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99 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1869 (2021-2022)
Nonmarital Fathers in Family Court: Judges' and Lawyers' Perspectives

handle is hein.journals/walq99 and id is 1905 raw text is: NONMARITAL FATHERS IN FAMILY COURT: JUDGES' AND LAWYERS' PERSPECTIVES TONYA L. BRITO* ABSTRACT This Article presents findings revealing judges and government attorneys' perspectives regarding nonmarital fathers as parents. The findings are drawn from original empirical data generated in a rigorous and extensive five-year qualitative study investigating the experiences of low-income litigants in family court. Specifically, this Article examines the perspectives of the judges and family court commissions who preside over IV-D child support cases as well the government attorneys who bring actions to enforce child support orders. These legal actors place a primacy on fathers' role as economic providers and characterize the fathers as disengaged dads because they do not reliably pay child support. When fathers counter in court that they are engaged dads who provide nurturing and caretaking to their children, judges and government attorneys admonish them stating that parental involvement is not relevant in support enforcement cases. Yet, when fathers attempt to affirmatively assert legal claims to gain access to and parenting time with their children, those same legal actors silence them and tell them that the court cannot hear their parenting claims and they must pursue them in a separate proceeding elsewhere. * Jefferson Burrus-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School. The author thanks David J. Pate, Jr., Amanda Ward, Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong, Daanika Gordon, Garrett Grainger, Chloe Haimson, Sarah Ishmael, Rachel Johnson, and Emily Frank for their many valuable insights and contributions during our collaboration on the qualitative study described in this Article. This study is supported by two research awards provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. SES-1323064 and Grant No. SES-1421098. This study would not have been possible without the support of NSF and other funders, including the University of Wisconsin Law School, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholars Program, the Sheldon B. Lubar Research Chair, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School. I also acknowledge with appreciation the assistance of the officials of the courts where this research was conducted. Finally, I am especially grateful to the many participants in this study who have been willing to share their experiences and perspectives on access to justice for low-income litigants in child support enforcement proceedings. 1869

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