SILBAUGH'S SECTION: This survey course will provide an introduction to the legal regulation of the family. The course will focus on the legal regulation and response to both adult and adult-child relationships. Topics covered will include: cohabitation; marriage; civil union; domestic partnership; divorce and dissolution of relationships; the financial consequences of divorce including property division and alimony; premarital agreements; the laws governing non-marital relationships; domestic violence; child custody, visitation, and parenting plans; child support; paternity; assisted reproductive technologies; child welfare issues such as abuse and neglect laws; reproductive rights; and adoption. The course will also cover the interaction between families and the state in related areas of law including employment law and education law. There will be a final examination as well as in-class drafting and negotiation exercises. MCCLAIN'S SECTION: This survey course will provide an introduction to family law. Students will learn about the legal regulation of the family, a basic social institution. The course will focus on marriage, divorce, and parenthood. Topics concerning marriage will include: legal definitions of family, legal requirements for entering into marriage, informal marriage, cohabitation, legal consequences of marital status, common law incidents of marriage and transformation of the common law, domestic violence, legal and political debates over same-sex marriage and recognizing legal alternatives to marriage such as civil unions and domestic partnerships. Topics concerning family dissolution will include traditional and “no fault” divorce, lawyering and alternative dispute resolution, child custody, property division, and spousal and child support. Students will also learn about tensions in family law over how to define and recognize legal parenthood. We will address some issues of conflicts of law and federal and state jurisdiction over family law. An aim of the course is to introduce students to family law as a dynamic field of law, which has undergone significant transformation and which draws on many other fields of law, such as property, contracts, constitutional law, conflicts of laws, and torts, as well as on the social sciences. There will be a final examination. There is also a course requirement of an in-class, ungraded negotiation exercise and a related short paper. NOTE: Professor McClain's section of this course satisfies the upper-class professional skills requirement.