Family Law Commons^™

Le Droit Myope, Régine Tremblay

All Faculty Publications

Cet essai présente la violence conjugale comme un enjeu de droit privé et de droit public, comme une problématique qui se situe au confluent de ces deux catégories considérées comme mutuellement exclusives. L'évolution de la perception de I'homosexualité en droit public a transformé notre idée du couple en droit privé. Ceci remet en question notre façon de penser le couple, les individus qui le composent et la violence qui s'y produit.

Judicial Oversight Over The Interstate Placement Of Foster Children: The Missing Element In Current Efforts To Reform The Interstate Compact On The Placement Of Children, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

This article argues that current efforts to reform the Compact are flawed because they lack an essential element: judicial oversight of agency decision-making. The first section explores the important role that juvenile court judges play in making placement decisions for foster children. Next, an examination of the current problems in the interstate placement process demonstrates the vital need for judicial oversight of the system. Finally, a specific proposal is put forth on how best to incorporate judicial oversight without interfering with the sovereignty of states.

Putting Children Last: How Washington Has Failed To Protect The Dependent Child's Best Interest In Visitation, Jennifer K. Smith

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment proposes three amendments to the Washington Visitation Statute that would ensure juvenile courts properly focus on the long-term best interests of children and reduce children's exposure to abuse in the visitation setting. To analyze the existing tension between the rights of parents and the rights of children, Part II of this Comment traces the development of family rights and state intervention under Roman, constitutional, and Washington law. In particular, this Part focuses on the origins of parental rights, the parens patriae right of states, and the rights of children. Part III addresses the dependency process in Washington by …

Familial Norms And Normality Colloquium Celebrating 25th Anniversary Of Feminism And Legal Theory Project, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Social norms exert a powerful influence on families. They shape major life decisions, such as whether to marry and how many children to have, as well as everyday decisions, such as how to discipline children and divide household labor. Emotion is a defining feature of these familial social norms, giving force and content to norms in contexts as varied as reproductive choice, parenting, and same-sex relationships. These emotion-laden norms do not stand apart from the law. Falling along a continuum of involvement that ranges from direct regulation to choice architecture, state sway over social norms through their emotional valence is …

Same-Sex Marriage And The Establishment Clause, Geoffrey R. Stone

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Child Support And (In) Ability To Pay: The Case For The Cost Shares Model, Pamela Foohey

Scholarly Works

Currently enacted child support guidelines primarily focus on maintaining children's economic well-being when a single household is split into two. This article argues that this focus discounts another consideration which, when combined with the current analysis, could further advance children's well-being: the ability of parents to pay. An analysis of payment characteristics demonstrates that lower child support obligations may increase the amount of child support paid on average. Lowering presumptive obligations will make lower-income parents better able and more likely to pay their obligations, thereby increasing the amount of child support paid to lower-income children, while at most only marginally …

Raising The Cut-Off: The Empirical Case For Extending Adoption And Guardianship Subsidies From Age 18 To 21, Mary Eschelbach Hansen, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

This article begins with the context: despite increases in the number of adoptions from foster care achieved in the 1990s, tens of thousands of children remain in foster care awaiting adoption or permanent guardianship. The following section provides background on subsidy law and policy. The section describes the recent history of federal and state subsidies for parents who adopt children from the state foster care systems; the section describes state subsidies for caregivers who become legal permanent guardians of children in the state child welfare systems, and the section describes the disparities between adoption and guardianship subsidies and the subsidies …

Happy Families? Translating Positive Psychology Into Family Law, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the well-documented finding in the field of positive psychology that close interpersonal relationships are significantly correlated with subjective well-being and thriving communities, scholars have yet to bring together positive psychology and family law. And what is family law if not the law of close interpersonal relationships? Positive psychology and related work have the potential to inform the what, the why, and the how of family law, but realizing the potential of positive psychology as a guide for family law involves challenges. In particular, it requires translating the descriptive science of psychology into the prescriptive policies of family law. This …

