Family Law Commons^™

Twice Exceptional Students Need Twice The Programming, Rebecca Jacobs

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Marriage Story: Ensuring The Interests Of The Child Are Represented In Domestic Relations Cases, Meghan Kasner

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Right To Unmarry: A Proposal, Brian L. Frye, Maybell Romero

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

When I say I'm in love, you better believe I'm in love, L-U-V.

[April 2, 2020] BLF: This is a marriage proposal in the form of a law review article. In this Article, I observe that Maybell Romero and I are in love. I want to marry her, and I believe she wants to marry me. At least I'll find out pretty soon. But we cannot marry each other right now, because we are both currently married to other people.

Maybell and I want to end our existing marriages, and our respective spouses have even agreed to divorce. But the …

Child Labor Laws In India And The Need For Change, Alexandra Spognardi

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Not All Violence In Relationships Is “Domestic Violence", Tamara L. Kuennen

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The article proceeds in four parts. Part I describes in more detail the work of Donileen Loseke, and Part II applies her methodology by taking stock of the constructs as they currently exist. Part III examines social science data available since Loseke published her study, demonstrating that the current construct reflects, in reality, only a subset of relationship violence and a subset of the people who experience it. Part IV examines whether the main service designed to help people experiencing relationship violence today—law—perpetuates, rather than challenges norms. I argue that it does the former, because legal decision makers, like the …

Mind The Gap: Technology As A Lifeline For Pro Se Child Custody Appeals, Katherine L.W. Norton

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Grandfamilies" Amid The Opioid Crisis: An Increasing Reason To Update Pennsylvania's Outdated Intestacy Laws, Joanne L. Parise

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

First Comes Marriage, Then Comes Baby, Then Comes What Exactly?, Erez Aloni

All Faculty Publications

Taiwan’s legalization of same-sex marriage is an event of international importance concerning the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals and partners; further, it constitutes an opportunity to examine the state of LGBTQ+ equality in Taiwan and elsewhere. To this end, through theoretical and comparative lenses, this Article asks what equality for LGBTQ+ means and what comes after marriage. It offers perspectives on the past, present, and future of the intersection of same-sex marriage and equality. Looking at the path to same-sex marriage in Taiwan, the Article argues that the Taiwanese Constitutional Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage maintained a line between domesticated liberty …

Domestic Relations, Barry B. Mcgough, Elinor H. Hitt, Andrew B. Mcclintock, Allison C. Kessler

Mercer Law Review

This Article addresses significant case law and legislative updates to Georgia domestic relations law that arose during the survey period from June 1, 2018 through May 31, 2019.

• Contract Rules
• Alimony
• Child Support
• Custody and Visitation
• Equitable Division
• Enforcement
• Attorney's Fees
• Appellate Practice

Brief Of Amici Curiae Scholars Of The Constitutional Rights And Interests Of Children In Support Of Respondents, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Catherine E. Smith, Tanya Washington Hicks, Lauren Fontana, Jessica Dixon Weaver, Cary Martin Shelby

Faculty Scholarship

This Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars of the Constitutional Rights and Interests of Children in Support of Respondents filed in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia makes two points. First, a categorical exemption, based on religious beliefs rather than foster children’s needs, does not serve the best interests of children and violates the government’s duty to foster youth. Such an exemption needlessly restricts the pool of prospective foster parents, increasing the risk of a greater number of children being confined to long-term, institutional care. The reduction of same-sex foster parents would also have a disproportionate impact on “special needs” and LGBT …

The Right Family, Noa Ben-Asher, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The family plays a starring role in American law. Families, the law tells us, are special. They merit, among others, tax deductions, testimonial privileges, untaxed inheritance, parental presumptions, and, over the course of the twentieth century, the Supreme Court has expanded individual rights stemming from familial relationships. In this Article, we argue that family matters as much for when it is ignored as for when it is featured. We shed light on the use of the family in the law by contrasting policies in which the family is the key unit of analysis with others in which it is not. …

Unconstitutional Parenthood, Jeffrey A. Parness

Marquette Law Review

none

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Mandatory, Fast, And Fair: Case Outcomes And Procedural Justice In A Family Drug Court, Melanie Fessinger, Katherine Hazen, Jamie Bahm, Jennie Cole-Mossman, Roger Heideman, Eve Brank

