How do multireligious and multiethnic societies construct accommodative arrangements that can both facilitate cultural diversity and ensure women's rights? Based on a study of legal adjudication of marriage and divorce across formal and informal arenas in contemporary Mumbai, this book argues that the shared adjudication model in which the state splits its adjudicative authority with religious groups and other societal sources in the regulation of marriage can potentially balance cultural rights and gender equality. In this model the civic and religious sources of legal authority construct, transmit, and communicate heterogeneous notions of the conjugal family, gender relations, and religious membership within the interstices of state and society. In so doing, they fracture the homogenized religious identities grounded in hierarchical gender relations within the conjugal family. The shared adjudication model facilitates diversity as it allows the construction of hybrid religious identities, creates fissures in ossified group boundaries, and provides institutional spaces for ongoing intersocietal dialogue. This pluralized legal sphere, governed by ideologically diverse legal actors, can thus increase gender equality and individual and collective legal mobilization by women effects institutional change.

Drawing from a wide range of material and socio-legal methods, this collection brings together original essays - written by internationally renowned scholars - investigating emerging patterns in the shape and form of the legal regulation of domestic relations. Taking as a focus the theme of 'caring and sharing, ' the collection includes chapters which reflect on: the changing contours of what we think of as 'domestic relations' * the impact that legal recognition carries in making visible some relationships rather than others * the potential for normative values carried within patterns of legal recognition and regulation * intersections between private law and public policy * the role of private law in the allocation of responsibility and privilege * the differential impact of seemingly progressive policies on economically vulnerable or socially marginal groupings * tensions between family law models and models carried within other fields of private law * and, unusually, architectures in law and the built environment designed to facilitate broader accounts of domestic relationships. This thoughtful, provocative, and wide-ranging collection will be a must for anyone, whatever their discipline background, interested in the insights and potential offered by a fresh engagement with the complexity of domestic relations and the law. It will also appeal to the general reader as it addresses topics of human interest, such as family, intimacy, and caring. (Series: Onati International Series in Law and Society

The Hague Child Abduction Convention has proved to be one of the most widely ratified treaties ever agreed at the Hague Cbar2001ce on Private International Law. This book provides a much needed systematic analysis of the way in which the Convention has been applied in England and Scotland, with extensive reference also to the case law of Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand and the United States. All the key provisions and terms of the Convention are thoroughly explored. The book also provides broader insights into the role of the Hague Conference and the use of habitual residence as a correcting factor. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has described the book as 'the leading treatise on the Convention' (Mozes v. Mozes, 9 January 2001).

In Understanding and Managing Parental Alienation: A Guide to Assessment and Intervention, Janet Haines, Mandy Matthewson and Marcus Turnbull offer a comprehensive analysis of contemporary understanding of parental alienation. Grounded in recent scientific advances, this is the first book of its kind providing resources on how to identify parental alienation and a guide to evidence-based intervention. Parental alienation is a process in which one parent manipulates their child to negatively perceive and reject the other parent. Recognising this phenomenon and knowing when to intervene is often the biggest challenge faced by practitioners and this book provides a guide to this process. Divided into six parts, it examines what parental alienation is and how it is caused, how it affects each family member as a mental health concern and form of violence, and how to assess, identify and intervene successfully from a legal and therapy standpoint. Taking on a gender-neutral approach, the book is filled with contemporary case examples from male and female perspectives, cutting-edge research, practitioner-client dialogues, and practitioners' reflections to show the difficult realities of parental alienation. Practical and accessible, this is an essential resource for mental health professionals working with families experiencing parental alienation, as well as postgraduate students of clinical psychology, counselling, family therapy, social work, and child and family psychology. This book will also be of immense interest to family lawyers and mediators due to its multidisciplinary approach.

Fresh approaches to how premodern women were viewed in legal terms, demonstrating how this varied from country to country and across the centuries. There has been a tendency in scholarship on premodern women and the law to see married women as hidden from view, obscured by their husbands in legal records. This volume provides a corrective view, arguing that the extent to which the legal principle of coverture applied has been over-emphasized. In particular, it points up differences between the English common law position, which gave husbands guardianship over their wives and their wives' property, and the position elsewhere in northwest Europe, where wives' property became part of a community of property. Detailed studies of legal material from medieval and early modern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Ghent, Sweden,Norway and Germany enable a better sense of how, when, and where the legal principle of coverture was applied and what effect this had on the lives of married women. Key threads running through the book are married women'srights regarding the possession of moveable and immovable property, marital property at the dissolution of marriage, married women's capacity to act as agents of their husbands and households in transacting business, and married women's interactions with the courts. Cordelia Beattie is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh; Matthew Frank Stevens is Lecturer in Medieval History at Swansea University Contributors: Lars Ivar Hansen, Shennan Hutton, Lizabeth Johnson, Gillian Kenny, Mia Korpiola, Miriam Muller, S.C. Ogilvie, Alexandra Shepard, Cathryn Spence.

