Designed for use as a study guide in basic and advanced family law courses, this brief paperback provides the topical coverage of the major casebooks, and includes lucid explanations of basic concepts and reader-friendly examples. It distinguishes itself from others by offering conceptually developed text, rather than a skeleton of cases and statutes. The conceptual approach enables students to obtain a clear grasp of the fundamental concepts necessary to gain a mastery of the course materials. The author's clear, direct language walks the student step-by-step through the essential reasoning and analysis intrinsic to family law. With more than 380 examples to illustrate concepts, it explains legal terms, and the law as it pertains to: marriage and divorce; extended families; spousal support; child custody; reproductive rights; adoption; child abuse and neglect; the welfare system's role relative to children; parent's and children's rights The facts and impact of the milestone cases are cited and discussed clearly and in context. Examples are clearly delineated in the text and legal terms are highlighted for ease of use. FAMILY LAW: Essential Terms and Concepts makes the perfect accompaniment to any casebook in your family law course.

The family and the law, with its attendant legal systems, share a pervasive connectedness. With this new volume, family practitioners and scholars can begin to increase the family?s position in relation to the law and legal system. The contributing authors bring to light the power of laws and the ways to influence them,for the benefit of the family.

Today's wide-ranging family law courses challenge students to assimilate a vast array of material. Make sure your students Understand The scope and depth of the subject by requiring or recommending Family Law: Examples & Explanations . This new paperback simplifies study by stressing clarity and coherence: straightforward presentation, with topics organized into discrete chapters to give quick access to specific principles comprehensive coverage puts family law in perspective and includes subjects not usually found in study guides, such as domestic violence, mediation, and professional responsibility focuses on what the reader wants to know, with clear explanations of difficult areas provides citations for important cases and applicable statutes to serve as a valuable research tool. When you examine this powerful study guide, be sure to notice: the authors use of the proven and popular Examples & Explanations style to reinforce basic knowledge and extend the application of that knowledge to a variety of situations - students must exercise higher level thinking skills, rather than rote recall relevant social science research that supplies an interdisciplinary perspective the text includes discussions of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act, relevant federal statutes, And The ALI Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution Family Law: Examples & Explanations is the study guide instructors can require or recommend with confidence.

Examining the changes that have occurred in families, family research, and family law in the late 20th century, this volume describes a paradigm shift in the legal and social regulation of the family to an emphasis on parents' relationships to their children, rather than to each other.

For many years family law was viewed as a study of the regulation of relationships of husband and wife and parent and child. Both relationships were clearly defined. In the case of husband and wife, it was through formal legal procedures or informal arrangements called marriage. In the case of parent and child it was either through biology or adoption. Equally defined were the stages by which these relationships were established, maintained, and terminated. By the close of the twentieth century, basic questions about who should be officially designated a family member and by what procedure were being raised both in the legislature and in litigation. In addition, conventional models that had defined domestic relations such as marriage, divorce, and adoption were either being expanded to include contemporary patterns of living arrangements and the current reality or new models were being constructed. In Family Law in America, Professor Sanford N. Katz examines the present state of family law in America. Themes include the tension between individual autonomy and governmental regulation in all aspects of family law, the extent to which relationships established before marriage are being regulated, and how marriage is being redefined to take into account equality of the sexes. It demonstrates how the definition of marriage as a partnership in which the individual spouse's rights are recognized has resulted in protection of the vulnerable spouse and examines fault and no-fault divorce procedures and the extent to which these procedures reflect social realities. This volume describes state intervention into the parent and child relationship and how this is reflected in the reexamination of the privacy of the family unit. It concludes with a discussion of the conventional model of adoption of children and how additional models are being developed to take into account new family forms.

One of the law’s most important and far-reaching roles is to govern family life and family members. Family law decides who counts as kin, how family relationships are created and dissolved, and what legal rights and responsibilities come with marriage, parenthood, sibling ties, and other family bonds. Yet despite its significance, the field remains remarkably understudied and poorly understood both within and outside the legal community. Family Law Reimagined is the first book to evaluate the canonical narratives, examples, and ideas that legal decisionmakers repeatedly invoke to explain family law and its governing principles. These stories contend that family law is exclusively local, that it repudiates market principles, that it has eradicated the imprint of common law doctrines which subordinated married women, that it is dominated by contract rules permitting individuals to structure their relationships as they choose, and that it consistently prioritizes children’s interests over parents’ rights. In this book, Jill Elaine Hasday reveals how family law’s canon misdescribes the reality of family law, misdirects attention away from the actual problems that family law confronts, and misshapes the policies that legal authorities pursue. She demonstrates how much of the “common sense” that decisionmakers expound about family law actually makes little sense. Family Law Reimagined uncovers and critiques the family law canon and outlines a path to reform. Challenging conventional answers and asking questions that judges and lawmakers routinely overlook, it calls on us to reimagine family law.

Previous edition, 1st, published in 2001.