Family Law’s Democratic Foundations

Sean Hannon Williams, Divorce All the Way Down: Local Voice and Family Law’s Democratic Deficit, 98 B.U. L. Rev. 579 (2018) Kaiponanea Matsumura For decades, scholars have heaped scorn on family law’s open-ended legal standards like “equitable” distribution or the “best interests” of the child.1 The prevailing view is that such standards are indeterminate because they call on judges to weigh competing values in the absence of social consensus or to make impossible predictions.2 They therefore invite—in fact, require—judges to make decisions that resonate with their personal preferences or experiences.3 Laypeople appear to be in full agreement. Virtually every person I’ve known who has gone through a divorce has a story about the trial judge who “screwed” him or her by imposing values inconsistent with that person’s own. But despite this virtually universal dissatisfaction, attempts to replace these…

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