Judith T. Younger

  • Professor of Law Emeritus
  • Stanley V. Kinyon Chaired Teacher of the Year 2009-2010
322 Mondale Hall

Degrees

  • Cornell University, B.S.
  • New York University, J.D.
  • Hofstra University, LL.D. (Hon.)

Expertise

  • Domestic Violence
  • Family Law
  • Property Law
  • Remedies
  • Reproductive Rights Law
  • Wills & Trusts

Professor Judith T. Younger is recognized for her professional work in the areas of family and property law. She came to Minnesota in 1984 as a Visiting Professor. She became Professor of Law in 1985 and the Joseph E. Wargo Anoka County Bar Association Professor of Family Law in 1991. In 2010, she was named the Stanley V. Kinyon Chaired Teacher of the Year.

Younger is a product of the New York City public schools, including the internationally renowned High School of Science. There, she met her late husband, Irving Younger. After separate college careers, and their marriage, the two became classmates again when they entered New York University Law School together. At law school, they shared one set of books because they couldn't afford two, served together on the law review, and competed fiercely with each other.

After graduation from law school, Younger clerked for a federal judge (Hon. Edward Weinfeld of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York), was an associate in the litigation department of a Wall Street law firm (now Chadbourne & Parke), was a partner in her own law firm, and was an Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York. She began her law-teaching career on a part-time basis at her alma mater, New York University Law School. She became a full-time academic after she had two daughters, joining the founding faculty of Hofstra Law School. She has now taught at a total of six law schools (New York University, Hofstra, Syracuse, Cornell, American University, and Minnesota) and served in various administrative capacities including that of law school dean. She is especially proud of some of the accomplishments her students have made under her supervision. For example: in New York, Younger and her students drafted legislation that was enacted to equalize the relations between spouses in the state; here in Minnesota, Younger and her students created a course in The Law of Reproductive Rights. Younger has taught The Law of Reproductive Rights annually since 2008. Minnesota has thus become one of the very few law schools to offer such a course on an ongoing basis. She also teaches first-year Property, Wills and Trusts, Remedies, and Family Law.

Younger has served on the Minnesota Board of Professional Responsibility and been of counsel to a Minnesota law firm. She is a member of the bar in New York, the District of Columbia, and Minnesota. She is also a member of the United States Supreme Court bar and the bars of several other federal courts. She is a life member of the American Law Institute. She acts as adviser to the student-run Theatre of the Relatively Talentless (TORT), and is a regular performer in its productions.

Journal Articles

Falling in Love, 58 Saint Louis University Law Journal 767 (2014)
Families Now: What We Don't Know Is Hurting Us, 40 Hofstra Law Review 719 (2012)
Across Curricular Boundaries: Searching for a Confluence Between Marital Agreements and Indian Land Transactions, 26 Law and Inequality 495 (2008)
Lovers' Contracts in the Courts: Forsaking the Minimum Decencies, 13 William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law 349 (2007)
Whose America?, 22 Constitutional Commentary 241 (2005) (reviewing Lindsay G. Robertson, Conquest By Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands (Oxford University Press, 2005) & Stuart Banner, How The Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier (Belknap Press, 2005)) (review essay)
Post-Divorce Visitation For Infants and Young Children: The Myths and the Psychological Unknowns, 36 Family Law Quarterly 195 (2002)
Antenuptial Agreements, 28 William Mitchell Law Review 697 (2001)
More Light Thoughts and Night Thoughts on the American Family, 17 Law and Inequality 723 (1999)
Responsible Parents and Good Children, 14 Law and Inequality 489 (1996)
Premarital and Postmarital Agreements in Minnesota, 51 Bench & Bar of Minnesota 25 (Dec. 1994)
(with
William E. Mullin
)
Marriage, Divorce, and the Family: A Cautionary Tale, 21 Hofstra Law Review 1367 (1993)
Light Thoughts and Night Thoughts on the American Family, 76 Minnesota Law Review 891 (1992)
Perspectives on Antenuptial Agreements: An Update, 8 Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers 1 (1992)
Legal Education: An Illusion, 75 Minnesota Law Review 1037 (1991)
Looking at Antenuptial Agreements, 9 Fairshare 10 (Feb. 1989)
Perspectives on Antenuptial Agreements, 40 Rutgers Law Review 1059 (1988)
What the Baby M Case Is Really All About, 6 Law and Inequality 75 (1988)
Medicine and Law: Making Excellent Time But Lost, 44 Bench & Bar of Minnesota 15 (Feb. 1987)
What's Going on in Family Law, 2 Minnesota Family Law Journal 241 (1985)
Marital Regimes: A Story of Compromise and Demoralization, Together with Criticism and Suggestions for Reform, 67 Cornell Law Review 45 (1981)
Scenes from a Clerkship, 1980 Annual Survey of American Law xxxii (1980)
Is Marriage an Economic Partnership?, 49 New York State Bar Journal 480 (1977)
Not Equal Yet, 13 Idaho Law Review 227 (1977)
Louisiana Wives: Law Reform to Their Rescue, 48 Tulane Law Review 567 (1974)
Community Property, Women and the Law School Curriculum, 48 New York University Law Review 211 (1973)
Legal Education: Does It Exist?, 45 New York State Bar Journal 141 (1973)
Rx for Population Deconcentration, 19 Catholic Lawyer 102 (1973)
Women's Property Rights are Unfair!, 111 Trusts and Estates 942 (1972)
Trusts by Operation of Statute, 25 Record of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York 407 (June 1970)
A Heuristic Approach to Teaching the Seminar in Land Use Planning, 21 Journal of Legal Education 461 (1969)
Service for What?: Milking the Pension Funds, 206 The Nation 662 (May 20, 1968)
(with
Irving Younger
)
Death and the Close Corporation, 34 Brooklyn Law Review 1 (1967)
Apportioning Receipts from Wasting and Unproductive Assets: A Comment on the New Principal and Income Act, 40 New York University Law Review 1118 (1965)

