Course Section | Columbia Law School

Section Description Provided by Instructor

SCHEDULE: MTWRF 9:40 AM-12:55 PM

Course meets daily from Wednesday, August 17 through Friday, September 2, 2011.
Final exam will be administered on Friday, September 23.

This course is open to upperclass students on a first come, first serve basis.

This is the basic Family Law course taught for the first time in our new intensive three week mini-semester. The basic subject of the course is the legal regulation of intimate relationships. In addition to learning the basic law of marriage, divorce, custody and adoption, the course also considers a number of theoretical questions. For example, it has been argued by political theorist Susan Okin that because families are the basic organizing unit of society, people develop their core concepts and practices of justice in the context of families. Are families just institutions? What does law have to do with the structure and content of family life? What counts in law as a family? Are matters of intimacy, commitment, and marriage and best left to the state or individual choice and contract? What role do traditional gender norms and expectations play in the regulation of the family?

To answer these questions, specific attention is given to the creation, maintenance, and dissolution of families, as understood and as contested in the early 21st century. These issues are considered in cultural, economic, historical, political and constitutional contexts. Attention is also paid to various kinds of families, though this is essentially a course about middle class family law. (Issues not covered therefore include foster care, termination of parental rights, and welfare.)

Final grades in this course will be based on a final exam. In addition, one courtroom visit, and a brief report thereon, will be required outside of class time; this requirement can be met anytime before the final examination.