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Merle Weiner

Philip H. Knight Professor

Law, Law-JD, Family Law
mweiner@uoregon.edu
Phone: 541-346-3857
Office: 352 Knight Law Center

Biography

Professor Weiner has taught at the UO since 1997. She has taught Civil Procedure, Gender-based Violence and the Law, Family Law, Children and the Law, International and Comparative Family Law, Family Law Policy, Torts, Advanced Torts, and Adjudication and Courts.

Merle Weiner graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College. There she won the Keasbey Memorial Foundation Scholarship, an award granting two years study at Cambridge University, and the Hannah T. Croasdale Award, for most improving the quality of life for Dartmouth women. At Cambridge University, Professor Weiner earned an LLM with First Class Honors. She then attended Harvard Law School and obtained her JD, cum laude. At Harvard, Professor Weiner was the co-chair of the Women's Law Association, and was an editor on the Harvard Women's Law Journal.

After law school, Professor Weiner clerked for Chief Justice Jay Rabinowitz of the Alaska Supreme Court. She was awarded a Women's Law & Public Policy Fellowship, which allowed her to supervise law students in the Sex Discrimination Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. She also practiced securities litigation with Sherman & Sterling in the firm's San Francisco office from 1992-1995. Professor Weiner began teaching at the University of Iowa College of Law, where she taught Family Law, Family Law in the World Community, and Domestic Abuse Law.

Professor Weiner is a founder of the UO's Domestic Violence Clinic. For twenty years, she served as its faculty director and ensured the clinic's existence by keeping the clinic funded with her grant writing and other fundraising efforts.

Professor Weiner has written extensively in the areas of family law, gender-based violence law, and international family law. She co-wrote the first US casebook on international and comparative family law, entitled Family Law in the World Community. Professor Weiner's book, A Parent-Partner Status for American Family Law, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015 and argues that society should structure family law differently and create a legal status for two people who have a child in common. Professor Weiner has a particular interest in the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and her numerous articles have been cited by the United States Court of Appeals for the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as by numerous other courts. Her most recent article on the topic is entitled Convention on Safety for Survivors of Family Violence Involved in International Custody Disputes and will be published by Cardozo Law Review. She also just completed two tort articles on emotional distress damages for injury to a pet. They will be forthcoming in 2025.

Professor Weiner enjoys spending her free time working in the forest and garden as well as playing with her three dogs.

Publications:

In addition to Publications listed above, Professor Weiner's writings include Tower C. Snow, Jr., Susan Samuels Muck, Merle H. Weiner, Defending Securities Class Actions, Stanford Law School Executive Education 'Tools for Executive Survival' (Stanford, California June 16-18, 1994); Tower C. Snow, Jr. and Merle H. Weiner, Mediation of Securities Disputes: An Option Worth Exploring, Resolving Securities Disputes 191 (Prentice Hall Law & Business 1994); Tower C. Snow, Jr. and Merle H. Weiner, The Arbitrability of Securities Class Actions, Resolving Securities Disputes 151 (Prentice Hall Law & Business 1994); Primary author of Brief Amici Curiae on Behalf of Twenty-Three Women's Organizations, U.S. v. Foster, 113 S. Ct. 2849 (1993) (No. 91-1231); Primary author of Brief Amici Curiae on Behalf of Twenty-Five Law Professors and Twenty Domestic Violence Coalitions, U.S. v. Smith, Case No. 96- 130M (N.D. Ia. 1997); Author of Brief Amici Curiae on Behalf of Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence and the Iowa Women's Foundation, Weissenburger v Iowa District Court for Warren County. Case No. 05-0279 (Ia.S.Ct. 2006).