Family Law Commons^™

Lessons From The New English And Australian Child Support Systems, J. Thomas Oldham

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In the last decade, both England and Australia have reformed their child support systems. While both nations desired to shift the financial burden of child support in single-parent families from society to absent parents, England and Australia enacted different administrative schemes to achieve this goal. In this Article, the author first explores the features of the English and Australian child support systems. The author then proceeds to analyze the merits of the two systems and the implications for other nations in light of the two nations' relative ability to achieve underlying policy goals.

The Unprecedented Intrusion: A Survey And Analysis Of Selected Grandparent Visitation Cases, Joan C. Bohl

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Losing The Struggle For Another Voice: The Case Of Family Law, Carol Smart

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper is based on empirical work in progress concerning co-parenting and the ways in which mothers and fathers organize the care of children after separation. It deals with two foundational issues: Gilligan's concept of "another voice" and its congruence with recent developments in family law in the United Kingdom and otherdeveloped countries including Canada and the United States. The author concludes that the ethic of care incorporated in the British legislation and given some expression in the judicial system does not fully recognize two kinds of caring. There is caring about and caring for. The caring about of fathers …

Why Teach International Family Law In Conflicts?, William L. Reynolds

Faculty Scholarship

[The author] sets forth a challenge to conflicts professors: to teach international family law in their conflict of laws classes. At present, many conflicts professors avoid teaching international family law, in part because the study of this subject is complicated by several statutes addressing particularly difficult issues. Ignorning international family law is unwise, because many United States citizens and lawyers are likely to confront such problems.

Jurisdictional Conflicts Between Juvenile Courts And Child Welfare Agencies: The Uneasy Relationship Between Institutional Co-Parents, Bruce A. Boyer

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parents As Fiduciaries, Elizabeth S. Scott, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Traditionally, the law has deferred to the rights of biological parents in regulating the parent-child relationship. More recently, as the emphasis of legal regulation has shifted to protecting children's interests, critics have targeted the traditional focus on parents' rights as impeding the goal of promoting children's welfare. Some contemporary scholars argue instead for a "child-centered perspective," in contrast to the current regime under which biological parents continue to have important legal interests in their relationship with their children. The underlying assumption of this claim is that the rights of parents and the interests of children often are conflicting, and that …

Reflections On A Case (Of Motherhood), Jane M. Spinak

Faculty Scholarship

She surveyed my office for signs of conspiracy. We had had two or three telephone conversations that had conveyed my ambivalence about representing her. A former colleague had urged her to call the clinic for help but I was reluctant to accept her case for the clinic: we rarely represented foster parents and the procedural complexity of the case convinced me that I would be unable to assign students to represent this client so late in the semester. I was resigned, however, to help her find a lawyer, both because a former colleague had sent her and because the snippets …

A Maternalistic Approach To Surrogacy: Comment On Richard Epstein's Surrogacy: The Case For Full Contractual Enforcement, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Many of the other participants in this Symposium have written extensively about surrogacy. Not only have they contributed to the debate, in some instances they have framed it. In some respects, therefore, I merely thank all of them and chime in. Unlike my fellow panelists, however, I do not think surrogacy merits an enthusiastic, positive response.

In this Comment, I propose to restate objections to specifically enforceable surrogacy contracts from a family-law perspective as well as from the philosophical or psychological roots of family law. I will then reexamine the problems of surrogacy from a contractarian, law-and-economics perspective, showing how …

The United Nations International Conference On Population And Development: Religion, Tradition, And Law In Latin America, Gregory M. Saylin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

At the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, the Vatican, along with several Latin American and Muslim nations, fought against First World nations that sought to include provisions relating to abortion, contraception, sexual education, and women's issues in the Conference's Program of Action. Universal agreement was not reached and several nations, including the Vatican, refused to completely join the Program of Action.

This Note examines the history and theory behind the United Nations population conferences. Against this background, the author examines the 1994 Conference and considers its effect on Latin America by discussing the religion, tradition, and …

United States: Deconstructing The American Family - Developments In Family Law During 1993, Lynn D. Wardle, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

Persons unfamiliar with the American legal system might be dismayed by the variety and inconsistency of developments in domestic relations law during 1993. The key to comprehending family law in the United States is to know that, within the broad parameters set by the Constitution and minimal federal legislation, each of the fifty American states retains substantial constitutional autonomy when regulating domestic relations. As a result, "a hundred flowers bloom" in American family law-in the form of tremendously varied (sometimes diametrically inconsistent) statutes, policies and doctrines. Despite national trends, novelties or developments of potentially broad interest that occur every year, …

Pillow Talk, Richard Hyland

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Why Teach International Family Law In Conflicts?, William L. Reynolds

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Professor Reynolds sets forth a challenge to conflicts professors: to teach international family law in their conflict of laws classes. At present, many conflicts professors avoid teaching international family law, in part because the study of this subject is complicated by several statutes addressing particularly difficult issues. Ignoring international family law is unwise, because many United States citizens and lawyers are likely to confront such problems.

