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Legislative Reform of Child Custody Adjudication: An Effort to Rely on Social Science Data in Formulating Legal Policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Phoebe C. Ellsworth  and
Robert J. Levy
Phoebe C. Ellsworth
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Robert J. Levy
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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A survey of child custody cases and commentary yields the following, most depressing conclusions: everyone agrees that awarding custody is one of the trial judge's most delicate responsibilities; almost everyone is unhappy with prevailing substantive and procedural doctrines; yet no one seems to believe that the situation can be improved substantially. Too many appellate opinions begin, or end, with a plaintive plea for the reader's sympathy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , November 1969 , pp. 167 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by the Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

AUTHORS' NOTE: This article is drawn from a report, entitled “Uniform Marriage and Divorce Legislation: A Preliminary Inquiry,” prepared for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The conference, whose membership includes official representation from the fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, prepares legislation on a variety of topics of interstate concern-with the goal of modernizing and making uniform legal policies throughout the United States. The report of which this article is a part is the initial product of a conference endeavor to promulgate a uniform marriage and divorce law.

In its original form, the first section of this essay was a separate paper prepared as an attachment to and as support for the statutory policy recommendations which here appear in the second section.

The authors thank the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws for permission to print this essay separately. In addition, we acknowledge our debt to Dr. J. M. Carlsmith, Stanford University, for helpful suggestions concerning methodological considerations. All recommendations are the authors' alone; the National Conference has neither approved nor endorsed any part of this essay.

References

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