Family Law Commons^™

Legal Standards Governing Modification Of Child Custody Orders, Christian T. Chandler

Maine Law Review

Child custody is an area of the law where the courts have tread cautiously. Bitter disputes between separating parents often erupt into court struggles over which parent will gain custody of the minor children. As a result of this discord, and the terrible toll it can take on both the parents and the children, the courts are wary of modifying the original custody decree and moving a child from one parent to another. Courts must vigilantly deter custody suits brought purely for vengeance or harassment. The court acts as the child's legal protector when a change of custody issue is …

Intimate Partner Violence: Access To Protection Beyond The Pandemic, Rachel J. Wechsler

Faculty Publications

Civil protection orders are the most common legal remedy victims pursue in response to intimate partner violence (IPV). They are more empowering for victims than the criminal legal system because victims themselves drive the process, instead of prosecutors, and they offer more flexible and tailored relief. This Article argues that victims should be able to choose how they file petitions and participate in civil protection order hearings, and that judges should be required to honor those preferences absent good cause. This conclusion is driven by two new, original sets of empirical data collected from IPV survivors who have sought civil …

Three's A Crowd: Addressing Discrimination Faced By Queer De Facto Parents In Child Custody Standing Proceedings, Shannon E. Callaghan

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

In the United States, between five percent and eight percent of adults identify as queer, and as of 2020, fifteen percent of queer couples have children in their households. While recent legal victories have expanded queer rights, family law continues to lag in affording legal recognition to “nontraditional” families. This is particularly problematic for unmarried, queer co-parents who have virtually no legal claims to the children they have raised with their partners. Current standing requirements for custody proceedings treat these de facto parents as legal strangers to their children due to the absence of biological, marital, or adoptive ties. As …

In Loco Reipublicae And The Parental Duty To Expose Children To Ideas Outside The Home, Catherine Smith

Scholarly Articles

In Loco Reipublicaie boldly centers children’s rights and adeptly fills an existing jurisprudential gap by infusing parental rights with important duties to respect and facilitate children’s exercise of their own citizenship rights. It is a children’s-rights-forward shot across a heavily prioritized parents’ rights bow. It’s about time.

Prescribed Child Abuse? Using The Americans With Disabilities Act To Deconstruct Discrimination Against Medication For Opioid Use Disorder In Child Abuse & Neglect Proceedings, Makenzie Stuard

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The opioid crisis has disrupted parent-child relationships across the United States. While states actively seek to remove children from households with current drug use in order to protect the children, state entities often fail to protect the parent-child relationship itself by imposing counterproductive policies and stereotypes on parents who are in treatment for their drug use, which makes maintaining "recovery" and parental rights an uphill battle. This note argues that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides a novel path to root out discrimination in child abuse and neglect proceedings against parents who either take prescribed buprenorphine or are interested …

Welcome To Texas: Home Of The Most Extreme Abortion Ban In The United States, Generating Vast Child Welfare Disparities, Bailey Harvey

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This comment uncovers the harsh trickling effects of overturning Roe v. Wade through focusing on the statistical nexus between the Texas’ foster care system, the victims of system cycling, and the criminal justice system. We are witnesses to watching the Court in 1973 from first balancing State’s interest and women’s fundamental rights to having the subject be a topic of the political battlefield.

Examining precedent and the reasoning behind the United States Supreme Court’s decision is a science, and the statistics continue to prove Texas’ child welfare systems are failing the children of America. Juvenile delinquency directly correlates with low …

A Better Path Forward: The Need For Restorative Justice In The Child Welfare System, Abigail Montalbo

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

The child welfare system in the United States often prioritizes punishment

over healing, failing both the children harmed by maltreatment

and the responsible parties. This Comment explores how incorporating

restorative justice within state child welfare systems

can shift the focus to repairing relationships, building trust, and

promoting healing of the parties harmed, the parties responsible for

the harm, and the community as a whole. Aimed at an audience

who is interested in, but not deeply familiar with restorative justice,

this Comment suggests for the mandatory inclusion of restorative

justice practices to create a more comprehensive and healing-centered

approach within the …

From Margins To Center: Elevating The Voices Of Disadvantaged Families In Child Welfare, Jerron R. Wheeler

