreating migrant children who started to flee their war-torn countries in Central …

Expanding Third-Party Standing In Custody Actions: How The Opioid Crisis Has Impacted Lgbtq Parental Rights In Pennsylvania, Jill C. Gorman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Declared a public health emergency by the federal government, the opioid crisis often places children in foster care when parents fatally succumb to their addictions. To unburden the foster care system and to accommodate family members who want to care for these children, Pennsylvania enacted Act No. 21 on July 3, 2018, to expand custody standing to include certain third parties. However, because the legislature has not expanded the legal definition of “parent,” Act No. 21 poses a threat to the legal rights of nonbiological LGBTQ parents.

This Comment begins by explaining how the opioid crisis motivated the Pennsylvania legislature …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Gendered Burdens Of Conviction And Collateral Consequences On Employment, Joni Hersch, Erin E. Meyers

Journal of Legislation

Ex-offenders are subject to a wide range of employment restrictions that limit the ability of individuals with a criminal background to earn a living. This Article argues that women involved in the criminal justice system likely suffer a greater income-related burden from criminal conviction than do men. This disproportionate burden arises in occupations that women typically pursue, both through formal pathways, such as restrictions on occupational licensing, and through informal pathways, such as employers’ unwillingness to hire those with a criminal record. In addition, women have access to far fewer vocational programs while incarcerated. Further exacerbating this burden is that …

Skinning The Cat: How Mandatory Psychiatric Evaluations For Animal Cruelty Offenders Can Prevent Future Violence, Ashley Kunz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

In 2017, the Texas legislature amended Texas Penal Code § 42.092, which governs acts of cruelty against non-livestock animals. The statute in its current form makes torturing, killing, or seriously injuring a non-livestock animal a third degree felony, while less serious offenses carry either a state jail felony or a Class A misdemeanor charge.

While a step in the right direction, Texas law is not comprehensive in that it fails to address a significant aspect of animal cruelty offenses: mental illness. For over fifteen years, Texas Family Code § 54.0407 has required psychiatric counseling for juveniles convicted of cruelty to …

Puffing Away Parental Rights: A Survey And Analysis Of Whether Secondhand Smoke Exposure Is Child Abuse, Karly Huml

Journal of Law and Health

The steps taken thus far to protect children in public areas, custody cases, and in vehicles show the legislature's awareness of the chemical harms of secondhand smoke for children. This article will analyze those steps and discuss what they mean for both parents' and children's constitutional rights. This article proposes that the legislature take a vital fourth step by including secondhand smoke exposure in child abuse laws. Section II of this article provides the history of smoking tobacco and its transition from a trendy social status to an unpopular, harmful habit. Section II also introduces the steps that have been …

The Americans With Disabilities Act: Legal And Practical Applications In Child Protection Proceedings, Joshua B. Kay

Articles

Parents with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual disability and/or mental illness, are disproportionately represented in the child protection system.1 Once involved in the system, they are far more likely than parents without disabilities to have their children removed and their parental rights terminated. The reasons for this are many. Parents with disabilities are relatively likely to experience other challenges that are themselves risk factors for child protection involvement. In addition, child protection agencies, attorneys, courts, and related professionals often lack knowledge and harbor biases about parents with disabilities, increasing the likelihood of more intrusive involvement in the family. Yet research …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pennsylvania’S Need For Permanency: An Argument In Support Of Workable Standards For Representing Children In Involuntary Termination Of Parental Rights Proceedings, Anne M. Bingaman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In cases of child abuse and neglect, Pennsylvania’s dependency laws both empower courts to act to protect the child and offer opportunities to bolster the parent-child relationship. However, when courts determine that maintenance of the parent-child relationship is not in the child’s best interest, termination of parental rights proceedings play an essential role in freeing the child for adoption.

Pennsylvania’s General Assembly has recognized that termination proceedings are both a necessary mechanism for permanency and a significant intrusion in the life of a child. As a result, the General Assembly enacted 23 PA. CONST. STAT. § 2313(a), a provision in …

Hb 834 - Property, Brian H. Cathey, Cassandra Tuchscher

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act allows a victim of domestic violence to terminate his or her residential rental agreement without an early termination penalty if the victim receives a court order related to that family violence.

Law By Non-Lawyers: The Limit To Limited License Legal Technicians Increasing Access To Justice, Rebecca M. Donaldson

Seattle University Law Review

For the first time in the American legal profession, non-lawyers can openly, independently, ethically, and legally engage in activities recognized by bar associations as the practice of law. In 2012, the Washington Supreme Court passed Admission and Practice Rule 28 (APR 28), establishing the profession’s first paraprofessional licensing scheme that allows non-lawyers to give legal advice. The process authorizes qualified non-lawyers to provide legal advice without the supervision of a lawyer. Washington’s Supreme Court intends for Limited License Legal Technicians, or “LLLTs” as they are known, to increase access to justice by responding to the unmet civil legal needs of …

A (Re)Adoption Story: What Is Driving Adoptive Parents To Rehome Their Children And What Can Texas Do About It, Emma Martin

Texas A&M Law Review

Ava was adopted from Africa when she was four years old. She became the baby sister to two older brothers and the daughter to two loving, experienced parents. A year or two after Ava moved to America, she and her “forever family” attended a Colorado summer camp. All was seemingly well until the camp staff and the other families at camp started to notice something strange about the way Ava’s parents treated her compared to her brothers. After an activity, the parents greeted the brothers with an excited “did you have fun?” or “what did you learn?,” while the parents …

Reforming By Re-Norming: How The Legal System Has The Potential To Change A Toxic Culture Of Domestic Violence, Melissa L. Breger

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.