Solangel Maldonado
Professor of Law
Professor Solangel Maldonado’s research and teaching interests include family law, feminist legal theory, race and the law, and international and comparative family law. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of race and family law and on the legal regulation of children’s relationships with parental figures. Her current research examines the law’s influence on individuals’ preferences for romantic partners of certain races. She joined the Seton Hall Law faculty in 2001 and was named the Joseph M. Lynch Research Fellow in 2007.
Prior to joining the Seton Hall faculty, Professor Maldonado was a litigation associate with Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler, LLP and with Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood in New York. She also clerked for then District Court Judge Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr., now on the United States Court of Appeals. Professor Maldonado received her B.A. from Columbia College and her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the Managing Editor of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. She is a member of the Hispanic National Bar Association and, in that capacity, collaborated with five other law professors on a comprehensive report on the jurisprudence of then U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor in connection with her nomination and confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2010, Professor Maldonado was honored by the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey for her contributions to the legal profession.
Professor Maldonado is an elected member of the American Law Institute. She serves on the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Women in the Courts and chairs the Dean’s Diversity Council, an advisory body that supports Seton Hall Law’s efforts to promote a diverse academic and legal community. As part of her work with the Diversity Council, in 2010 she organized the Third National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, the largest gathering of diverse law faculty in the United States.
PUBLICATIONS
LAW REVIEW ARTICLES
Illegitimate Harm: Law, Stigma, and Discrimination Against Nonmarital Children, 63 Florida L. Rev. 345 (2011)
Taking Account of Children’s Emotions: Anger and Forgiveness in “Renegotiated Families”, 16 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & L. 443 (2009) (Symposium)
Permanency v. Permanent Ties: The Case for Post Adoption Contact, 37 Capital L. Rev. 321 (2008)
Cultivating Forgiveness: Reducing Hostility and Conflict after Divorce, 43 Wake Forest L. Rev. 441 (2008)
Race, Culture, and Adoption: Lessons From Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 17 Colum. J. Gender & L. 1 (2008)
Discouraging Racial Preferences in Adoptions, 39 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1415 (2006) (Abridged Version Reprinted in FAMILY LAW: BALANCING INTERESTS AND PURSING PRIORITIES 260 (Lynn D. Wardle & Camille S. Williams eds., 2007))
Deadbeat or Deadbroke: Redefining Child Support For Poor Fathers, 39 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 991 (2006)
Recidivism and Paternal Engagement, 40 Fam. L.Q. 191 (2006)
Beyond Economic Fatherhood: Encouraging Divorced Fathers to Parent, 153 U. Pa. L. Rev. 921 (2005)
When Father (or Mother) Doesn’t Know Best: Quasi-Parents and Parental Deference After Troxel v. Granville, 88 Iowa L. Rev. 865 (2003)
CASE BOOKS
FAMILY LAW IN THE WORLD COMMUNITY: CASES, MATERIALS, AND PROBLEMS IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL FAMILY LAW, Carolina Academic Press, 2nd ed. (2009) (D. Marianne Blair, Merle H. Weiner, and Barbara Stark)
BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS
The Story of the Holyfield Twins: Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, in FAMILY LAW STORIES 113, Carol Sanger ed. (2007)