Agreements in Family Law

Abstract:     
The amount of private ordering in family law is significant, especially compared to just a few decades ago. And the trend seems to be towards greater private ordering. At the same time, domestic relations remains an area in which private ordering is viewed with significant suspicion, and a significant part of family law is still shaped by mandatory rules and by status.

As part of a series of works reflecting on agreements in the family law context, this paper reflects on the sharply different treatment of agreements in premarital and marital agreements, co-parenting agreements, and open adoption agreements.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 20

Keywords: family law, private ordering, premarital (prenuptial) agreements, marital agreements, open adoption, coparenting agreements

working papers series