Family Law Commons^™

Family Formation And The Home, Pamela Laufer-Ukeles, Shelly Kreiczer-Levy

Kentucky Law Journal

In this article, we consider the relevance of home sharing in family formation. When couples or groups of persons are recognized as families, they are afforded significant benefits and given certain obligations by the law. Families have their own category of laws, rights, and obligations. Currently, the law of family formation and recognition is in a state of flux. Although in some respects the defining legal lines of the family have been well settled for centuries around blood and the formal legal ties of marriage and parenthood, in significant ways, the family form has been fundamentally altered over the past …

Lgbt Law Notes, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

"I Plead The Fifth": New York's Integrated Domestic Violence Courts And The Defendant's Fifth Amendment Dilemma, Rhona Mae Amorado

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Schofield V. State, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 26 (Apr. 21, 2016), Kristian Kaskla

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) Nevada’s first-degree kidnapping statute NRS 200.310(1)'s "intent to keep" language is ambiguous; (2) NRS 200.310(1) requires proof that the accused intended to keep the minor for a protracted period of time or permanently; and (3) reversal is warranted because there is insufficient evidence to support appellant's first-degree kidnapping conviction under the proper legal standard.

2015 Survey Of Rhode Island Law: Cases And Public Laws Of Note, Roger Williams University Law Review Staff

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Maryland's Family Divisions Are A Model For Change, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger, Michele H. Hong-Polansky

All Faculty Scholarship

In fiscal year 2014, 43 percent of all cases filed in Maryland’s trial court of general jurisdiction (the circuit court) were family law cases (Court Operations Department, 2014: CC-5). Historically, Maryland courts, like many states’ family justice systems, lacked a uniform structure to consolidate family law issues for an individual family. As a result, families often faced multiple hearings before different judges in different courtrooms to address a variety of issues, such as divorce, domestic violence, delinquency, and child abuse/neglect. This system created tremendous hardship for families (particularly low-income families, many of whom were self-represented litigants) and resulted in fragmented …

Marital Property, Margaret F. Brinig

Book Chapters

The International Survey of Family Law is the International Society of Family Law's annual review of developments in family law across the world.

The 2016 edition covers developments in over 20 countries written by leading academics and family law experts. Each article is accompanied by a French language abstract. The 2016 Survey contains contributions from a diverse selection of countries where there have been important developments in family law, including: Abortion in Chile, Recent Developments in Korean Adult Guardianship Law, Islamic Law Mode of Estate Distribution in South Africa, The Reform of the Swiss Law on Child Support, Marital Property …

Until The Client Speaks: Reviving The Legal-Interest Model For Preverbal Children, Lisa Kelly, Alicia Levezu

Articles

This article seeks to revive and develop further the concept of legalinterest advocacy, which was first introduced by the American Bar Association in 1996. This overlooked model offers a workable alternative to both the best-interest and substituted-judgment representation models for preverbal clients. Through legal-interest advocacy, attorneys for preverbal children are charged with ensuring that the many rights given to infants are enforced, while withdrawing from attorneys the ability to impose their values on the child client. This article outlines how legal-interest advocacy representation can ensure that a child's legal rights are protected and preserved until the child client can speak …

Would've, Could've, Should've: Custodial Standing Of Non-Biological Same-Sex Parents For Children Born Before Marriage Equality, Frank Aiello

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Thailand's Ban On Commercial Surrogacy: Why Thailand Should Regulate, Not Attempt To Eradicate, Allison L. Zimmerman

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

International commercial surrogacy is when a person or couple from one country hires a surrogate in a different country. In recent years, this form of reproductive tourism has been a booming industry in Thailand due to the lack of meaningful regulation, relatively low cost, and unavailability in other countries. After a string of scandals involving Thai surrogacy arrangements arose, however, the Thai government enacted the Protection for Children Born Through Assisted Reproductive Technologies Act (the “ART Act”), prohibiting Thai commercial surrogacy from serving foreign clients, and only allowing Thai heterosexual couples to make use of surrogacy arrangements. As a result, …

