A new scholarly article entitled, “Tying the knot with a robot: legal and philosophical foundations for human-artificial intelligence matrimony,” has surfaced in volume 36 of AI & Society out of London. The piece takes reasoning from recent Supreme Court of the United States rulings expanding marriage and quickly and easily applies them to matrimony with robots. Having mentioned this a bit in some of my scholarship (e.g. Kathleen E. Akers and Lynne Marie Kohm, Solving Millennial Marriage Evolution, 48 U. Balt. L. Rev. 1 (2018), and Why Marriage is Still the Best Default in Estate Planning Conflicts, 117 Penn State L. Rev. 1219 (2013)), when marriage expands to mean so many things, it begins to mean nothing…. And this AI Marriage proposal is a great example of that.
Which is why this weekend at the Regent Law Alumni Festival of Learning we are presenting “Marriage & What Lawyers Can Do to Serve Clients in Family Preservation through Marital Contracting.” The general public may think that family law lawyers are often only interested in pursuing divorce and divorce related concerns for their clients. We disagree wholeheartedly, as we know that family law lawyers care deeply about families, and particularly about those they serve. This presentation proves that thesis by focusing on what lawyers can do to help families be stabilized, strengthened, and even possibly restored through marital agreements.
Viewing marriage and families in the context of culture and through the lens of economics can help attorneys gain both skill and understanding in helping families. Marital incentives and disincentives have changed for Americans during the 21st century. We explain how these legal changes have impacted marriage and family decisions, as well as marriage and family law, but we also set out what lawyers can do to be better prepared to serve clients. Marriage and divorce can divide the rich and the poor in new and profound ways creating an income inequality gap, even minimizing or erasing the social desire for marriage as unnecessary. When clients, however, do not want to pursue divorce, but rather wish to seek legal help for their troubled relationships, attorneys need to equipped and ready to do so.
The primary objective of this work is to demonstrate the opportunity for marriage and family contracting in the context of vast social change, and to help increase attorney professional competence and skill in contract drafting to do so.
Offered against the backdrop of substantial economic principles that are currently at play in marriage decline that will indeed affect marriage and family law practice in even greater ways in the future, lawyers who wish to understand the interplay between law and economics as that discipline affects the practice of law will gain a sharper focus on judiciousness and foresight in marital contracting. Our goal is to help attorneys understand how they can work to improve the quality of legal services rendered to the public, even in a context of marriage decline, particularly in the form of marital agreements, non-marital agreements, and their integration with issues regarding children, absent the pursuit of divorce.
This is family restoration, and it is anything but “artificial.”
To learn more about the Festival of Learning or to register for the event visit https://www.regent.edu/lawalumniweekend and to register click here.
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