Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive Faculty Scholarship Faculty Publications 2011 Family Law Scholarship Goes to Court: Functional Parenthood and the Case of Debra H. v. Janice R. Suzanne B. Goldberg Columbia Law School,
[email protected] Harriet Antczak Mark Musico Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Family Law Commons Recommended Citation Suzanne B. Goldberg, Harriet Antczak & Mark Musico, Family Law Scholarship Goes to Court: Functional Parenthood and the Case of Debra H. v. Janice R., 20 COLUM. J. GENDER & L. 348 (2011). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1106 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Scholarship Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Archive. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF GENDER AND LAW FAMILY LAW SCHOLARSHIP GOES TO COURT: FUNCTIONAL PARENTHOOD AND THE CASE OF DEBRA H. v. JANICE R. SUZANNE B. GOLDBERG, HARRIET ANTCZAK & MARK MUSICO Family law literature, while diverse in its exploration of contemporary families, also offers important threads of consensus. These strong points of coherence, when brought together with relevant case law, can be a useful means of advancing the academic conversation as well as engaging directly with courts to shape the law's development. In a field as complex as family law, myriad academic viewpoints on any given issue often make it difficult to imagine scholarly discussion having utility for courts. As we aim to show here, however, amicus briefs can be important vehicles for synthesizing the literature, highlighting basic points of COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF GENDER AND LAW consensus and connecting family law scholarship to ongoing cases.