Jana B. Singer

Resolving Family Conflicts

Jana B. Singer et al. — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:25:19 PST

Over the past two decades, virtually all areas of family law have undergone major doctrinal and theoretical changes - from the definition of marriage, to the financial and parenting consequences of divorce, to the legal construction of parenthood. An equally important set of changes has transformed the resolution of family disputes. This 'paradigm shift' in family conflict resolution has reshaped the practice of family law and has fundamentally altered the way in which disputing families interact with the legal system. Moreover, the changes have important implications for the way that family law is understood and taught. This volume examines the contours of this paradigm shift in family conflict resolution and explores its implications for family law scholarship and practice. The interdisciplinary compilation includes contributions from lawyers, legal academics, social scientists and mental health professionals. As the articles in the volume demonstrate, the transformation in family conflict resolution holds considerable promise for disputing families, but it also raises a number of challenges. These challenges include concerns about the institutional competence of courts, the surrender of fact-finding and decision-making to individuals without legal training, the loss of autonomy and privacy for family members subject to continuing court oversight and the disjunction between problem-solving justice and authoritative legal norms. By exploring both the promise of the new paradigm and its potential pitfalls, this volume engages family law scholars and offers insights to judges, practitioners and policy makers responsible for serving families in conflict.

Dispute Resolution and the Post-divorce Family: Implications of a Paradigm Shift

Jana B. Singer — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:26:49 PDT

Over the past two decades, there has been a paradigm shift in the way the legal system handles most family disputes – particularly disputes involving children. This paradigm shift has replaced the law-oriented and judge-focused model of adjudication with a more collaborative, interdisciplinary and forward-looking family dispute resolution regime. It has also transformed the practice of family law and fundamentally altered the way in which disputing families interact with the legal system. This essay examines the elements of this paradigm shift in family dispute resolution and explores the opportunities and challenges it offers for families, children and the legal system.

Legal Regulation of Marriage: From Status to Contract and Back Again?

Jana B. Singer — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:56:55 PDT

The purpose of this paper is to give a brief historical overview of the way in which the American legal system has traditionally regulated marriage.

Still Hostile After All These Years? Gender, Work & Family Revisited

Jana B. Singer — Tue, 05 May 2009 10:23:27 PDT

Alimony and Efficiency: the Gendered Costs and Benefits of Economic Justification for Alimony

Jana B. Singer — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:29:50 PDT

Women's Work

Jana B. Singer — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:30:33 PDT

Women in the Law School: It's Time for More Change

Karen S. Czapanskiy et al. — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:25:26 PDT

The Privatization of Family Law

Jana B. Singer — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:25:25 PDT

Divorce Reform and Gender Justice

Jana B. Singer — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:25:24 PDT

The modern shift from fault-based to no-fault divorce has disappointed those who expected the no-fault system to eliminate economic inequality between divorced women and men. The fact that women and their dependent children invariably experience economic hardship after a divorce has caused Lenore Weitzman and other commentators to romanticize the "good old days" of fault-based divorce. Professor Singer attacks the logic of this nostalgia by demonstrating that women were 'not[' better off under the fault-based system. She then proposes an investment partnership model of post-divorce allocation which would insure a fair result for both spouses.

Adoption, Identity, and the Constitution: the Case for Opening Closed Records

Naomi Cahn et al. — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:25:14 PDT

Divorce Obligations and Bankruptcy Discharge: Rethinking the Support/Property Distinction

Jana B. Singer — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:48:24 PDT

The Bankruptcy Code currently divides divorce-related obligations into two categories: awards or agreements in the nature of support are non-dischargeable; obligations arising from property divisions can be discharged in the same manner as ordinary commercial debts. Because recent developments in family law have undermined the support/property distinction and because privately negotiated divorce agreements often fail to distinguish between payments intended to serve as support and those intended to distribute property, the Code's reliance on this classification often leads to confusion and hardship for divorce obligees. In addition, because of the rise of equitable distribution as the dominant method of allocating marital gains and losses, the policy of refusing to protect divorce-related property divisions is unfair to divorcing couples who structure their financial arrangements according to modern notions of marital partnership.

Tracing the history of the marital support exemption and examining recent trends in family law, Professor Singer argues that the goals of bankruptcy law and divorce law could be better served by amending the Bankruptcy Code to exclude from discharge all divorce-related obligations. Such a rule would recognize the particular nature of financial commitments arising out of marriage, and allow the Code to conform with our modern understanding of the marriage relationship.

A Dissent on Joint Custody

Jana B. Singer et al. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:31:40 PDT

Family Law: Cases, Materials, and Problems

Peter N. Swisher et al. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:51:55 PDT

The Second edition of Family Law addresses contemporary family law issues and analyzes the public and private dichotomy in contemporary family law relationships.

Tributes to Professor Andy King

Karen H. Rothenberg et al. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:45:07 PDT

Tributes to Professor Andrew King upon his retirement from the University of Maryland School of Law.

Juristocracy in the Trenches: Problem-Solving Judges and the Therapeutic Jurisprudence in Drug Treatment Courts and Unified Family Courts

Richard Boldt et al. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:45:05 PDT

This article explores the role of judges on two types of “problem-solving courts”: drug treatment courts and unified family courts. It compares the behavior these “problem-solving” judges to more traditional models of judicial behavior and to activist judging at the appellate level. The authors conclude that the judges who serve on these problem-solving courts have largely repudiated the classical judicial virtues of restraint, disinterest and modesty in favor of a more activist and therapeutic stance. However, the causes and consequences of this role-shift are complex. In particular, the authors suggest that the proliferation of problem solving courts and judges is not primarily a “trickle-down” effect of activist judging at the appellate level; rather, these developments are a response to powerful political and institutional forces outside the judicial system. Legal scholars who seek to understand “juristocracy in the trenches” should therefore broaden their analytic focus to include the ways in which these institutional forces shape the behavior of state trial court judges.

Marriage, Biology, and Paternity: The Case for Revitalizing the Marital Presumption

Jana Singer — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:45:03 PDT

This article examines the recent history and current status of the marital presumption of paternity. It explores the social, economic and legal developments that have contributed to the erosion of the presumption, focusing in particular on the efforts of federal and state governments to identify and collect financial support from unmarried biological fathers. The article then describes the procedural and equitable doctrines that some courts and legislatures have used to bolster the marital presumption in the face of conflicting biological evidence. Finding these approaches problematic, the article advocates a revitalized marital presumption as a substantive rule of law. It argues that marriage should generally be a sufficient – albeit not an exclusive – basis for ascribing legal fatherhood and that spouses and former spouses should have only a limited ability to rebut the presumption. The article also endorses the notion of dual fatherhood as an option for cases in which a child has both a marital and an involved genetic father.

Hamdan as an Assertion of Judicial Power

Jana Singer — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:45:02 PDT

In Hamdan v Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court rebuffed the Bush administration’s initial attempt to use Military Commissions created by Executive Order to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The Court ruled that the President, acting alone, lacked the authority to employ the Commissions because their structure and procedure violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. Most academic commentators have viewed the Hamdan decision as primarily about the limits of executive power. On this view, the central constitutional problem in Hamdan was that the Executive had acted unilaterally in an area where the Constitution required the involvement – or at least the acquiescence – of both political branches. This Essay argues that, while Congressional control of executive power is an important theme in Hamdan, the decision also constitutes a strong assertion of judicial power. In particular, the Court’s analysis suggests that the judicial branch has a vital and independent role to play in striking the appropriate balance between national security and individual liberties.