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The future offamily-law education
August 2014 Vol. XXVI, No. 8TheDailyRecord.com/Maryland-Family-Law
Page 4
Say you want an
evolution
Say you want an
evolution
Barbara Babb
Page 4
BY LAUREN KIRKWOOD
By its very nature, the field offamily law deals with families incrisis, but the crisis is not alwaysevident. Interwoven into the causeand effect of a divorce or custodycase can be issues like substanceabuse, mental illness, truancy,poverty and homelessness. That’s why legal educators are
pointing to a holistic approach —one that takes into considerationeverything impacting a family’s sit-uation — as crucial for the successof the next generation of family lawattorneys. By moving away from the tradi-
tional adversarial approach to onethat emphasizes the circumstancesfacing each family, the educatorshope to give students a range ofskills apart from litigation withwhich to address their clients’needs. “We’re trying to teach lawyering
in context — in the context of thefamilies’ lives,” said Margaret John-son, who directs the University ofBaltimore School of Law’s FamilyLaw Clinic.
Mediation and collaboration Through clinical education, law
students are able to experiencewhat it’s like to represent a clientfrom start to finish. But in clinicsdealing with family law, some of themost important experiences for lawstudents take place outside thecourtroom, Johnson said. Many family law cases, for in-
stance, can be resolved throughmediation. Over the past fewdecades, “there has been a signifi-cant shift in family law toward amore collaborative, problem-solv-ing approach in cases,” said JaneMurphy, one of the instructors at
UB Law’s Mediation for FamiliesClinic. The mediation clinic is one of
just a few of its kind at law schoolsacross the country, Murphy said.While its students occasionallywork on cases with students in UBLaw’s Family Law Clinic, the Medi-ation for Families Clinic allows stu-dents to learn both representationand mediation hands-on. In one innovative example, the
MFC has begun partnering withprisoner re-entry programs in Balti-more. “Part of that transition is re-
building relationships with families,and sometimes the best way thatcan be handled is through a media-tor,” Murphy said. Collaborative practice, in which
parties agree not to litigate and toresolve disputes with the help oftheir attorneys, is another option atthe clinic. Because each side must have anattorney, collaborative law hasbeen criticized as too expensive formany people, Murphy said. Butgroups like the Collaborative Proj-ect of Maryland have offered train-ing to lawyers who agree to providepro bono services, making the ap-proach available to more low in-come families. Although it’s a relatively new
area of family law, it’s been devel-oping quickly in Maryland, she said. “I’m hoping for growth, and I
think that the push is to trainlawyers who are more problem-solvers than litigators,” Murphysaid. Jana B. Singer, a professor at the
University of Maryland FrancisKing Carey School of Law whoteaches several courses related tofamily law, said UM Carey also of-fers students opportunities for ex-perience in alternative dispute
resolution, as well as courses thatimprove their interdisciplinaryknowledge. For example, Singer said, UM
Carey’s Children and Divorcecourse incorporates child develop-ment into family law curricula. Issues like divorce and child
custody are not just legal issues,Singer said. “They really are socialand emotional processes. Lawyersare not social workers, but theyneed to understand the nonlegal as-pects.”
On the cutting edge Along with the chance to help
families solve problems, a big drawto the family law field today is oftenthe opportunity to handle cutting-edge issues, said Singer, who haslong been a leading voice advancingthe rights of same-sex couples inMaryland and nationally. While the state has now recog-
nized the right of same-sex couplesto marry, that did not resolve everyissue. In Maryland, the partner who is
not the biological parent has tomeet a high standard to win childcustody or even visitation rightswhen same-sex partners split up.The Court of Appeals held in 2008,in Janice M. v. Margaret K., that“de facto parenthood” is not a rec-ognized status in the state. As a re-sult, the partner must prove thatthe biological, or legal, parent isunfit, or that there are exceptionalcircumstances that warrant cus-tody or visitation for the other part-ner. Otherwise, the request istreated the same as if a sibling orgrandparent were trying to gaincustody. At UB Law’s Family Law Clinic,
Johnson said, students have re-cently seen a number of cases deal-
Say you want an evolution Family-law educators opt for less adversarial,
more holistic approach
ing with third-party child custody inthe case of same-sex unmarriedcouples. “That’s something that really an-
imates our students,” Johnson said.“They’re very animated around mar-riage equality and LGBTQ rights.” In addition to representing
clients, students in the Family LawClinic also complete a social justiceproject of some sort, Johnson said.These have ranged from advocatingfor legislation that would protectdomestic violence victims to partic-ipating in community educationprograms in middle and highschools. “What we teach at the clinic is
really that it’s the client’s life, andthey’re the expert on their life,” she
said. “We really want students tounderstand that lawyers have a lotof tools in their toolbox.”
