Family Law Commons^™

Major Resources For The New Family Law Attorney, Barbara H. Garavaglia

Articles

While experienced family law lawyers are undoubtedly familiar with the array of research resources most useful to the family law practitioner, new attorneys and attorneys new to family law practice may need guidance in locating and identifying the most efficient and useful source material to help them in their family law work. Sherri L. Katz provided an excellent and comprehensive list of family law resources in her article "Best Research Resources on Family Law," Mich BJ79, no. 2 (2000): 196 (hereinafter "Best Research Resources"). Although the article is three years old, its excellent and comprehensive descriptions of the "best" resources …

Progress And Progression In Family Law, Martha Albertson Fineman

Faculty Articles

The process and nature of change in our family formation seems unlikely to be derailed. The policy question for those concerned with the institution of the family in today's world should not be how we can resuscitate marriage and thus save society, but rather how we can support all individuals who create intimate, caring relationships, regardless of the form of those relationships. Continued inattention to the social and economic dislocations and the emerging family needs produced in the wake of changes in family formation can be disastrous, not only to individual families, but also to society.

Of particular importance for …

Grandparents’ Rights: What Every Grandparent Needs To Know, Robin Boyle

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Patricia Perkins Slorah, has written an easy-to-read book for grandparents who are considering assistance from the legal community to secure visitation with their grandchildren. The book is aptly titled, Grandparents’ Rights: What Every Grandparent Needs to Know. For grandparents who are unfamiliar with the court system, Ms. Slorah provides helpful guidance. Although any book about the current state of the laws would be outdated at some point in the future as to what certain laws provide, this book provides timeless personal stories of grandparents who have struggled to gain visitation rights with their grandchildren.

Paradoxes Of Health And Equality: When A Boy Becomes A Girl, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the fall of 2000, six-year-old male Zachary from a small town in Ohio, claimed that s/he was a girl and requested, from now on, to be called Aurora. When the child's parents honored this unusual wish and made efforts to make official the child's feminine identity, the case turned into a custody battle between the parents and the state of Ohio. Although the child was occasionally treated as a girl at home from the age of two, the attempt to register the child in public school as a girl motivated the state dissolution of this family. At the …

Egyptian Feminism: Trapped In The Identity Debate, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article argues that if we wish to account for the limited gains made in the area of family law reform in Egypt in the twentieth century, it is crucial to relate the debate on family law with another debate, one revolving around the identity of the Egyptian legal system. Whereas the dispute over family law reform forced decisions on gender and the family, the contest surrounding identity centered on the ongoing and agonized struggle by Egyptians to define the nature of their country's contemporary cultural identity. The question of identity was often framed as a debate over the "character" …

Cook County Establishes The Domestic Partnership, Andrew Dougherty

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Are Limitations Necessary On Paternity?, Karine Polis

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Federal Marriage Amendment Defeated By Congress: What Lies Ahead?, Jamie Friye

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Generation Gap: Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Felisha L. Thomas

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Columbus Project In The Family Court Of Western Australia: A Model Of Reflective Practice, Lisbeth Pike, Paul Murphy

Research outputs pre 2011

The Columbus Pilot project conducted in the Family Court of Western Australia during 2001-2003, was established to deal with cases that are characterised by violence. Paul Murphy and Lis Pike of the School of Psychology, Edith Cowan University, discuss how the Columbus process of jointly chaired interdisciplinary conferences in the court has influenced the evolution of a model of reflective practice.

Five Critical Issues In New York’S Grandparent Visitation Law After Troxel V. Granville, Stephen A. Newman

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Debate Over The Denial Of Marriage Rights And Benefits To Same-Sex Couples And Their Children, Liz Seaton

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Therapeutic Domestic Violence Courts: An Efficient Approach To Adjudication?, Hon. Catherine Shaffer

Seattle University Law Review

Part II of this Article will explore the history of state intervention to confront domestic violence, along with some of the attitudes that contribute to the lack of adequate enforcement of recent legislative reforms. Part III of this Article will discuss the costs of domestic violence and the impact of superficial court treatment in reducing those costs. Part IV will outline the historical development, philosophy, and potential development of therapeutic courts, and in particular will examine the proven effectiveness of the drug court model and the potential benefits that are unique to domestic violence courts. Part V suggests further creation …

