May
24
The Sins of the Children Visited – This Time – on Their Parents
Posted by: Judith G. McMullen | May 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment
What to do about children who fail in school, or who simply fail to attend school at all? Efforts in recent years have focused on the schools themselves and on the teachers, and there have been initiatives to test children for performance in key areas and punish schools or teachers in underperforming schools. A recent [...]
Apr
10
Law Gone Wrong: Wisconsin’s Spousal Maintenance Statute
Posted by: Judith G. McMullen | April 10, 2011 | 2 Comments
This is the fourth post in an occasional series entitled “Law Gone Wrong.” The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course). Today’s contribution is from Professor Judith [...]
Apr
6
Say It Ain’t So
Posted by: Judith G. McMullen | April 6, 2011 | 1 Comment
We like to think that child abusers and child killers are monsters who are easily identifiable and, even more importantly, different from the rest of us “normal” people. A recent news story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reminds us that the reality is more complicated. The alleged crime is sadly familiar: a young man was arrested [...]
Mar
25
Law Gone Wrong: Adoption in the Context of Same-Sex Relationships
Posted by: David R. Papke | March 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Today’s post is the first in an occasional series entitled “Law Gone Wrong.” The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course). First up is Professor David [...]
Dec
29
Not Invited Back
Posted by: Judith G. McMullen | December 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment
If you ventured into Barnes & Noble this holiday season, you may have been asked to buy a book to be donated to foster children. The available options are displayed on shelves behind the cashiers: mostly an array of classic picture books for small children, with a smattering of selections for older grade-schoolers. I think [...]
Dec
23
Do We Believe in No-Fault Divorce?
Posted by: Judith G. McMullen | December 23, 2010 | 3 Comments
The Style section of the Sunday New York Times usually has two pages of thumbnail wedding announcements (complete with tiny, charming photos), and one larger box entitled “Vows,” in which one lucky couple’s union is featured. This past Sunday, the Vows column created a firestorm. The featured couple – Carol Anne Riddell and John [...]
Oct
20
When Watching Over Children Isn’t Enough
Posted by: Judith G. McMullen | October 20, 2010 | 1 Comment
An article in The New York Times last week reported on a recent study done on the effects of child abuse investigations. The study looked at interview data with 595 children who lived in families known to be at risk for child maltreatment. The children were interviewed at age 4 and again at age 8; [...]
Aug
13
Legal Legitimization: Recent Court Cases and the LGBTQ Reality
Posted by: Taylor Barnes | August 13, 2010 | 2 Comments
Lately, courts all across the country have been standing up to religious (or sometimes what’s called “moral”) bias against the LGBTQ community. In one way, it is not surprising that there have been so many recent cases, because such bias is a pervasive part of the legal reality members of LGBTQ community face on [...]
Jul
27
No Place to Call Home
Posted by: Judith G. McMullen | July 27, 2010 | 2 Comments
The editorial section of last Sunday’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel included two articles under the heading “Foster Care’s Failure to Launch.” Both pieces address the situation of teenagers in foster care and the difficulties they face when they “age out” of the system: in other words, they are forced to leave foster care at age 18, even [...]
Jul
19
“Past Formalities” and “Present Realities”: Why Wendy Isn’t a Parent at All
Posted by: Taylor Barnes | July 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment
On June 24th, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled against a woman seeking legal recognition of her parental rights for the two children she adopted with her ex-partner. The two women adopted their children in 2002 and 2004 from Guatemala. The woman appealing, known in the record as Wendy, stayed at home with the children, [...]
Jun
9
Why Do So Many Divorce Litigants Represent Themselves?
Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | June 9, 2010 | 6 Comments
In recent years, an increasing number of people seeking divorces have dispensed with lawyers. What explains this trend? Judi McMullen and Debra Oswald set out to find some answers by examining a random sample of 567 divorce cases from Waukesha, Wisconsin. Consistent with national trends, they found high percentages of pro se litigants (43.9 percent of husbands [...]
May
12
Adoption and Age Discrimination
Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | May 12, 2010 | 1 Comment
In recent years, we’ve heard a lot of discussion of interracial adoptions and adoptions by same-sex couples. But it is possible that the most pervasive form of discrimination in adoption is discrimination against older prospective parents. 3L Sara Mills explores this topic in a new paper on SSRN entitled “Perpetuating Ageism Via Adoption Standards and Practices.” [...]
Blog Editors
- Alan Borsuk
- Bruce E. Boyden
- Edward A. Fallone
- Melissa L. Greipp
- Scott C. Idleman
- Lisa Mazzie
- Michael M. O'Hear
- Ryan Scoville
