Family Law Commons^™

Social Norms And The Legal Regulation Of Marriage, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Americans have interesting and somewhat puzzling attitudes about the state's role in defining and enforcing family obligations. Most people view lasting marriage as an important part of their life plans and take the commitment of marriage very seriously. Yet any legal initiative designed to reinforce that commitment generates controversy and is viewed with suspicion in many quarters. For example, covenant marriage statutes, which offer couples entering marriage the option of undertaking a modest marital commitment, are seen by many observers as coercive and regressive measures rather than ameliorating reforms.

The law tends to reflect – and perhaps contributes to – …

The Nuttiness Of Divorce, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The erratic, emotional "nuttiness" of divorce is predictable. Rest assured, however, you are not crazy. You are merely responding to the temporary emotional upheaval in your life. To help you better understand what you are experiencing, we have put together a brief explanation of the psychological stages or phases that accompany the legal process of divorce.

Substance Abuse, Families, And Unified Family Courts: The Creation Of A Caring Justice System, Barbara A. Babb, Judith D. Moran

All Faculty Scholarship

This article proposes an approach to family law decision-making tailored to assist families plagued by substance abuse. Substance abuse is linked to social, health, and economic problems facing Americans today and is a factor for a substantial number of family law litigants. By failing to address substance abuse issues, the family repeatedly may need to seek court intervention. The unified family court model is the concept of a single court that coordinates the work of independent agencies and tribunals, each with some limited role in resolving the problems incident to a family's legal matters. Professor Babb has created an interdisciplinary …

Kentucky Law Survey: Family Law, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article addresses some of the family law developments occurring since the Kentucky Law Journal last published a Kentucky law survey. Space limitations preclude discussion of every post-1985 change. Instead, this Article focuses on general trends, significant cases, and legislative developments.

Inquiry into family law developments in Kentucky is timely, not only because of the social importance of family relations, but also because of other contemporaneous efforts at family law reform. The American Law Institute ("ALl") is currently considering a final draft of principles governing family dissolution. That draft, and the discussions that surround its ultimate acceptance or rejection by …

Marriage As Relational Contract, Elizabeth S. Scott, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The evolution of marriage from a relationship based on status to one that is regulated by contractual norms achieved a milestone of sorts recently with the enactment of the Louisiana Covenant Marriage Act. Under this statute, couples entering marriage can choose to have the termination of their relationship regulated under conventional no-fault divorce rules, or they can voluntarily undertake a greater commitment to their marriage. For couples who select covenant marriage, either party can terminate the relationship on fault grounds, but unilateral termination of the marriage is available only after a substantial waiting period. The principal impact of the statute …

An Interdisciplinary Approach To Family Law Jurisprudence: Application Of An Ecological And Therapeutic Perspective, Barbara A. Babb

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Welfare Reform And Child Care: A Proposal For State Legislation, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Without subsidized child care, Dianne Williams, the mother of an eighteen-month-old son, would never have left welfare and earned the post-secondary degree that led to her current job as a senior secretary; Tammy Stinson, a U.S. Air Force veteran and 29-year-old mother of two children, would spend up to $150 of her weekly $200 salary on child care, increasing the likelihood she would turn to welfare or live in poverty; Jerry Andrews, a graduate of a government-funded early childhood education program, might not earn $31,200 a year and be working towards an engineering degree. These individuals are lucky. The vast …

Balancing Acts: Crisis, Change, And Continuity In American Family Law, 1890-1990, Michael Grossberg

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Why Canada Has No Family Policy: Lessons From France And Italy, Philip Girard

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This paper uses a comparative legal history approach to examine the "private" law of the family in France, Italy, and the major English-speaking countries in order to clarify the fundamental notions of the family which predated the welfare state. It is suggested that a major cleavage exists, historically, between an autonomous family law in France and Italy oriented around notions of familial solidarity, sibling interdependence and equality, and intergenerational continuity, and a family law in the English-speaking countries marked by a preoccupation with the protection of property rights and the independence of individual family members. These contrasts reveal differing societal …

