Family Law Commons^™

Brief Of Federalism Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent Windsor, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Globalization And Law: Law Beyond The State, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter provides an introduction into law and globalization for sociolegal studies. Instead of treating globalization as an external factor that impacts the law, globalization and law are here viewed as intertwined. I suggest that three types of globalization should be distinguished—globalization as empirical phenomenon, globalization as theory, and globalization as ideology. I go on to discuss one central theme of globalization, namely in what way society, and therefore law, move beyond the state. This is done along the three classical elements of the state—territory, population/citizenship, and government. The role of all of these elements is shifting, suggesting we need …

Promoting The General Welfare: Legal Reform To Lift Women And Children In The United States Out Of Poverty, Jill C. Engle

Faculty Scholarship

American women and children have been poor in exponentially greater numbers than men for decades. The problem has historic, institutional roots which provide a backdrop for this article’s introduction. English and early U.S. legal systems mandated a lesser economic status for women. Despite numerous legal changes aimed at combating the financial disadvantage of American women and children, the problem is worsening. American female workers, many in low-paying job sectors, earn roughly twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Nearly forty percent of single mothers and their children subsist below the poverty level. The recession exacerbated this problem, mostly because unemployment …

Parsing Parenthood, Cynthia Godsoe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Analysis Of The Use Of The Intent Test To Determine Parentage In Assisted Reproductive Technology Cases, Mary P. Byrn, Lisa Giddings

Faculty Scholarship

States have been slow to adopt model acts regarding assisted reproductive technology (ART), or to draft ART legislation of their own, leaving most parents of ART children without a clear path to obtain legal parentage. As a result, when a child conceived via ART is born, the adults involved must turn to the courts to make a determination as to legal parentage. These courts have used a variety of approaches to determine legal parentage in ART cases, which along with the inherent discretion involved in judicial decisions absent clear precedent or statute has led to unpredictable, and sometimes inequitable, findings …

[Including But Not Limited To] Violence Against Women, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

This Article highlights three developments in criminal justice in 2012 that marked the move toward more gender-inclusive anti-violence movements: the FBI’s adoption of a gender-neutral definition of rape; the debate regarding the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA); and the promulgation of new Department of Justice (DOJ) regulations under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA). These recent developments reveal a growing movement towards more gender-inclusive conceptions of rape and intimate partner violence. The change to a more gender-inclusive approach will have many implications for criminal justice policy and institutions. One critical project is to ensure that …

Filial Support Laws In The Modern Era: Domestic And International Comparison Of Enforcement Practices For Laws Requiring Adult Children To Support Indigent Parents, Katherine C. Pearson

Faculty Scholarship

Family responsibility and support laws have a long but mixed history. When first enacted, policy makers used such laws to declare an official policy that family members should support each other, rather than draw upon public resources. This article tracks modern developments with filial support laws that purport to obligate adult children to financially assist their parents, if indigent or needy. The author diagrams filial support laws that have survived in the 21st Century and compares core components in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and post-Soviet Union Ukraine. While the laws are often similar in wording and declared intent, …

Revisiting Mary Ann Glendon: Abortion, Divorce, Dependency, And Rights Talk In Western Law, Margaret F. Brining, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This essay revisits Mary Ann Glendon’s comparative law study, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law and her subsequent book, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. Glendon’s comparative study actually included a third topic: “forms of dependency which are connected with pregnancy, marriage, and child raising.” The topic of dependency has obvious relevance to consideration of intergenerational obligations and the interplay between family responsibility and societal responsibility for addressing dependency needs.

A central claim Glendon made in both books is that the U.S. legal tradition is “libertarian,” views individuals as “lone rights bearers,” and exalts the “right to be let …

Permanency Puzzle, Cynthia Godsoe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Parsing Parenthood, Cynthia Godsoe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Staging The Family, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

For many critical aspects of family life, all the world truly is a stage. When a parent scolds a child on the playground, all eyes turn to watch and judge. When an executive’s wife hosts a work party, the guests are witness to traditional gender roles. And when two fathers attend a back-to-school night for their child, other parents take note of this relatively new family configuration. Family is popularly considered intimate and personal, but in reality much of family life is lived in the public eye.

These performances of family and familial roles do not simply communicate messages to …

A Name Of One’S Own: The Spousal Permission Requirement And The Persistence Of Patriarchy, Beth D. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

This Article addresses a discrete but inequitable issue in the area of name-change law. As the law currently operates in Massachusetts, the process by which a married person, usually a woman, can seek a legal name change requires signed permission—the written assent of a spouse. In the absence of such signed permission or spousal consent, a married person seeking a name change is required to serve his or her spouse by certified mail, as an adversary, in what is otherwise typically a nonadversarial administrative legal process. This requirement of spousal notification and consent, although gender neutral on its face, has …