The Role Of Socioeconomics In Teaching Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Applying knowledge from other social sciences makes particular sense with the law and economics of the family. Much of the behavior we see and experience within families is difficult to see or understand as economically rational, that is, narrowly self-interested. Many of the legal changes we make that appear to be rational, at least from a cost-benefit perspective, turn out to be unsatisfying or even counterproductive. Though economists tend to view motivations or "utility functions" based upon "revealed preference," extended models like that of socioeconomics go below what is revealed to measure, as best we can, people's attitudes and feelings …

Policy Brief #6: Child Care Quality For Children With Disabilities, Kathy Thornburg, Helen Raikes, Brian Wilcox, Julia C. Torquati, Carolyn P. Edwards, Lisa Knoche, Susan Hegland, Jean Ann Summers, Jane Atwater

Center on Children, Families, and the Law (and Related Organizations): Publications

Inclusion is a goal that is widely embraced for children with disabilities. The U.S. Dept. Education sets the target for 90% of children with disabilities to be enrolled in general education classes for 80% or more of school day (U.S. Department of Education, 1998). Early educators likewise support the rights of all young children to participate in a variety of natural environments within their communities. If this ambitious goal is to be met, more services must be provided in community child care. Yet quality child care choices are limited in availability, and parents of children with disabilities may have their …

Child Care Workforce And Quality -- Policy Brief: Summary Brief #5, Kathy Thornburg, Helen Raikes, Brian Wilcox, Carolyn P. Edwards, Julia C. Torquati, Susan Hegland, Jean Ann Summers, Jane Atwater

Center on Children, Families, and the Law (and Related Organizations): Publications

The study showed the average provider in the Midwest is female, married and a parent. This provider had some training or education beyond high school but not an advanced degree, was active in child care training, had a first aid/CPR certificate, considered child care her profession or calling, had been in the child care field for over 5 years and planned to remain a provider for at least 5 years.

The average provider was observed to provide minimal quality child care. Using well-established observational measures of quality, center-based preschool care averaged 4.57 on the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R); …

Nebraska Chem-L Protocol

Center on Children, Families, and the Law (and Related Organizations): Publications

Contents:
Objectives
Roles of Personnel at the Scene
Procedures at the Scene
Interviewing Children
Initial Urgent Medical Assessment
Foster Parent Information
Comprehensive Health Assessment and Follow-up
Training
Protocol Review
Protocol Dissemination

National Protocol For Medical Evaluation Of Children Found In Drug Labs

Center on Children, Families, and the Law (and Related Organizations): Publications

Contents:
Immediate Steps On-site
Within 72 hours
Follow Up
Personnel Decontamination
Emergency Activation
Law Enforcement
Child Protective Services
Medical Personnel
Emergency Department

Marry Me, Bill: Should Cohabitation Be The (Legal) Default Option?, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock

Journal Articles

Are cohabitation and marriage similar enough to warrant similar legal treatment? Earlier public reports on cohabitation have focused on the question of whether cohabitation before marriage increases or decreases the divorce rate.

But increasingly cohabitation is being proposed not as a testing ground for marriage, but as a functional substitute for it. The trend in family law and scholarship in Europe and Canada is to treat married and cohabiting couples similarly, or even identically.

In this country, the American Law Institute [ALl] recently proposed that, at least when it comes to the law of dissolution, couples who have been living …

Applying Twenty-Five Years Of Experience: The Iowa Indian Child Welfare Act, Kirk Albertson

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Longitudinal Patterns Of Intimate Partner Violence, Risk, Well-Being, And Employment: Preliminary Findings, Jane C. Murphy, Mary Ann Dutton, Lisa A. Goodman, Dorothy J. Lennig

All Faculty Scholarship

Over 7 months (June 1999 to January 2000), researchers recruited 406 women from 1 of 3 sites in a northeastern city at the point they were seeking help for violence against them by a current or former male partner. Intimate partner violence was measured with a modified version of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale. Some form of serious violence during the previous year was reported by 88 percent of the participants. By the first 3-month follow-up period, nearly one-third of the participants reported the recurrence of some form of physical violence; 20.4 percent reported an injury; and 18.1 percent reported …

