Family Law Commons^™

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Bringing Parental Consent Out Of The Shadows: An Evaluation Of Texas H.B. 18'S Effect On A Child's Best Interest, Ainsley Mcnally

Texas A&M Law Review

Beyond constitutional assertions about broad parental rights lies the nuance of state laws affecting child autonomy. State laws take a variety of approaches to address the broad rights of parents to raise their children while acknowledging that these broad rights must give way in limited circumstances to promote the best interests of children. These differences under state law can be categorized into three approaches, including a bright-line, middle-ground, and extended autonomy approach. Naming and analyzing these approaches illuminates a new form of a bright-line approach—shadow parental consent—that Texas law has adopted. At first glance, the recently enacted Texas law, H.B. …

Evaporating Natural Parent Childcare Liberties Under New Parentage Laws, Jeffrey A. Parness

Arkansas Law Review

This Article explores the evaporating Due Process interests of natural childcare parents who are not unfit and who do not knowingly consent to diminished childcare liberties when the state recognizes new nonadoptive and nonbiological parents. Childcare liberty losses need not involve neglect or comparable bad acts rendering a parent unfit. They need not involve consent, actual or implied, by an adversely affected parent. On the new forms of nonadoptive and nonbiological childcare parents, the most recent UPAs and their state counterparts are illustrative. They recognize parentage in an individual who resides with and holds out a child as the individual’s …

Beyond Marvin V. Marvin: How Washington Leads The Way In Protecting Unmarried Cohabitants, Karen Boxx, Terry Price, Joseph Janes

Washington Law Review

“Wholly unrelated to . . . marriage, courts have recognized the existence of meretricious relationships, which this court has determined to be stable, cohabiting relationships.”1 In the nearly twenty-five years since Pennington, Washington courts have developed a robust jurisprudence regarding these relationships, now called committed intimate relationships (CIRs). The equitable doctrine developed by Washington courts is groundbreaking in recognizing property rights of persons in unmarried relationships, particularly in light of the demise of common law marriage. As of 2019, more than seventeen million people, representing seven percent of American adults, were cohabitating, but economic protection of those cohabitants varies significantly …

Us V. Rahimi, Originalism's Loaded Weapon, And The Lost Boys Of The Supreme Court, Mary Anne Franks

Articles

No abstract provided.

Trauma-Informed Judicial Practice Meets Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Compassionate Written Judgments In Child Protection Cases, Shelley Kierstead

Articles & Book Chapters

Trauma arises from profoundly distressing life events, and manifests in a range of often overwhelming physical and psychological symptoms. The legal community is increasingly recognizing that clients living with trauma need trauma-informed services—that is, services that “recognize, understand and minimize” the long-term impact of trauma. A trauma-informed approach acknowledges that “effective interventions with people require both the avoidance of retraumatization and the presence of respectful and supportive interventions that help people rebuild their lives.”

Mainstreaming Parafamily, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

In Parafamily, Chen and Mulligan have managed to cover vast terrain, to catalogue important developments in law, to canvass insights from generations of thinkers, and to propose an ambitious yet pragmatic approach to the laws that govern human relationships, directly and indirectly. They do all this in a relatively short article composed of unusually readable prose. Quite a feat.

The focus of the piece is Chen and Mulligan’s contribution to the field of legal scholarship dedicated to relationships that go beyond the traditional nuclear family. As their title reveals, the authors contribute a new term and concept to this …

The Legal Framework Of Foster Care In Egypt: A Gender Analysis Of Alternative Families And Patrilineal Structures, Amira Fadel

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis explores women’s legal representation and agency over their non-biological children, and how the foster care system in Egypt either reinforces or deconstructs existing gender roles. Hence from a sociological perspective, it accounts for foster and alternative care laws in Egypt and the amendments thereof, to examine social relationships against the backdrop of more conventional, biological families, and kinship relations. In simple terms, studying foster and alternative care laws in Egypt is crucial to grasp how non-biological families are shaped in comparison to the more conventional bonds within biological families and traditional kinship relations, while accounting for the Christian …

Criminalizing Domestic Violence In Egypt: Legal Gaps, Risk Consequences, And The Need For Reform, Ahmed Hussein

