Law and Society Commons^™

Hovering Too Close: The Ramifications Of Helicopter Parenting In Higher Education, Kathleen Vinson

Georgia State University Law Review

“They are needy, overanxious and sometimes plain pesky—and schools at every level are trying to find ways to deal with them. No, not students. Parents—specifically parents of today’s ‘millennial generation’ who, many educators are discovering, can’t let their kids go.”

Some parents, called “helicopter parents” for constantly hovering over their children, are now making higher institutions their landing pads. They hover from the prospective admissions stage to graduation and the job market beyond—contacting presidents of universities, deans, and professors, disputing their child’s grade; requesting an extension for their child; complaining their child does not receive as much praise as the …

Black Marriage, White People, Red Herrings, Melissa Murray

Michigan Law Review

Ralph Richard Banks's Is Marriage for White People? is worlds away from Agatha Christie's novels. Decidedly a work of nonfiction, Banks's book considers the plight of middle-class African Americans who, according to statistics, are the least likely of any demographic group to get and stay married. Despite these obvious differences, Is Marriage for White People? shares some important commonalities with Agatha Christie's mysteries. Banks seeks to solve a mystery, but red herrings draw attention away from the true issue that should be the subject of Banks's concern. The mystery, of course, is the black marriage decline. In 1950, 78 percent …

Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams

Michigan Law Review

The twenty-first century has seen the dawn of a new era of the family, an era that has its roots in the twentieth. Many of the social and scientific phenomena of our time - same-sex couples, in vitro fertilization, single-parent families, international adoption - have inspired changes in the law. Legal change has encompassed both constitutional doctrine and statutory innovations, from landmark Supreme Court decisions articulating a right to procreate (or not), a liberty interest in the care, custody, and control of one's children, and even a right to marry, to state no-fault divorce statutes that have fundamentally changed the …

Alienating Sham Marriages For Tougher Immigration Penalties: Congress Enacts The Marriage Fraud Act, Karen L. Rae

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

It's All Mine - Or At Least Part Of It Is: A California Look At Property Apportionment Between The Families Of An Interstate And An Intestate's Predeceased Spouse, Robert G. Popovich

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Thompson V. Thompson: The Jurisdictional Dilemma Of Child Custody Cases Under The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act , Steven M. Schuetze

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unwed Father's Custody Claim In California: When Does The Parental Preference Doctrine Apply?, Jeffrey S. Boyd

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trust And Intention To Comply With A Water Allocation Decision: The Moderating Roles Of Knowledge And Consistency, Joseph A. Hamm, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Mitch Herian, Alan Tomkins, Hannah Dietrich, Sarah Michaels

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

Regulating water resources is a critically important yet increasingly complex component of the interaction between ecology and society. Many argue that effective water regulation relies heavily upon the compliance of water users. The relevant literature suggests that, rather than relying on external motivators for individual compliance, e.g., punishments and rewards, it is preferable to focus on internal motivators, including trust in others. Although prior scholarship has resulted in contemporary institutional efforts to increase public trust, these efforts are hindered by a lack of evidence regarding the specific situations in which trust, in its various forms, most effectively increases compliance. We …

What Marriage Equality Arguments Portend For Domestic Partner Employee Benefits, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

An Incomplete Revolution: Reexaming The Law, History, And Politics Of Marital Property, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

Did the divorce revolution betray the interests of American women? While there has been considerable disagreement about the impact of divorce reform on women’s standard of living, many agree that judicial practices involving the division of marital property and the allocation of alimony have systematically disadvantaged women. Most often, in the courts and the academy, commentators see these practices as evidence of the need for family law reform.

These conclusions rely on a shared account of the history of divorce reform. According to this account, the transformation of divorce law in the 1970s and 1980s was a “silent revolution,” a …

Fostering Climate Change Education In The Central Great Plains: A Public Engagement Approach, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Timothy Steffensmeier, Amber Campbell Hibbs, Ben Champion, Eric Hunt, John A. Harrington, Jr., Jacqueline D. Spears, Natalie Umphlett, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Roger Bruning, Daniel Kahl