Making Law for Families is the result of a workshop organized by Mavis Maclean and held between May 26 and June 2,1999, at the international Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL) in Onati, Spain. This book analyzes the concept of the family in the context of increasing challenges and questions created by multicultural societies in ever more complicated international and transnational legal contexts. How is the family defined across cultural and national divides? To what extent and under what conditions should any particular state intervene? The collected essays in this volume seek to answer these and other difficult questions through grounded empirical research and insightful appreciation of how political systems function in various countries. An underlying concern is to explore to what extent and under what terms will the family endure in the future as a basic unit of social management and control. This book is part of the Onati International Series in Law and Society.

THE ONLY COMPREHENSIVE RESOURCE for UNDERSTANDING EVERY KEY FINANCIAL ASPECT of DIVORCE LITIGATION

The breakup of a marriage or relationship is an emotionally–– and financially–– turbulent time. Are you prepared to truly represent the best financial interests of your clients on paper, in the negotiating room, and even, if necessary, on the witness stand? Divorce and Domestic Relations Litigation: Financial Adviser’s Guide is both a training guide and a reference tool to help you and your firm navigate within this delicate terrain. Covering everything from the preparatory tasks and responsibilities of the financial adviser to ways to ensure that the final dissolution is equitable and satisfying, it will tell you everything you need to know, alert you to common trouble spots, and ensure that your clients receive the rock-solid support and guidance they need during this otherwise stressful time.

Praise for Divorce and Domestic Relations Litigation:

"What is striking [about Divorce and Domestic Relations Litigation] is the clear, straightforward style. This book should have many audiences beyond just the financial community. The discussion of legal process would be helpful to the general public, clients, law students, and practicing attorneys. The book’s major strength is readability. To make the legal process clear is an art form."
–– David P. Levin
Attorney, mediator, and court administrator

"Enjoyable and provocative. . . . This collection nicely reveals and sorts through a host of exciting and complex questions about marriage."
--Martha McCluskey, co-editor of "Feminism, Media, and the Law"

"One of the curious features of the early twenty-first century has been the noisy presence of 'marriage' in the public culture. The result has been a public dialogue that often marries bad social science and homophobia, with understandable public anxieties about how children grow up in our world. We deserve better and "Marriage Proposals" provides it. Anita Bernstein's collection draws on the best work by some of the smartest and most thoughtful participants in the recent marriage wars. The authors ask the reader to think hard about how marriage can be justified today. And the result is a book that confronts some of the hardest and deepest questions that face us as a society."--Hendrik Hartog, author of "Man and Wife in America: A History"

"Bringing together insights from law, anthropology, and political theory, the rigorous essays in "Marriage Proposals" strip away easy assumptions about marriage. Readers will emerge from the volume inspired to bring the national conversation on these issues to a deeper and more interesting level."--Suzanne B. Goldberg, author of "Strangers to the Law: Gay People on Trial"

""Marriage Proposals" brings new insights to the marriage debates by discussing the provocative idea of getting the government out of the business of marriage recognition altogether. Anyone seeking to think clearly about the nature and function of marriage in our society should read this collection."--Brian Bix, Frederick W. Thomas Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Minnesota Law School

The essays in Marriage Proposals envision a variety of scenarios in which adults would continue to join themselves together seeking permanent companionship and sustenance, linking sexual intimacy to a long commitment, usually caring for each other, and building new families. What would disappear are the legal consequences associated with marriage. No joint income tax return; no immigration privileges like the "fiancA(c)e visa" or the right to bring in a husband or wife; no special statuses for prison visits or hospital decisions; no prerogative to remain silent in court by claiming "confidential marital communications"; no pension entitlements; no marital benefits and detriments regarding criminal or civil liability.

The anthology makes a unique contribution amid the two marriage furors of the day: same-sex marriage and the Bush Administration's "marriage movement" (that marrying is good and more marriages would be better for society). Abolishing the legal category of marriage is the only policy suggestion in current American discourse that speaks to both causes. Activists on both sides of the same-sex marriage fight, along with marriage movement partisans, all seek improvement through law reform. Marriage Proposals gives them a viable reform--abolition of marriage as a legal status--for fighting battles in the courtroom and the streets.