All In The Family & In All Families: Membership, Loving, And Owing, Martha Minow

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Starting Down The Road To Reform: Kentucky's New Long-Arm Statute For Family Obligations, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Kentucky has long needed a comprehensive family law provision for its long-arm statute. Before the general long-arm statute was amended by the 1992 General Assembly, it addressed only a narrow class of paternity cases among its specific jurisdictional provisions, ignoring the need for long-arm jurisdiction in other domestic relations cases. A second long-arm statute provided jurisdiction over some nonresidents to establish or enforce child support obligations. In the contexts of divorce and child support, Kentucky's failure to claim constitutionally available jurisdiction deprived Kentucky residents of important protection.

Recent amendments to Kentucky statutes fill previous gaps and expand Kentucky's jurisdiction in …

Access To Legal Remedies. The Crisis In Family Law, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

Lack of access to the courts to resolve domestic disputes is a national problem which deserves the attention of both family law scholars and practitioners. Family law scholars have exhaustively critiqued both the substantive and procedural law governing dissolution proceedings. This analysis of rules and standards, however, is rarely conducted with the explicit goal of maximizing access to the courts for people of low and moderate income. This paper begins by assessing the dimensions of the problem through an explanation of the existing domestic legal needs studies. This paper also presents a case study of a typical multi-issue domestic case …

Centrist Judging And Traditional Family Values: Or Why Papa Can't Be A Rolling Stone, Steven H. Hobbs, Mary F. Mulligan

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dna Paternity Test: Legislating The Future Paternity Action, E. Donald Shapiro, Stewart Reifler, Claudia L. Psome

Journal of Law and Health

This Article will first briefly examine the historical development of the paternity suit in the beginning of Part II. Part II will then focus upon the standards of proof, presumptions and affirmative defenses concomitant to the traditional paternity action. Part III will examine the concepts and legal applications behind blood group / genetic marker testing and the probability formulas derived from these tests used to exclude or include a putative father. Part IV will examine the technology behind DNA paternity testing and its current evidentiary admissibility. Part V will discuss some of the substantive and public policy issues relating to …

Expanding Our Vision Of Legal Services Representation– The Hermanas Unidas Project, Stacy Brustin

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Parental Rights Of Incarcerated Mothers Whose Children Are In Foster Care: Proposed Changes To New York's Termination Of Parental Rights Law, Philip Genty

Faculty Scholarship

In the past decade, the number of female prisoners in New York state and city jails has risen dramatically. Currently, there are 1,890 women incarcerated in New York State prisons, and an additional 1,626 women confined in New York City jails. Approximately seventy- two percent of the women in state prisons are parents, and, according to one informal study, nearly sixty percent of the women in city prisons are single parents with minor children. While some of these women can make formal or informal child care arrangements with relatives or close friends, many others must turn to state-regulated foster care. …

In Re: International Child Abduction V. Best Interests Of The Child: Comity Should Control, Esther Levy Blynn

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Call For The Repudiation Of The Domestic Relations Exception To Federal Jurisdiction, Barbara Freedman Wand

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Using Formulas To Separate Marital And Nonmarital Property: A Policy Oriented Approach To The Division Of Appreciated Property Upon Divorce, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Over the past ten years every writer venturing to discuss domestic relations must have been tempted to emphasize the importance of his or her work by opening with mention of the growing number of divorce cases confronting the court system. Beyond its numerical impact upon the judicial process, however, divorce litigation provides an important opportunity for the study of property rights and the institutions from which those fights are derived. Divorce cases increasingly involve difficult and complex questions concerning the marital property rights of the marriage partners. The importance of marital property cases is broader than the individual rules that …

Kentucky Law Survey: Domestic Relations, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The following article presents a survey of domestic relations law in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. During the survey period, the Kentucky appellate courts faced a series of cases that involved not only the usual problems relating to property division, post divorce support obligations and child custody, but which also implicated a number of federal statutory attempts' to regulate areas long considered solely the province of state regulation. The presence of new federal legislation in these areas represents Congressional attempts to solve some major difficulties in the domestic relations area. Few persons would argue, for example, that the battle for jurisdiction …