On Family Law Localism: A Comment On Sean Hannon Williams's Sex In The City, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In his Article “Sex in the City,” Professor Sean Hannon Williams addresses the problems of enormous trial court discretion and concomitant unpredictable and inconsistent decisions found in divorce cases by proposing that local governments adopt nonbinding “rules of thumb” that would guide judges in exercising that discretion with respect to issues such as child custody, property division, and income support. He contends that this proposal would fit within the existing legal framework of state-local relations and would advance the goals of both family law reform and local empowerment with respect to family issues. Specifically, he urges that local legislative action …

Dna And Distrust, Kerry Abrams, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past three decades, government regulation and funding of DNA testing has reshaped the use of genetic evidence across various fields, including criminal law, family law, and employment law. Courts have struggled with questions of when and whether to treat genetic evidence as implicating individual rights, policy trade-offs, or federalism problems. We identify two modes of genetic testing: identification testing, used to establish a person’s identity, and predictive testing, which seeks to predict outcomes for a person. Judges and lawmakers have often drawn a bright line at predictive testing, while allowing uninhibited identity testing. The U.S. Supreme Court in …

The Puzzle Of Family Law Pluralism, Erez Aloni

All Faculty Publications

Family law is succumbing to pluralism. Scholars have celebrated this trend as a desirable outcome of the struggle for marriage equality. And a pluralistic family law seems to offer distinct benefits: more regimes than just marriage, and greater room for choice within each regime (manifest by more types of legally enforceable intrafamilial contracts). This Article exposes counterintuitive facts that lead to a surprising conclusion: the legal changes that scholars tout as increasing pluralism eviscerate the substance of the choices families are permitted to make.

The policies that appear to extend choice within each regime, in fact, mask what I call …

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.

They['Ve] Got Eyes In The Sky: How The Family Educational Rights And Privacy Act Governs Body Camera Use In Public Schools, Sarah Pierce West

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Differential Response: Misrepresentation Of Cps Investigation And Case Fact Finding, Frank E. Vandervort, Ronald C. Hughes

Articles

Traditionally, a host of necessary case fact-finding responsibilities and activities has been used by public Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies to ensure that they can achieve mandates to protect children from maltreatment as well as to strengthen and preserve the families of atrisk children. The primary CPS case fact-finding activities include risk assessment, investigation (both CPS and forensic), and family assessment. Information collected while engaged in any one of these three activities will often be relevant and important to the others. However, each case fact-finding activity also requires specific inquiry to elicit information that is essential to achieve its distinct …

Reflections On Obergefell And The Family-Recognition Framework's Continuing Value, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Unlike a typical law review essay, I offer reflections here based largely on my own past work in LGBT rights advocacy. Together with related scholarship, I rely on these experiences to argue that the 'family recognition" framework underlying earlier advocacy has value going forward, even after the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of nationwide marriage equality.

Buyers In The Baby Market: Toward A Transparent Consumerism, Jody L. Madeira, June Carbone

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article assesses the forces on the horizon remaking the fertility industry, including greater consolidation in the health care industry, the prospects for expanding (or contracting) insurance coverage, the likely sources of funding for future innovation in the industry, and the impact of globalization and fertility tourism. It concludes that concentration in the American market, in contrast with other medical services, may not necessarily raise prices, and price differentiation may proceed more from fertility tourism than from competition within a single geographic region. The largest challenge may be linking those who would fund innovation, whether innovation that produces new high …

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

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Using The Nfl As A Model? Considering Zero Tolerance In The Workplace For Batterers, Deseriee A. Kennedy

Scholarly Works

The impact of domestic violence can increasingly be felt in the workplace, and it can adversely affect the safety and productivity of employees. Legislators and employers have begun to recognize the effect of domestic violence on employment, and many have adopted policies to protect the interests of domestic violence survivors. This article suggests that wider adoption of domestic violence policies are needed and these policies should be broadened to directly address batterers in the workplace. The article argues that employer based sanctions would increase batterer accountability and workplace safety. It uses the newly revised NFL Personal Conduct Policy as a …