Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman discusses the recent developments in New Jersey culminating in today’s first same-sex marriages performed in that state. She describes the relatively complex journey to marriage equality in that state and explains how the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last term in United States v. Windsor led to the New Jersey Supreme Court refusing to delay enforcement of a lower court’s ruling striking down the ban on same-sex marriage.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on a ruling allowing a child to have three legal parents, and a related measure that California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law. Grossman covers both the facts and law pertaining to the case, and explains why California, alone among the states, allowed a three-parent situation to be established.

Justia columnist and attorney David Kemp describes two recent lawsuits filed in Virginia challenging that state’s laws prohibiting same-sex marriages. Kemp describes the two cases, explains why Virginia is a favorable venue for such legal challenges, and notes the prevalence of other similar cases around the country. Kemp concludes that the existence of so many cases challenging discriminatory laws must be seen as a step in the right direction for same-sex marriage advocates.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman and Justia guest columnist and Stanford law professor Lawrence Friedman together comment on an epic contest over an estate that totaled over $300 million. Grossman and Friedman explain why the estate at issue, belonging to a woman named Huguette Clark, raised a host of complex issues that were ripe for a will contest, and they comment on the possibility that the will contest might have been avoided in various ways.

Justia columnist and attorney David Kemp discusses a recent case filed in federal court in South Carolina challenging the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriages. Kemp describes the facts and arguments of that case, Bradacs v. Haley, and compares it to another recent case filed in Ohio challenging that state’s own laws precluding recognition of same-sex marriages. Kemp notes one particular parallel between arguments in the two cases and predicts, based on this parallel, that we will see similar challenges in several other states with comparably structured domestic relations laws.

Hofstra law professor and Justia columnist Joanna Grossman comments on recent same-sex marriage developments, including Justice Ginsburg’s performing a same-sex wedding ceremony; the ruling in United States v. Windsor; changes in the way in which same-sex couples now will be treated by the IRS and Social Security Administration, as well as by HHS regarding Medicare benefits; and the Obergefell v. Kasich case, which raised the issue of whether a same-sex marriage would be reflected on a death certificate.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on a recent New Jersey Supreme Court case that involved the following question: Should the custodial parent have the presumptive right to change his or her child’s surname after a divorce? Grossman considers this and other questions and conflicts, that can arise regarding child-naming. She also puts these conflicts in the context of the U.S.’s tradition of patronymy, under which children take their father’s surname, and explains how that tradition emerged.

Justia columnist and attorney David Kemp discusses the recent grant of a temporary restraining order by a federal judge in Ohio, effectively suspending that state’s ban on recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages. Kemp discusses the facts and reasoning behind the decision in that case, Obergefell v. Kasich. He then considers the background of Section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). He concludes that although Obergefell does not expressly address DOMA, in practice it signals an imminent shift toward overturning the remaining section of that federal law.

Hofstra law professor and Justia columnist Joanna Grossman discusses a complex Wisconsin family law case, which led the Wisconsin Supreme Court to validate traditional surrogacy contracts—that is, ones where the surrogate provides the egg and the womb. This kind of surrogacy, as Grossman explains, is now rare. The arrangement, Grossman points out, was also unusual in another way: It was an altruistic—that is, uncompensated—surrogacy. Unfortunately, the arrangement led to a post-birth controversy, and then to litigation, as Grossman explains.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman chronicles and comments on the legal fight over Baby Veronica, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. As Grossman explains, the case was complicated due to an apparent conflict between the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a 1978 law designed to reduce improper removals of Indian children from their parents and their placement with non-Indian families, and South Carolina’s rules regarding the rights of unwed fathers. Grossman explains the reasoning of majority opinion, as well as that of the opinion of Justice Sotomayor, who wrote the principal dissent.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on a little-remarked but important aspect of the recent Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor: the limits of the decision. For instance, she notes that gay people were not granted a constitutional right to be married in any state by the decision. Moreover, Hamilton points out that, despite the decision, there are only 14 jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, where gay people will be able to marry, and where they also will be able to receive the identical federal benefits received by heterosexual couples. And, in the 37 states left to persuade, federal benefits for married couples can be limited to heterosexual couples. Thus, Hamilton notes that we are far from true equality for gay Americans.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor, holding that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—passed in 1996 in haste to ward off same-sex marriage in the states—is unconstitutional. Grossman chronicles DOMA's history; discusses challenges to DOMA Section Three; and explains why Windsor was the perfect test case for DOMA. She also covers the standing issue, in addition to the merits questions discussed by the majority opinion and the dissent.