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

Objectives: Problem-solving courts are traditionally voluntary in nature to promote procedural justice and to advance therapeutic jurisprudence. The Family Treatment Drug Court (FTDC) in Lancaster County, Nebraska, is a mandatory dependency court for families with allegations of child abuse or neglect related to substance use. We conducted a program evaluation examining parents’ case outcomes and perceptions of procedural justice to examine whether a mandatory problem-solving court could replicate the positive outcomes of problem-solving courts. Methods: We employed a quasi-experimental design that compared FTDC parents to traditional dependency court parents (control parents). We examined court records to gather court orders, compliance …

'Of Sound Mind And Body': A Call For Universal Drug Screening For All Newborns, Frank Vandervort, Vincent J. Palusci

Book Chapters

Substance abuse is a major medical and social problem. Estimates suggest that each year some 15 percent of the 4 million babies born in the United States are exposed to drugs or alcohol. Research demonstrates that exposure to these substances is harmful to the children in both the short term and across their developmental trajectory. This chapter summarizes the harms that might result from such prenatal exposure and considers the ways that both federal and state law respond to this. The chapter argues for universal drug testing of newborns in an effort to ascertain whether they have been prenatally exposed …

A Dangerous Inheritance: A Child’S Digital Identity, Kate Hamming

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment begins with one family’s story of its experience with social media that many others can relate to in today’s ever-growing world of technology and the Internet. Technology has made it possible for a person’s online presence to grow exponentially through continuous sharing by other Internet users. This ability to communicate and share information amongst family, friends, and strangers all over the world, while beneficial in some regard, comes with its privacy downfalls. The risks to privacy are elevated when children’s information is being revealed, which often stems from a child’s own parents conduct online. Parents all over the …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Closed Adoption: An Illusory Promise To Birth Parents And The Changing Landscape Of Sealed Adoption Records, Bryn Baffer

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Imagine spitting into a tube and mailing your DNA off only to discover that you had a sibling who had been adopted by another family or that a parent’s affair had resulted in a half-sibling. For many individuals, these family secrets have been exposed due to direct-to-consumer DNA testing companies, such as 23andMe.

By the 1950s, most states had enacted statutes that sealed adoption record files in order to preserve the privacy of the birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive families. While some states have moved toward granting adoptees access to their adoption records, most states still have some type of …

Existe-T-Il Un « Droit À L’Enfant » En Droit Québecois?, Elisabeth Beauchamp

Canadian Journal of Family Law

La notion de « droit à l’enfant » est souvent soulevée dans le discours public, bien qu’aucune disposition législative au Québec ne prévoie un tel droit à proprement parler. Notre étude propose une analyse de l’ensemble des développements récents du droit de la famille québécois pour déterminer si un « droit à l’enfant » sous-jacent peut s’y inférer. De manière plus particulière, l’analyse porte sur l’émergence possible d’un « droit à l’enfant » dans les développements jurisprudentiels et législatifs relatifs à l’adoption, à la procréation assistée et à la gestation pour autrui. Nous tentons de démontrer que la substance du …

Respecting And Protecting Transgender And Gender-Nonconforming Children In Family Courts, Claire Houston

Canadian Journal of Family Law

Family court judges are increasingly being asked to resolve parenting disputes involving conflict over a child’s gender expression or identity. These disputes ask whether it is in the best interests of children to support their gender nonconformity, including any decision to transition to a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. Despite more of these cases coming before family courts, judges have little guidance on how to resolve these cases in the best interests of children. Drawing on medical and social science literature and reported decisions, and applying a robust theory of children’s participation rights, this article …

Icwa Downunder: Exploring The Costs And Benefits Of Enacting An Australian Version Of The United States' Indian Child Welfare Act, Marcia Zug

Canadian Journal of Family Law

Australian Indigenous Advocates have long sought the passage of Indigeous child-welfare legislation similar to the United States’s Indian Child Welfare Act. Recently, the Australian government has indicated it is receptive to the enactment of such legislation. However, an Australian version of the ICWA is not as simple as it sounds. The legal status of the Indigenous communities of Australia and American Indian tribes is vastly different thus, many of the ICWA’s provisions, particularly those based on a recognition of Indigenous sovereignty, would require significant modifications before they coud be applied in Australia. These modifications mean an Australian ICWA …

