Category Archives: Family Law
Swennen and Croce, ‘Family (Law) Assemblages: New Modes of Being (Legal)’
Abstract This article advances a new model for family law to address emerging non-conventional family formations, particularly between parents and children. We contend that the conventional model of kinship categories as static, predefined statuses should be replaced with a model whereby the state accommodates kinship categories the law users themselves produce within their fluid and […]
Hofri-Winogradow and Kaplan, ‘Property Transfers to Caregivers: A Comparative Analysis’
Abstract Caregivers are key recipients of property transfers, both inter vivos and testamentary. The law’s treatment of property transfers to caregivers changes according to the caregiver’s relationship to the person cared for. Where caregivers are related to care recipients, the law generally favors the structuring of property transfers to caregivers as capital, rather than income […]
Maria Rosaria Marella, ‘“Love Will Tear Us Apart”: Some Thoughts on Intrafamilial Torts and Family Law Modernization Between Italy and Canada’
Abstract: This paper analyzes a specific aspect of the so-called privatization of the family, namely the intersection of family law with the law of torts, as experienced in some European civil law countries like Italy, France and Germany. It also takes into account parallel developments emerged in common law jurisdictions and specifically in Canada. After […]
Yitshak Cohen, ‘Property Sharing Arrangements in Israeli Family Law – A New Model’
Abstract: The arrangement for balancing marital resources in Israel is set forth in the Property Relations between Spouses Law (hereinafter Property Relations Law). This arrangement was established to replace the presumption of sharing that had applied until 1973. The presumption determined that all of the spouses’ property was jointly owned and shared from the beginning […]
‘Divorce and money – where are we and where are we going?’
“The advance towards the digital court, heralded by the progress towards on‐line divorce (in which expression I include for present purposes the analogous processes in relation to civil partnership, judicial separation and nullity), demands that we now tackle an issue which has been around for some time. Why is it that what is referred to […]
‘America’s Next Top Probate Model’
Katherine M Arango, Trial and Heirs: Antemortem Probate for the Changing American Family, 81 Brooklyn Law Review 779 (2016). The idea of the ‘traditional family unit’ is changing at a rapid pace that requires the law to adapt to effectuate a testator’s intent when administering a will. With 16.3 million unmarried Americans cohabiting and one […]
‘Of Persons, Property, and Frozen Eggs’
Browne Lewis, “You Belong to Me”: Unscrambling the Legal Ramifications of Recognizing a Property Right in Frozen Human Eggs, 83 Tennessee Law Review 645 (2016). William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England bifurcated the physical universe into persons and property. In Blackstone’s description of English law, there were categories of persons (just as there […]
Albertina Antognini, ‘The Law of Nonmarriage’
Abstract: The meaning of marriage, and how it regulates intimate relationships, has been at the forefront of recent scholarly and public debates. Yet despite the attention paid to marriage – especially in the wake of Obergefell v Hodges – a record number of people are not marrying. Legal scholarship has mostly neglected how the law […]
‘We Are Family, Aren’t We? Modern Families and Outdated Probate Laws’
Danaya C Wright, Inheritance Equity: Reforming the Inheritance Penalties Facing Children in Nontraditional Families, 25 Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 1 (2015). In her article, Inheritance Equity: Reforming the Inheritance Penalties Facing Children in Nontraditional Families, Professor Danaya C Wright examines the negative effect that outdated intestate succession statutes have on today’s modern […]
Sharon Thompson, ‘In Defence of the “Gold-Digger”’
Abstract: This article examines the gold-digging trope in family law. It explores the etymology of the term and how it has been employed in cultural and legal contexts, such as media, parliamentary debates and case law. It is argued that the gold-digger construct has shifted, in that it was once applied only to women who […]