Justia columnist and U.C., Davis law professor Vikram David Amar offers thoughts on what we may expect to see in the Supreme Court’s ultimate ruling on Proposition 8. Among other points, Amar cautions that we should not expect a definite resolution of the federal constitutional question of same-sex marriage. He also describes some of the narrower options for which the Court might opt instead, and in some instances, the likelihood of particular options being chosen.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling allowing the lesbian co-partner of the biological mother of a child to be listed on that child’s birth certificate. Grossman covers the facts regarding the particular co-partners who prevailed in this landmark decision, and the reasoning that convinced the Iowa Supreme Court—which earlier had legalized same-sex marriage—to side with them and to grant them both the rights to be recognized as the legal mothers of the child whom they are raising together.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on the validity, in New York, of marriages performed by the Universal Life Church, which ordains its ministers via the click of an online button, and subsequent online approval. New York courts are split on the matter, and as Grossman notes, a recent annulment filing has brought the issue up once again. Her column brings up interesting questions such as, “Who is a minister?” and “What is a Church?”

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on how the legal status of the spouses in a marriage may change if one of them has sex-reassignment surgery—either before or after the marriage, or whether their legal sex must always be the one they had at birth. Grossman covers cases on this topic in Kansas, Texas, Florida and New Jersey, and their outcomes.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on the recurring legal issue of whether a lesbian co-parent—one who functions as a second parent for her partner’s biological child—can acquire parental or quasi-parental rights that allow her to still enjoy a parent-child relationship after the adults’ relationship ends. Grossman discusses state Supreme Court cases from Kansas, North Carolina and Ohio that take on this very question. She also discusses the question whether a child can have three legal parents (one of whom is a sperm donor and the other two, lesbian co-parents) and notes that no court, so far, has allowed that.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman discusses a New Jersey case in which the state’s high court held unanimously—and perhaps surprisingly, to some—that the state may not find a newborn to be abused or neglected based solely on evidence of prenatal drug exposure, without evidence of actual harm to the child. Grossman covers the problem of drug use among pregnant women; states’ various approaches to that problem; and the question of when pre-natal drug use should be deemed child abuse under the law.

Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman, and Justia guest columnist and Stanford law professor Lawrence Friedman explain the rule that one who slays his or her spouse cannot then inherit from that spouse. To illustrate the doctrine, Grossman and Friedman focus on a case involving a murder in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), and raise the interesting question of who determines, in this context, if a suspect was actually the slayer. They also explain why not only the slayer, but also the slayer’s children, are barred from inheriting from the murder victim. In addition to the BVI case, Grossman and Friedman cover a long-ago New York case that they deem the grandfather of all slayer cases, as well as a few other, more recent slayer cases.

In Part One of this two-part series of columns, which appeared on December 12, Justia columnist and Cornell law professor Sherry Colb commented on the following question: Do men who father children through rape, and whose victims take their pregnancies to term, have parental rights vis-à-vis those children? If so, that would mean that the rapist father could seek visitation with, or even custody of, those children. Now, in Part Two of the series, Colb examines how and why many state laws seem to support even rapist fathers’ visitation rights, due to the burdens of proof they impose, with alleged rapists often needing to be convicted of rape beyond a reasonable doubt before their visitation rights are refused or terminated. Colb outlines a number of alternative legal approaches that she argues would be preferable to those that currently exist.