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Carol S. Bruch School of Law Recipient 1989-1990 Carol S. Bruch, School of Law, was the first Distinguished Public Service Award recipient. Professor Bruch is an internationally recognized authority in the fields of family law and private international law (rules for the interaction of multiple legal systems). Since 1976, Professor Bruch has been a prolific drafter of legislation for the State of California, dealing with a broad range of problems that arise when families separate or divorce. These include, for example, child support, child custody, and spousal support laws. As a consultant to the California Law Revision Commission and the California Commission on the Status of Women, Professor Bruch developed proposals for a major reform of the state’s marital property laws. This work significantly extended statutory protection for spouses and helped shape the Uniform Marital property Act, a law proposed for adoption in every state. As a chair of the Status of Women Commission explained, “Her efforts are a significant step toward making the equal partnership marriage a reality in California.” The California Supreme Court twice adopted the reasoning of her friend-of-the-court briefs. The first brief gave the Court, then many other states and countries, legal concepts for resolving property and support disputes between nonmarital cohabitants. Twenty years later, she and a colleague had similar success with a brief on rules for relocation by custodial households. In the early 1980's, Professor Bruch’s scholarly efforts for the National Organization of Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Association of Women Judges, and the National Judicial College changed the face of judicial education and created public awareness of the feminization of poverty in the post-divorce period. Also on the national level, Professor Bruch has served on State Department work groups that advised the Department on the drafting of federal laws to implement Hague treaties on international child abduction and inter-country adoptions in this country. Since 1989, she has continuously served as the representative of the Association of American Law Schools on the U.S. Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law - the umbrella committee that deals with all private international law treaties. Her international activities include her service in 1989 on this country’s delegation to a meeting in Montevideo sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS) to draft Inter-American treaties on family support jurisdiction and enforcement and on child abduction. Professor Bruch continues to share her expertise with the Department of State on a broad range of topics, including child abduction, jurisdiction, support and succession to decedents’ estates. She has also advised the Department of Defense on matters affecting military families living abroad and frequently takes a role at intergovernmental meetings at the Hague on behalf of the International Society of Family Law. For her scholarship and successful work on behalf of children, she received an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 2000. |
