This volume brings together essays on a range of issues in family law in the United States and England. It provides an unparalleled opportunity to examine how family law has reacted to a period of unprecedented change in family life. The legal analyses are set within critical accounts of wider social and family policy and against a fully explored demographic background.

This book examines the world of family solicitors and will allow a balanced assessment of the role and of the place of the law in this aspect of life.

This book examines the world of family solicitors and will allow a balanced assessment of the role and of the place of the law in this aspect of life.

This work 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 O ati, Spain.

Relationships between adult partners following divorce or separation can be fragile, and the issues which have divided the parents are often hard to disentangle from the ongoing relationships between parents and children. Many have ongoing difficulty and need professional help and legal intervention to make arrangements for ongoing parenting. Parenting after Partnering brings together a wealth of new empirical research from the US, Europe, and Australia on the nature and importance of children's relationships with parents after parental separation, on the kinds of conflicts which develop, and...

Parenthood, rather than marriage, is emerging as the main mechanism for converting moral principles into legal and social obligations. However, this study shows that living with both parents gives children a social capital not found in other cases.

What kinds of obligations do parents have towards their children as family life becomes more complex? Many children pass through a number of different households, living with one or both parents, step-parents and step-siblings. The controversy surrounding the Child Support Act indicates that social norms do not yet sit easily with legal regulations. So how are new forms of family life accommodated in the legal system? This book argues that parenthood, rather than marriage, is now emerging as the central mechanism through which moral principles are converted into legal and social obligations.

This book considers the relationship between family law and family values in the way law is framed and closes with a plea to rethink family law.

Family justice requires a legal framework within which personal obligations are regulated over the life course. However, family justice also requires a justice system which can deliver legal information, advice, and support at times of change of status or family stress, together with mechanisms for negotiation, dispute management, and resolution, with adjudication as the last resort. The past few years have seen unparalleled turbulence in the way family justice systems function. These changes are associated with economic constraints in many countries, including England and Wales, where legal...

Do lawyers make matters worse, or do they provide information, advice and support which can help to prevent disputes arising or manage them when they do? Do mediators enable parties to communicate and reach agreements tailor made to their needs? Or working outside the legal framework, do they find it difficult to protect weaker parties and access expert advice? What happens when lawyers become mediators? This book will describe the structure of service provision and the day to day work of lawyers, mediators, and lawyer mediators, drawing on empirical work carried out 2013-15 immediately after...