Volume 24, Number 2, 2008
Articles
- Client Engagement Inside Collaborative Law - Michaela Keet, Wanda Wiegers, and Melanie Morrison
This article explores the experiences of clients inside the Collaborative Law process. Analyzing the results of a pilot study, the authors discuss the degree to which clients were meaningfully engaged in the process and identify reported imbalances in power as one of the most significant barriers to client engagement. Clients' reflections also help to identify the degree to which Collaborative Law's unique features either overcame or exacerbated significant imbalances. While lawyers had considerable influence over how the process was experienced, what clients brought to the table also appeared influential, leading the authors to conclude that more attention must be paid to screening.
- "A Delicate Necessity": Bruker v. Marcovitz and the Problem of Jewish Divorce - John C. Kleefeld and Amanda Kennedy
- "Wrapped in the Flag of the Child": Divorced Parents' Perceptions of and Experiences with the Federal Child Support Guidelines - Krista Robson
Law has a significant role in the process of governing life. Because the child support law and policy impose normative and coercive standards for post-divorce parenting, it is essential to ask how traditional meanings of motherhood and fatherhood are being challenged and/or reinforced through the application of this legislation. This article uses interviews with custodial and noncustodial parents to expand our understanding of what is happening "on the ground" pursuant to the child support law reforms. Three key themes will be exposed: parents' interpretations of the normative messages about parental responsibilities received from their legal experiences; the meaning of the "battle" metaphor parents used to describe their experiences navigating the family law system; and the disempowered subject position that parents still occupy within their own divorce process.
Allan Falconer Memorial Student Essay Contest Winner
- In Sickness and in Health? Spousal Support and Unmarried Cohabitants - Noel Semple