Family Law Commons^™

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 …

Sicelo Edgar Mpanza N.O V Jabulile Lucy Mpanza And Others (28/2023) [2023] Szsc 59 (18/122023), Phakama C. Shili, Simangele D. Mavundla

SAIPAR Case Review

This case note provides a critical analysis of the landmark Eswatini Supreme Court case of Mpanza v Mpanza as it pertains to nullification of colonial legislative provisions that discriminate against individuals who were married under customary law during their lifetime by exempting their estates from the jurisdiction of the Master of the High Court. Section 68 of the Administration of Estates Act of 1902 regulates the administration of the estates of Africans who die having contracted a customary marriage and encompasses specific clauses that establish the exclusion of the estates from the jurisdiction of the Master of the High Court. …

Governance And Islam In East Africa: Muslims And The State In Kenya And Tanzania, Farouk Topan, Kai Kresse, Erin E. Stiles, Hassan Mwakimako

Exploring Muslim Contexts

Explores the relationship between Muslim communities and the State in East Africa in political, institutional and legal contexts

• Focuses on the relationship between Muslims and the State in Kenya and Tanzania
• Asks which factors, both within and outside the Muslim community, shape and affect this relationship in contemporary times
• Presents 13 case studies exploring governance issues within and across the categories of politics, institutions and law in Kenya and Tanzania
• Identifies cross-cutting issues of governance and Muslim communities which are relevant beyond East Africa

Recent studies of Muslims in Kenya and Tanzania have tended either to examine governance of Muslims …

A Parent's Guide To Social Media Safety, Catherine Grimley

Gator Team Child Juvenile Law Clinic

The goal of this White Paper is to provide parents and other caregivers with a compilation of literature from some of the most popular social media platforms in one convenient place. It aims to help parents understand what parental controls and account settings are available, so they can facilitate important conversations with their teens regarding social media safety.

Ethics In Law And The Effects On Mental Health: An Interview Study, Kaitlyn Nyffeler

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

On August 2, 1983, The American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct were adopted by the House of Delegates. This set of rules provides legal professionals with the guidance needed to uphold the rule of law and to preserve justice. In this set of rules, lawyers learn the duties of confidentiality, client relations, diligence, and the overall conduct owed to the courts. Furthermore, these duties can be demanding and oftentimes challenging. Therefore, this study examined the different ethical rules as they apply to lawyers and how these demands can impact their mental health. Interviews were conducted with six lawyers …

Julius Sibanda V Flat Mooyo (2019/Hp/A026) [2024] (30 April 2024), Mwami Kabwabwa

SAIPAR Case Review

This case calls upon the judiciary to move beyond a rigid application of customary law and thoughtfully consider the gender implications in matters of child custody and marital dissolution. In this pivotal judgment, the High Court had an opportunity to address the application of Ndebele customary law, particularly the custom that grants fathers sole custody of children after lobola is paid. However, the court missed a crucial chance to engage deeply with the evolving nature of customary law, which should be interpreted in a manner that upholds gender equality and constitutional rights.

Distinguishing Family Poverty From Child Neglect, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

Family courts and child protective services (“CPS”) agencies surveil, regulate, and separate hundreds of thousands of families for neglect annually. These families are overwhelmingly poor, and the history of this legal system reveals an expectation, if not an intention, to intervene in poor families. This raises the question whether family courts and CPS agencies are “confusing poverty and neglect” or if they intervene for more than “just poverty,” as a raging debate in the field is framed.

