October 2024

Welcome, readers, to the October Family Court Review. This issue once again promises to deliver quality interdisciplinary scholarship, including a special issue, a special feature, two additional articles, and three student notes. Also, we are very pleased that several of the articles offer an international perspective that enhances this month's compilation. The special issue articles are those related to the American Bar Association's Youth at Risk (YAR) Conference, co-sponsored by the YAR Commission and Hofstra Law School's Center for Families, Children and the Law and held at Hofstra on October 12 and 13, 2023. The YAR Commission, created in 2007, is a leading advocacy group to support youth involved in the family justice system, including child welfare, juvenile justice, and status offense cases. The conference title, “Renewal and Revolution: Recommitting to the Legal Profession to Serving Children and Youth, Their Families, and Communities,” highlights its purpose, with a focus on the “lived experience” of participants regarding the issues discussed. Professor Charisa Smith, the Conference Reporter, has curated the articles in this special issue. We are very grateful to her for her work on this project. After her brief introduction of the special issue articles, the first special issue compilation is Professor Smith's conference report and recommendations. In “Lies my child welfare system has told me: The critical importance of centering families' voices in family policing legal advocacy,” YAR conference participants April Lee and Sarah Katz “seek to unpack the myths which are built into the laws of family policing.” Ultimately, they “propose a critical framework to both acknowledge the intentional trauma and harm caused by the family policing system, and to disrupt and dismantle the fictions that are underpinnings of the laws and regulations that continue to perpetuate these harms.” Vera Lopez, Kayla Martensen and Michelle Diaz author the third special issue piece, “Solidarity in action: Collaborating with system-impacted youth to transform the juvenile (in)justice system through YPAR.” The article highlights the message of a group of ten teens involved in youth participatory action research (YPAR) and their experiences as full-time residents of a secure facility in the southwest United States. “[T]his essay maintains that YPAR has the potential under certain circumstances to assist system-impacted youths in developing their critical consciousness….” “Cheating the evidence to get to best interest and the presumption of unfitness,” the fourth special issue article by the Honorable Jay D. Blitzman (Retired), “explores the systemic factors which have effectively created a presumption that poor parents are unable to adequately care for their children.” The author cautions against applying a best interest analysis in termination of parental rights cases, along with other due process and evidentiary considerations in child protection cases. He “recommends supporting policies which promote greater systemic accountability” and “implementing a new model of child protection—a model grounded in principles of public health and support of families and children in their homes and communities as opposed to the traditional approach of report, reaction, and removal.” The Honorable Ernestine Gray (Retired), Brenda C. Robinson, and Isel Ramirez author the fifth special issue article, “A call to action: Every family deserves active efforts. Keeping the Black family together—active efforts as the standard for all removal and reunification efforts.” The authors argue that reasonable efforts, the current legal mandate for the child welfare system, fails the Black family and that a higher standard—active efforts—must replace it. The sixth special issue article, “Increasing access to justice for families through preventive legal advocacy,” by Kara Finck, defines preventive legal advocacy, identifies core concepts of this model, offers examples of successful programs that have utilized this strategy, and urges expansion of this approach. The author envisions that this type of advocacy “supports the goal of disrupting the traditional pathways into the child welfare and family regulation system, enforcing the rights of parents and children to their family autonomy and meaningfully supporting families to thrive.” In the final special issue article, “Responding to the unacknowledged trauma and disenfranchised grief in infant adoption,” Ann M. Haralambie writes from the perspective of “a person with lived experience.” She discusses her own adoption and its traumatic consequences for her, “compounded by the legal cloak of secrecy” about her background. This month's special feature highlights articles from the Fifth Nonmarriage and the Law Roundtable, a conference exploring interdisciplinary issues surrounding relationships outside of traditional marriage, held at Rutgers Law School on September 28 and 29, 2023. Conference organizers, Professors Naomi Cahn, Albertina Antognini, Anibal Rosario-Lebron, and Kaipo Matsumura, have curated four special feature articles emanating from conference presentations. According to the Roundtable Call for Proposals, “[o]ver 19 million adults are nonmarital cohabitants. Other adults are ‘living apart together’—in committed relationships but living under separate roofs—or are in nonmarital relationships marked by some measure of intimacy……[S]cholars from multiple disciplines are studying different approaches to these developments.” In the first special feature article, “Marriage as hustle: The evolution of property law and the arrival of same-sex marriage in Cuba,” Libby Adler traces the development of same-sex marriage in Cuba, including its effect on Cuban property and entrepreneurship laws. “Unbundling marriage law,” by Shaha Lifshitz, discusses two approaches to economic and property rights upon separation or death: an approach based upon formal legal status and an approach based upon functionality. The author proposes a third option—“the institutional, autonomy-based, pluralistic model,” which “offers a middle ground between treating cohabitants as strangers and treating them as married for purposes of regulating marital property, spousal support, and inheritance.” In the third special feature article, “The Love Jones cohort and singlehood are family law issues,” by Kim Martinez Phillips and Kris Marsh, the authors focus on the changing Black family and living alone in the Black middle class, or the Love Jones Cohort. The authors discuss structural factors contributing to this demographic, as well as its legal implications. Kathryn O'Sullivan authors the final special feature article, “Reflections on statutory cohabitation law reform in Ireland: Past, present and future post-O'Meara?” She discusses the law governing the breakdown of cohabiting relationships in Ireland and sets forth the framework of the statutory regime, suggesting that further reforms seem appropriate. Two articles follow the special feature. In “Exploring litigation abuse in Ontario: An analysis of costs and decisions,” authors Nicholas Bala, Ella Benedetti, and Sydney Franzmann describe litigation abuse in the Family Court process, including its possible causes and ramifications. Their empirical research, involving both women and men and the perspectives of neutral professionals, reveals findings that support their policy recommendations to limit such abuse. Alexandra Crampton's article, “Child custody cases now and then: From Kramer to Marriage Story,” discusses the movement that has led to greater pressure to resolve child custody cases without court involvement. She utilizes movies to demonstrate how and why parents might resist private dispute resolution and explores implications from ethnographic research. As is typical, we conclude this October issue with three student notes. In “That's amore?: Intimate partner femicide in Italy and the failure of the Italian legislature to prevent violence against women,” Deanna Cinquemani discusses how this horrendous problem has increased in Italy, despite significant legislative reform designed to combat it. She proposes legislative action to “impose higher sentences for intimate partner homicide, remove judicial discretion in sentencing procedures, and require anti-violence and gender equality education in schools.” Stephanie Delandro authors the second student note, “All's fair in love and war; Except when that unfairness leaves domestic violence victims to pay the price.” She argues that, despite New York's no-fault divorce reform, victims of domestic violence remain unprotected. Her note “explores the ramifications of courts not being required to consider a finding of domestic abuse during equitable distribution and proposes to amend the current pathways to clear the way for financial relief for victims looking to divorce their abusers.” Our October issue concludes with Cynthia Madrid's “Two is better than one: Let's get married!” She discusses the importance of marriage in American society, the declining marriage rate, and the fact that there is not an initiative in place to address the phenomenon. She “proposes a two-alternative approach to implementing family-friendly policies and a nationwide network of Family Centers” to assist. As a result, society benefits by having “a more educated, cooperative workforce, with a more stable family structure across all classes.” Given the breadth, depth, and scope of the articles in this October issue, we trust each reader can find something useful and compelling. We are grateful to the special issue and special feature editors, the authors, and the incredible Hofstra law student staff for all their diligent efforts to bring this issue to fruition.

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