November 2015

• Author: Ruth C. Stern
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12196
• Published date: 01 October 2015
• Date: 01 October 2015

EDITORIAL NOTE

NOVEMBER 2015

As a baseball fan of almost foolish consistency, Professor Andrew Schepard is well acquainted

with the wisdom of Yogi Berra. He might therefore agree that his recent career change is the logical

result of coming to a fork in the road, and taking it. As of August 2015, Andy has assumed new chal-

lenges and responsibilities as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Maurice A. Deane

School of Law. Regrettably, he will no longer serve as Editor of Family Court Review (FCR). While

we wish Andy all the best in his new endeavors, we will miss his innumerable contributions to the

excellence of this publication. Andy’s knowledge of family law; his devotion to furthering the wel-

fare of children and families; and his ability to form valuable, lasting relationships in the legal and

academic communities all but ensure that he will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.

During this stage of FCR’s transition, I have stepped in as managing editor. I am grateful for

Andy’s continued guidance as well as for the support and encouragement of Peter Salem, Executive

Director of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and Bob Emery, FCR’s Social Science

Editor. I also wish to acknowledge the assistance of Wiley’s production staff and the patience and

fortitude of FCR’s Student Managing Editor, Carissa Danesi and her staff. Producing each issue of

FCR is very much a group effort. I rely on FCR’s Editorial Board and the professionalism of our cur-

rent and future contributors to guarantee FCR’s ongoing success.

My background is in law and social work. As a social worker I provided casework and counsel-

ing services to children in foster care and group homes. As an attorney, I represented children and

adults in nearly every type of family court proceeding. Later, I discovered the pleasures of research

and writing. Along with my spouse and co-author, J. Herbie DiFonzo, I have published a number of

articles on various legal issues as well as a recent book, Intimate Associations: The Law and Culture

of American Families.

One of FCR’s greatest strengths is its commitment to understanding and protecting vulnerable

populations. The October issue is no exception to this very urgent undertaking. Several articles

explore the needs of court-involved children, the elderly, and families affected by domestic abuse. In

their article, “Forgotten Children of Immigration and Family Law: How the Absence of Legal Aid

Affects Children in the United States,” Mary O’Neill, Parisa Bagheri, and Alexis Sarnicola discuss

how children of compromised immigration status—those born in the United States to non-citizen

parents or those who arrive in the U.S. unaccompanied by a parent or guardian—face the hazards of

detention and removal, whether of their parents or themselves. Often, these children are not entitled

to government funded court-appointed counsel and must rely on a fragile network of pro bono serv-

ices. In family court proceedings, appointing non-lawyer child advocates could provide much-

needed assistance to the parties and their attorneys. In mandatory family court-based meditation serv-

ices, screening for domestic violence remains a priority. Guidelines for safety and risk assessment

combine with the need for empirically valid methods for matching couples with the most effective

conflict resolution strategies. In “A Systematic Approach to Domestic Abuse-Informed Child Cus-

tody Decision-Making in Family Law Cases,” Gabrielle Davis proposes a simple framework for

identifying domestic abuse and analyzing its nature and implications for custody disputes. The

framework is designed to help domestic violence professionals avoid assumptions, biases and judg-

ments based on their own beliefs. Also in the context of family mediation, in “Associations Between

Parent and Child Reports of Interparental Conflict/Violence and Child Difficulties in a Family Media-

tion Setting,” Brittany N. Rudd and her colleagues discuss the association between parental conflict

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 53 No. 4, October 2015 505–507

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C2015 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts