Category Archives: Family Law
Diane Kemker, ‘Pro-Natalism in Probate Law’
ABSTRACT ‘Pro-natalism’ is a term that has been variously used to describe any and all government policies that favor birth, babies, children, families, and population growth, as well as more focused laws that incentivize childbirth; burden, ban, or criminalize abortion and/or contraception; and otherwise disfavor the childless. Whether and to what extent US law is […]
Barbara Atwood and Naomi Cahn, ‘The Uniform Cohabitants’ Economic Remedies Act: Codifying and Strengthening Contract and Equity for Nonmarital Partners’
ABSTRACT In 2021 the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) gave final approval to the Uniform Cohabitants’ Economic Remedies Act (UCERA). The Act provides a framework for resolving economic disputes between nonmarital cohabitants at the end of their cohabitation, whether the end is brought about by separation or by death. In light of the variations in state […]
‘How To Solve Problems For Families’
Clare Huntington, ‘Pragmatic Family Law’, Harvard Law Review (forthcoming 2023). About two-thirds of states in the US have functional parent doctrines – doctrines that extend at least some parental rights and obligations to an individual based on developing a parent-child bond and parenting the child, regardless of a biological or legal tie to the child. […]
Penelope Russell, ‘Brave New World? Care and Custody of Children at the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes in Mid-Victorian England’
ABSTRACT This article considers the accessibility and impact of the mid-Victorian divorce court’s new custody powers, by tracing the children of those who petitioned the court within the first two years of the court’s establishment and contrasting this with court pleadings and orders. Focusing on the care of children by location as revealed by the […]
Adam Hofri-Winogradow and Mark Bennett, ‘“Looking Through” Trusts in Relationship Property Redistribution Regimes: A Comparative Perspective’
INTRODUCTION When people are married, in a civil union, or in another qualifying relationship, their rights to their assets become subject to the possibility that they will be redistributed if that relationship ends, for example through separation or divorce. Regimes governing such redistribution are often statutory, deriving from reforms enacted during the mid- twentieth century, […]
Yair Listokin and John Morley, ‘A Survey of Preferences for Estate Distribution at Death Part 2: Children and Other Beneficiaries’
ABSTRACT This is the second of two papers presenting the results of a nationally representative survey of 9,000 American adults in which we asked people how they want to distribute their property when they die. In the first paper, we focused on gifts to spouses and partners. In this second paper, we focus on gifts […]
Yair Listokin and John Morley, ‘A Survey of Preferences for Estate Distribution at Death Part 1: Spouses and Partners’
ABSTRACT This is the first of two papers presenting the results of a nationally representative survey of 9,000 American adults in which we asked people how they want to distribute their property when they die. In this first paper, we focus on gifts to spouses and nonmarital romantic partners. We find that people give much […]
Michael Smith, ‘Idaho’s Law of Seduction’
ABSTRACT Seduction is a historical cause of action that permitted women’s fathers to bring suit on their daughters’ behalf in sexual assault and rape cases. This tort emerged long ago when law’s refusal to recognize women’s agency made this the only means of recovering damages in these cases. As time went on, women were eventually […]
Robert Leckey, ‘Differences in a Minor Archive: Feminist Activists and Scholars on Cohabitation’
ABSTRACT In an act of minor comparativism, this Article studies feminist writings on unmarried cohabitation from Canada’s jurisdictions of the common law and civil law. It examines activist texts and legal scholarship for and against regulating cohabitants. Reading the English-language literature from the common law provinces and the French-language literature from Quebec, it reports differences […]
Tal Itkin, ‘When Love Ends: The Division of Copyright Between Spouses’
ABSTRACT Copyright scholarship consensually recognizes that creative works do not stand alone, but rather emanate from interacting in a social environment. In addressing the creative process, however, scholarly discourse has neglected a fundamental element of the environmental sphere: the family. This article aims to remedy the absence of the family unit in copyright literature, bringing […]