Sexual Orientation Of Fatherhood, Dara Purvis

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I examine how same-sex fathers affect the perception of heterosexual caretaking fathers - and by extension, could affect the perception of heterosexual non-caretaking mothers. I conclude that gay stay-at-home fathers offer a provocative opportunity to broaden societal views of men and caregiving more generally, and argue that greater recognition of parents who counteract gender stereotypes - even where the recognition might arguably lessen women's rights in family law - ultimately helps women as well as children and nontraditional parents. Part I discusses fathers, particularly stay-at-home fathers, the practical problems fathers face combining work and caregiving responsibilities, and …

Family Law Equality At A Crossroads, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Federal Family Policy And Family Values From Clinton To Obama, 1992-2012 And Beyond, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This Article traces the evolution of federal family law and policy from 1992-2012 and beyond by considering the legacy of Clintonism, the “Third Way” political philosophy developed by William Jefferson Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council. Present day economic inequality is spurring reflection on the role of government and on the meaning and form of progressive politics. Clintonism’s centrist, progressive approach linked governmental provision of opportunity to personal responsibility (“working hard and playing by the rules”) and appealed to values of family, community, faith, liberty, and inclusion. By linking family values to family policies, Clintonism’s New Covenant successfully challenged the …

What Is Parenthood?: Contemporary Debates About The Family Introduction, Linda C. Mcclain, Daniel Cere

Faculty Scholarship

Extraordinary changes in patterns of family life – and family law – have dramatically altered the boundaries of parenthood and opened up numerous questions about debates. What is parenthood and why does it matter? How should society define, regulate, and support it? Despite this uncertainty, the intense focus on the definition and future of marriage diverts attention from parenthood. Demographic reports suggesting a shift away from marriage and toward alternative family forms also keep marriage in constant public view, obscuring the fact that disagreements about marriage are often grounded in deeper, conflicting convictions about parenthood. This book (as the posted …

Staging The Family, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

For many critical aspects of family life, all the world truly is a stage. When a parent scolds a child on the playground, all eyes turn to watch and judge. When an executive’s wife hosts a work party, the guests are witness to traditional gender roles. And when two fathers attend a back-to-school night for their child, other parents take note of this relatively new family configuration. Family is popularly considered intimate and personal, but in reality much of family life is lived in the public eye. These performances of family and familial roles do not simply communicate messages to …

The End Of Annulment, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Makes The Family Special?, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hollingsworth V. Perry, Brief For Foreign And Comparative Law Experts Harold Hongju Koh Et. Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Respondents, Harold Hongju Koh, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Ryan Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

United States V. Windsor And The Role Of State Law In Defining Rights Claims, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor is best understood from a Legal Process perspective. Windsor struck down Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), which defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman for purposes of federal law. Much early commentary, including Professor Neomi Rao’s essay in these pages, has found Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court to be “muddled” and unclear as to its actual rationale. But the trouble with Windsor is not that the opinion is muddled or vague; the rationale is actually quite evident on the face of …

Lindsay's Legacy: The Tragedy That Triggered Law Reform To Prevent Teen Dating Violence, D. Kelly Weisberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Marriage Pluralism, Family Law Jurisdiction, And Sex Equality In The United States, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

In many regions of the world, rights guaranteed under the civil law, including rights to gender equality within marriage and rights in the distribution of family property and child custody upon divorce, are in conflict with the principles of religious law. Women's rights issues are often at the heart of these tensions, which present pressing challenges for theorists, lawyers, and policymakers. This anthology brings together leading scholars and activists doing innovative work in Jewish law, Muslim law, Christian law, and African customary law. Using examples drawn from a variety of nations and religions, they interrogate the utility of recent theoretical …

Nature, Culture, And Social Engineering: Reflections On Evolution And Equality, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter explores evolution and morality by considering the appeal to nature, and in particular to how evolution has shaped female and male brains differently, to explain evident sex differences and the persistence of sex inequality. It uses as illustrative the popularizing accounts of male and female brains found in Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain and The Male Brain, and the portrayal in such accounts of fundamental male and female differences in human mate selection and parenting. Drawing on the work of scientist and philosophers, the chapter critiques these accounts for engaging in an increasingly popular “neurosexism.” Such neurosexism …

The Kids Aren't Alright: Every Child Should Have An Attorney In Child Welfare Proceedings In Florida, Michael J. Dale, Louis M. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

This article is a continuation of a discussion as to why, as a matter of Florida constitutional law, public policy, and professional ethics, Florida's children need independent attorneys from the inception of all dependency and termination of parental rights cases to their completion. It is based upon events which have occurred since the authors' last article on this topic in the Nova Law Review, including the Barahona case, the resolution by the American Bar Association (ABA) in August 2011 at its Annual Convention in Toronto adopting the ABA Model Act Governing the Representation of Children in Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency …

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.

Disabled Kids And Their Moms: Caregivers And Horizontal Equity, Karen S. Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Clinical Cognitive Dissonance: The Values And Goals Of Domestic Violence Clinics, The Legal System, And The Students Caught In The Middle, Leigh S. Goodmark

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Adolescents In Society: Their Evolving Legal Status, Introduction, Cynthia Godsoe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.