When questions are raised regarding a law firm attorney’s representation of a firm client, the questioned attorney often wishes to seek legal counsel. A conferral will often benefit the attorney, the firm and the client. ...

In 2000 in Troxel v. Granville, four United States Supreme Court justices determined that the “liberty interests of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children” generally foreclose states from compelling ...

Many American state constitutions contain equality provisions. Some simply promote Equal Protection in ways comparable to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal constitution. Others are worded quite differently, ...

Crime victim recoveries are typically available in American states through three separate, but related, avenues: a criminal proceeding (with or without a formal charge); a related civil claim (including a pre-suit settlement); ...

American state parentage laws have evolved significantly in the past half century in response to changes in both reproductive technologies and human conduct. Yet further evolution, if not a revolution, seems inevitable. ...

When former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate John Edwards (finally) declared his paternity of Quinn, born of sex to Rielle Hunter, many assumed he could then begin to raise as well as financially support the child ...

Actual genetic ties do not always establish, or even help to establish, legal paternity of children born of consensual sex, that is, male parental rights and/or duties as of the time of birth. Paternity status, typically ...

American state parentage laws have traditionally required biological or adoptive ties and no more than two parents for any one child at any one time. Biological ties were demonstrated by giving birth or sperm. Adoptive ...

In her two recent articles on pregnancy support, “Preglimony” in the Stanford Law Review and “The Price of Pleasure” in the Northwestern Law Review, Professor Shari Motro argues that American laws should no longer treat ...

In Illinois, the “liberty interests of parents” are reflected in the “superior rights doctrine,” which holds, as elsewhere, that parents have superior rights regarding the care of their children. This doctrine is necessitated ...