Category Archives: Family Law
NeJaime, Alstott and Dailey, ‘Psychological Parenthood’
ABSTRACT Family law in the United States is governed by an assortment of familiar legal doctrines and policies that often undermine, and sometimes sever, the relationships between children and the adults with whom children are most closely bonded. For example, the ‘best interests of the child’ standard, which has long governed a host of legal […]
‘Class action provides anonymity, effective “legal vehicle” in case against fertility doctor: counsel’
“The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has approved an over $13-millon settlement of a class action against a fertility doctor who used his own semen to inseminate patients. Counsel for the plaintiffs stressed the effectiveness of class action as a ‘legal vehicle’ to give people ‘anonymity, some measure of compensation’ and information in a highly […]
‘The Legal Recognition of Non-Conjugal Families in the US, Canada and Europe, by Nausica Palazzo’
“Families eschewing the paradigm of the traditional marital family are on the rise. These include families which lack a sexual component (so-called non-conjugal couples) or who comprise more than two sexual partners (multiparty relationships such as polyamorous or polygamous ones). Despite significant empirical and normative developments affecting the ways in which we do family in […]
Gary Spitko, ‘Integrated Nonmarital Property Rights’
ABSTRACT Nonmarital cohabitation has become a mainstream family structure in the United States. Yet, despite the increasing prevalence of nonmarital cohabitants, American family property law generally fails to support nonmarital couples. This inequality under the law disproportionately disadvantages persons of color, those with relatively less education, and couples with relatively fewer economic resources. This Article […]
Ho-Po Crystal Wong, ‘Can’t Wait Any Longer? The Effects of Shorter Waiting Periods on Divorce and Remarriage’
ABSTRACT Since the 1990s, many US states have enacted or lengthened the waiting periods required for parties to divorce with the goal of strengthening marriage or at least discouraging divorce. I use the length of time by which some states have shortened their waiting periods to analyze how such waiting periods affect remarriage rates. I […]
Duncan Kennedy, ‘Consciousness, Doctrine, and Politics in the History of American Family Law’
ABSTRACT This is a complete but unfinished draft of an article on the history of American family law. The first part describes four stages in the legal conceptualization of the family in the US over the period from the late 18th century to ca 1960. It is part of a larger intellectual history project depicting […]
Dailey and Rosenbury, ‘The New Parental Rights’
ABSTRACT This Article sets forth a new model of parental rights designed to free children and families from the ideals of parent-child unity and family privacy that underlie the law’s expansive protection for parental rights. The law currently presumes that parents’ interests coincide with those of their children, creating an illusion of parent-child union that […]
Nausica Palazzo, ‘Marriage Apostates: Why Heterosexuals Seek Same-Sex Registered Partnerships’
ABSTRACT Same-sex marriage is now a reality across Western countries. While this was a positive achievement for the LGBTQ community, some crucial questions remain unanswered. One of these questions concerns the future of nonmarital statuses, such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. After the legalization of same-sex marriage, US states are simply phasing them out. […]
Kristine Knaplund, ‘Reimagining Postmortem Conception’
ABSTRACT Hundreds, likely thousands, of babies have been born years after a parent has died. Thousands more people have cryopreserved their sperm, ova, and embryos, or have requested that a loved one’s gametes be retrieved after death to produce still more such children. Twenty-three states have enacted statutes detailing how these postmortem conception children can […]
‘Judging Gender’
Marie-Amélie George, ‘Exploring Identity’, 54 Family Law Quarterly (forthcoming, March 22, 2021), available at SSRN; Claire Houston, ‘Respecting and Protecting Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Children in Family Courts’, 33:1 Canadian Journal of Family Law 103 (2020). Increasingly, courts in the United States and Canada are called to rule on parental disputes about the gender identity and […]