Family Law Commons^™

Parentage Without Gender, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Dramatic changes in the family form over the last several decades have put increasing pressure on the parent-child relationship. This elevation of the parent-child relationship in law and policy means that parents have both greater rights and more onerous obligations than in a system that spreads responsibility for children more broadly. The question of what constitutes a legal parent-child relationship under American law has become increasingly important because of its primacy in the determination of rights and obligations, but also increasingly complex because of reproductive technology and changing patterns of childbearing. The complexity and lack of cohesion that characterizes modern …

International Family Law, Robert G. Spector, Melissa A. Kucinski

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Shared Responsibility Regulation Model For Cross-Border Reproductive Transactions, Sharon Bassan

Michigan Journal of International Law

The term “cross-border reproductive transactions” refers to the movement of tens of thousands of people, who travel from one country to purchase reproductive services from suppliers in other countries, in order to have a child.2 It is estimated that between eleven and fourteen thousand patients in Europe alone engage in this practice annually.3 Historically, the phrase ‘medical tourism’ used to refer to the travel of patients from less-affluent countries seeking better healthcare in countries with superior healthcare standards. Today, the journey is just as likely to flow in the opposite direction, as patients travel from industrialized to less affluent countries …

Same-Sex Marriage Litigation And Children's Right To Be Queer, Clifford Rosky

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This essay examines how lawyers and judges have framed the question of children’s queerness in litigation over samesex marriage. First, it argues that in United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court invoked the tropes of dignity, injury, and immutability to set the outer limits of sexual liberty for both children and adults. Next, the essay looks back to the early work of queer theorists, legal scholars, and lawyers to unearth a more promising vision of law’s relationship to children’s queerness. By juxtaposing how two judges approached the possibility of the gay child in Utah and …

Afterword: Reimagining Family Defense, Matthew I. Fraidin

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Mental Health Evaluations In Child Welfare Settings, Joshua B. Kay

Book Chapters

This chapter will focus mainly on parenting capacity evaluations performed by psychologists, as these evaluations tend to be the most legally fraught type of assessment in a child protection proceeding. Often, assessments of parenting capacity inform important, difficult, and potentially contentious questions in the case, including whether to remove a child from a parent's custody or maintain a child in foster care; the frequency and conditions of parent-child visitation; recommended interventions to address parenting deficiencies or problems in the parent-child relationship; and whether and when termination of parental rights should be considered. Despite their central role in providing information that …

Child Welfare Appellate Advocacy, Vivek Sankaran

Book Chapters

The appellate system serves important functions in child welfare cases. It ensures that the relationship between a child and his or her parent is not unjustly terminated. It forces juvenile courts and child welfare agencies to strictly follow statutes, court rules, and agency policies. And it preserves public faith in the system by serving as an independent check to correct mistakes that occur.

But the appellate system is only as good as the advocates who appear before it. This chapter is intended to be a resource for those advocates, both those who have practiced child welfare law for many years …

Representing Parents In Child Welfare Cases, Vivek Sankaran

Book Chapters

A parent's constitutional right to raise his or her child is one of the most venerated liberty interests safeguarded by the Constitution. The law presumes parents to be fit, and it establishes that they do not need to be model parents to retain custody of their children. If the state seeks to interfere with the parent-child relationship, the Constitution mandates: (I) that the state prove parental unfitness, a standard defined by state laws, and (2) that the state follow certain procedures protecting the due process rights of parents. The constitutional framework for child welfare cases is premised upon the belief …

Federal Legislation Protecting Children And Providing For Their Well-Being, Frank E. Vandervort

Book Chapters

Over the past several decades a national model for child welfare practice has emerged. In Child Welfare Law and Practice, also known as "The Red Book", experienced NACC authors and child welfare advocates have captured and refined that model, offering a comprehensive guide for those who make child welfare advocacy their priority. Designed as a study guide for attorneys preparing to take the NACC Child Welfare Law Certification Exam, the Red Book serves as a day-to-day guide for child welfare advocates across the country, offering in-depth analysis and instruction on wide variety of topics in the field of child welfare …

Child Abuse In Nigeria: Dimension, Reasons For Its Persistence And Probable, Olaitan O. Olusegun, Amos A. Idowu

Child and Family Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Critical Balance Between Parents' Rights And Students' Safety - How Parental Kidnapping Poses An Acute Threat To School Security, Adrianna B. La Kam

Child and Family Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Same-Sex Marriage Came To Oklahoma: Now What Happens?, Robert G. Spector

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Planned Parenthood: Adult Adoption And The Right Of Adoptees To Inherit, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article is concerned with the effect of adult adoptions on the inheritance rights (in the broad sense of that term) of adult adoptees. The Article contends many adult adoption statutes assume the existence of a parent-child relationship in which the adopter is the “parent” and the adoptee is a “child” even though this is not true of all adult adoption cases. In addition, legislatures and courts frequently fail to differentiate between “quasi-familial” adoptions and “strategic” adoptions, particularly where inheritance rights are concerned.

Consideration Of Genetic Connections In Child Custody Disputes Between Same-Sex Parents: Fair Or Foul?, Jessica Feinberg

Articles

Historically, in child custody disputes involving same-sex couples who conceived their children through assisted reproductive technology, the law only recognized the relationship between the child and the member of the same-sex couple who was the child’s genetic parent. Consequently, non-genetic parents in these situations were frequently denied standing to seek custody or visitation following the dissolution of their relationship with the child’s genetic parent. Due to recent legal advancements, however, it is becoming far more common for both members of a same-sex couple to be legally recognized as the parents of a child conceived through assisted reproductive technology. Unfortunately, despite …

Gradual Marriage, Jessica Feinberg

Articles

The time has come to reform the law governing marriage. In determining the rights and obligations between spouses arising from marriage, current law does not adequately account for the way in which spousal behaviors and expectations change over the course of a marriage. With regard to intact marriages, under the existing legal framework, the spousal rights and obligations enjoyed by couples in intact marriages arise all at once—at the moment a couple is granted a marriage license—and do not change as the years of marriage pass or as children are born to the marriage. In terms of dissolving marriages, with …

Rethinking Premarital Agreements: A Collaborative Approach, Elizabeth Carter

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

When It Comes To Parents, Three's No Longer A Crowd: California's Answer To In Re M.C., Jason De Jesus

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The California Legislature recently amended the California Family Code by granting courts the authority and discretion to find that a child can have more than two parents. This Article addresses the issues raised by this amendment, focusing on the rare instances in which rejecting a third parent's claim for custody would be detrimental to the child. By exploring public perceptions of multiple parentage and assessing recent cases highlighting the discretion courts use to find that a child has more than two parents, this Article concludes that recognizing that a child has more than two parents can protect not only the …

How Dramatic Shifts In Perceptions Of Parenting Have Exposed Families, Free-Range Or Otherwise, To State Intervention: A Common Law Tort Approach To Redefining Child Neglect, David Manno

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Guardian Ad Litem As The Child's Privilege Holder, Starla Doyal

University of Colorado Law Review

Children in therapy have a strong interest in maintaining the confidentiality of communications with their therapists. Without the assurance of confidential communications, children may not be as open with their therapists, which can make therapy less effective. Although children have privilege rights to their psychotherapist-patient communications just as adults do, their parents generally hold and exercise that privilege. Many courts have recognized that a parent should not hold a child's privilege when the parent and child have divergent interests. This raises the question of who should hold the privilege in the parent's place. In L.A.N. v. L.M.B., the Colorado Supreme …

Same-Sex Marriage Came To Oklahoma: Now What Happens?, Robert G. Spector

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.