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

Despite its increasing importance for sustainability, building widespread competency in the basic principles of climate literacy among the United States general public is a great challenge. This article describes the methods and results of a public engagement approach to planning climate change education in the Central Great Plains of the United States. Our approach incorporated contextual and lay expertise approaches to public engagement with a focus on supporting the self-determination of the specific stakeholder groups–rural producers, educators, and community members. An integration of results from the focus groups reveal that our approach was received positively and elicited a number of …

The Incoherence Of Marital Benefits, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

En route to finding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) an unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Windsor v. United States gave short shrift to one of Congress's primary arguments in defense of the Act: that the federal government has a compelling interest in limiting federal marriage benefits to opposite-sex couples because traditional marriage has the laudable purpose-or function-of channeling the heterosexual sex that creates children into a way of life that provides the optimal environment for the rearing of those children. In other words, DOMA aims to minimize irresponsible …

Imagining A Same-Sex Marriage Decision Based On Dignity: Considering Human Experience In Constitutional Law, Danieli Evans

Articles

California’s Proposition 8 allows same sex couples to join through civil unions, which grant the legal benefits afforded to married couples but denies them the official label of “marriage.” The lower court eschewed the question of whether Proposition 8 burdens any fundamental right by concluding there is not even a rational basis (the minimum standard for the constitutionality of any law) for this law, as its sole effect is to deny same sex couples the designation of marriage.

We appreciate the lower court’s caution not to extend our fundamentalrights jurisprudence beyond precedent. However, we are positioned to elaborate fundamental constitutional …

Family History: Inside And Out, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

United States V. Windsor And The Role Of State Law In Defining Rights Claims, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor is best understood from a Legal Process perspective. Windsor struck down Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), which defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman for purposes of federal law. Much early commentary, including Professor Neomi Rao’s essay in these pages, has found Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Court to be “muddled” and unclear as to its actual rationale. But the trouble with Windsor is not that the opinion is muddled or vague; the rationale is actually quite evident on the face of …

The End Of Annulment, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Allocating The Costs Of Parental Free Exercise: Striking A New Balance Between Sincere Religious Belief And A Child's Right To Medical Treatment , Paul A. Monopoli

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Misappropriating Women’S History In The Law And Politics Of Abortion , Tracy A. Thomas

Seattle University Law Review

To examine the veracity of the political and legal claims of a feminist history against abortion, this Article focuses on one of the leading icons used in antiabortion advocacy—Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton has, quite literally, been the poster child for FFL’s historical campaign against abortion, appearing on posters, flyers, and commemorative coffee mugs. Advocates claim that Stanton is a particularly fitting spokesperson because she was a “feisty gal who had seven children and was outspokenly pro-life.” They claim that she “condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms” and was “a revolutionary who consistently advocated for the rights of women, for …

Institutionalizing Mediation: The Role Of Lawyers And Bar Associations , Ronald R. Volkmer

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The world of trusts and estates is changing before our eyes - the "multidiscipline practice" trend may radically change the traditional practice of the probate bar. There is one constant, however, besides change and that is conflict. That conflict is oftentimes lurking beneath the surface when a lawyer becomes involved in the estate planning process. All of the technical knowledge you may possess about the legal system and its rules is valuable and necessary. But, the estate planning lawyer is preeminently a counselor at law. In the strongest possible way I urge students to become aware of conflict management skills …

Mediation And Jury Trials As Means Of Resolving Will Contests , Ronald Chester

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In the vast range of human problems that law seeks to govern, there are certain areas in which legalisms and legal thinking are not particularly useful. It is my belief that one of these areas is that of will contests, in which nonlawyer dispute resolution seems particularly effective.

Mediation Of Probate Matters: Leaving A Valuable Legacy , Lela Porter Love

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Mediation has the power to bring parties to a different level of understanding about their underlying situation and about each other, to re-establish family harmony and to resolve both monetary and relationship issues that probate matters generally involve. To realize these advantages, this paper makes two suggestions. First, attorneys should urge testators to consider dispute resolution provisions in their will. Such provisions allow the testator to weigh in with a directive that the family pull together and attempt to resolve its conflicts creatively. A dispute resolution clause can also provide a vehicle to express and encourage family values connected with …

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Mediation In Probate, Trust, And Guardianship Matters , Mary F. Radford

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Mediation is the ADR process by which a neutral third party works with disputants to reach a mutually agreeable resolution. Mediation is arguably the oldest and most popular ADR technique in use today. Part I of this essay discusses the commonly accepted advantages of mediation as an alternative to litigation, and, in some instances, questions whether those advantages become disadvantages in the context of probate, trust, and guardianship cases. Part II examines the use of mediation as a component of the actual estate planning process rather than as an alternative to litigation.

