Family Law Commons^™

How Texas Governor Hopes To Undo Marriage Equality, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Intended Parents Win Custody In Surrogacy Dispute, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Manhattan Court Rebuffs Ex-Partner Custody Claim, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Trump Action On Transgender Students Carries Contradictions, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law As Family Law, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

The criminal justice system has expanded dramatically over the last several decades, extending its reach into family life. This expansion has disproportionately and negatively impacted Black communities and social networks, including Black families. Despite these pervasive shifts, legal scholars have virtually ignored the intersection of criminal, family, and racial justice. This Article explores the gap in literature in two respects. First, the Article weaves together criminal law, family law, and racial justice by cataloging ways in which the modern criminal justice state regulates family life, particularly for Black families. Second, the Article examines the depth of criminal justice interference in …

Editorial Notes: January 2017, Barbara A. Babb

All Faculty Scholarship

I am extremely honored to write my first “Editorial Notes” for Family Court Review, and I am most grateful to the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) Board of Directors for appointing me to succeed Professor Andrew Schepard. I have been a devoted reader of and contributor to FCR (and its predecessor journals) for many decades, and I have been a committed AFCC member since the early 1990s. Although I doubt anyone can fill Professor Schepard’s shoes, I certainly plan to try my best to follow in his incredibly large footsteps. He is a dear friend and colleague with …

Corporate Family Law, Allison Anna Tait

Law Faculty Publications

There is no such thing as corporate family law. But there are corporate families, and corporate families fight. What happens when corporate family members fight and the conflict is so severe that one or more of the parties wants out of the corporate relationship? Corporate law provides some solutions, but they are shaped by the assumption that all parties will bargain effectively for protections when seeking to exit a corporate relationship. Under this theory, family business is, after all, just business. The problem with this assumption is that corporate family members do not bargain the way that corporate law expects. …

Family Law Legislative Update, Jason Zarin

Law Faculty Publications

The Virginia General Assembly adjourned sine die on April 5, 2017. One bill affecting adoption was successfully vetoed, and several bills affecting adoption were enacted. Following is a preview of some possible legislation that may be introduced for the 2018 session.

Cohabiting With Property In Washington: Washington's Committed Intimate Relationship Doctrine, Tom Andrews

Articles

Washington has followed a community property system since at least 1869—twenty years prior to statehood. However, Washington rejected the doctrine of common law marriage quite early in 1892. For over one hundred years, in order to receive the advantages of the community property laws, a Washington couple has needed to have their relationship blessed with a ceremonial marriage or have a valid common law marriage in another state.

Accompanying these requirements for the formal establishment of a community property regime was the so-called "Creasman Presumption," which provided that "property acquired by a man and a woman not married to each …

A Family Is What You Make It? Legal Recognition And Regulation Of Multiple Parents, Haim Abraham

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Multiparental family structures, in which there are more than two parents, are becoming increasingly common. Thus, they defy the social and legal conception of the nuclear family. Yet, despite the growing number of multiparental families, their legal status in most jurisdictions is not recognized, leaving various issues unaddressed and potentially risking the children’s best interests. This paper examines how the legislatures and courts of California, Canada, and the U.K. recognize and regulate multiparental families. It shows that the treatment of multiparental families varies from non-recognition of any status, through regulation of the multiparental family, to the recognition of the multiparental …

Early Childhood Development And The Law, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Early childhood development is a robust and vibrant focus of study in multiple disciplines, from economics and education to psychology and neuroscience. Abundant research from these disciplines has established that early childhood is critical for the development of cognitive abilities, language, and psychosocial skills, all of which turn, in large measure, on the parent-child relationship. And because early childhood relationships and experiences have a deep and lasting impact on a child’s life trajectory, disadvantages during early childhood replicate inequality. Working together, scholars in these disciplines are actively engaged in a national policy debate about reducing inequality through early childhood interventions. …

The Strange Life Of Stanley V. Illinois: A Case Study In Parent Representation And Law Reform, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

This Article helps describe the growth of parent representation through an analysis of Stanley v. Illinois — the foundational Supreme Court case that established parental fitness as the constitutional lynchpin of any child protection case. The Article begins with Stanley’s trial court litigation, which illustrates the importance of vigorous parental representation and an effort by the court to prevent Stanley from obtaining an attorney. It proceeds to analyze how family courts applied it (or not) in the years following the Supreme Court’s decision and what factors have led to a recent resurgence of Stanley’s fitness focus.

Despite Stanley …

Stanley V. Illinois'S Untold Story, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

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 …

Obergefell’S Impact On Functional Families, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

More than forty percent of children born in America are born to unmarried parents and only half of all cohabitating adults in America are currently married. While many children are born to single parents, others are part of the two-person unmarried cohabiting functional family paradigm. What is the status of these children?

