RADAR ALERT: Tell the ABA Section of Family Law to Get Their Facts Straight

Two weeks ago, we asked you to e-mail the president of the ABA to tell him (as nicely as possible) to get his facts straight. This week, we are asking you to do the same thing with the ABA Section of Family Law.

We said, two weeks ago:

On June 2, 2008, RADAR released two special reports, Myths of ABA Commission on Domestic Violence[1,2] that analyzed the 19 statements made in the flyer put out by the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Domestic Violence, "10 Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them."

Among the flyer's 19 claims, 11 were found to be false, three misleading, and three unsupported by existing research. Only two claims were found to be correct. And some errors are egregious.

For example, the flyer states that "False allegations are no more common in divorce or custody disputes than at any time." But this claim, which flies in the face of common sense, is debunked by research showing that false allegations increase four-fold during custody and access disputes.

The flyer represents a crass attempt by the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence to further bias the administration of family law, to falsely stereotype fathers as abusers, and to force more children into single-parent households.

We pointed out that we sent the reports to the ABA president, thereby putting him on notice of the problems with the flyer, and he had ignored our request for a response.

The ABA Section of Family Law, composed of over 10,000 members "dedicated to serving the field of family law," publish the Family Law Quarterly3, a "scholarly journal provid[ing] ... an analytical view of existing and emerging family law issues." Holding themselves out as experts in such topics as the ones covered in the "10 Myths" flyer, they know, or should know, of the shoddy scholarship and/or intentional deception that went into its creation. By not publicly disapproving of the flyer, the ABA's resident experts in family law have implicitly endorsed it.

Please contact the ABA Section of Family Law (familylaw@abanet.org) and ask, as nicely as you can, whether they are aware of the inaccuracies contained in "10 Myths" and request that they publicly disapprove of it. Let them know they are giving themselves a black eye for standing behind the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence's flyer of lies.

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Date of RADAR Release: August 5, 2008

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R.A.D.A.R. – Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting – is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of our nation's approach to solving domestic violence. http://www.mediaradar.org/.