Family Law Commons^™

Persistence And Resistance: Women’S Leadership And Ending Gender-Based Violence In Guatemala, Serena Cosgrove, Kristi Lee

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Putting The "Remedy" Back In The International Child Abduction Remedies Act - Enforcing Visitation Rights For The Left Behind Parent, Nicole Clark

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that the Second Circuit’s approach is more consistent with the aims of the Hague Convention and the needs of children than the Fourth Circuit’s approach and that ICARA does confer jurisdiction upon federal courts to adjudicate claims for the enforcement of visitation rights under the Hague Convention. Part I discusses the background of the Hague Convention and ICARA and how visitation rights fit into each. Part II discusses the split between the Fourth Circuit and the Second Circuit regarding whether ICARA confers jurisdiction upon federal courts over claims for the enforcement of visitation rights. It further …

The Elimination Of Child “Custody” Litigation: Using Business Branding Techniques To Transform Social Behavior, Elena B. Langan

Pace Law Review

This article discusses how rebranding principles, already being used to alter social behavior in other non-consumer contexts, could be utilized to accomplish the legislative goal to reduce litigation as well as diminish animosity in custody cases. Part II of this article discusses the impetus for a transformation in the way parents view custody disputes. Part III discusses basic branding principles and how companies establish a brand and can successfully change their branding. Part IV explores the evolution of the current custody brand, identifies eight states that have eliminated “custody” and, in some cases, “visitation” from their vernacular, and discusses, in …

Same-Sex Spouses Lost In Translation? How To Interpret “Spouse” In The E.U. Family Migration Directives, Scott Titshaw

Articles

This Article analyzes the word “spouse” in the European Union’s Family Migration Directives in detail, focusing on the treatment of married bi-national same-sex couples. Through these directives, the European Union exercises significant authority over family-based immigration and internal migration, expressly providing immigration rights to the “spouses” of E.U. citizens and legal residents. However, family law, including the familial status of “spouses” is governed by individual E.U. member states. While a growing number of member states authorize same-sex marriage, the majority still do not. The E.U., therefore, must determine how to treat migrating couples who are legal spouses in one member …

Healing Sex-Trafficked Children: A Domestic Family Law Approach To An International Epidemic, Melissa L. Breger

West Virginia Law Review

Children who have been trafficked into and within the United States for commercial sexual exploitation endure significant psychological and physical trauma. Because there is a salient nexus between the inherent violence of trafficking and that of family violence and childhood sexual abuse, this Article explores how the United States might assist victimized children by utilizing governmental systems that are already in existence. Specifically, the therapeutic foster care ("TFC") model is an established model of care that is flexible enough to meet the numerous and complicated issues associated with the reintegration and treatment needs of child sex-trafficking survivors. This Article recommends …

When Children Object: Amplifying An Older Child’S Objection To Termination Of Parental Rights, Brent Pattison

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Each year, thousands of children become wards of the state when a court terminates the legal rights of their parents. Between 2010 and 2014, more than 307,000 children lost their legal relationships to their parents in Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) proceedings. A growing percentage of child welfare cases involve older children. At the same time, too many young people lose their legal relationships with their parents without a family waiting to adopt them. The stakes are high for children in TPR cases; nonetheless, many children—even older children—cannot meaningfully participate in proceedings. Moreover, TPR cases threaten parents’ and children’s rights …

Biology, Genetics, Nurture, And The Law: The Expansion Of The Legal Definition Of Family To Include Three Or More Legal Parents, Myrisha S. Lewis

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Not Ideas Of The Thing But The Thing Itself: Imagining A Support Group For Separated And Divorced Fathers As A Site Of Legal Education, Thomas Mcmorrow

Dalhousie Law Journal

Legal education is not just about attaining an abstract knowledge of formal institutions, norms, and processes; it is also about developing insight into oneself and ones relationships. Therefore, understanding and developing the personal and social conditions that make governance through law possible are crucial elements of legal education. This article highlights legal education's potential role in fostering every person's sense of implication in-and responsibility forbuilding a just society In order to illustrate this concept, this article looks at the ways in which DADs, a support group for separated and divorced fathers, constitutes a site of legal education.

In Re Parental Rights As To M.F., 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 19 (Mar. 31, 2016), Shannon Diaz

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court held that neither the United States Constitution nor the Nevada Constitution guarantees the right to a trial by jury in a termination of parental rights proceeding. The Court also concluded that the district court relied on substantial evidence in terminating appellant Jesus F.’s parental rights.

Reflections On “Innovations In Family Dispute Resolution”, Deborah Thompson Eisenberg

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Moving Family Dispute Resolution From The Court System To The Community, Jane C. Murphy, Jana B. Singer

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Moving Family Dispute Resolution From The Court System To The Community, Jane C. Murphy, Jana B. Singer

All Faculty Scholarship

Over the past three decades, there has been a significant shift in the way the legal system approaches and resolves family disputes. Mediation, collaboration, and other non-adversarial processes have replaced a traditional, law-oriented adversarial regime. Until recently, however, reformers have focused largely on the court system as the setting for innovations in family dispute resolution. But our research suggests that courts may not be the best places for families to resolve disputes, particularly disputes involving children. Moreover, attempting to turn family courts into multi-door dispute resolution centers may detract from their essential role as adjudicators of last resort and forums …

Family Law And Entrepreneurial Action, D. Gordon Smith

Faculty Scholarship

In "The Contractual Foundation of Family-Business Law," Benjamin Means aspires to lay the groundwork for a law of family businesses. In this brief response essay, I suggest that a workable family-business law along the lines suggested by Means is consistent with an overarching policy in the United States of promoting entrepreneurial action, and I evaluate the proposal against this policy goal, with particular attention to Means’s arguments in favor of “family-business defaults” and his concern over the potentially disruptive role of fiduciary law.

