Family Law

Some of the most personal and profound aspects of law are those that define and regulate family and intimate relationships. Issues relating to family life are found across public and private law, in contracts, torts, constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, and other doctrinal areas. NYU Law provides a range of courses that teach students substantive family law, as well as the analytic and litigation skills that are crucial to family law practitioners.

The required Constitutional Law course may introduce students to some of the constitutional issues that are integral to family law, including rights of due process and personal autonomy. Two upper-level classes survey a range of topics in family law. The Family Law course examines the changing definitions and normative constructions of family, as well as federal and state law and policy concerning familial relationships (broadly construed), including marriage and its alternatives, divorce, property distribution, parenthood, child custody and visitation, child welfare, artificial reproductive technologies, and adoption. The Child, Parent, State course considers the interplay of interests among children, parents, and the State in connection with delinquency, child welfare, education, medical care, adoption, visitation, and the rights of unwed fathers. Other upper-level courses focus on specialized topics such as intimate partner violence, and include the Family Defense Clinic, which is comprised of an interdisciplinary seminar on family regulation and field work litigating cases in Family Court.

Multiple-Section Course Learning Outcomes

Child, Parent and State (LAW-LW.11323)

Students in this court will: Examine foundational questions regarding the state’s role and interests in children by examining the key Supreme Court decisions that address child-rearing decisions made by parents; Be able to explain how the state describes its interest in child-rearing; Be able to explain when and why parents are free to make decisions regarding their children’s lives and when their choices are limited by law; Learn how and why the Supreme Court’s determines that children have certain constitutional rights and why they are said to lack other rights that adults enjoy; Appreciate how many of these questions are complex, capable of very different answers, and vary over time depending on the membership of the Supreme Court; Become fluent in the many questions surrounding the degree to which parents may (or may not) object to the curriculum designed in the public school; Appreciate the complex questions embedded in state laws that liberate children from parental control for various health care options or, alternatively, deny children the right to secure treatment without parental permission of knowledge; Learn the laws authorizing state officials to remove children from their families and permanently destroy the legal relationship of parent and child; Become fluent in the range of options available when defining the role of lawyers assigned to represent children in family-related legal proceedings.

Sex Discrimination Law (LAW-LW.12271)

Students in this course will: Learn how to analyze sex-based differential treatment in various areas of the law, including, but not limited to, constitutional law, criminal law, employment law and family law; Deepen their understanding of a variety of aspects of feminist legal theory and history, the intersection of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, litigation strategy, the development of legal remedies, and some international and comparative perspectives; Gain insight into a number of constitutional concepts and the relationship between social movements and the law.