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis advocates for the implementation of domestic violence legislation in Egypt as a crucial legal and judicial reform necessary to prevent such violence and challenge societal norms that normalize it. It first examines the evolution of domestic violence legislation in line with international human rights standards, highlighting its applications worldwide and the role of states to interfere in an aim to combat such violence. The arguments for and against explicit criminalization are analyzed, emphasizing how legal frameworks can alter social behaviors that normalize violence. Following this, the thesis will focus on Egypt's legal framework addressing domestic violence, showing how …

The Dog Dies At The Beginning Of This Paper: Issuing Victims Protective Orders As A Result Of An Abuser’S Intentional Destruction Of Property, Brighton Frost

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Domestic violence is a prevailing issue in the United States for both men and women, growing exponentially during COVID-19. In the law, there are two approaches to remedy this issue. The first being a criminal conviction of the abuser, which requires witness testimony and is held to a higher burden of proof than the other. The other approach is for the victim to obtain a protective order against the abuser. However, in many states, protective orders are only available to victims once the abuser physically attacks them, despite there being reliable signs of abuse before physical violence occurs. Thus, this …

Restoring The Soul To Birthing In Miami: A Call For Justice For Obstetric Racism In Miami–Dade County, Jordan Brooks, Jamarah Amani, Sannisha Dale, Dr. Karen A. Scott

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

For far too many Black mothers and birthing people, U.S. hospitals are dangerous and fail to keep our Black mothers and birthing people and their babies safe, alive, and thriving during and after childbirth. The confluence of medical racism and obstetric violence—obstetric racism—leads to a disproportionate rate of predictable, preventable, and unfair death, sickness, and trauma for Black birthing people and babies in the afterlife of slavery. Obstetric racism, as defined by Davis, is both an analytic and phenomenon that describes mechanisms of subordination, control, and dominance to which Black mothers and birthing people are subjected by health systems and …

Completing Icwa’S History, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

When the Supreme Court, in Brackeen v. Haaland, upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) — federal legislation making it harder for child family regulation (a.k.a. child protection) agencies to separate Indigenous children from their parents — it centered Congress’s effort to remedy a long history of unwarranted separations of Indigenous families.

Retrenchment By Diversion: The New Politics Of Parental Rights, Mary Ziegler, Maxine Eichner, Naomi Cahn

Michigan Law Review

For the past century, the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the importance of parents’ rights to direct their children’s upbringing and education. Yet suddenly the rhetoric of parental rights is being used to ground a broad range of claims on issues such as what can be taught in public schools, when minors can access gender-affirming care, or who will be punished for helping minors travel for abortion care. Why have parental-rights claims surged so visibly in contemporary law and politics? And are all the new arguments made under the banner of parental rights equally rooted in constitutional precedent?

This Article …

Guardrails Needed For Social Science Research, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

In an article written for a legal audience, The Most Dangerous Branch of Science?: Reining in Rogue Research and Reckless Experimentation in Social Welfare, (Dwyer, 2022), I illustrated this phenomenon by describing what has happened in the child welfare world in recent decades. In the article, I recommend legal reforms to address the problems, including mandating a more robust IRB [institutional review board] review, broadening the concept of unethical research, treating policy experimentation as research subject to ethical rules, and authorizing lawsuits against those who purchase or conduct intentionally skewed studies that result in harmful policy innovations. I offer here …

Adminstrability Over Testementary Freedom Of Disposition, Kevin Bennardo

University of Richmond Law Review

Freedom of disposition is unquestionably accepted as the organizing principle of inheritance law in the United States. But what if we’ve been wrong about that this whole time? Or perhaps we haven’t been wrong exactly, but instead have been badly overstating things? Regardless of the answers, these are questions worth exploring. It’s time for a reckoning. …

