The Development of Domestic Violence as a Legal Field: Honoring Clare Dalton

Abstract:     
This essay was written for the Symposium, “Challenging Boundaries in Legal Education: A Symposium Honoring Clare Dalton’s Contributions as a Scholar and Advocate”. It describes Clare Dalton’s important work in feminist legal theory and women’s rights. It examines Clare’s work on gender, law and domestic violence, especially her work on the original Dalton and Schneider casebook on domestic violence, Battered Women and the Law, and the evolution of this casebook as critical to the development of domestic violence as a legal field. Liz Schneider and Cheryl Hanna, co-authors with Clare Dalton on the second edition of this casebook, are from two different generations of women in legal practice and the legal academy, and were originally teacher and student. In the first Part of this essay, Liz Schneider offers a brief history of the Dalton and Schneider casebook and explores the development of domestic violence as a field in American law. In the second Part, Cheryl Hanna examines issues presented by the second edition of the casebook and their implications for legal conceptions of domestic violence. In the third Part, the authors write jointly to draw some conclusions about the casebook and the evolution of domestic violence as a distinct field of law.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 19

Keywords: Domestic Violence, Casebook, Teaching Domestic Violence, Feminist Theory

Accepted Paper Series