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

This essay sheds light on the systemic challenges faced by indigent,

minority families within the child welfare system, using personal experiences

from my time as a student at the University of Florida

Levin College of Law as a lens. This essay aims to highlight the intersection

of poverty, race, and the child welfare system, showing

how these factors can hinder parents' ability to reunite with their

children despite their best efforts. The essay seeks to underscore the

urgent need for a more nuanced, multidisciplinary approach to child

welfare advocacy that includes legal professionals, social workers,

and health professionals working collaboratively …

The Insufficiency Of Battered Women’S Syndrome Evidence And The Need For Resentencing Legislation For Criminalized Survivors Of Domestic Violence, Alice Samberg

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

University Of The District Of Columbia Law Review, University Of The District Of Columbia Law Review

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Akibat Hukum Harta Bersama Yang Masih Menjadi Objek Jaminan Dalam Perjanjian Kredit Terhadap Pembagian Harta Bersama Setelah Perceraian, Sonia Regita Irawan, Lauditta Humaira, Surini Ahlan Sjarif

Lex Patrimonium

Perkawinan menimbulkan suatu akibat hukum terhadap hadirnya harta bersama, baik yang berupa aktiva maupun pasiva atau utang bersama. Tidak jarang apabila terdapat suatu objek berupa harta bersama yang dijadikan sebagai jaminan untuk suatu utang bersama berupa perjanjian kredit yang dilakukan dengan pihak bank. Suatu permasalahan akan timbul ketika perkawinan harus berakhir karena adanya perceraian. Perceraian pun akan menimbulkan suatu akibat hukum terhadap harta dan utang bersama. Setelah perceraian, harta dan utang bersama seharusnya dibagi dengan besaran yang sama untuk suami dan istri. Akan tetapi, dalam praktiknya bisa saja terdapat salah satu pihak yang hanya menginginkan harta bersama tanpa mengingat bahwa …

Peleburan Terhadap Hukum Waris Perdata Barat Dalam Penyelesaian Sengketa Kewarisan Menurut Hukum Waris Adat Batak Berkaitan Dengan Kedudukan Dan Hak Ahli Waris Perempuan (Studi Kasus Putusan), Laurensia Lefina Mulauli, Lauditta Humaira

Lex Patrimonium

This paper is prepared with doctrinal research methods and focuses on the applicability of Batak customary inheritance law by analyzing how to resolve inheritance disputes that occur in Batak families today, whether the Judges still applies the provisions of Batak customary inheritance law in full, which only gives inheritance shares to sons, or also heeds the shift in the value of patrilineal customary inheritance that gives inheritance shares to daughters based on rules Supreme Court Jurisprudence Law No. 179 K/SIP/1961 which equates the position and rights of women and men in the patrilineal customary inheritance system. The consideration of the …

All Stalk And No Action: A Proposal For Arkansas Gps Stalking Legislation, Erin Wadley

Arkansas Law Notes

The expanding availability of GPS and internet of things (IoT) devices has equipped abusers with more tools to intensify and broaden the scope of domestic abuse tactics, “threatening the progress advocates have made in the past thirty years and creating novel dangers for survivors.” These devices “allow abusers to overcome geographic and spatial boundaries that would have otherwise prevented them from monitoring, controlling, harassing, and threatening survivors.” Thus, this Comment strongly urges the Arkansas State Legislature to enact a law to protect victims, provide justice, and preventatively deter the tracking of private citizens through GPS tracking while being broad enough …

He Got The Car, She Got The . . . Future Kids? The Necessity Of Contemporaneous Consent In Certain Embryo Custody Disputes, Taryn Bewley

Arkansas Law Notes

New reproductive technology has created new questions that lawmakers must answer. Do surrogates have a right to the babies they deliver? Is it right to genetically select your future children? Should people be allowed to continually make embryos until they make an embryo of a girl—as Paris Hilton has done through seven rounds of IVF? Will legal analysis be changed by the possibility of making an embryo with genetic material from two members of the same sex? Yet, perhaps the most basic question has yet to truly be answered: if an embryo’s creators cannot come to an agreement, who gets …

Understanding 303 Creative Llc In A Polycentric Constitutional World, Meg Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

The evolution of rights following Obergefell is not over. Creative 303 LLC marked a new phase in the ongoing legal challenges over the rights and ceremonies attending same-sex marriage. This Essay addresses the anticipated limits of 303 Creative LLC.

The Essay proceeds in three parts. First, how does 303 Creative LLC impact government employees? What rights, if any, should government employees be able to raise in light of 303 Creative LLC? Second, what does 303 Creative LLC mean for private marketplace vendors engaging in expressive commerce? Vendors, particularly wedding vendors, often create unique items for weddings. Will the law focus …

Ks Pop Celebrating Three Years Of Tech-Driven Justice For All, Ayyoub Ajmi

Faculty Works

This article explores the development and impact of the Kansas Protection Order Portal (KS POP), highlighting the vital role of law librarians in the portal's design and implementation. The article showcases how KS POP has streamlined the legal process for domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking victims in Kansas, marking a significant advancement in accessible legal support and serving as a model for future innovations in the justice system.

Fund Kinship Caregivers To Help Keep Families Together, Not Separate Them, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

Money impacts relationships. And when the money involved is a foster care subsidy to kinship caregivers, it can drive a wedge in relationships between parents and kinship caregivers that should be strengthened, not strained. Unfortunately, foster care funding incentivizes the “relational disruption”1 endemic to foster care, when it should instead support family members coming together to support each other and their children.

In contrast, Medicaid funding has increasingly supported family members taking care of each other and can provide child welfare with a model for funding family caregiving without disrupting relationships and without even requiring a family court or foster …

Enforcing Intentional Motherhood: The Harrowing Consequences Arising From The Inconsistency Of Statutes Regarding Surrogacy, And How The Enforcement Of Surrogacy Contracts Is The Answer, Meena Hatab

Global Business Law Review

This Note discusses how the practice of commercial surrogacy is treated across the United States. Most notably, how the courts treat surrogacy contracts from state to state. A summary of how Canada views the practice of surrogacy will provide a general view into how the view of the practice is different across borders. It will be discovered that, while there is a federal law governing surrogacy in Canada, there is no federal law in either country that enforce surrogacy contracts or treat surrogacy contracts as valid contract between two adult parties. This is due to the preconceived notions of what …

Plunging Children Into An Unconstitutional Purgatory: Why Texas Should Raise Its Standard Of Proof For Placing Children In Foster Care, Meagan Corser

Texas A&M Law Review

Texas currently allows Child Protective Services to remove children and place them in foster care for up to two years based only on probable cause of abuse or neglect. Removal itself is traumatic for children and foster care puts children at an unconstitutional risk of harm. Allowing courts to put children through the trauma of removal and foster care for years based only on probable cause departs substantially from the national norm for standards of proof, enables Texas to terminate parental rights at a high rate, and subjects children to a risk of harm for which the child welfare system …

Not Your Mother’S Marriage: Utilizing Intergenerational Trauma-Informed Divorce Mediation To Discourage Unhealthy Relational Cycles In Children Of Divorce, Abigail Davis

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article discusses how divorce mediators can discourage cycles of broken relationships and reduce a child’s likelihood of experiencing intergenerational trauma as a result of the dissolution of their parents’ marriage. Divorce mediators must become knowledgeable about the impact of intergenerational trauma and the most favorable mediation outcomes for the wellbeing of the children involved. This includes encouraging families into an optimal settlement, referring parties to important resources for proactive parenting, making necessary mental health referrals, and enhancing the lives of children experiencing divorce. A mediator well-equipped with a strong referral system and cross-disciplinary knowledge of social, emotional, and behavioral …

A Polygamist Proposal: How Dispute Resolution Techniques Provide Solutions In The Polygamy Debate, Ellie Martinez

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In 2020, Utah passed a bill decriminalizing polygamy. However, this legislation only addresses the peripheral interests of polygamous families as many are still disadvantaged. This comment argues the application of dispute resolution techniques would have resulted in a better solution than the current legislation by increasing value-creation for everyone involved. Part II sets the foundation by delving into the treacherous history of polygamy at both the state level in Utah and the Federal level in the United States. Part III details the passing of the Bigamy Amendments. Part IV identifies relevant parties—many of whom were left out of consideration when …

Digital Coercive Control (Dcc): The Role Of Platforms In Victims’ (In)Justice And Potential For Online Dispute Resolution, Reeve Lanigan

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Domestic violence (DV) is a form of gender-based violence characterized by acts of coercion whereby a perpetrator employs power and control to isolate, surveil, harass, and abuse a current or former intimate partner. The rise of and reliance on digital technologies, especially social networking sites, have intensified gender-based violence and methods of perpetuating DV. The term Digital Coercive Control (DCC) describes mechanisms perpetrators use to stalk, harass, and abuse current or former partners in cyberspace through technological platforms and their associated social media sites. The widespread expansion and power allocated to social networking sites and technology platforms has perpetuated the …

