" Family Law for the Next Century " : Background and Overview of the Conference STEPHEN

The Family Law Section of the American Bar Association and the University of California's Earl Warren Legal Institute jointly sponsored a conference among practitioners and academics held at Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School in December 1992. This introduction and the five articles that follow are the report of that conference. "Family Law for the Next Century" brought together not only leaders from the Family Law Section and prominent professors of family law from across the nation, but also distinguished scholars of the family and family law from a range of other disciplines including sociology, psychology and psychiatry, history, and anthropology. About fifty participants worked together over three days, largely in small group discussions led by Georgetown's Judy Areen, Michigan's David Chambers, and Brooklyn's Marsha Garrison to see what could be learned from each other and what common ground might be shared over several difficult issues that are central to the direction family law might take in the year 2000 and beyond. The conference addressed three broad themes: