Family Law Commons^™

Teaching Client Counseling In The Shadow Of Homelessness, Gregory Zlotnick

Faculty Articles

Working with clients at risk of or experiencing, homelessness teaches personal and professional humility like few other experiences in law school or the practice of law. Yet such sensitive work also provides an opportunity for law students to develop both a keener understanding of their own professional identity-with its capacities and limitations and critical counseling skills. This essay draws upon experiences gained in three distinct law school projects that work with clients at risk of or experiencing, homelessness.

After providing a brief overview of each project, the essay will explore methods used for training and supervising students during their counseling …

Refundable Tax Credit Design: Cohabitating Parents And Gender Presumptions, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This Essay is meant to encourage further thinking to improve upon design options for unmarried cohabitating parents. Are there better ways to recognize the needs of unmarried co-parents (whether living together or not) and to provide support for shared parenting? The policy considerations for providing support to unmarried cohabitating parents are different than those for supporting married couples, given that these individuals lack the financial protections of a formal partnership.

One solution is to have a default rule whereby the CTC is awarded to the primary caregiver. Canada’s gender presumption provides a degree of administrative simplicity, but the IRS could …

Immature (Data) Privacy, Yutang Hsiao

Buffalo Law Review

Sharenting, a combination of the words “sharing” and “parenting,” is a double-edged sword. It can cut both ways because even though it benefits parents by being a source of support and fostering community, it harms children in various significant and nuanced ways. While the world blames parents for sharing too much of their children’s data on social media, other actors also play a role and should share the blame. In this Article, I argue that the most fundamental question sharenting raises is in what ways children’s privacy is violated, and who commits the violation. Social media, as one of the …

The Effectiveness Of The Hague Convention In Addressing International Child Abduction, Areej A. Dakelallah Althubiti

Theses and Dissertations

Parental child abduction is a growing concern fueled by immigration, cross-cultural marriages, evolving family dynamics, and gaps in the implementation and enforcement of developed international frameworks. This study examines the effectiveness of and challenges to the enforcement of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (HCCA), which was developed to address this problem. Specifically, the goal of this research is to assess the effect the HCCA has had on parental kidnapping, analyze its effectiveness in resolving international custody disputes, and identify the legal and practical obstacles that inhibit implementation. While the prevalence of parental kidnapping continues …

A Right To Be Born?: What Dobbs Could Mean For Artificial Reproductive Technologies, Stewart Chang

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Fiction Of Equitable Distribution: Military Divorce, Disability, And The “Dire Plight” Of The Former Military Spouse, Zoe Speas

Washington and Lee Law Review

Division of retired pay is one of the most emotionally fraught elements of military divorce. For the servicemember, retired pay compensates decades of service to his country. For the civilian spouse, it remunerates the same decades of domestic labor that enabled such service. Federal restrictions on division of military retirement have spawned confusion and litigation for more than thirty years. Today, former spouses remain extremely vulnerable to this unique and “dire plight.”

In civilian divorce, state courts apply state law to fairly distribute marital assets. Military retirement and disability benefits, however, fall within the scope of the Uniformed Services Former …

The “Dire Plight” Contextualized: Comment On “The Fiction Of Equitable Distribution: Military Divorce, Disability, And The ‘Dire Plight’ Of The Former Military Spouse” By Zoe Speas, Catlin Meade

Washington and Lee Law Review

For forty years, military spouses have sacrificed their economic security and personal well-being to support their servicemember spouse’s military career, only to be thrust into a “dire plight” if their marriage ends in a community property state. The legislative policy that put them in this untenable position has not served federal interests: the military currently faces a recruiting crisis and military spouses’ economic security has not improved since the USFSPA. It is time for Congress and the DoD to reexamine the incentives and benefits provided to servicemembers and their families. Congress and the Court must end the USFSPA’s groundless, inequitable, …

Leaving Pawprints On Our Hearts: Bystander Recovery For Witnessing The Negligent Killing Of A Companion Animal, John G. Browning

Animal Law Review

According to the Pew Research Center, nearly all (97%) Americans with companion animals consider their “furbabies” to be members of the family. This is reflected in a number of other areas, from state and federal laws re-garding emergency management that recognize four-legged members of the family unit to divorce and custody laws in multiple states that require courts to treat companion animals not as property, but as family members. Soci-ologists and psychologists have also documented the expanding recognition of the “multispecies family.” However, the majority of states’ laws still view companion animals as chattel property, even as more and more …

Integration Over Institutionalization: Addressing Rhode Island’S Institutionalization Of Developmentally Disabled Children Through An Olmstead Compliance Framework, Anna Macgillivray

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vries V. Gaudiana, 318 A.3d 1035 (R.I. 2024), Rachel K. Lesinski

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Myth Of Best Interest Of The Child, Victoria Mather

Faculty Articles

One of the basic tenets of Family Law as applied to children is consideration of "best interest of the child" in making decisions. Standards for custody, termination, adoption, and all other matters affecting children are overlaid with consideration of best interest. Unfortunately, the promise of best interest is lost in the actual mechanics of making these critical decisions involving children. This Article explores the disconnect between the ideal of using the best interest of the child as a key factor in legal decisions affecting children and the practicalities of competing interests. The Article first explores the common concern of the …

In Re N.D., 312 A.3d 438 (R.I. 2024), Alexandria Snyders Dykeman

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Glassie V. Doucette, 316 A.3d 1152 (R.I. 2024), Christopher M. Ray

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Practicing Justice: A Critical Self- Reflection On The Role Of Trauma In Legal Practice, Sarah Katz

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Re N.B., 312 A.3d 428 (R.I. 2024), Olivia F. Johnson

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unfulfilled Promise Of Obergefell For Children Of Lgbtq+ Parents: Advancing Non-Discrimination Laws For Familial Association, Jeffrey Dodge

Faculty Scholarship

Since the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, same-sex marriages have increased significantly in the United States. The American Community Survey data collected in 2022 shows that there are around 1.3 million same-sex couple households in the country, up from 565,000 in 2028. Just over half of these couples are legally married, up nearly 400% from prior to Obergefell. This data not only shows the significance of Obergefell for the LGBTQ+ community, but it also frames a generational shift in attitudes on marriage and family.

With the rise in same-sex couples accessing marriage has come greater visibility, representation, and acknowledgement. …

Being Pregnant In Someone Else's Body, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Kids Aren’T Alright: Creating Greater Protections For The Children Of Family Vloggers, Annie Dunn

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Kincare Craze In Child Protection: Romanticism, Subterfuge, And Racial Separatism, James G. Dwyer

FIU Law Review

A deluge of federal and state legislation in recent years aims to channel maltreated children removed from parents’ custody into kin placements, responding to advocates for parents who claim this is categorically better for children than entering or remaining in foster care with biologically unrelated caregivers. The claim has romantic appeal, sufficient to beguile legislators. But the research on outcomes for children in different post-removal placements does not support it. In reality, motivations other than child welfare underlie the advocacy for this legislation. The core aim is to evade federal child-welfare mandates adopted in the 1990s and long condemned by …

Court Forms And Court Reforms: Pro Se Litigants And The Limited Success Of Standardized Family Court Forms, Caroline Rogus

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The first step in any civil lawsuit, long before a court will contemplate awarding relief, is initiating the court matter: a plaintiff must always start by effectively pleading their case. The court system rests upon the presumption that an attorney will create and file the requisite court documents—including complaints, answers, and motions—on behalf of their client. The reality, however, is that an extraordinarily high number of litigants do not have legal representation and must therefore proceed pro se and submit these documents on their own. Most jurisdictions offer pro se litigants standardized, fillable court forms. These forms are intended to …