Family Law Commons^™

Surrogacy From The Perspectives Of Economic And Civil Liberties, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The field of law and economics, of which Judge Posner is the leading theorist, has offered a rich and sophisticated framework for thinking about a wide variety of problems at the interface of law and society. The theory, based on economic principles for understanding behavioral incentives and disincentives, is widely taught in law schools and is influential in scholarship. I have not always agreed with the application of the theory to complex problems of individual and group behavior, yet I constantly have been impressed with the elegance of the writing and analysis.

Judge Posner thinks about surrogacy arrangements in terms …

Child Care For Families Leaving Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, Rebecca L. Scharf, Sujatha Jagadeesh Branch, Cynthia Godsoe, Sherry Leiwant, Roslyn Powell, Cary Lacheen

Scholarly Works

Since Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program in 1996, the welfare rolls have decreased by more than 40 percent. While unemployment and poverty rates have declined, families who leave welfare generally earn low wages and remain below the poverty level. Because families leaving welfare are mostly single mothers with young children, child care is critical to their ability to work outside the home. Low-income parents trying to make ends meet, as well as employers of low-wage workers, emphasize the importance of appropriate, affordable child care in enabling women who leave welfare …

The Case Against Same-Sex “Marriage”, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

Argues that same-sex “marriage” is a logical and practical impossibility and has serious implications for both other aspects of family law and the respect for human life and children in our culture. Asserts that the movement for same-sex “marriage” is a logical outgrowth of our culture’s separation of sex and procreation. Argues that the basis for opposition to this movement may be the residual reservoir of traditional understanding about marriage in the American public.

An Introduction To The Model Standards Of Practice For Family And Divorce Mediation, Andrew Schepard

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

On February 19, 2001, upon the recommendation of both the Family Law (FLS) and Dispute Resolution Sections, the American Bar Association's House of Delegates adopted the Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation (“Model Family Mediation Standards” or “Model Standards”), which are published in this issue of the Family Law Quarterly.

The aim of the Model Family Mediation Standards is to promote public confidence in an evolving, interdisciplinary profession by defining good mediation practice. The family mediation profession (which includes many lawyers) created the Model Family Mediation Standards in consultation with the family …

Self-Defense And Subjectivity, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The law of self-defense has rarely produced as much academic or popular heat as it has in the past two decades. Widely publicized trials, such as the Goetz and Menendez cases, have generated deep-seated fears of a law unmoored from principle. Those fears have generated a standard public critique--that the criminal law has become too soft and subjective, too wedded to syndrome science and prone to weak-kneed affection for defendants. The criminal law has lost its "objectivity," so the argument goes. The poster child, and even the alleged cause of this development, is the battered woman.

In this article, the …

Separated Spouses, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Economics Of Dowry: Causes And Effects Of An Indian Tradition, Tonushree Jaggi

University Avenue Undergraduate Journal of Economics

I argue that dowries exist because of a combination of two reasons. First, there is an excess supply of women in the Indian marriage market that results in the use of dowry as an equilibrating mechanism. Secondly, a differential in the patterns of human capital accumulation of men and women have led to a larger positive benefit from marriage for women than for men, the net difference of which is theoretically equivalent to the amount of the dowry. Both these explanations for the existence of dowry are fundamentally grounded in the powerful social and cultural ideologies of marriage held by …

Indian Child Welfare Act: Keeping Families Together And Minimizing Litigation, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Foster Care: The Border Of Family Identity Maintaining, (Re)Creating, Destroying, Zanita E. Fenton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Confronting The Agency In Battered Mothers, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

Despite the progress of the last three decades, the American public and even feminists remain caught in a web of ambivalence and contradictory attitudes and beliefs about battered women. Are battered women traumatized victims who suffer at the hands of their individual abusers and from the systemic failures of a male-dominated culture? Are they, therefore, unable to save themselves or their children? In contrast, are these women survivors who manage to protect themselves as best they can under uniquely difficult circumstances? Do they deserve recognition for their efforts, or do battered women somehow contribute to or exacerbate their own abuse …

Transgressing The Border Between Protection And Empowerment For Domestic Violence Victims And Older Children: Empowerment As Protection In The Foster Care System, Susan Vivian Mangold

