Family law raises questions of social justice with profound personal significance: Who is a parent? Who can marry? What are the rights of nonmarital couples? Who can get an abortion? Legal regulation of family life can set the financial terms of divorce, determine a person’s immigration status, or remove a child from the home for abuse or neglect.

In exploring family law's practical and policy issues at Virginia, students benefit from outstanding law school classroom teaching combined with clinical experience, skills training, scholarly inquiry and interdisciplinary collaboration. Family law faculty are involved in research and policy work that profoundly affects the law at the local, regional and global levels, and students have the opportunity to become involved in those activities as well.