Toward A More Perfect Union: The Road To Marriage Equality For Same-Sex Couples, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

The Author believes that civil unions have become synonymous with inequality. In this posture, the term inequality should be descriptive rather than subjective. She argues that civil unions relegate gay and lesbian couples to second-class status. However characterized or defined, civil unions are not marriages. Those two statuses are not equivalent; they are not equal. Within that framework, in order for any one person to decide where he or she stands on the issue of whether gay and lesbian couples should be entitled to marriage, civil unions, something else, or nothing, he or she must first understand why marriage matters …

Flawed Justice: Limitation Of Parental Remedies For The Loss Of Consortium Of Adult Children, William S. Bailey

Articles

This article presents the inherent contradiction between a parent-child relationship that has steadily evolved from the early 20th Century to the present and the multitude of court decisions on damages that remain studiously ignorant of this shift.

Part I of the article will set forth the common law origins of restrictions on recovery for wrongful death within the context of a shifting view of children from economic units to objects of adoration. Part II will examine the devastating impact that the loss of an adult child has on parents both from their perspectives and from now existing research.

In the …

International Application Of The Uccjea: Scruntinizing The Escape Clause, Marianne Blair

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Modernizing Muslim Family Law: The Case Of Egypt, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Author discusses the dynamics of family law reforms in modern Egypt as an instance of similar dynamics of reforms in other Muslim countries. The forces that push for reforms as well as those that try to limit them are also introduced. The Author begins by describing the historical legal background shared by the vast majority of Muslim countries, including Egypt. An account of the general evolution of Islamic law-from a dominant system existing within an Islamic state to a subordinate system existing within an overall secularized legal system characterized by legal borrowing from European codes-is given. Islamic law has …

Just Monogamy?, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

Right now, marriage and monogamy feature prominently on the public stage. Efforts to lift state and federal prohibitions on same-sex marriage have inspired people across the political spectrum to speak about the virtues of monogamy’s core institution and to express views on who should be included within it. In this brief comment, I want to talk about something else. Like an “unmannerly wedding guest,” I want to invite the reader to pause amidst the whirlwind of marriage talk, to think about alternatives to monogamy. In particular, I want to talk about multiparty relationships, or “polyamory,” as these relationships are called …

Modernizing Muslim Family Law: The Case Of Egypt, Lama Abu-Odeh

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

he Author discusses the dynamics of family law reforms in modern Egypt as an instance of similar dynamics of reforms in other Muslim countries. The forces that push for reforms as well as those that try to limit them are also introduced.

The Author begins by describing the historical legal background shared by the vast majority of Muslim countries, including Egypt. An account of the general evolution of Islamic law-from a dominant system existing within an Islamic state to a subordinate system existing within an overall secularized legal system characterized by legal borrowing from European codes-is given. Islamic law has …

An Exploration Of The Impact Of The Family Court Process On 'Invisible' Stepparents, Natalie Gately

Theses : Honours

The increase of divorce in Australia is creating a social phenomenon for family researchers. Many families resolve disputes regarding children in the Family Courts, however due to the protracted litigation process many partners will have repartnered. Little is understood about how bureaucratic systems impact upon the experience of stepparents. These decisions might very well impact on the stepparents own new lifestyle and relationship, placing an additional burden on themselves and the stepfamily. The purpose of this review is to explore the literature pertaining to the issues surrounding repartnering and the Family Court process in order to illustrate how this invisibility …

Making Marriage Matter Less: The Ali Domestic Partner Principles Are One Step In The Right Direction, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy And Polyamorous Existence, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

Right now, marriage and monogamy feature prominently on the public stage. Efforts to lift prohibitions on same-sex marriage in this country and abroad have inspired people on all sides of the political spectrum to speak about the virtues of monogamy's core institution and to express views on who should be included within it. The focus of this article is different. Like an "unmannerly wedding guest," this article invites the reader to pause amidst the whirlwind of marriage talk and to think critically about monogamy and its alternatives.