Family Law News

American Law Institute Publishes Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution

(Philadelphia) – The American Law Institute (ALI) has published its first comprehensive work in the field of family law: Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations. With this innovative and groundbreaking new volume, the Institute completes more than a decade of work on the legal consequences of family dissolution, including those involving domestic partners. These Principles cover such vital issues as the allocation of custodial and decisionmaking responsibilities for children, child support, distribution of marital property, compensatory payments to former spouses, and the legal effect of agreements between the parties.

Responsive to the enormous changes in society that have taken place over a half century during which divorce rates climbed and the traditional roles of men and women were challenged, this innovative volume moves beyond the traditional formulations that were often framed in such general terms as to give nearly unbounded discretion to the decisionmakers charged with implementing them. The Principles provide family law with the conceptual clarification and improved adaptation to social needs that has long been the ALI’s hallmark. It makes a major contribution to the better administration of justice in an area too often marked by inequity.

The work is described as "Principles" rather than "Restatement" because "Principles" is the better designation for a project that carefully explores and clarifies the fundamental assumptions—about the best interests of children, fairness to divorcing wives and husbands, and the legitimate economic claims of unmarried partners—upon which the legal rules must rest. Many of these Principles, nevertheless, restate and clarify present law, while others recommend directions for implementation by courts, legislatures, and other appropriate decisionmakers. The result is a coherent legal framework, sensitive to both the traditional value systems within which most families are formed and the nontraditional realities and expectations of other families, a framework the earlier drafts of which have already begun to influence both courts and legislatures.

Different portions of these Principles are intended for different primary audiences and the formulations vary accordingly. Some provisions function as traditional Restatement rules and are addressed to courts in their capacity as decisionmakers in individual cases. Other sections are addressed mainly to rulemakers rather than to decisionmakers. In these cases, the black letter typically articulates the provision’s aim and structure, as well as the considerations appropriate to its formulation, but specific details of its implementation are left to be fleshed out by the appropriate rulemakers in particular jurisdictions. The commentary amplifies the black letter’s guidance by examining the range of possibilities consistent with the rationale of the particular principle and is illuminated throughout by numerous practical Illustrations. Extensive Reporter’s Notes set forth the legal and scholarly sources drawn upon for each section and furnish the background for additional research. The work is further enhanced by comprehensive Tables of Cases and Statutes and by an Index.

Family law is largely state law, and no state’s law is precisely that of these Principles. But nearly everything in the Principles can be found in the current law of some states, as well as in that of other countries with a common-law tradition. In seeking to accommodate both important traditional values and the reality of modern conditions, the Institute has borrowed profitably from both domestic and foreign experience.

Professor Ira Mark Ellman of Arizona State University College of Law served as Chief Reporter for the ALI’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations. The other Reporters were Dean Katharine T. Bartlett of Duke University School of Law and Professor Grace Ganz Blumberg of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law. All three were honored by the Institute with the special designation of R. Ammi Cutter Reporter because of the excellence of their work on this project.

In addition to obtaining the close review of a diverse group of Advisers expert in the field and of the ALI’s Members Consultative Group for this project, the Reporters benefited from having the views of a Judges Consultative Group, which included many jurists who work on family-law cases every day.

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	Did You Know?
	Child custody is an important family issue. Child custody is a term that refers to the bundle of rights and responsibilities that a parent carries with respect to his/her child. Child custody includes numerous concepts, some of which overlap and some that are distinct. Your family lawyer in your state can help you make these distinctions.