Exploring The Trust Paradox: Adoption Dynamics Of Family Trusts Among Chinese High-Net-Worth Individuals, Janet Jing Di Zhang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This research explores the adoption dynamics of family trusts among Chinese High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs), focusing on the key barriers and facilitating factors. Despite the formal recognition of family trusts in China under its Trust Law (2001), the adoption rate remains low. This paradox is addressed through a comparative study between Chinese HNWIs in China and those in Canada, examining the impact of legal, regulatory, and cultural factors on adoption rates. By employing a two-stage quantitative approach, the research develops a Trust Adoption Model that incorporates factors like perceived benefits, professional trust, complexity, and regulatory transparency. The study identifies significant barriers …

Religious Exemptions To Anti-Discrimination Law: Children's Rights In The Constitutional Calculus, Tanya Washington, Catherine Smith, Robin Walker Sterling

Scholarly Articles

Increasingly, religious actors in the public sphere--whether in the provision of goods and services (Masterpiece Cakeshop) or in government contracting (Fulton)--are simply invoking a person's sexual orientation as inconsistent with their religious tenets to benefit from a legal doctrine that shields them from the requirement that they offer an underlying rationale for LGBTQ discrimination. Over the past decade, we have filed amicus briefs in United States Supreme Court cases advancing children's constitutional rights, including briefs providing a check on these religious-based arguments when they adversely impact children's rights in the familial and child regulation contexts and …

Transformative Experiences, Anticipatory Regret, And Informed Consent, Elizabeth Lanphier, Shannon Fyfe

Scholarly Articles

Regret risk is not consistently part of information sharing within informed consent. Yet two kinds of decisions that often invoke concerns about future regret, abortion and sterilization, raise considerations for the role of regret in clinical decision-making and informed consent, particularly regarding decisions about potentially transformative experiences. We distinguish between first-personal and second-personal anticipatory regret and argue that first-personal anticipatory regret can play a productive role, but second-personal anticipatory regret can function in ways that are pernicious. Introducing second-personal anticipatory regret into medical informed consent processes is, we argue, not only not required for informed medical decision-making, but impermissible within …

Table Of Contents, Children's Legal Rights Journal

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Worst Collateral Consequence: Rethinking The Best Interests Standard In The Context Of Racism, Classism, And Mass Incarceration, Abigail Hean

Children's Legal Rights Journal

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country. In recent years, mandatory minimums, probation revocation, and other laws have led to increased periods of incarceration, even for low-level offenses. When a parent becomes incarcerated, their children are often left in the hands of the state, and a countdown to the termination of parental rights begins. Even if the parent has never been accused of child abuse or neglect, parental rights can be terminated on the grounds that the parent is unable to care for their children while incarcerated. Increasingly, states have placed more emphasis on permanent placement for …

Veiled Child Labor: A Focus On The Almajiranci And Yar Aiki Systems In Northern Nigeria, Aisha Mohammed Suleiman

Children's Legal Rights Journal

Child labor is like a powder keg. It remains a persistent global issue, with millions of children subjected to exploitative practices that strip them of their fundamental rights, access to education, and overall well-being. Although child labor is an increasing issue around the globe, this paper focuses on Northern Nigeria because the Almajiri systems and Yar aiki systems covertly function as platforms for child labor. To examine this issue, this paper adopts a doctrinal approach. It argues that legal reforms alone are insufficient to address these issues. Other challenges, such as insecurity and economic factors, also contribute significantly to children’s …

Equip For Equality: Education Access For Incarcerated Individuals With Disabilities, René J. Valenzuela

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Children's Legal Rights Journal

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Screenings For Dyslexia, Learning Disorders, And Literacy Issues: A U.S. State Legislative Comparative Framework, Andrea Lollini, Maryna Tsapok, Sara Hundt

Children's Legal Rights Journal

This article provides a comparative analysis of state legislation on screening and interventions for dyslexia, language learning disorders, and early literacy issues in the United States. The analysis emphasizes how different approaches to tackling learning deficiencies across states in the U.S. may trigger unequal distribution of services and interventions across the country. Furthermore, the lack of uniform definitions and terminology employed by state lawmakers makes it difficult to evaluate the efficiency of implemented policies. Evidence-based federal guidelines would help set uniform standards for low literacy and LLD screening and interventions in schools nationwide, leading to a more robust and equitable …

Fulfilling Plyler's Promise: Undocumented Students' Access To Education, René J. Valenzuela

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.