Contributors include Anita Bernstein, Peggy Cooper Davis, Martha Albertson Fineman, Linda C. McClain, Marshall Miller, Lawrence Rosen, Mary Lyndon Shanley, and Dorian Solot.

View the Table of Contents
Read the Introduction

aWonderful. . . . A fascinating and complex account of husbands struggling to assert their legal dominance in a changing cultural landscape, while law remained static. . . . Stray Wives is full of creative research and compelling new insights about marriage in early national America. Sievensas nuanced argument about power and interdependence within marriage is absolutely convincing. She also clearly demonstrates that legal change lagged behind cultural change, leaving husbands frustrated by their inability to rule.a
--"William & Mary Quarterly"

aOffers an engaging look at marital conflict at a key transitional time in the emotional and economic landscape of early national New England.a
--"Journal of the Early Republic"

aSievens focuses on a rich and under-used source: the ads that appeared in early American newspapers alerting readers not to extend credit to run-away wives, as well as occasional replies made by wives themselves. This is a terrific source that illuminates marriage, gender, law, print culture, and community in early America. Sievens has shown considerable sensitivity and acuity, as well as diligence in the pre-digitized days, in her approach to these fascinating sources. This is an impressively lucid coverage resting on persuasive claims. . . . Indeed, this book, in its brevity, clarity, and inherent drama, may be of particular use in the classroom. A fine book on an important topic, it will certainly be of use to many working in this field.a
--"Journal of Social History"

aSievens shows how even when free of their marriages, women often remained dependent on male kin.a
--"The Chronicle of HigherEducation"

aTo fully appriciate how far womenas rights have evolved by the twenty-first century, all one need do is read a work like this one. . . . Highly recommended.a
--"Choice"

aStray Wives is an insightful, carefully argued, and well-written work that complicates our understanding of law, society, and gender in early national New England. Along the way, it adds to our store of knowledge on such topics as women's economic role, domestic violence, and community relationships in early America. Sievens does a lovely job of showing the ways in which wives contested their husbands' dominance at the same time that they tolerated-indeed, sometimes benefited from-their own dependence.a
--Anya Jabour, author of "Marriage in the Early Republic"

aIn Stray Wives, Sievens examines hundreds of desertion notices to elucidate how couples negotiated the common law of marriage by revealing the words they addressed to the public, the issues over which they disagreed, and their strategies for maneuvering through and settling their conflicts. This important book adds both detail and depth to our knowledge of marriage and marital conflict in the early republic.a
--Merrill D. Smith, author of "Breaking the Bonds"

"Whereas my husband, Enoch Darling, has at sundry times used me in so improper and cruel a manner, as to destroy my happiness and endanger my life, and whereas he has not provided for me as a husband ought, but expended his time and money unadvisedly, at taverns . . . . I hereby notify the public that I am obliged to leave him."
Phebe Darling, January 13, 1796

Hundreds of provocative notices such as this one ran in New England newspapers between 1790 and 1830. Theseelopement notices--advertisements paid for by husbands and occasionally wives to announce their spouses' desertions as well as the personal details of their marital conflicts--testify to the difficulties that many couples experienced, and raise questions about the nature of the marital relationship in early national New England.

Stray Wives examines marriage, family, gender, and the law through the lens of these elopement notices. In conjunction with legal treatises, court records, and prescriptive literature, Mary Beth Sievens highlights the often tenuous relationships among marriage law, marital ideals, and lived experience in the early Republic, an era of exceptional cultural and economic change.

Elopement notices allowed couples to negotiate the meaning of these changes, through contests over issues such as gender roles, consumption, economic support, and property ownership. Sievens reveals the ambiguous, often contested nature of marital law, showing that husbands' superior status and wives' dependence were fluid and negotiable, subject to the differing interpretations of legal commentators, community members, and spouses themselves.