Systemic advocacy Other family law programs high-
light aspects of that “toolbox,” suchas the Sayra and Neil MeyerhoffCenter for Families, Children andthe Courts at UB Law. The center’s overarching mis-
sion is to reform the family justicesystem nationwide to focus on therelationship between parents, chil-dren and the judiciary. In Baltimore, one of CFCC’s key
projects has been the TruancyCourt Program. Now almost a decade old, tru-
ancy court aims to help students
who are habitually missing schoolget back on track and improve theirattendance. It takes a non-punitiveapproach, attempting to get at theroot causes of students’ truancyand then offering them rewards forimproved attendance. Many law students in the cen-
ter’s student fellows course, taughtby CFCC Director and professorBarbara Babb, choose to partici-pate in Truancy Court to fulfill theirproject requirements. The law stu-dents serve as mentors and rolemodels for their younger counter-parts, and since the programstarted in 2005, about 2,500 stu-dents ranging in age from kinder-garteners to high schoolers haveparticipated.
Associate Law Professor Barbara Babb is the director of the Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts, which seeks to reformthe family justice system nationwide.
MAXIMILIAN FRANZ
The size of the student fellowscourse has doubled as more andmore UB Law students get involved,Babb said.
By teaching students to think oftheir role as that of a problem solverrather than a potential winner orloser, the program helps studentslearn how to advocate for clientswithout being adversarial, she said. “Most students found that itchanged the way they will practicelaw,” she said. “They really see thebig picture; they see how families areactually living their lives.”
Within the past two years, the cen-ter has added to the program an at-torney who meets with parents towork out underlying legal issues, aswell as a social worker, who helpsfamilies access social services. “When you look at how familiesand children are living their lives, youhave to look at all of the systems inwhich they function and try to makeconnections,” Babb said. Those sys-tems include the home, the child’sschool and the parent’s workplace,she said. This kind of holistic thinking isalso part of another CFCC project:advocating for unified family courts,or systems in which the court has thepower to hear every type of case thataffects the family dynamic. In a unified family court system,Babb said, judges get a more com-plete picture of all the issues onefamily is dealing with, which mightrange from domestic violence to su-pervised visitation to addiction coun-seling. “These issues are often as impor-tant, if not more important, in familylaw cases as the legal issues,” Babbsaid. The center has held training ses-sions and workshops locally andacross the country to help govern-ments develop unified court systems.Although the center has not held as
many of these sessions in recentyears, largely because of tighter statecourts budgets, Babb said she hopesto be able to organize more soon.
More appealing approach Experiential family law programshave seen growing interest from stu-dents, as they recognize the demandfor family law attorneys and becomeeager to get experience in the fieldwhile earning their JD, Babb said. “I think many of our students willgo into private practice in a smallfirm or by themselves, and the major-ity of cases they will handle will befamily law cases,” she said. But the biggest factor behind therising popularity of family lawcourses might be the evolving reputa-tion of the field itself, Singer said. “Years ago, the reputation of fam-ily law and family lawyers was, ‘oh,it’s mudslinging and it’s nasty and ad-versarial,’ and I think some studentswere not excited by that,” she said.“Now that family law has really beena leader in alternative dispute resolu-tion and problem-solving, that reallyappeals to students who are inter-ested in helping people resolve prob-lems in a way that is not destructive.”
Lawyers are not social workers, but they needto understand the nonlegal aspects.
Jana B. SingerUniversity of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
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Reprinted with permission of The Daily Record Co. ©2014