Book Chapters

Remembering Judge Weinfeld, in Edward Weinfeld: A Judicious Life 92 (Federal Bar Foundation, 1998)
In Praise of Libraries, in Why Can't They Write: A Symposium on the State of Written Communication 18 (Thomas E. Douglass, John L. Idol & Sterling K. Eisiminger, eds., University Press of America, 1979)
The Role and Contributions of Woman Trustees and Administrators in Achieving Affirmative Action and Everything Else, in Gateways and Barriers for Women in the University Community: Proceedings of the Mary Donlon Alger Conference for Trustees and Administrators 56 (Office of University Publications, Cornell University, 1977)

Book Reviews

Book Review, 4 Constitutional Commentary 173 (1987) (reviewing Eva R. Rubin, The Supreme Court and the American Family (Greenwood Press, 1986))
Book Review, 32 Vanderbilt Law Review 1516 (1979) (reviewing Jean Renvoize, Web of Violence: A Study of Family Violence (Routledge, 1978))
Book Review, 2 Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 461 (1976) (reviewing Leo Kanowitz, Sex Roles in Law and Society: Cases and Materials (University of New Mexico Press, 1973), Kenneth M. Davidson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Herma Hill Kay, Sex-based Discrimination (West Publishing, 1974) & Barbara A. Babcock, et al., Sex Discrimination and the Law: Causes and Remedies (Little, Brown, 1975))
Book Review, 1 Fordham Urban Law Journal 533 (1973) (reviewing Donald G. Hagman, Urban Planning and Land Development Control Law (West Publishing, 1971))

Entries in Reference Works

Premarital Agreements, in International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family 1276 (James J. Ponzetti, Jr., ed., Macmillan Reference USA, 2nd ed., 2003)
Premarital Agreements, in Encyclopedia of Marriage and the Family 558 (David Levinson, ed., Macmillan Library Reference USA, 1995)

Other Publications

Black's Law Dictionary (Thomson/West, 8th ed., 2004) (academic contributor)
Light Thoughts and Night Thoughts on American Marriage, University of Minnesota Law Alumni News 18 (Spring 2004)
Paying Our Debts to Our Pets, University of Minnesota Law Alumni News (Fall 2001)
The Worst Case Contest, University of Minnesota Law Alumni News 5 (Spring 1999)
Roe v. Wade: Twelve Years Later, Quaere 11 (Mar. 1985)
Fair Weather Food, Washington Post, Apr. 10, 1983, at G6
Brougham for the Defense, Cornell Law Forum 6 (Feb. 1983)
Children and the Law, Cornell Daily Sun, Sept. 14, 1979, at 4
Reflections on Marriage Law: Its Revision and Reformation, Cornell Law Forum 8 (June 1979)
The Duke of Norfolk Makes Trouble Again, New York Law Journal, July 11, 1978, at 20
Implementing Affirmative Action, Cornell Daily Sun, Mar. 18, 1977, at 12
Memories: The Courthouse Legend and Me, New York Law Journal, Feb. 28, 1977, at 1
Love Is Not Enough, New Republic, June 19, 1976, at 8
Confessions of a Law Dean, New York Law Journal, Jan. 27, 1975, at 1
If I Were Chief of Police of Gotham City..., Civil Liberties Review 23 (Spring 1975)
Report on Results of 50-State Comparative Study and Surveys and Recommendations for Revision of Suffolk County Tax Act (1973)
A Tip from the Conqueror, 208 The Nation 275 (Mar. 3, 1969)
How Much Land Does a Man Need?: A Comment on New Soviet Principles of Land Legislation, New York Law Journal, Nov. 18, 1968, at 1
Prim Property Professor Proves Practice Properly Prestigious, The Commentator, Sept. 12, 1968, at 8
Employee Benefit Funds: Benefits for Whom?, New York Law Journal, Mar. 22, 1968, at 4

Selected Legal Briefs

Brief and Reply Brief for Appellant (Minn. Ct. App. 2004), Brief for Respondent Opposing Petition for Review (Minn. 2004), Briefs for Respondents in Opposition to Petitions for Certiorari (U.S. 2004), In re Trusteeship of Trust Created Under Trust Agreement Dated Dec. 31, 1974, 674 N.W.2d 222 (Minn. App. 2004) (NO. A03-454), review denied (2004) (with others)
Brief as Amicus Curiae, McKee-Johnson v. Johnson, 444 N.W.2d 259 (Minn. 1989)

Multimedia

How to Take and Pass a Law School Examination (National Practice Institute, 1981) (sound recording accompanied by booklet, Questions from Actual Law School Examinations: With Illustrative Good and Bad Answers)
(with
Irving Younger
)