The Momentum Of Posthumous Conception: A Model Act, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

This Article addresses the scenario of when, through advanced medical technology, a procedure is performed resulting in the birth of a child more than three hundred days-a time suggested by some statutes-after the death of the gamete provider. The embryo may result from in vitro fertilization or from a woman being artificially inseminated with the sperm of a deceased male gamete provider. And of course the woman could have predeceased too and left a viable ova, that was then fertilized with the sperm of a living or a deceased male to create an embryo, which was then placed into a …

Foreword Symposium: Having It Our Way: Women In Maryland's Workplace Circa 2027, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

On November 14, 2007, the University of Baltimore School of Law, the University of Maryland School of Law and the Women's Law Center of Maryland co-sponsored a symposium entitled "Having it Our Way: Women in Maryland's Workplace Circa 2027." The insightful collection of papers in this volume of the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class represents the work of employment law scholars, public policy specialists, and activists who presented on the current state of Maryland employment law and discussed Maryland's future. This distinguished group of experts and scholars present several themes: the hope of new …

It's Not Just Shopping Urban Lofts, And The Lesbian Gay-By Boom: How Sexual Orientation Demographics Can Inform Family Courts , Todd Brower

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Hebrew Language Has Not Created A Title For Me: A Legal And Sociolinguistic Analysis Of New-Type Families, Michael Tamir, Dalia Cahana-Amitay

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Considering Mom: Maternity And The Model Act Governing Assisted Reproductive Technology, Charles P. Kindregan Jr.

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Marriage As A Message: Same-Sex Couples And The Rhetoric Of Accidental Procreation, Kerry Abrams, Peter Brooks

Faculty Scholarship

In his dissent in the 2003 case Goodridge v. Department of Health, Justice Robert Cordy of the Massachusetts Supreme Court introduced a novel argument in support of state bans on same-sex marriage: that marriage is an institution designed to create a safe social and legal space for accidental heterosexual reproduction, a space that is not necessary for same-sex couples who, by definition, cannot accidentally reproduce. Since 2003, every state appellate court considering a same-sex marriage case has adopted Justice Cordy's dissent until the recent California Supreme Court decision In Re Marriage Cases. In case after case, courts have held that …

Child Support And (In)Ability To Pay: The Case For The Cost Shares Model, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Currently enacted child support guidelines primarily focus on maintaining children's economic well-being when a single household is split into two. This article argues that this focus discounts another consideration which, when combined with the current analysis, could further advance children's well-being: the ability of parents to pay. An analysis of payment characteristics demonstrates that lower child support obligations may increase the amount of child support paid on average. Lowering presumptive obligations will make lower-income parents better able and more likely to pay their obligations, thereby increasing the amount of child support paid to lower-income children, while at most only marginally …

Who Is A Parent?, Michelle M. Botek, Dorothy R. Fait, Jillian L. Dilaura

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Surrogacy And The Politics Of Commodification, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

In 2004, the Illinois legislature passed the Gestational Surrogacy Act, which provides that a child conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and born to a surrogate mother automatically becomes the legal child of the intended parents at birth if certain conditions are met. Under the Act, the woman who bears the child has no parental status. The bill generated modest media attention, but little controversy; it passed unanimously in both houses of the legislature and was signed into law by the governor.