Around the world, discriminatory legislation prevents women from accessing their human rights. It can affect almost every aspect of a woman's life, including the right to choose a partner, inherit property, hold a job, and obtain child custody. Often referred to as family law, these laws have contributed to discrimination and to the justification of gender-based violence globally. This book demonstrates how women across the world are contributing to legal reform, helping to shape non-discriminatory policies and to counter current legal and social justifications for gender-based violence. The book takes case studies from Brazil, India, Iran, Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, and Turkey, using them to demosntrate in each case the varied history of family law and the wide variety of issues impacting women's equality in legislation. Interviews with prominent women's rights activists in three additional countries are also included, giving personal accounts of the successes and failures of past reform efforts. Overall, the book provides a complex global picture of current trends and strategies in the fight for a more egalitarian society. These findings come at a critical moment for change. Across the globe, family law issues are contentious. We are simultaneously witnessing an increased demand for women's equality and the resurgence of fundamentalist forces that impede reform, invoking rules rooted in tradition, culture, and interpretations of religious texts. The outcome of these disputes has enormous ramifications for women's roles in the family and society. This book tackles these complexities head on, and will interest activists, practitioners, students, and scholars working on women's rights and gender-based violence.

Around the world, discriminatory legislation prevents women from accessing their human rights. It can affect almost every aspect of a woman's life, including the right to choose a partner, inherit property, hold a job, and obtain child custody. Often referred to as family law, these laws have contributed to discrimination and to the justification of gender-based violence globally. This book demonstrates how women across the world are contributing to legal reform, helping to shape non-discriminatory policies and to counter current legal and social justifications for gender-based violence. The book takes case studies from Brazil, India, Iran, Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, and Turkey, using them to demosntrate in each case the varied history of family law and the wide variety of issues impacting women's equality in legislation. Interviews with prominent women's rights activists in three additional countries are also included, giving personal accounts of the successes and failures of past reform efforts. Overall, the book provides a complex global picture of current trends and strategies in the fight for a more egalitarian society. These findings come at a critical moment for change. Across the globe, family law issues are contentious. We are simultaneously witnessing an increased demand for women's equality and the resurgence of fundamentalist forces that impede reform, invoking rules rooted in tradition, culture, and interpretations of religious texts. The outcome of these disputes has enormous ramifications for women's roles in the family and society. This book tackles these complexities head on, and will interest activists, practitioners, students, and scholars working on women's rights and gender-based violence.

A complete, compact guide to business valuation in divorce litigation

The Handbook for Divorce Valuations is a comprehensive, practical handbook that covers every aspect of the CPA's role in divorce proceedings. It offers clear and detailed coverage of everything from the impact of state law on the practice to the applicability of various valuation methodologies, from establishing valuation credentials to marketing the divorce practice in a highly competitive environment.

The authors, who have a combined total of more than 50 years' experience in divorce practice, lead the reader through each step of a divorce engagement. They recommend the most practical and efficient methods of addressing each issue and point out hazards and potential difficulties along the way. They also explain why and how business valuation in divorce practice differs from valuation in other situations, and they examine the intricacies of data collection and analysis, finding and using industry and comparable company information, discounts and premiums, preparing for depositions and trials, and much more.

For any CPA who works, or is considering working, on family law matters, The Handbook for Divorce Valuations is an incomparable resource that helps practitioners provide the highest level of service to their clients.

A CPA who accepts a business valuation engagement in a family law setting embarks on a unique mission. In most states, business valuations linked to divorce proceedings are governed by different laws than those that apply to other valuations, and because the CPA has become an advocate for one side in an adversarial process, the findings of the valuation are sure to be challenged aggressively by representatives of the other side. Since neither business valuation strategies nor expert witness skills are part of the curriculum of any undergraduate accounting program, CPAs have generally had to acquire them through trial and, unfortunately, error until now.

The Handbook for Divorce Valuations offers practical coverage of every aspect of business valuation in the context of a divorce. From engagement acceptance and administration to divorce-related valuation issues and appearing as an expert witness, this comprehensive guide shows practitioners how to provide the highest level of service in divorce litigation. It helps CPAs:

• Prepare detailed, comprehensive reports on business valuation engagements
• Make the most of guidelines company- and industry-specific information
• Collect and analyze relevant data
• Choose the best valuation methodology
• Prepare for depositions and trials
• Put forth best effort on direct examination
• Survive cross-examination

Divorce litigants depend on thorough, competent professionals to represent their interests. The Handbook for Divorce Valuations helps practitioners ensure that their clients will receive the very best possible representation.

