Santa Clara Law - 2008 Symposium

Law Review

Keynote Speaker
Nancy D. Polikoff
Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law

For over thirty years, Nancy Polikoff has been writing and litigating cases involving non-traditional families. She helped develop the legal theories in support of second-parent adoption and visitation rights for legally unrecognized parents. She was also the successful counsel in In re M.M.D., the 1995 case that established joint adoption for lesbian and gay couples in Washington, D.C., and Boswell v. Boswell, the 1998 Maryland case overturning restrictions on a gay non-custodial father’s visitation rights. Her recently published book, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under the Law (Beacon Press 2008), explores how the law can value all families, and why it must.

Panel I: Current Legislation and Proposed Alternatives

The recent findings by the U.S. Census reveal that the proportion of households headed by married couples has dropped to a historic low. Many people now live in families that no longer fit the traditional family structure: single parent homes, step families, blended families, and unmarried heterosexual, gay and lesbian cohabitants with or without children. This panel will discuss current legislation and propose alternative legal frameworks to serve the needs of all couples and their families as the American family structure continues to change

Jean C. Love, John A. and Elizabeth H. Sutro Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law
Jean Love is a member of the American Law Institute and was a former co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers. Love has served on committees of the American Association of University Professors, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, and the Association of American Law Schools. She is the author of two books on Soviet Law and has co-authored several legal casebooks on tort law, legal remedies, and an introduction to the Anglo-American Legal System.

Patricia A. Cain, Inez Mabie Distinguished Professor of Law,
Santa Clara University School of Law
Patricia Cain is a member of the American Law Institute, a former co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers, and a prior board member of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. She has also published several book chapters, treatises, and casebooks including Tax Planning for Unmarried Couples (Prentice Hall 1980) and Sexuality Law (with Arthur S. Leonard) (Carolina Academic Press 2005).

Paula A. Monopoli, Professor of Law and Founding Director, Women Leadership & Equality Program, University of Maryland School of Law
Paula Monopoli is an elected member of the American Law Institute and she sits on the ALI’s Consultative Committees for the Restatement Third of Property (Donative Transfers) and the Restatement Third of Trusts. She has published widely in the area of ethics and fiduciary duty and has been recognized as an innovative scholar in the field of inheritance law. She is the author of American Probate: Protecting the Public, Improving the Process (Northeastern University Press 2003).

E. Gary Spitko, Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law
Gary Spitko clerked for the Honorable Gerald Bard Tjoflat, who was then Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Spitko then practiced law for several years in Washington, D.C. and in Atlanta before embarking upon a teaching career. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of dispute resolution, employment discrimination, family law, and trusts & estates.

Panel II: Social Justice and Comparative Perspectives

The legitimacy of marriage has historically depended on various cultural and religious perspectives of marriage. Those who advocate that marriage should be defined exclusively as the union of one man and one woman argue that marriage comports with religious and cultural traditions. Moreover, those advocates argue that extending the legal benefits of marriage to couples in alternative living arrangements will undercut the procreative functions of the family unit. Despite resistance, many countries and several U.S. states have already begun to recognize some alternative forms of living arrangements to marriage. New theories and perspectives on the legitimacy of alternative living arrangements have also recently emerged. This panel will explore the concept of domestic partnerships and civil unions from a range of perspectives including those shaped by statistical data, sociological observations, and economic and class theories.

Stephanie Wildman, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Social Justice
and Public Service, Santa Clara University School of Law
Stephanie Wildman clerked for Judge Charles M. Merrill of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked as a staff attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance. She is past co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers and presently serves on the Board of Governors. She is also an elected member of the American Law Institute. Wildman was the Founding Director of the Center for Social Justice at Boalt.

June Carbone, Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law Professor,
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
June Carbone graduated from Princeton University and received her J.D. from Yale. She has explored the intersections between applied ethics and her specialties in family law and biotechnology. She writes extensively about the legal issues surrounding marriage, divorce and family obligations, especially within the context of the recent revolutions in biotechnology. Carbone is the author of From Partners to Parents: The Second Revolution in Family Law (Columbia University Press, 2000).

Saby Ghoshray, PhD, Founding Director of the Institute of
Interdisciplinary Studies (Connecticut)
Dr. Ghoshray’s main scholarship interest is in search for equality in the legal process, looking through the prism of gender, class and ethnicity. This is echoed in his work on diverse subsets of international law, comparative constitutionalism, death penalty jurisprudence, law & religion, gender & law, among others. He studied law at Cornell University where he also received an MBA, besides completing his PhD.

Shannon Price Minter, Legal Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
As Director of the nation’s leading advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, Shannon Minter has litigated many impact cases in California and across the country. He currently represents same-sex couples seeking the freedom to marry in a case pending before the California Supreme Court. Minter serves on the Board of Equality California and is a member of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. He received his J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1993.

Panel III: Judicial Perspectives —Theoretical and Practical Realities Facing Jurists as a Result of the Changing Family Structure
The traditional family structure has carried great weight in judicial decisions. Trial judges are influenced by their perception of the family structure in determining the types and methods of services provided to the public. Two key questions then exist: 1) what forms of judicial reasoning need to take place as the traditional family becomes less prevalent?; and 2) what practical changes must be made in order for courts to adapt to changing realities of society? This panel will offer distinct insights into how the rise of non-traditional households will cause judges to account for the changing family dynamic in their legal reasoning, and how the new realities of diverse family structures will require courts to find novel ways of offering worthwhile services to all families.

Michael Rooke-Ley, Visiting Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law
Michael Rooke-Ley is currently a Fulbright Senior Specialist consulting on the development of a law school at Nkumba University, Entebbe, Uganda and also serves on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. He has taught at a number of law schools during his career. Rooke-Ley teaches torts and administrative law at Santa Clara University.

Judge Ann Aiken, U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon
The Honorable Judge Aiken was a District and Circuit Court Judge in Lane County, Oregon for ten years prior to her federal appointment in 1998. Judge Aiken has far-reaching experiences as a trial and settlement judge and a longstanding commitment to alternative dispute resolution. She is a frequent participant and speaker at many continuing legal education programs and conferences. In September 2007, Judge Aiken declared unconstitutional two portions of the USA Patriot Act that deal with the government’s power to conduct secret searches and wiretapping without first obtaining a warrant.

Justice Harry Lee Anstead, Florida State Supreme Court
The Honorable Justice Anstead was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court in 1994 and became Florida’s 50th Chief Justice in 2002. The major priority of his administration as Chief Justice was to maintain the excellence of Florida’s trial courts during a time of transition and to improve the lot of children whose lives are affected by the courts. As a citizen, lawyer, and judge he serves his community and profession in a host of ways including service to charities, government, church, schools, and numerous other community-building institutions.

Justice Rives Kistler, Oregon State Supreme Court
The Honorable Justice Rives Kistler graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center and served as a law clerk for the Honorable Charles Clark, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and for the Honorable Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States. On completing his clerkships, Justice Kistler went into private practice and then moved to the Oregon Department of Justice as an Assistant Attorney General. Justice Kistler joined the Oregon Supreme Court as an Associate Justice in August 2003, after serving four years as a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals.