B.A., 1992, University of Pennsylvania J.D., 1995, University of Virginia
Professor Weaver teaches Family Law, Professional Responsibility, and Children and the Law. Her research and scholarship focus on the analysis of current laws and policy practices in the child protection and juvenile justice systems and their impact on children and families. She also writes about the issue of disproportionality of minority children in state institutions.
Professor Weaver received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as notes development editor of the Virginia Law Review. She began her legal career in 1995 with the national firm of Littler Mendelson and eventually began a solo practice in 1997. She practiced in the areas of juvenile, employment and business law before coming to SMU Dedman School of Law in 2002.
Professor Weaver was the first director of the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Child Advocacy Clinic, where she taught an interdisciplinary course and supervised law students who served as guardians and attorneys ad litem for abused and neglected children. She also coordinated seminars and child welfare symposiums that provided continuing education for attorneys and social workers in the child welfare field. Her creation of the Community Advisory Group and subsequent Youth-at-Risk Roundtables resulted in improvements in the quality of services and legal representation for children. She received the honor of being named one of twenty-five Extraordinary Minorities in Texas Law by the Texas Lawyer in 2009 for her work as founding Director of the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Child Advocacy Clinic.
Professor Weaver was promoted from lecturer to senior lecturer before joining the tenure track faculty at the law school in 2009. She is an active member of the legal community, appointed as a member of the Dallas County Child Welfare Board and the Texas Advisory Board of the National Association of Counsel for Children. She also serves as a member of the Collaborative Council and Legal Representation Workgroup of the Texas Supreme Court’s Permanent Judicial Commission for Children Youth and Families.
Grandma in the White House (work-in-progress)
The Principle of Subsidiarity Applied: Reforming the Legal Framework To Capture the Psychological Abuse of Children, 18.2 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & Law 244 (2011).
Family and Race in Post-Obama America (work-in-progress)
The Texas Mis-step: Why the Largest Child Removal in Modern U.S. History Failed, Vol. 16 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 449 (2010)(lead article).
The African-American Child Welfare Act: A Legal Redress for African-American Disproportionality in Child Protection Cases, 10 Berkeley J. Afr.-Am. L. & Pol’y 109 (2008).
The First Father: Perspectives on the President’s Fatherhood Initiative, 50 Fam. Ct. Rev., __ (2012).
African-American Single Mothers & Grandmothers: Does the Gender-Entrapment Theory Apply?,37 Wash U. J. Law & Soc. Pol’y __(2011).
Grandma in the White House, 2011 Lutie A. Lytle Faculty Writing Workshop, Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law (June 18, 2011).
The First Father: Perspectives on the President’s Fatherhood Initiative, 2011 Annual Law and Society Meeting, San Francisco, California (June 4, 2011).
The First Father: Perspectives on the President’s Fatherhood Initiative, Emerging Family Law Scholars and Teachers Conference 2011, University of California Hastings College of Law (June 2, 2011).
African-American Single Mothers & Grandmothers: Does the Gender-Entrapment Theory Apply?, Access to Equal Justice Colloquium on “Black Feminism, Gender Violence and the Build-up of a Prison Nation,” Washington University School of Law (March 28, 2011).
Grandma in the White House, Feminism and Legal Theory Project Workshop, “Aging as a Feminist Concern,” Emory University School of Law (January 22, 2011).
Family and Race in Post-Obama America, Third National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, Seton Hall University School of Law (September 10, 2010).
Collaborative Practice in the CPS Context: Helping Prevent the Ultimate Parental Alienation – Termination of Parental Rights, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) Annual Conference (June 5, 2010).
Capturing the Psychological Abuse of Children, Feminism and Legal Theory Project Workshop, Emory University School of Law (March 20 2010).
FLDS Reconsidered: Establishing Substantial Psychological Abuse as Part of the Legal Standard for Emergency Child Removal, Children and the Law Junior Faculty Workshop, Washington and Lee University School of Law (July 17, 2009).
Legal Implications of the FLDS Compound CPS Case, SMU Godbey Lecture Series, Southern Methodist University (October 6, 2008).
Texas Mis-step: Why the largest child removal in modern U.S. history failed, SMU Godbey Lecture Series, Southern Methodist University (September 29, 2008).
The African-American Child Welfare Act: A Legal Redress for African-American Disproportionality in Child Protection Cases, Setting the Agenda: Examining Critical Legal Issues Facing African-Americans and Minority Communities in the 2008 Election, Berkeley Journal of African-American of Law and Policy Symposium (November 9, 2007).
Education of Juvenile Delinquents: The Forgotten Youth, Twelfth Annual Lat Crit Conference (October 6, 2007).