How can we end the inter-generational cycle of poverty and dysfunction in the US's urban ghettos? This ground-breaking and controversial book is the first to provide a child-centered perspective on the subject by combining a wealth of social science information with sophisticated normative analysis to support novel reforms-to child protection law and practice, family law, and zoning- that would quickly end that cycle. The rub is that the reforms needed would entail further suffering and loss of liberty for adults in these communities, and liberal advocacy organizations and academics are so adult-centered in their sympathies and thinking that they reflexively oppose any such measures. Liberals have instead promoted one ineffectual parent-focused program after another, in an ideologically-driven quest for the magic pill that can save both adults and children in these communities at the same time. This `insider critique' of liberal child welfare policy reveals a dilemma that liberals have yet to face squarely: there is an ineradicable conflict of interests between many young children and their parents, especially in areas of concentrated poverty, and one must choose sides. It is a must read for legal academics, political scientists, urban policy experts, as well as professionals working in social work, law, education, urban planning, legislative offices, and administrative agencies.

The paradigm of family has shifted rapidly and dramatically, from nuclear unit to diverse constellations of intimacy. At the same time, some norms resist change, such as women's continuing role as primary care providers despite their increased uptake of paid work. This tension between transformation and stasis in family arrangements has an impact on economic, emotional, and legal aspects of daily life. House Rules critically explores the intertwining of norms and laws that govern familial relationships. This incisive collection provides tools to analyze those difficulties and, ultimately, to design laws to better respond to ongoing change and avoid entrenching inequalities.

This book explores the intersecting issues relating the phenomenon of ageing to gender and family law. The latter has tended to focus mainly on family life in young and middle age; and, indeed, the issues of childhood and parenting are key in many family law texts. Family life for older members has, then, been largely neglected; addressing this neglect, the current volume explores how the issues which might be important for younger people are not necessarily the same as those for older people. The significance of family, the nature of family life, and the understanding of self in terms of one's relationships, tend to change over the life course. For example, the state may play an increasing role in the lives of older people - as access to services, involvement in work and the community, the ability to live independently, and to form or maintain caring relationships, are all impacted by law and policy. This collection therefore challenges the standard models of family life and family law that have been developed within a child/parent-centred paradigm, and which may require rethinking in the turn to family life in old age. Interdisciplinary in its scope and orientation, this book will appeal not just to academic family lawyers and students interested in issues around family law, ageing, gender, and care; but also to sociologists and ethicists working in these areas.

The first comprehensive account of how the law and practice of child protection in Scotland has developed from its earliest origins to the present day, within the context of a changing world Key Features Places the Scottish juvenile court in worldwide perspective and explores why the juvenile court ideals remain central to the contemporary children's hearing system in Scotland, dealing with both child offenders and neglected and abused children. Gives detailed analysis of the legislation and explores the parliamentary debates surrounding Acts including the Children Act 1908, the Adoption of Children (Scotland) Act 1930, the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Acts 1932 and 1937, the Children Act 1948, the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 Preserves in accessible form many long-forgotten legal and social aims, cases and secondary legislation Kenneth Norrie traces the assumptions that underlay child protection law at particular periods of time and identifies the pressures for change - giving a clearer understanding of how and why the contemporary law is designed and operates as it does. Particular issues are traced in legislative detail, including court processes, the changing thresholds for state intervention, the increasing regulation of children's homes and foster care, the developing rules on corporal punishment and the earlier practice of compulsory emigration to the colonies of children removed from their parents. The transformation of adoption is also covered in comprehensive detail. In drawing out key themes and common threads, Norrie sets contemporary developments against their historical context and offers a fuller understanding of child protection law in Scotland.

The key role of "incentives" in family law is considered in this economic approach to family law. The book discusses the possible adverse consequences emanating from faulty legal design, while demonstrating that good family law should provide incentives for consistent and honest behavior. Economists, specialists in the economic analysis of law, and academic lawyers discuss recent advances in specialized studies of marriage, cohabitation, and divorce. This important new work will be of considerable interest to lawyers, policy-makers and economists concerned with family law.

Although the debate over same-sex marriage in the United States has ended, no one seems to know what lies on the horizon. The conversation about what marriage could be like in the future is no longer confined to academics. In his dissent in Obergefell, Chief Justice Roberts linked the constitutionally-mandated legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the possibility that states may also have to recognize multi-person intimate relationships as well to avoid discriminating against plural marriage enthusiasts. The popularity of television shows like TLC's Sister Wives and HBO's Big Love suggests that Americans no longer can be dismissive of the possibility that in the foreseeable future, marriage could, and perhaps should, look very different than it does today. Rather than settling the question of whether states ought to abolish marriage, make it more inclusive, contractual, or call it something else, this book exposes readers to some of the normative, legal, and empirical questions that Americans must address before they can deliberate thoughtfully about whether to keep the marital status quo where monogamy remains privileged. Unlike much of the debate over same-sex marriage, they exchange reasons with one another as they discuss marital reform. This book is for ordinary Americans, their elected representatives, and judges, to help them ultimately decide whether they want to continue to define marriage so narrowly, make it more inclusive to avoid discrimination, or have the state leave the marriage business. This edited, interdisciplinary volume contains eight original contributions, all of which illuminate important but often neglected areas of the topic.