How The Liberati Sabotaged Child Welfare, David Stoesz

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Project Prevention: Concept, Operation, Results And Controversies About Paying Drug Abusers To Obtain Long-Term Birth Control, Bruce A. Thyer

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article describes the origins and current operation of Project Prevention, a privately-funded program that provides a payment of $300 to substance abusers who obtain long-term birth control. This practice is intended as a means to prevent the conception of babies to mothers who are prone to expose their developing child to toxic levels of alcohol or other drugs during pregnancy, likely to be unable to care for their child once born, and at risk for having their child removed from their custody by the state and placed in foster care or an adoptive home. Children born to such mothers …

The Impact Of Liberal Ideology On Child Protection Reform, Cassie Statuto Bevan

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Re-Evaluating The Criminalization Of In Utero Alcohol Exposure: A Harm-Reduction Approach, Adam J. Duso, John Stogner

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Thoughts On The Liberal Dilemma In Child Welfare Reform, Elizabeth Bartholet

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

A Liberal Dilemma: Respecting Autonomy While Also Protecting Inchoate Children From Prenatal Substance Abuse, Andrew J. Weisberg, Frank E. Vandervort

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Stanley V. Illinois’S Untold Story, Josh Gupta-Kagan

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Stanley v. Illinois is one of the Supreme Court’s more curious landmark cases. The holding is well known: the Due Process Clause both prohibits states from removing children from the care of unwed fathers simply because they are not married and requires states to provide all parents with a hearing on their fitness. By recognizing strong due process protections for parents’ rights, Stanley reaffirmed Lochner-era cases that had been in doubt and formed the foundation of modern constitutional family law. But Peter Stanley never raised due process arguments, so it has long been unclear how the Court reached this decision. …

Child Protection’S Parental Preference, Daniel Heimpel

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Why The American Child Welfare System Is Not Child Centered, Richard J. Gelles

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Diagnosing Liberal Resistance To Needed Child Welfare Reforms, James G. Dwyer

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Matter Of Anthony "S", Deborah A. Monastero

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Matter Of Kevin M., Donna A. Napolitano

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

In The Name Of The Child: Race, Gender, And Economics In Adoptive Couple V. Baby Girl , Bethany R. Berger

Florida Law Review

On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, holding that the Indian Child Welfare Act did not permit the Cherokee father in that case to object to termination of his parental rights. The case was ostensibly about a dispute between prospective adoptive parents and a biological father. But this Article demonstrates that it was about a lot more than that. It was a microcosm of anxieties about Indianness, race, and the changing nature of parenthood. While made in the name of the child, moreover, the decision supports practices and policies that do not forward …

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Always Hurt Me: Why California Should Expand The Admissibility Of Prior Acts Of Child Abuse, Lindsay Gochnour

Pepperdine Law Review

This Comment seeks to explore the effect that the admissibility of prior bad acts evidence would have on child maltreatment cases and the benefits that would be afforded to child abuse victims if they were provided the same legal protections as victims of other crimes. This Comment argues that expanding the California Evidence Code to allow the admission of prior acts of psychological and emotional child maltreatment would make great progress for the protection of child abuse victims and the prosecution of their (often losing) cases.

Surviving The Borrower: Assumption, Modification, And Access To Mortgage Information After A Death Or Divorce, Sarah Bolling Mancini, Alys Cohen

Pepperdine Law Review

The death of a borrower too often brings the surviving spouse or other heirs to the brink of foreclosure. Transfer of the marital home to a non-borrower spouse through divorce may lead to the same problems. Mortgage servicers tell these successor homeowners that because they are not the borrower on the loan, they are not entitled to any information about the mortgage secured by their home and cannot apply for a loan modification, even if they are struggling with the payments. In fact, successors have a right to information, the right to assume liability for the loan, and the right …

Surrogacy As The Sale Of Children: Applying Lessons Learned From Adoption To The Regulation Of The Surrogacy Industry's Global Marketing Of Children, David M. Smolin

Pepperdine Law Review

This Article argues that most surrogacy arrangements, as currently practiced, constitute the “sale of children” under international law and hence should not be legally legitimated. Therefore, maintaining the core legal norm against the sale of children requires rejecting claims that there is a right to procreate through surrogacy. Since a fundamental purpose of law in the modern era of human rights is to protect the inherent dignity of the human person, a claimed legal right that is built upon the sale of human beings must be rejected. This Article refutes common arguments claiming that commercial surrogacy does not constitute the …

Micone V. Micone, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 14 (March 3, 2016), Ronni Boskovich

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered an appeal from a district court order modifying a child custody decree. The Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Eight Judicial District Court’s order. The Court affirmed the District Court’s order barring modification of certain child support arrearages. The Court reversed the District Court’s award of primary physical custody to the child’s nonparty grandparents.