Understand Family Law through its social context and engage in critical legal debates.Family Law, 10th Edition, by Jonathan Herring, is the best-selling textbook in the field, widely preferred by students and lecturers alike.The book explores the theories and debates that underpin the subject. It helps you develop your critical thinking skills in this dynamic discipline, by studying essential legal principles and exploring the topic accor...

This book explores the importance of autonomy in family law. It argues that traditional understandings of autonomy are inappropriate in the family law context and instead recommends the use of relational autonomy. The book starts by explaining how autonomy has historically been understood, before exploring the problems with its use in family law. It then sets out the model of relational autonomy which, it will be argued, is more appropriate in this context. Finally, some examples of practi...

Whether you’re new to higher education, coming to legal study for the first time or just wondering what Family Law is all about, Beginning Family Law is the ideal introduction to help you hit the ground running. Starting with the basics and an overview of each topic, it will help you come to terms with the structure, themes and issues of the subject so that you can begin your Family Law module with confidence.Adopting a clear and simple approach with legal vocabula...

What is a family? What makes someone a parent? What rights should children have? Family Law: A Very Short Introduction gives the reader an insight not only into what the law is, but why it is the way it is. It examines how laws have had to respond to social changes in family life, from rapidly rising divorce rates to surrogate mothers, and gives insight into family courts which are required to deal with the chaos of family life and often struggle to keep up-to-date with the social...

Court decisions are typically seen as one-off interventions relating to an incident in a person’s life, but a legal decision can impact on the person as they were and the person they will become.This book is the first to explore the interactions of the law with the life course in order to understand the complex life journey as a whole.Jonathan Herring reveals how the law privileges ‘middle age’ to the detriment of the whole life story and explains why an understanding of th...

Revise with the help of the UK’s bestselling law revision series.Designed for students, this book will help you:Understand how to review essential cases, statutes, and legal termsLearn how to assess and approach the subject by using expert adviceLearn how to lead further discussionsFind additional support on our Law Express companion website, which contains a host of extra resources to provide you wi...

This book is an examination of how the law understands human identity and the whole notion of ‘human being’. On these two notions the law, usually unconsciously, builds the superstructure of ‘human rights’. It explores how the law understands the concept of a human being, and hence a person who is entitled to human rights. This involves a discussion of the legal treatment of those of so-called "marginal personhood" (e.g. high functioning non-human animals; humans of limited intellectual ca...

This book promotes a relational understanding of the self. It explores how law can be transformed by focusing on the promotion and protection of caring relationships, rather than individual rights. This offers a radical and profound re-imagining of what law is about and what it should be trying to do. It moves from the theoretical into offering practical examples of how the law could be developed to enhance relationships, rather than undermine them.

What is a family? What makes someone a parent? What rights should children have? Family Law: A Very Short Introduction gives the reader an insight not only into what the law is, but why it is the way it is. It examines how laws have had to respond to social changes in family life, from rapidly rising divorce rates to surrogate mothers, and gives insight into family courts which are required to deal with the chaos of family life and often struggle to keep up-to-date with the social...

Criminal Law: The Basics is an insightful introduction to the legal aspects of criminal acts, ranging from battery to burglary and harassment to homicide.Starting with an in-depth exploration of the very concept of crime, the book considers key questions such as:• How should we decide what is criminal and what isn’t?• What is the difference between murder and manslaughter?• Could you ever be guilty of stealing your own property?• What defences are av...

This book will challenge the orthodox view that children cannot have the same rights as adults because they are particularly vulnerable. It will argue that we should treat adults and children in the same way as the child liberationists claim. However, the basis of that claim is not that children are more competent than we traditionally given them credit for, but rather that adults are far less competent than we give them credit for.It is commonly assumed that children are more vuln...