Family Law Commons^™

Labor, Luck, And Love: Reconsidering The Sanctity Of Separate Property, Shari Motro

Law Faculty Publications

This Article proposes a new alternative to the labor-centered marital property rule. Instead of focusing on how property was acquired, marital property law should look to spouses' overall financial resources and require them to share these resources to the extent they shape their identities during the marriage. Financial capability affects some of the most fundamental aspects of our lives-our health, our education, our work, the neighborhood in which we live. Marriages in which these aspects of spouses' identities are kept separate strike us as jarring. Imagine a husband and wife who sleep in the same bed, under the same roof, …

Gonzalez V. Carhart And The Hazards Of Muddled Scrutiny, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Revealing Your Sources: The Case For Non-Anonymous Gamete Donation, Michelle Dennison

Journal of Law and Health

This article argues that both legislating the end of anonymous gamete donation and allowing current children of anonymous gamete donation the ability to access identifying information about their donors is in the best interests of all parties involved in the donation process. Recipient-parents and donor-conceived children will benefit from having increased access to their donor's health information. Records access, including access to a donor's identifying information, will help donor-conceived children avoid potential incest and what is sometimes termed in adoption cases "genealogical bewilderment." Finally, banning anonymous donation will give potential gamete donors the ability to make a truly informed decision …

Right Responsibility: Does The Right To Procreate Include The Responsibility To Parent?, A Felicia Epps

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

Regulating Reproduction, Marsha Garrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Pressures Toward Mediocrity In The Representation Of Children, Barbara Glesner Fines

Faculty Works

When children are the subject of dependency, adoption or guardianship proceedings, protecting those children requires attention to a variety of interests. Children need a voice: an advisor and an advocate whose judgment is unclouded by conflicting interests. Courts need information that the adult parties to the proceedings may not easily discover or willingly provide. The families and social services agencies need monitors and mediators. The attorney guardian ad litem (GAL) is, in many situations, called upon to meet all these needs. During the past decade, major academic conferences and professional organizations have devoted thousands of hours to developing standards of …

The New York City Corporation Counsel: The Best Legal Job In America, Michael A. Cardozo

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Family Life, The Politics Of The Family, And Social Transformation, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Why do families matter? Is it simply because of their role in social reproduction, or does this ignore the personal goods, the benefits and burdens, of intimate life? Does an emphasis on the formative role of families risk treating them merely as serving the state and divert attention from the rights of persons to form families and the rights - and needs - of children to nurturing relationships? What kind of social and economic transformation would be necessary to implement a normative vision of family that supports families, is egalitarian, and respects diversity? What is the best way to rectify …

A Union Of Gender Equality And Pragmatic Patriarchy: International Marriages And Citizenship Laws In Singapore, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As a patriarchal society, government policies, societal norms and government regulations in Singapore mirror that normative ideal. Citizenship status and rights along gender lines, manifested in the legal recognition of children of international marriages, reflected this reality for much of Singapore's independence. However, the onslaught of globalization, the rise in international marriages, disconcerting declining birth rates, and an acceptance of 'foreign talent' have given the economic imperative and demographic impulse to grant citizenship (by descent) to a person born outside Singapore whose father or mother is a citizen of Singapore, by birth, registration or descent. Previously, such a person would …

(Mis)Appropriated Liberty: Identity, Gender Justice And Muslim Personal Law Reform In India, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

This article argues that in order to emancipate Indian-Muslim women from an outdated family legal code, their position at the intersection of gender and a minority religion must be taken seriously. Proposals for reform that have been suggested by Western liberal, secular feminists that ignore the importance of women's religious affiliation fail to do this. Moreover, by making assumptions about the strength of secularism in India, the willingness of the state to enact legal reforms driven by gender concerns, and by failing to acknowledge the limits of formal rights alone in changing norms, these scholars do not account for the …

Children's Beliefs And Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

In a recent series of opinions authored by Justice Stevens, the Court has recognized that children may have independent religious rights, and that these may be in conflict with their parents'. The questions for this piece are whether considering children's rights independently is a good thing whether it is warranted by children's actual religious preferences and whether children's religious activities actually do anything measurable for the children.