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

A Family Affair: Constitutional And Prudential Interests Implicated When Homosexuals Seek To Preserve Or Create Parent-Child Relationships, Kif Skidmore

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Moving Toward A First-Best World: Minnesota's Position On Multiethnic Adoptions, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

The best world allows a child to grow to adulthood with biological parents, or at least one parent, who love the child unconditionally and who have resources to support the child. A second-best world allows the child to permanently and completely become part of an extended family that loves him or her and has the resources for supporting and meeting the child's needs. Hopefully this process costs little in terms of time or emotional or physical harm to the child. In traditional third-party adoptions, the child permanently moves and becomes part of (hopefully, at low cost) a family that will …

What Constitutional Law Can Learn From The Ali Principles Of Family Dissolution, David D. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Ali Principles: A Farewell To Fault--But What Remedy For The Egregious Marital Misconduct Of An Abusive Spouse, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

The fundamental premise of this commentary is that the ALl has erred in not including appropriate nonfinancial fault-based factors in the Principles for three major reasons: 1) other no-fault laws, including no-fault automobile insurance law, no-fault workers compensation law, and strict liability in tort law, have all incorporated a number of fault-based exceptions to their general no-fault framework for serious or egregious conduct, and American divorce law should likewise have a similar fault-based exception for serious or egregious marital misconduct; 2) a substantial number of states continue to recognize and utilize a number of fault-based statutory factors in divorce for …

Law, Marriage, And Intimate Commitment, Milton C. Regan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Does society have any interest in the stability of marriage per se - that is, apart from any concerns about the impact of divorce on children or financially dependent spouses? Should law try in any way to reinforce an ethic of commitment in marriage as a good in and of itself? . . . Two social trends make this a timely issue. First is the steady erosion of the link between marriage and procreation over the last generation. More married couples do not have children; more children are born outside of marriage. A second trend is the rise of unmarried …

Calibrated Commitment: The Legal Treatment Of Marriage And Cohabitation, Milton C. Regan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A couple of points are worth making at the outset of my argument. First, I speak in this Essay primarily about the extension of benefits to domestic partners, rather than the imposition of duties upon them. That is because this has been the focus of most of the debate about the legal treatment of married and unmarried couples. I readily acknowledge, however, that a fuller debate would consider not only when domestic partners should be given rights, but also when they should assume certain responsibilities. Indeed, as I will make clear, one reason for rejecting certain claims by unmarried couples …

The Children Of Homosexual Parents: The Voices The Courts Have Yet To Hear. , Eileen P. Huff

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Does Your Mediator Measure Up?: Standards Of Practice For Family And Divorce Mediation, Andrew Schepard, Ann Milne

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In most states, mediators are largely self-regulated. However, a variety of means have been developed to ensure that mediation services are provided in a competent and professional manner. Some regulation has been undertaken by state governments, courts, and professional associations. In addition, the Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation have been adopted by the American Bar Association (ABA), the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and other state and local family and divorce mediation groups.

The Idea Of Adoption: An Inquiry Into The History Of Adult Adoptee Access To Birth Records, Elizabeth Samuels

All Faculty Scholarship

There has been in recent years and there continues to be intense debate around the country about whether to open original birth records to adult adoptees. Our understanding of the legal history relevant to the debate has been incomplete and inaccurate. According to this understanding, the state laws that closed court and birth records to the parties to adoptions generally closed these records for all time to all parties; the laws had a primary purpose of insuring lifelong anonymity for birth parents; and the laws became nearly universal by about the middle of the twentieth century. In fact, the history …

The Strange History Of Adult Adoptee Access To Original Birth Records, Elizabeth Samuels

All Faculty Scholarship

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, contemporary accounts reported that most states had sealed adoption court records completely but, typically, had sealed original birth certificates from all persons except adult adoptees. Through the 1950s influential experts recommended that original birth certificates remain available to adult adoptees, while birth and court records otherwise be closed to all persons except upon court order. In 1960 the laws in some 40 percent of the states still permitted adult adoptees to inspect them, but between 1960 and 1990 all but a handful of the rest of the states closed the birth records to …

Feminism And Child Custody Under Chapter Two Of The American Law Institute's Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