Eldercaring Coordination: The New Dispute Resolution Process To Address The Age-Old Problem Of Old-Age, Fran L. Tetunic

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Eldercaring Coordination refers to a dispute resolution process which seeks to address the needs of senior family members. This new process aims to solve conflicts concerning the lives and finances of aging family members. It arises from the need to provide elders a voice in important decisions concerning their lives and guide families in high conflict disputes towards productive decision-making focused on the best interests of the elderly. The eldercaring coordinator works with legally-authorized decision-makers and other participants to resolve disputes related to an elderly person’s safety and autonomy. The United Nations recognizes eldercaring coordination as an Action Model for …

A (Not-So) “Minor” Application Of The “Spousal Standing” Exception To Georgia’S Wrongful Death Act, Kelly N. Lafleur

Mercer Law Review

The death of a loved one is a tragedy, especially when allegations of wrongdoing exist surrounding the death, and the decision to bring a lawsuit is a deeply personal matter. But who bears the burden of making that decision—the deceased’s spouse, their child, or another loved one? The answer may depend on the court’s application of equitable principles to preserve the claim.

Georgia’s Wrongful Death Act grants a decedent’s surviving spouse the right to pursue a wrongful death claim. In the event there is no surviving spouse, that right is granted to the decedent’s “child or children, either minor or …

Adoption As Substitute For Abortion?, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Justice Samuel Alito relied on adoption as part of the justification for holding that abortion is not constitutionally protected: “States have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home.” Using adoption as an adequate substitute for abortion is a long-standing strategy for the antiabortion movement; but it is often embraced by pro-choice advocates as well. This position is supportable only if the …

Legally Sanctioned Takings Of Black Children: How Slavery Reverberates In The Modern Child Welfare System, Abigail Mitchell

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This article explores the link between the taking of Black children from their families perpetrated as part of American slavery and modern takings in the modern family policing system. This article posits that underpinning both systems is a pervasive paternalism that purports to be benevolent but has been weaponized to systematically traumatize Black children and villainize Black parents. This article takes a sweeping historical perspective and connects the same discourse used to justify slavery to that which has permeated the modern family policing system.

Home For Good: How The Opt-In Element Added To Hb 547 Negatively Impacts Low-Income Homeschool Students In Texas, Nadine Cox

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This comment addresses the relationship between a parent’s constitutional right to educate their child as they see fit and a child’s interest in receiving a robust education. The idea of a parent’s right to raise their child is a fundamental and long established one. However, activist have also raised concern regarding children who are educated at home. The concern centers around the idea that children have little to no access to extra-curricular activities, socialization, or other educational opportunities. Access to extra-curricular activities leads to a well-balanced education that prepares the child for whatever career the child desires. A child does …

Toxic Love: Mandating Standards In Arkansas’S Domestic Violence Laws, Alia B. Reddell

Arkansas Law Review

This Comment addresses the current scheme of domestic violence statutes, highlighting the inadequate state of domestic violence remedies and the ineffective law enforcement guidelines currently in place; it argues that the Arkansas State Legislature is in need of reforming its domestic violence policies. This recommendation is three-fold and proposes that Arkansas should abandon its current discretionary regime and adopt: (1) mandatory arrest policies; (2) statutory post-arrest procedures; and (3) mandatory prosecutorial policies to effectively protect domestic violence survivors. Part I will discuss the various types of domestic violence arrest statutes. Further, this Part will briefly highlight the significance of an …

California Settled The No-Fault Divorce Question Decades Ago. Why Is It Back In The News?, Patt Morrison, Michael J. Higdon

Tennessee Law in the News

Interim Associate Dean Michael Higdon was quoted extensively in a recent article in the L.A. Times entitled “California Settled the No-Fault Divorce Question Decades Ago: Why is it Back in the News?” The article focuses on criticisms some politicians have recently levied against the availability of no-fault divorce, including calls to abolish the practice.

Injustice: Parental Betrayal And The Exploitation Of Child Murder In The United States, Isabella Merlini

Honors Scholar Theses

The following serves as an extensive literature review on the phenomena of filicide and familicide–the ultimate forms of parental betrayal–perpetrated within the United States. Subsequently highlighted is the theme that the people who should always take care of and love their children are sometimes also those who demonically arrange for their children’s very deaths, and while parents have the power to bring children into this world, they do not have the right to remove children from it. An overview of the unique perpetrations, victimologies, psychopathologies, and motivations that contribute to the classifications of filicide and familicide are further provided. Six …