Family Law Commons^™

Caught In A Trap - Paternity Presumptions In Louisiana, Evelyn L. Wilson

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Parent In Life, Stranger At Law: Addressing The Inequality And Inconsistency Of Parentage Rights Of Same-Sex Parents, 46 J. Marshall L. Rev. 867 (2013), Paul Coogan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

When The Mesopotamian Honeymoon Ends: The Code Of Hammurabi’S Assumptions About The Roles Of Spouses And Problem-Solving Approach To Regulating Marriage, 46 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1005 (2013), Lars Nelson

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Flexible Scheduling And Gender Equiality: The Working Families Flexibility Act Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lane C. Powell

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The Working Families Flexibility Act (“WFFA”) as proposed in 2012 would create a federal right for employees to request flexible work arrangements. However, the bill contains no private right of action for employees to enforce this new right. By reframing the WFFA as an anti-discrimination statute targeting unconstitutional sex discrimination on the part of the States, the WFFA could be upheld under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, allowing Congress to provide a private right of action for both private and state employees. This Note uses the Supreme Court’s decisions on the Family Medical Leave Act in Hibbs and Coleman …

Attorney Responsibility And Client Incapacity, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

This Article suggests what an attorney should consider when representing a client suspected by the attorney of having diminished capacity, anticipating diminished capacity, or a client anticipating a response to the legal dilemmas posed by aging. So too, this Article suggests what an attorney should consider when retained by the family members of an allegedly incapacitate person. After providing demographics regarding aging, this Article will specifically address the attorney-client relationship in the context of the Model Rules of the American Bar Association. Next, this Article will integrate the attorney's responsibility regarding the proper execution of a Last Will and Testament, …

Nature, Nurture, Narrative, Law: The Wellesley Case, Oliver Twist, And The Victorian Anxiety About Parentage, Sarah Abramowicz

Studio for Law and Culture

Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist heralded the popularity in Victorian England of a new type of novel, the novel of child development, that traced the experience of displaced child protagonists as they found their place in the world by working out their relationships with a series of parents and parent-figures. At the same time, the newly prominent field of English child custody law began to articulate why and how parentage matters for a developing child. An examination of one of the first highly publicized English custody disputes, Wellesley v. Beaufort, brings out some of the concerns about parentage at work …

Frozen Embryo Disposition In Cases Of Separation And Divorce: How Nahmani V. Nahmani And Davis V. Davis Form The Foundation For A Workable Expansion Of Current International Family Planning, Ceala E. Breen-Portnoy

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

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

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Intimate Liability: Emotional Harm, Family Law, And Stereotyped Narratives In Interspousal Torts, Fernanda Nicola

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Tort liability expanded in the twentieth century, a shift scholars generally attribute to the reorganization of tort law around the fault principle. In privileging compensation and deterrence, this reconfiguration ended various restrictions on liability, long viewed as arbitrary, including limits to the recovery for emotional harm and interspousal immunities. Tort and family law scholars alike portray the end of such immunities as a milestone for gender equality. Their elimination enables spouses and partners to secure compensation for emotional and physical abuse arising in intimate relationships. Yet, tort law is not operating in this way. On the contrary, by endorsing a …

Surrender And Subordination: Birth Mothers And Adoption Law Reform, Elizabeth Samuels

All Faculty Scholarship

For more than 30 years adoption law reform advocates have been seeking to restore for adult adoptees the right to access their original birth certificates, a right that was lost in all but two states between the late 1930s and 1990. The advocates have faced strong opposition and have succeeded only in recent years and only in eight states. Among the most vigorous advocates for access are “birth mothers” who surrendered their children during a time it was believed that adoption would relieve unmarried women of shame and restore them to a respectable life. The birth mother advocates say that …

Promoting The General Welfare: Legal Reform To Lift Women And Children In The United States Out Of Poverty, Jill C. Engle

Faculty Scholarship

American women and children have been poor in exponentially greater numbers than men for decades. The problem has historic, institutional roots which provide a backdrop for this article’s introduction. English and early U.S. legal systems mandated a lesser economic status for women. Despite numerous legal changes aimed at combating the financial disadvantage of American women and children, the problem is worsening. American female workers, many in low-paying job sectors, earn roughly twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Nearly forty percent of single mothers and their children subsist below the poverty level. The recession exacerbated this problem, mostly because unemployment …

