A guide for grandparents seeking information about their legal rights to their grandchildren, including visitation and custody rights. Includes state by state laws, recourse, and sample forms.

Abstract: This publication reports on a hearing held by a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject of grandparents' visitation rights. The hearing expressed the sense of the Congress that a uniform state act should be developed and adopted which provides grandparents with adequate rights to petition state courts for privileges to visit their grandchildren following the dissolution (because of divorce, separation, or death) of the marriage of such grandchildren's parents.

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The ABA Journal serves the legal profession. Qualified recipients are lawyers and judges, law students, law librarians and associate members of the American Bar Association.

While the formal definition of divorce may be concise and straightforward (legal termination of a marital union, dissolving bonds of matrimony between parties), the effects are anything but, particularly when children are involved. The Americans for Divorce Reform estimates that "40 or possibly even 50 percent of marriages will end in divorce if current trends continue." Outside the U.S., divorce rates have markedly increased across developed countries. Divorce and its effects are a significant social factor in our culture and others. It might be said that a whole "divorce industry" has been constructed, with divorce lawyers and mediators, family counselors, support groups, etc. As King Henry VIII's divorces showed, divorce has not always been easy or accepted. In some countries, divorce is not permitted and even in Europe, countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, and the Republic of Ireland legalized divorce only in the latter quarter of the 20th century. This multi-disciplinary encyclopedia covers curricular subjects related to divorce as examined by disciplines ranging from marriage and the family to anthropology, social and legal history, developmental and clinical psychology, and religion, all through a lens of cultural sociology. Features: 550 signed entries, A-to-Z, fill 3 volumes (1,500 pages) in print and electronic formats, offering the most detailed reference work available on issues related to divorce, both in the U.S. and globally. Cross-References and Further Readings guide readers to additional resources. A Chronology provides students with context via a historical perspective of divorce. In the electronic version, the comprehensive Index combines with Cross-References and thematic Reader's Guide themes to provide convenient search-and-browse capabilities. For state and nation entries, uniform entry structure combined with an abundance of statistics facilitates comparison between and across states and nations. Appendices provide further annotated sources of data and statistics.

For too long, divorce and remarriage literature has focused only on the outcome in the personal lives of the divorcees during and after divorce. But now, in Child Custody: Legal Decisions and Family Outcomes, you’ll see that divorce is a chain reaction that begins in the courtrooms and branches out into the families of the world, changing the lives of children, parents, and grandparents alike. Child Custody is an incisive, up-to-date collection of studies that addresses both child custody decisions and the varied and often surprising outcomes for those children and their families. Divided into two main sections, one focusing on legislative guidelines and the other on family issues, this unique compilation of recent divorce and remarriage research gives you a rare view of the attitudes some judges have toward divorce. In addition, those people in both law and family research fields will have at their disposal the many aspects of the legal decision-making process and the legislative guidelines that currently hold sway over custody and post-divorce cases. Here are some of the topics you’ll read about: the evolution of three types of residential custody arrangements--father, mother, and joint--followed over a two-year period legal reforms aimed at guaranteeing parental access to children how social research has shaped New Hampshire’s child support policy divorced fathers and mothers in Greece the stigmas on lesbian mothers in custody cases how grandparent involvement shapes post-divorce families Meant as a catalyst for further research and study, this book begins to touch upon the intrinsic flaws in both legal and family systems that continue to exist. Too often, we think of divorce and child custody as merely legal decisions. In Child Custody, however, you’ll find that what matters in court is also a family matter.