[Divorce; Contents Decree]The updated edition of the volume pertaining to AA 1564-1568 and the Contents Decree updates the text to the current level of jurisprudence. It also debates, amongst other things, the possibilities of legal policy reactions to the increasing phenomenon of false mutual divorces. The volume can by definition not be viewed in isolation from the Divorce Association. It combines volumes on post-marital maintenance, pension rights adjustments, parental care and international divorce law to provide a comprehensive presentation of divorce and its consequences.

Passed into law over a decade before the Revolution, the Family Protection Law quickly drew the ire of the conservative clergy and the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. In fact, it was one of the first laws to be rescinded following the revolution. The law was hardly a surprising target, however, since women's status in Iran was then - and continues now to be - a central concern of Iranian political leaders, media commentators, and international observers alike. Taking up the issue of women's status in a modern context, Marianne Boe offers a nuanced view of how women's rights activists assert their rights within an Islamic context by weaving together religious and historical texts and narratives. Through Her substantial fieldwork and novel analysis, Boe undermines both the traditional view of 'Islamic Feminism' as monolithic and clears a path to a new understanding of the role of women's rights activists in shaping and synthesizing debates on the shari'a, women's rights and family law. As such, this book is essential for anyone studying family law and the role of women in contemporary Iran.

Collaborative practice is a new method of dispute resolution, used mainly in family law matters. By taking a non-adversarial approach, it challenges the strictly positivist view of the lawyer as 'zealous advocate' for the client. As such, it has received much criticism from the established Bar and legal profession. This book provides a doctrinal and empirical analysis of collaborative practice with a view to assessing its place within the dispute resolution continuum and addressing whether this criticism has been justified. It begins by establishing the theoretical underpinnings of conflict and differing approaches to conflict resolution, the impact of the comprehensive law movement and therapeutic jurisprudence. The origins and development of the collaborative process and the framework it provides for a multidisciplinary approach to conflict resolution is outlined. The book addresses the examination of the process undertaken in the lead up to the enactment of the Uniform Collaborative Law Act in 2010; now regarded as a model of best practice. Finally, through an examination of empirical research undertaken in the US, Canada and in England and Wales, and in presenting the results of the first known empirical research into the process in an Irish family law context, the book concludes with an evidenced based analysis of the process from the perspective of couples who chose to use the collaborative model to resolve the issues surrounding their relationship breakdown, collaborative lawyers and lawyers who do not advocate a non-adversarial approach. As such this book provides a valuable insight into the process which will be of interest to: academics; practising lawyers; members of the judiciary; researchers in the fields of conflict resolution and family law and for students studying alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Child care law and policy issues generate very strong emotions and some crucial questions concerning the role of the state. For instance, under what circumstances should the state be able to intervene and use the force of the law to protect children? Do children have similar rights to adults? Such questions are matters of controversial debate and, in the light of well publicised child abuse cases, official inquiries and a government review led to the passing of the Children Act in 1989. Perspectives in Child Care Policy presents four different value perspectives on child care policy - laissez-faire; state paternalism; defence of the birth family and children's rights. These perspectives differ in their underlying values, concepts and assumptions concerning children, families, the rights and powers of parents and the role of the state.

Richard H. Chused examines more than 1300 petitions for divorce in Maryland filed during the first half of the nineteenth century. By weaving together information on the legislative handling of these petitions, the voting patterns of the state legislators, and the judicial treatment of related disputes, Chused shows the connections between politics, regional differences, and the development of American family law. His analysis also provides valuable insights into the social history of the time, a period when traditional Southern family values were at odds with the more modern values brought about by urbanization.

This title was first published in 2003. The essays in this collection are written by academics and practitioners who look at some of the key aspects of family law. Papers include one from Lord Justice Ward, who gave the first judgement in the Court of Appeal on the case of the conjoined twins from Malta, another from Judge Pearl who has been responsible for training the judiciary on the impact of the Human Rights Act on family law, while Dr C. Ball contributes a paper on aspects of the 1989 Children Act. Parent and child contact across borders is dealt with in a paper by William Duncan, who is Deputy Director General of the Hague Conference. Other topics include medical evidence in child cases, pre-nuptial agreements and the re-establishing of contact after divorce.