The Chief Reporter of the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution wrote in his introduction; "Children are necessarily at the heart of any set of principles of family law." My favorite chapter of the Principles is Chapter Two, entitled "Principles Governing the Allocation of Custodial and Decisionmaking Responsibilities for Children." As of this writing, Chapter Two holds the distinction of being the only portion to have been adopted by a state legislature. While other Chapters had Reporters who were women, Chapter Two not only had a feminist Reporter, but the "allocation principle" that forms the substantive …

Vermont Civil Unions, Full Faith And Credit, And Marital Status, Lewis A. Silverman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Care As A Public Value: Linking Responsibility, Resources, And Republicanism, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

I begin this Article with the preceding two statements concerning care for children because they focus on the relationship between resources and responsibility and capture two conflicting approaches to that relationship. The first statement resists a definition of "responsibility" that leaves out the work of social reproduction, that is, of caring for children and preparing them to take their place as responsible, self-governing members of society. Highlighting the lack of resources that poor parents face when tackling the work of social reproduction, the statement also suggests common ground among parents across class lines as to the importance of caring for …

Divorce, Children's Welfare, And The Culture Wars, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Are children harmed when their parents divorce? If so, should parents' freedom to end marriage be restricted? These questions have generated uncertainty and controversy in the decades since legal restraints on divorce have been lifted. During the 1970s and 80s, the traditional conviction that parents should stay together "for the sake of the children" was supplanted by a view that children are usually better off if their unhappy parents divorce. By this account, divorcing parents should simply try to accomplish the change in status with as little disruption to their children's lives as possible. This stance has been challenged sharply …

Mission Impossible: On Baker, Equal Benefits, And The Imposition Of Stigma, Mark Strasser

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In Baker v. State, the Vermont Supreme Court held that the state constitution required same-sex couples be afforded the same benefits and protections that married couples receive. While the state did not need to recognize same-sex marriage, at the very least, it needed to create a parallel system providing equal benefits. Professor Mark Strasser argues that a civil union alternative ultimately would not meet the court's requirements because it cannot possibly provide this requisite equality. His central concern is the differing treatment that same-sex marriage and domestic partnerships receive from other states. Additionally, Professor Strasser notes that such a system …

Domestic Relations, Barry B. Mcgough, Gregory R. Miller

Mercer Law Review

Of the domestic relations appellate cases decided during the survey period, eighteen are digested here.' As has been the recent trend, the Legislature and the appellate courts have continued to focus primarily on issues surrounding children.

• Divorce
• Child Custody
• Legitimation
• Child Support
• Alimony

Taking Pierce Seriously: The Family, Religious Education, And Harm To Children, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Many States exempt religious parents from prosecution, or limit their exposure to criminal liability, when their failure to seek medical care for their sick or injured children is motivated by religious belief. This paper explores the question what, if anything, the debate about these exemptions says about the state's authority to override parents' decisions about education, particularly religious education. If we accept, for example, that the state may in some cases require medical treatment for a child, over her parents' objections, to avoid serious injury or death, should it follow that it may regulate, or even forbid, a child's religious …

Bidangkuasa Mahkamah Syariah Dalam Pentadbiran Pusaka Di Malaysia, Jasni Sulong

Student Works (2000-2009)

This dissertation is generally an attempt to analyze the historical development of the jurisdiction in the administration of Islamic inheritance in Malaysia. The study will explain how the intervention of the British colonial had introduced the Common Law system and promulgated several statute to limit the function and jurisdiction of kathi's court in the matter of inheritance. It will also disclose the provision of Federal Constitution and the recent case about the administration of inheritance to Muslims nowadays. The research is focused on the procedure and the process to make a claim to distribute the estates in Malaysia nowadays at …

Eliminating Consideration Of Parental Wealth In Post-Divorce Child Custody Disputes, Carolyn J. Frantz

Michigan Law Review

There may be no story as old as that of the child of privilege, spoiled in the things of the world, who finally achieves happiness through coming to appreciate the simple charms of working-class life. But equal in strength are the real life stories of American parents: their drive for the accumulation of personal wealth, so frequently justified as "for the children." The place of wealth in the good life of a child is deeply controversial, and it should surprise no one to see it played out in child custody law. Under the statutes of almost all states, custody disputes …