I do not advocate that the Supreme Court become more involved with family law than it has been since the substantive due process days of Meyer and Pierce. I am also not one …

Koshko V. Haining: Does A Heightened Standard For Grandparent Visitation Really Protect Children’S Best Interests?, Emily Chase Dubansky

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Illusion Of Transformative Conflict Resolution: Mediating Domestic Violence In Nicaragua, Raquel Aldana, Leticia Saucedo

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of The Indian Child Welfare Act In Aggravated Circumstances, C. Eric Davis

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) affords various protections to Indian families throughout child welfare proceedings. Among them is the duty imposed upon the state to provide rehabilitative services to families prior to the outplacement of an Indian child, or termination of parental rights. An analogous provision for non-Indians in the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) excuses rehabilitative services in "aggravated circumstances" of child abuse. The ICWA contains no such exception, and that absence has been controversial. In 2002, the Alaska Supreme Court applied ASFA's aggravated circumstances exception to the ICWA, thereby excusing services when a father severely abused …

Reviving Marriage: Could We? Should We?, Marsha Garrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Marriage And Practical Knowledge, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Is There Such A Thing As “Defended Community Homicide”?: The Necessity Of Methods Triangulation, Ryan Spohn

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

Data on homicides in Buffalo, New York, are analyzed to demonstrate the importance of “methods triangulation” for assessing the validity of quantitative measures. Defended community homicides are quantitatively operationalized as acts that occur in the offender’s community against a nonlocal victim. Poisson models provide strong support for the existence of defended community homicide, which is significantly more common in residentially stable and racially homogenous neighborhoods. However, subsequent qualitative analyses of the victim and offender characteristics and motives of these homicides undermine the “defended community” concept. Qualitative analyses are necessary to assess the validity of quantitative measures in criminological research.

The Intriguing Federalist Future Of Reproductive Rights, Scott A. Moss, Douglas M. Raines

Publications

As the decline of Roe v. Wade inspires renewed efforts to restrict federal constitutional abortion rights, the serious shortcomings of abortion rights advocates' strategies for preserving such rights will become increasingly apparent. Continued reliance on Roe is likely to fail with an increasingly unsympathetic Supreme Court. Even abortion rights supporters have begun to criticize the decision for weak reasoning, which is difficult to remedy at this late stage of federal abortion jurisprudence. Moreover, although autonomy and gender equality arguments for abortion rights would improve upon Roe's privacy rationale, such arguments would require abrogating substantial precedent and are, therefore, of limited …

The Ethics Of Collaborative Law, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

The practice of Collaborative Law - in which both parties agree that should their case fail to settle, both lawyers will be disqualified from proceeding to court - has grown rapidly in the family bar over the last decade. At the same time, the ethics of this practice have been called into question. Competing ethics opinions in 2007 - from the Colorado Bar Association and the American Bar Association - alternately ban and permit the practice. This Article tries to clarify the underlying ethical issues in Collaborative Law, arguing that much confusion has resulted from imprecise understandings of what the …

Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines, Rollie Thompson, Carol Rogerson

Reports & Public Policy Documents

In 2001 the federal Department of Justice identified the need for a project to explore the possibility of developing some form of advisory spousal support guidelines. The aim of the project was to bring more certainty and predictability to the determination of spousal support under the Divorce Act.1 The project was a response to growing concerns expressed by lawyers, judges, mediators and the public about the lack of certainty and predictability in the current law of spousal support, creating daily dilemmas in advising clients, and negotiating, litigating or—in the case of judges—deciding spousal support issues. We were retained to direct …