Retrospective Removal Of Gamete Donor Anonymity: Policy Recommendations For Ontario Based On The Victorian Experience, Alicia Czarnowski

Canadian Journal of Family Law

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the gamete-donor anonymity schemes in Ontario, Canada and Victoria, Australia. As of March 1, 2017, Victoria became the first jurisdiction in the world to retrospectively remove gamete-donor anonymity. Conversely, donor anonymity remains protected in Ontario, largely through statutory silence. While many donor conceived individuals are calling for other jurisdictions to follow suit and retrospectively abolish anonymity, an in-depth analysis of Victoria’s policy-making process suggests that Ontario should not take a similar course of action. This conclusion is based on the inherent issues with retrospective legislation, the historical differences between the two jurisdictions in …

Front Matter

Canadian Journal of Family Law

No abstract provided.

The "Threat" Of Marriage Fraud: A Story Of Precarity, Exclusion, And Belonging, Sarah Pringle

Canadian Journal of Family Law

Migrants can obtain permanent residency in Canada under the family-reunification category set out in s. 12(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Canadian citizens or permanent residents may apply to sponsor their non-citizen spouse, common law or conjugal partner, or other relatives to move to Canada pursuant to s. 117(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR). The bad-faith clause under s. 4(1) of the IRPR requires spousal-sponsorship applicants to prove to visa officers that, on a balance of probabilities, their relationship is “genuine” and not “entered into primarily for the purpose of …

Front Matter

Canadian Journal of Family Law

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Does Domestic Violence Disappear From Parental Alienation Cases? Five Lessons From Quebec For Judges, Scholars, And Policymakers, Suzanne Zaccour

Canadian Journal of Family Law

The theory of parental alienation—which asserts that children who reject one parent are brainwashed by the other parent—has often been used to punish caring mothers and grant custody to dangerous fathers. The legal community’s quick infatuation with this concept has sparked fiery debates between its proponents and domestic violence scholars. My research contributes to this urgent conversation by shedding new light on the role of domestic violence in parental alienation cases.

I observe how series of cases involving the same family deal with the issue of domestic violence. This method reveals a worrisome “disappearing act”: as families repeatedly interact with …

Confronting Cannibalism, Review Of Hadley Louise Friedland, The Wetiko Legal Principles: Cree And Anishinabek Responses To Violence And Victimization​ (Univ. Toronto Press, 2018), Lisa M. Kelly, Shelby Percival

Canadian Journal of Family Law

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Disparue Comme Par Magie ? La Violence Conjugale Dans Les Cas D’Aliénation Parentale Au Québec, Suzanne Zaccour

Canadian Journal of Family Law

La théorie de l’« aliénation parentale » — qui affirme que des enfants rejettent un parent en raison d’un lavage de cerveau fait par l’autre parent — a souvent été utilisée pour punir des mères attentionnées et accorder la garde à des pères dangereux. L’engouement fulgurant de la communauté juridique pour ce concept a donc suscité des débats enflammés entre ses partisan·es et les chercheur·ses en violence conjugale.

Mon article contribue à cette conversation urgente en jetant un éclairage nouveau sur le rôle de la violence conjugale dans les cas d’aliénation parentale.

J’observe comment des séries de jugements impliquant la …

The Use Of Experts In Family Law Cases: An Annotated Bibliography, Allen Rostron

Faculty Works

This bibliography covers significant issues relating to the use of experts in family law cases. For some topics, like the use of experts in child custody cases, it focuses on literature that is specific to the family law field. For topics that relate broadly to experts in all kinds of legal matters, it includes articles that shed valuable light on issues and concerns about the use of experts in general as well as articles that specifically relate to the use of experts in the family law realm.

Illinois Childcare Parentage Law (R)Evolution, Jeffrey A. Parness

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

State childcare parentage laws, that is, laws designating parents for custody, visitation, parental responsibility allocation, parental decisionmaking and/or support purposes, have evolved dramatically in the past half century. The (r)evolution is due to major changes in both reproductive technologies and human conduct. Yet the (r)evolution is incomplete.

The (r)evolution is especially incomplete in Illinois. Recent statutory amendments in Illinois chiefly reflect the work of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in its 2000 model Uniform Parentage Act, not its 2017 Uniform Parentage Act. The latter better addresses the effects on childcare parentage of the changes in …