Moreover, this Article suggests several additional reasons for including international family law in the general conflicts course. First, litigants entangled in divorce and custody proceedings with international complications face high financial and emotional costs; …

Models For Parenthood In Adoption Law: The French Conception, Laura J. Schwartz

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

According to Ms. Schwartz, adoption in the United States is currently in a state of disarray and confusion because it has not achieved a satisfactory balance between biological and psychological parent-child relationships. U.S. adoption law has never adequately evaluated the relative importance of both types of relationships to the process of family formation. In contrast, although French adoption faces many of the same challenges as U.S. adoption, the French adoption process is not riddled with the same inconsistency and indeterminacy. Instead, French adoption law and government family policy reflect a societal consensus on the central and intrinsic importance of biological …

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

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Grandparents, Parents And Grandchildren: Actualizing Interdependency In Law, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Your Right To Privacy And Children's Rights/Family Law: A Selective Bibliography, Sandra S. Klein

Journal Articles

In a society increasingly aware of real or perceived social inequities, it is not surprising to note a greater concern for the rights of children and their families. It is also apparent that privacy issues are an integral subset of the larger social sphere of interests. Privacy aspects can be seen to be involved pervasively throughout the area of law dealing with children and families, especially in view of the fact that there is obvious potential for conflict not only between families and the state, but between children and the families of which they are a part

Comment On Jana Singer's Alimony And Efficiency, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

I propose to make three comments on Professor Singer's article. First, I will present my views on the limitations of law and economics when applied to family law. Second, I will discuss why specialization between husbands and wives is not necessarily efficient, and perhaps not even the best use of law and economics in the study of the family. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, I will question whether there are gender differences that should impact alimony law.

Due Process Rights Of Parents And Children In International Child Abductions, Dorothy C. Daigle

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Rising divorce rates in recent years have led to increasingly frequent abductions of children by one parent away from the other parent. Often, abducting parents move the children to different jurisdictions in which the parents believe they can obtain a more favorable decision on custody. To remedy this problem, twenty-nine nations joined in 1980 to adopt the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. This Convention mandates the immediate return, upon request, of the abducted child to the state of habitual residence of the child. The Convention includes several limited exceptions to this mandate, applicable at the …

Introduction: Family Law In The 1990s -- New Problems, Strong Solutions, L. Elizabeth Bowles

Vanderbilt Law Review

The 1992 Presidential campaign was fraught with references to "family values." While Vice President Quayle took on a fictional television character for choosing to have a child out of wedlock," candidate Clinton was vowing support for the Family Leave Bill and other pro- family measures. Although the political rhetoric of the 1992 campaign was partisan in nature, the emphasis placed on the family by the political parties reflects the seriousness of the problems facing the American family in the 1990s. The American family is not the same entity that it was twenty years ago. Now, "nontraditional" families, such as single …

Divorce Obligations And Bankruptcy Discharge: Rethinking The Support/Property Distinction, Jana B. Singer

Faculty Scholarship

The Bankruptcy Code currently divides divorce-related obligations into two categories: awards or agreements in the nature of support are non-dischargeable; obligations arising from property divisions can be discharged in the same manner as ordinary commercial debts. Because recent developments in family law have undermined the support/property distinction and because privately negotiated divorce agreements often fail to distinguish between payments intended to serve as support and those intended to distribute property, the Code's reliance on this classification often leads to confusion and hardship for divorce obligees. In addition, because of the rise of equitable distribution as the dominant method of allocating …

Domestic Violence, The Family And The Lawyering Process: Lessons From Studies On Gender Bias In The Courts, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

State Interest Analysis And The Channeling Function, Carl E. Scheider

Book Chapters

In this article, I wish to criticize the narrowness of the Supreme Court's conception of the interests states may advance to justify statutes challenged on constitutional privacy grounds. I also wish to identify and describe one of the several state interests that not infrequently undergirds such legislation but that the Court has failed to understand.

Implementing Custody Mediation In Family Court: Some Comments On The Jefferson County Family Court Experience, Louise Everett Graham

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Jefferson Family Court's custody mediation service was developed as part of a larger program creating the first family court system in Kentucky. The mediation service's connection with the Family Court has influenced both practical and policy aspects of its development. Any description of the mediation project necessarily entails some description of the court system that created it.

This Article describes the structure of the Jefferson Family Court and the custody mediation process as it has developed in Jefferson County. A review of one community's approach to custody mediation may be useful not only as a blueprint for a system's …

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 …

Evolution And Revolution In Family Law, Victoria M. Mather

Faculty Articles

Family law has significantly changed over the last twenty-five years, and certain areas will likely continue to change. Family law tends to follow, rather than lead, social upheaval and adjustment in family decisions and structures. The most important legal changes in family law are a result of massive shifts in American social, political, and economic constructs in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

Family law will continue to evolve because of three critical developments. First is the expansion of the concept of what constitutes a “family” in the modern context. Next is the treatment of children as autonomous individuals, separate and …

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 …

Why Civil Protection Orders Are Effective Remedies For Domestic Violence But Mutual Protective Orders Are Not, Elizabeth Topliffe

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Burns V. Burns, 91-Ap-21 (Blkft. Tr. Ct. App., Sep. 27, 1992), Blackfeet Appellate Court

Court Decisions

• Petitioner is Lorraine Burns and she applied to the Blackfeet Court of Appeals for an issuance of a Writ of Supervisory Control requiring the Tribal Court to enforce all of its prior orders directing that Robert Burns, Respondent, be arrested for failure to pay her any of the sums due to her from the Decree of Dissolution and Stipulation with Regard to Division of Property. 

• Respondent was served, but did not respond.  

• The Appeals Court had already, twice, affirmed that Respondent be arrested for his failure to comply with the Decree of Dissolution and Stipulation. By a motion dated March …

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The Privatization Of Family Law, Jana B. Singer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Plight Of The Agunah: A Study In Halacha, Contract, And The First Amendment, Irving Breitowitz

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.