The Greatest Heritage Is The Love Of A Family: The Larson Case And The Mediation Of Probate Disputes, Susan N. Gary

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In 1981, two brothers, Ben and William Larson, began litigation that would last for four years. By the time the lawsuit ended, the "winning" brother was dead, and the other brother was bitter and estranged from the family of his only sibling. Although one can only speculate, had the brothers chosen mediation, rather than litigation, to resolve their dispute, both brothers might have achieved a better outcome.

Against The New Maternalism, Naomi Mezey, Cornelia T. Pillard

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The biggest challenge for sex equality in the 21st Century is to dismantle inequality between women and men’s family care responsibilities. American law has largely accomplished formal equality in parenting by doing away with explicit gender classifications, along with many of the assumptions that fostered them. In a dramatic change from the mid-20th Century, law relating to family, work, civic participation and their various intersections is now virtually all sex-neutral. As the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Nevada Department of Social Services v. Hibbs demonstrates, both Congress and the Court have accepted the feminist critique of sex roles and stereotyping …

A Holistic Approach To Estate Planning: Paramount In Protecting Your Family, Your Wealth, And Your Legacy, Melissa Street

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This comment will take an in-depth look at the art of holistic estate planning. Part II will walk through an overview of how the holistic estate planning process works. Part III will discuss certain familial circumstances that have the most to gain from the holistic approach. Part IV will give a brief overview of other alternatives to litigation and their disadvantages. Part V will conclude this article.

Culture In International Parental Kidnapping Mediations, Melissa A. Kucinski

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Mediating an international parental kidnapping case involves much more than knowing some family law-it involves complex emotions, strict time constraints, multiple nations' laws and policies, intricate international treaties, juggling interpreters, attorneys, government officials, judges, and parents who may be physically located thousands of miles apart, and the blunt reality that you may have no understanding of either parent's cultural customs or the way each will communicate with the other parent or with you. While the "culture" part of the mediation may appear to be the least significant element, it could be key to the success of the mediation. Nonetheless, "culture" …

Stumbling Down The Courthouse Steps: Mediators' Perceptions Of The Stumbling Blocks To Successful Mandated Mediation In Child Custody And Visitation , Sandra J. Perry, Tanya M. Marcum, Charles R. Stoner

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Although many concerns and criticisms about the efficacy of family law mediation have been made by attorneys, judges, and psychologists, we seldom hear from the mediators themselves about how the process works. In this study, we examine the mediators' perceptions of the stumbling blocks to success in mandatory child custody mediation and make some recommendations about how the process might be improved.

Teaching The Ethical Values Governing Mediator Impartiality Using Short Lectures, Buzz Group Discussions, Video Clips, A Defining Features Matrix, Games, And An Exercise Based On Grievances Filed Against Florida Mediators , Paula M. Young

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Teaching Professional Ethics to Lawyers and Mediators Using Active Learning Techniques will serve as the first article in a series of articles I have planned on the use of active learning techniques to teach the core values of mediation: mediator impartiality, party self-determination, confidentiality, and quality of the process/mediator competence. This article is the second article in that series. In Section III, I summarize the first article in the series. In Section IV, I describe the role of mediator impartiality as a core value of the mediation field. I evaluate the definitions of mediation found in several ethics codes as …

Regulating At The Margins: Non-Traditional Kinship And The Legal Regulation Of Intimate And Family Life, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

This Article offers a new theory of how the law attempts to control intimate and family life and uses that theory to argue why certain laws might be unconstitutional. Specifically, it contends that by regulating non-traditional relationships and practices that receive little or no constitutional protection— same-sex relationships, domestic partnerships, de facto parenthood, and nonsexual procreation—the law is able to express its normative ideals about all marriage, parenthood, and procreation. By regulating non-traditional kinship, then, the law can be aspirational in a way that the Constitution would ordinarily prohibit and can attempt to channel all of us in ways that …

Just Intervention: Differential Response In Child Protection, Cynthia Godsoe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.