The Parent Trap: Differential Familial Power In Same-Sex Families, Deirdre Bowen

Faculty Articles

Do intact same-sex couples where one member of the couple became pregnant with assisted reproduction or was the primary adopter, and the other member became a parent through second parent adoption, understand the legal protections afforded them? In short the answer is no. An interesting family dynamic arises around those who can claim the true status as parent based on their legal understandings of parenthood and their interactions with the dominant culture. The result of research conducted on this issue indicated that second parent adopters had much less emotional power in the family, but often had more economic power. Even …

Caregiving And The Case For Testamentary Freedom, Joshua C. Tate

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Almost all U.S. states allow individuals to disinherit their descendants for any reason or no reason, but most of the world's legal systems currently do not. This Article contends that broad freedom of testation is defensible because it allows elderly people to reward family members who are caregivers. The Article explores the common-law origins of freedom of testation, which developed in the shadow of the medieval rule of primogeniture, a doctrine of no contemporary relevance. The growing problem of eldercare, however, offers a justification for the twenty-first century. Increases in life expectancy have led to a sharp rise in the …

Roger Williams University School Of Law Mediation Clinic, Bristol, Rhode Island, Usa, Gail I. Winson

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Interdisciplinary Approach To Family Law Jurisprudence: Application Of An Ecological And Therapeutic Perspective, Barbara A. Babb

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Opening Remarks To “No Place To Live: The Housing Crisis Facing Youth Aging-Out Of Foster Care,” A National Symposium Hosted By The Child Advocacy Clinic Of St. John’S School Of Law, March 28, 2008, Dale Margolin Cecka

Law Faculty Publications

Across the country, everyone is talking about a “housing crisis.” For youth who age out of foster care, just finding a place to sleep each night is a struggle. We know that nationally, 54% of recently aged-out youth are homeless or unstably housed. In addition, these youth face higher rates of unemployment, under-education, teen pregnancy, and incarceration. We are gathered here today to address the unique and dire housing needs of youth aging of foster care. I would usually begin a Symposium like this with a story of a young person’s plight, an illustration of the injustices this population faces. …

Born To No Mother: In Re Roberto D.B. And Equal Protection For Gestational Surrogates Rebutting Maternity, Emily Stark

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

You Are Not The Father: How State Paternity Laws Protect (And Fail To Protect) The Best Interests Of Children, Sarah Mcginnis

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Guarantors Of Our Genes: Are Egg Donors Liable For Latent Genetic Disease, Suriya E.P. Jayanti

American University Law Review

Assisted reproductive technology ("ART"), including egg donation, is changing the topography of the American family. Heated debates and legislative battles over cloning and stem cell research reveal the complexity of the moral, scientific, and legal implications of emerging alternative reproductive methods. In fact, the field of reproductive medicine is the "Wild West" of the healthcare world where technological development is testing the boundaries of science and ethics. The legal and ethical issues intrinsic to the evolution of the egg donation industry are poised to become central topics of public debate as we, as a culture, reevaluate who and what constitutes …

Moral Conflict And Conflicting Liberties, Chai R. Feldblum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The authors' goal in this chapter is to surface some of the commonalities between belief liberty and identity liberty and to offer some public policy suggestions for what to do when these liberties conflict. She first wants to make transparent the conflict that she believes exists between laws intended to protect the liberty of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people so that they may live lives of dignity and integrity and the religious beliefs of some individuals whose conduct is regulated by such laws. The author believes those who advocate for LGBT equality have downplayed the impact of such …

Missing Parents, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

In an effort to protect children from abuse and neglect, the child welfare system focuses on parents, both as potential wrongdoers and as the locus for rehabilitation. This attention informs the discourse surrounding state intervention: parents' rights are balanced against children's rights, and family autonomy is understood as an overriding value. But the child welfare system centers parents in the wrong way, leading to academic debates that miss the mark and methods of intervention that are often counterproductive.

An effective child welfare system would be built upon the understanding that, in general, the state can best support children by supporting …