Crossing Boundaries: Nineteenth-Century Domestic Relations Law And The Merger Of Family And Legal History, Michael Grossberg

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This essay argues for the need to study the legal history of the American family. It does so by combining a critique of secondary literature in family and legal history with examples from nineteenth-century domestic relations law. These examples, drawn from family law doctrines on seduction under the cover of a marriage promise, runaway marriages, and bastardy, are used to indicate the benefits of adding a sociocultural dimension to legal history and legal and institutional dimensions to family history. Three main themes in the history of nineteenth-century domestic relations law are developed to make these points: the law's particular fabric …

Rethinking Joint Custody, Elizabeth S. Scott, Andre Derdeyn

Faculty Scholarship

A small revolution has begun in child custody law, and as yet its dimensions and ultimate direction are uncertain. Joint custody, the sharing of legal authority by divorced or separated parents over their children, is gaining acceptance as the best arrangement for most children when their parents divorce. The legal system is embracing this arrangement with remarkable enthusiasm, although until recently it was viewed as being of questionable legality and antithetical to the best interest of the child. Today, thirty states have joint custody laws, most of which have been enacted since 1980. A growing number of the more recent …

Domestic Relations Advocacy - Is There A Better Alternative, William D. Kraut

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Law Survey: Domestic Relations, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the decade since Kentucky's adoption of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act, the state's courts have faced the task of interpreting it in domestic relations litigation. This past year was no exception. A number of problems before Kentucky courts were recurrent issues. For example, the divisibility of educational degrees acquired by one spouse again required court assessment. Similarly, issues surrounding both maintenance and child support reappeared. These recurrent issues, along with new issues requiring court solution, heavily burdened trial and appellate courts. This Survey will discuss court resolutions of significant problems in the areas of marital property, maintenance and …

The Relevance Of Premarital Cohabitation To Property Division Awards In Divorce Proceedings: An Evaluation Of Present Trends And A Proposal For Legislative Reform, Barbara Freedman Wand

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

State Marital Property Laws And Federally Created Benefits: A Conflict Of Laws Analysis, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The laws of individual states have historically controlled familial relationships and the rights and responsibilities derived from them. The injection of federal rights into the domestic relations area has generally been confined to resolution of claims that the application of particular state laws violated either due process or equal protection rights of particular persons. In a limited number of cases concerning marital property, however, one party has relied upon a federal law creating a benefit or right that conflicts with the state-created rule apportioning marital property or establishing a support obligation. Such a conflict of laws problem arose in McCarty …

Kentucky Law Survey: Domestic Relations, Louise Everett Graham, Janet Jakubowicz

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the decade since Kentucky's adoption of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA), appellate domestic relations opinions have focused primarily upon property division and child custody. Recent decisions continue this emphasis but also address problems regarding the marital relationship, spousal maintenance, and child support. This article provides a survey of Kentucky law in the field of domestic relations.

Guarding The Altar: Physiological Restrictions And The Rise Of State Intervention In Matrimony, Michael Grossberg

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Women's Rights And The Proposed Family Protection Act, Karen Flax

University of Miami Law Review

In this article, the author examines the potential ramifications of the Family Protection Act, a bill recently introduced in the Senate by Senators Jespen and Laxalt. The author criticizes the bill both as a mechanism for legislatively enforcing the traditional role of women in American society and as a threat to civil liberties in general.

Joint Custody, Carolyn S. Bratt

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Shared custody has traditionally been looked upon with disfavor by the courts. Similarly, some professionals in the field of child development oppose the concept of shared custody. There are, however, several advantages to shared custody. The legal system benefits, as judges escape the unenviable task of playing Solomon. The child benefits because both parents continue to have a voice in the child’s upbringing, and the child continues to enjoy the love, advice, and companionship of both parents. In addition, because both parents share the responsibility of child raising, neither is faced with the loss of self-esteem which results from being …