The law fails to help resolve this debate. Instead of distinguishing poverty from neglect, or providing nuanced examinations of what social science has …

Murder And A Mother’S Love: Understanding Maternal Altruistic Filicide And Reshaping The Legal System’S Approach To Mentally Ill Mothers Who Kill Their Children, Morgan Woodbridge

Journal of Law and Policy

Every year, thousands of children are killed by their parents. Some of these killings are committed by mentally ill mothers who believe that death is in their children's best interest. This category of killings is called maternal altruistic filicide. Numerous studies have found that mothers who commit altruistic filicide are severely mentally ill and have histories of psychiatric illness, trauma, and suicidality. Despite this, mothers who commit altruistic filicide are often railroaded through the criminal legal system without access to adequate mental health care. Traditional legal procedures designed to assist the mentally ill, such as the insanity defense or the …

The Right To Preschool: Once A Wartime Necessity, Now A Fundamental Step Towards Educational Equity, Alex Raskin

Journal of Law and Policy

The most vital time for cognitive development is the first five years of a child’s life, impacting everything from language skills to social and emotional abilities. This makes access to high-quality universal preschool a necessity, as increasingly more families are without stable childcare in America. Preschool tuition now averages $10,000 annually and without paid parental leave, millions of children are left without formal learning or adequate supervision before kindergarten. This disproportionately impacts Black and brown students and students with disabilities, while continuing cycles of poverty and the gender wage gap. The only time the U.S. government provided high-quality universal preschool …

Where Do Families Come From? The Law Of Family Definition, Katharine Baker

BYU Law Review

Why does the law recognize families? Sometimes family recognition serves to foster cooperative communities in which sharing norms, more than the market or the government, determine rights and obligations. These communities often take care of dependents and serve as important sources of individual self-determination and pluralism. At other times, family delineation serves a corrective purpose, when it forces family members who are not sharing with each other to do so. At still other times, family delineation serves a distributive purpose, as when the law uses “family” definition to distribute resources to determine an intended beneficiary. This use of “family” for …

Fear Of Love And Loving In India, Sarasu Esther Thomas

Popular Media

Excerpt:

It is unthinkable that marriages and live-in relationships between adults should become so regimented by the State. This is a violation of constitutional and human rights to have adult agency appropriated by the state and non-state actors. This insidious creeping of the paternalistic State into romantic and intimate relationships of consenting adults does not show any signs of ebbing. It reflects increased polarisation and merges moral policing with the law.

5th Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Alternative Dispute Resolution In Montana: A Catalog Of The Local Rules In Montana District Courts, Brianna Anderson, Brock Flynn

Student Scholarship

A catalog of the Local ADR Rules for the Montana Judicial District Courts, including rules about settlement conferences, mediation, and informal domestic relations trials.

Children Seen But Not Heard, Stacey B. Steinberg

UF Law Faculty Publications

Children are expected to abide by the will of their parents. In the last 200 years, American jurisprudence has given parents the ability to control their children’s upbringing with few exceptions. The principle governing this norm is that parents know best and will use their better knowledge to protect their children’s welfare.

The COVID-19 pandemic, public school rules, and children’s privacy laws offer modern examples of regulations in which the interests of parents and children may not align. Minors may want access to vaccines, despite a parent’s refusal to sign a consent form. Minors may want to talk to their …

The Myth Of Children’S Online Privacy Protection, Stacey Steinberg

UF Law Faculty Publications

Digital technology has changed the landscape young people face as they come of age. It has changed how children interact with their parents, schools, community organizations, and the state. Despite many benefits, digital technologies that employ data collection, algorithms, and artificial intelligence pose significant risks for the next generation. Private businesses can collect, use, and sell a child’s data in ways never imagined by their families. Information collected by third parties with good intentions can be stolen through data breaches. Through faulty algorithms, websites can make inaccurate assumptions about young people’s interests, teachers can make inaccurate assumptions about a student’s …

Missing Coercive Control In Family Court Proceedings, Carrie Leonetti

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

In New Zealand, like in the United States, coercive control generally remains outside the purview of the criminal law. It is therefore crucially important that court personnel identify and respond appropriately to coercive control in family law proceedings. Their continued focus on discrete incidents of physical violence between adults conceals the patterned and gendered nature of most [interpersonal violence] in which women are victimized and the patriarchal context of male privilege that continues to dominate heterosexual relationships. The failure to identify coercive control contributes to victims’ entrapment and increases the risk of violence continuing post-separation.

Cases involving coercive control generally …