This mundane story of the legislative process in action stands in sharp contrast to the political tale of …

The Hidden Dimension Of Nineteenth-Century Immigration Law, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Coming Collision: Romer And State Defense Of Marriage Acts, Patrick J. Borchers

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abortion Across State Lines, Joseph W. Dellapenna

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Interstate Pluralism: The Role Of Federalism In The Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Jeffrey L. Rensberger

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Interstate Recognition Of Adoptions: On Jurisdiction, Full Faith And Credit, And The Kinds Of Challenges The Future May Bring, Mark Strasser

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Slavery To Same-Sex Marriage: Comity Versus Public Policy In Inter-Jurisdictional Recognition Of Controversial Domestic Relations, Lynn D. Wardle

BYU Law Review

Recognition across state and national borders of controversial forms of domestic relationships have existed throughout the history of conflict of laws, creating tension between two important principles: respect for comity and protection of valued domestic public policies. Drawing upon several examples, and particularly the history of international and intrastate recognition of slavery (a “domestic relationship”) in Anglo-American history, the article shows that despite the comity-based presumption of respect for legal status created in other jurisdictions, when strong public policies protective of domestic relations and status have been implicated, American states consistently have declined to give interstate recognition to those controversial …

Intolerable Situations And Counsel For Children: Following Switzerland's Example In Hague Abduction Cases , Merle H. Weiner

American University Law Review

In the twilight days of 2007, Switzerland took decisive action to protect children who were being harmed by the application of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction ("Hague Abduction Convention" or "Convention"). 1 Its Parliament passed the Federal Act on International Child Abduction and the Hague Conventions on the Protection of Children and Adults ("Swiss Act"). 2 The Swiss Act, which should enter into force in mid-2009, 3 gives important and necessary guidance to Swiss courts about the phrase "intolerable situation" in Article 13(b) of the Hague Abduction Convention. 4 The Swiss Act also directs …

Domestic Relations, Barry B. Mcgough, Elinor H. Hitt

Mercer Law Review

This survey period saw continued evolution of domestic relations law through changes in legislation and caselaw. Legislation passed by the 2007 Georgia General Assembly took effect during this survey period. The Georgia Supreme Court continued to accept nonfrivolous appeals in divorce cases that offer guidance to those interested in domestic relations law.

Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845 (Sc 1768), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1768. Letter, 26 April 1825, from Andrew Jackson, Nashville, Tennessee to A. P. Maury, also of Nashville, in which he declines to act as guardian for the children of the late Major John Reid owing to ill health and increased responsibilities.

Best Interests And Parental Presumptions: Bringing Same-Sex Custody Agreements Beyond Preclusion By The Federal Defense Of Marriage Act, Alison M. Schmieder

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Parent Trap: Differential Familial Power In Same-Sex Families, Deirdre M. Bowen

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

Do intact same-sex couples where one member of the couple became pregnant with assisted reproduction or was the primary adopter, and the other member became a parent through second parent adoption, understand the legal protections afforded them? In short the answer is no. An interesting family dynamic arises around those who can claim the true status as parent based on their legal understandings of parenthood and their interactions with the dominant culture. While high profile custody cases on this issue have been decided in the United States with varying results, no research has examined the impact of uneven legal protections …

The Changing Face Of Family Law: Global Consequences Of Embedding Physicians And Biotechnology In The Parent-Child Relationship, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Sexual reproduction, also known as making babies the old-fashioned way, has always brought with it significant challenges for family law, especially regarding protecting the best interests of children, and the identification of parents with the right and responsibility to rear them. But these challenges often seem mundane in the face of what has evolved since physicians have been injected into baby making and thus into novel parent-child relationships. The addition of physicians and their "new" medical technologies, sometimes called Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), have forced the law to reconsider the very definition of motherhood and have radically altered society's view …

Individualized Justice In Disputes Over Dead Bodies, Frances H. Foster

Vanderbilt Law Review

In February 2007, the world had a ringside seat to a truly macabre fight. Under the glare of television cameras, Anna Nicole Smith's nearest but not dearest' battled in a Florida probate court over custody of her body. The parties agreed on only one point: "Anna Nicole Smith's appearance was a paramount issue to her." Yet, those same parties denied Anna Nicole after death the beauty she prized during life. Because of their protracted legal wrangling, Anna Nicole went to her grave a decomposed corpse in a closed casket. Anna Nicole Smith's tragic fate is by no means unique. For …