This article examines the changing paradigm of parental status, specifically vis-à-vis homosexual couples with children, and the rights of the non-biological parent after separation. This article examines the changes in law in regards to unmarried parents leading up to the Uniform Parentage Act. It describes the equitable remedies …

The Intersection Of Contract Law, Reproductive Technology, And The Market: Families In The Age Of Art, Deborah Zalesne

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Anxieties In Adoption: Reflections On Adoptive Couple, White Parenthood, And Constitutional Challenges To The Icwa, Addie C. Rolnick

Scholarly Works

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is under fire from people who argue that it interferes with adoptions and violates the constitution by doing so. The current crop of lawsuits is an outgrowth of a 2012 case in which the Supreme Court heard its second-ever challenge to the law. While the Court sidestepped the most far-reaching anti-ICWA arguments, the majority opinion evidenced a deep skepticism about the law. This skepticism led the Court to narrow the law’s application so that it didn’t apply to the family involved, and it seemed to invite further challenges to the law.

How Does A Radical Lesbian Feminist Who Just Knows How To Holler Somehow Become A Noted Legal Scholar, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

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Pavan V. Smith: Equality For Gays And Lesbians In Being Married, Not Just Getting Married, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Cruel Techniques, Unusual Secrets, William W. Berry, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In the recent case of Glossip v. Gross, the Supreme Court denied a death row petitioner’s challenge to Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol. An important part of Justice Alito’s majority opinion highlighted the existence of a relationship between the constitutionality of a punishment and the requirement of a constitutional technique available to administer the punishment.

Far from foreclosing future challenges, this principle ironically highlights the failure of the Court to describe the relationship under the Eighth Amendment between three distinct categories of punishment: (1) the type of punishment imposed by the court — i.e., death penalty, life without parole, life with …

Close Encounters: A Feminist Legal Theory Analysis Of The State Treatment Of Female Child Sexual Abuse Victims, Jessica Dixon Weaver

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article explores the way in which the law currently deals with sexual violence against female children in the home – evaluating the ways in which the state has access to the private realm of the family and the ways in which civil and criminal legal systems deal with this type of trauma to girls across a spectrum of time. Research shows that the child protection system only captures a small percentage of sexual abuse right after it happens. However, research also shows that female child sex abuse survivors appear in statistically significant numbers among other groups – drug and …

Constitutional Parentage, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Domestic Violence Asylum And The Perpetuation Of The Victimization Narrative, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Pitiful. Helpless. Powerless. The words often used to describe survivors of domestic violence conjure a vivid and specific image of a woman lacking both strength and agency. These (mis)conceptions stem from the theories of “Battered Woman Syndrome” and “learned helplessness,” developed in 1979 by psychologist Lenore Walker, who hypothesized that intimate partner abuse ultimately causes a woman to resign herself to her fate and cease efforts to free herself from violence or dangerous situations.

Although widely criticized, learned helplessness has permeated the legal establishment, for example, serving as the foundation for mandatory arrest and “no drop” policies in the criminal …

Redefining The Standard: Who Can Be A Person Legally Responsible For The Care Of A Child Under The Family Court Act?, Alexsis Gordon

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Moral And Economic Advantages Of Raising The Age Of Criminal Responsibility In New York Among Juvenile Offenders, And Plans For Rehabilitation, Patrick Harty

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Privatized American Family, Maxine Eichner

Faculty Publications

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Family Reunification And The Security State, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Place Of Flourishing Families, Nestor M. Davidson, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholars have produced a rich literature exploring how law shapes cities. These scholars have examined the authority and autonomy of municipal governments, the nature of urban community, and the geography of inequality. Another set of legal scholars has produced an equally rich literature exploring how law shapes families. These scholars have analyzed how marriage laws systematically disadvantage African Americans and other marginalized groups, how family law reinforces conceptions of traditional families, and how the absence of marriage equality led courts to recognize functional parents.

These discourses rarely overlap. Until this Colloquium. We brought together a range of scholars from …

Moore Kinship: Foreword, R.A. Lenhardt, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years ago, Mrs. Inez Moore, a widowed black mother and grandmother of little means, secured a victory that likely seemed improbable to many. Without any money, but with the assistance of a team of dedicated Legal Aid attorneys, she took her lawsuit challenging an East Cleveland, Ohio, zoning ordinance that made it a crime for her to live with her grandson all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. The ordinance permitted certain extended family configurations to reside together within the city’s limits, but it prohibited Inez’s family arrangement. Just by bringing her infant grandson John Jr., …