Astrue V. Capato: Relegating Posthumously Conceived Children To Second-Class Citizens, Nicole M. Barnard

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Surrender And Subordination: Birth Mothers And Adoption Law Reform, Elizabeth J. Samuels

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

For more than thirty years, adoption law reform advocates have been seeking to restore for adult adoptees the right to access their original birth certificates, a right that was lost in all but two states between the late 1930s and 1990. The advocates have faced strong opposition and have succeeded only in recent years and only in eight states. Among the most vigorous advocates for access are birth mothers who surrendered their children during a time it was believed that adoption would relieve unmarried women of shame and restore them to a respectable life. The birth mother advocates say that …

An Incomplete Revolution: Feminists And The Legacy Of Marital-Property Reform, Mary Ziegler

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

As this Article shows, the conventional historical narrative of the divorce revolution is not so much incorrect as incomplete. Histories of the divorce revolution have focused disproportionately on the introduction of no-fault rules and have correctly concluded that women's groups did not play a central role in the introduction of such laws. However, work on divorce law has not adequately addressed the history of marital-property reform or engaged with scholarship on the struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment to the federal Constitution. Putting these two bodies of work in dialogue with one another, the Article provides the first comprehensive history …

Racial Bias In American Foster Care: The National Debate, Tanya A. Cooper

Marquette Law Review

In disproportionately high numbers, Native American and African American children find themselves in the American foster care system. Empirical data establish that these children are removed from their families at greater rates than other races and stay in foster care longer, where they are often abused, neglected, and then severed from their families forever. For the past few decades, a vigorous debate has raged regarding whether these children are actually at greater risk for maltreatment if left at home or are just targets of discrimination in a hegemonic institution. Although the research previously showed no racial differences in child maltreatment …

Reflections On Vawa's Strange Bedfellows: The Partnership Between The Battered Immigrant Women's Movement And Law Enforcement, Alizabeth Newman

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment: The Case Of Two Biological Intended Mothers: Illustrating The Need To Statutorily Define Maternity In Maryland, Catherine Villareale

University of Baltimore Law Review

Sam was born a happy and healthy baby boy, much to the delight of his mothers, Sarah and Jen. Although Jen gave birth to Sam, Jen has no genetic connection to her son. Biologically, Sarah is Sam's "ova mother"' because Sam was conceived through assisted reproductive technology using Sarah's ovum that was fertilized in vitro by an anonymous sperm donor and implanted in Jen. Both Sarah and Jen share a biological connection to Sam, Sarah through DNA and Jen through carrying him for nine months and giving birth. Consequently, Sam has two biological mothers. Yet, in Maryland, at the time …

Legislative Oppression: Restricting Gestational Surrogacy To Married Couples Is An Attempt To Legislate Morality, Linda S. Anderson

University of Baltimore Law Review

Since the days of Baby M, surrogacy arrangements have become a well-accepted form of assisted reproduction. As one of the first alternatives available to those who could not create families naturally, surrogacy arrangements have been scrutinized and discussed from a variety of angles. Today, state laws determine whether surrogacy is allowed, establish the standards for the agreements and qualifications of those who use this form of family creation, and set limits on payments involved in such arrangements. Many states that regulate surrogacy through legislation have restricted the availability of surrogacy arrangements to married couples, thereby eliminating any non-traditional heterosexual couples, …

Hollingsworth V. Perry, Brief For Foreign And Comparative Law Experts Harold Hongju Koh Et. Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Respondents, Harold Hongju Koh, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Ryan Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unwed Putative Fathers: Beware Utah Adoption Law, Samuel C. Johnston

Utah OnLaw: The Utah Law Review Online Supplement

Utah’s adoption statute makes compliance unfairly difficult for unwed putative fathers. The difficulty is compounded by the possibility that predatory adoption agencies may be working with mothers to use Utah’s strict adoption laws to purposely deceive putative fathers who oppose adoption.

Utah lawmakers commendably want their state to be on the cutting edge of adoption law such that the interests of adoptees are served with speedy and efficient adoptions. But those lawmakers should also recognize that they can increase the legitimacy and perceived fairness of Utah laws by inserting new provisions into Utah’s adoption statute or tweaking existing requirements to …