Family law literature, while diverse in its exploration of contemporary families, also offers important threads of consensus. These strong points of coherence, when brought together with relevant case law, can be a useful means of advancing academic conversation as well as engaging directly with courts to shape law's development. In a field as complex as family law, myriad academic viewpoints on any given issue often make it difficult to imagine scholarly discussion having utility for courts. As we aim to show here, however, amicus briefs can be important vehicles for synthesizing literature, highlighting basic points of consensus and connecting family law scholarship to ongoing cases. (1) The Family Law Academics Amicus Brief The amicus brief reproduced here (the Brief') makes connection between family law theory and jurisprudence by synthesizing scholarly literature on and literally bringing it to court. The central issue addressed is how law should recognize parental rights of an individual who functions as a parent despite having neither biological nor adoptive ties to child. Legal recognition of functional parenthood, Brief argues, is intended both to counteract harm inflicted upon children by separating them from a loving parent (2) and to vindicate rights of functional parents. The Brief was submitted in 2010 New York Court of Appeals case, 14. v. Janice R., (3) in support of petitioner H. The petitioner had brought suit two years earlier in an effort to retain contact with child she had been raising with her former partner since child's birth. At that time, functional parents like did not have standing in New York to petition for visitation or custody as a result of 1991 high court ruling in Alison D. v. Virginia M., (4) in which court declared adults in Debra's position to be stranger[s] to their children. (5) Strikingly, forty-five family law professors from law schools across New York State came together to sign Brief. By collectively endorsing one set of principles for judicial recognition of functional parents, (6) they made a strong statement to court regarding importance of functional parent-child relationships and viability of according those relationships legal recognition. The amici presented this analysis in part to neutralize biological parent's attempt to exploit complex and sophisticated of family law literature. That parent, Janice R., had urged court not to wade into intricacies of adopting a functional approach to defining legal parenthood, (7) but rather to leave any change in law to legislature. Janice R. criticized what she perceived to be Debra H.'s inability to consistently propound one for granting standing to functional parents. (8) She emphasized divergent approaches of legislatures on a range of factors, including amount of time required before one can qualify as a functional parent, statutes of limitations for bringing a petition, and distinctions between petitions for visitation and custody. (9) She argued issue of functional parenthood was so complex--as evidenced by fact that the standards defining who can assert such standing varies widely from to state (10)--that any changes to New York's standard needed to be addressed by legislature. The family law academics countered those arguments by reinforcing that points of agreement exist in literature and case law upon which courts can and should rely in making functional parenthood determinations. The Key Features of Functional Parenthood To demonstrate consensus around functional parenthood, Brief draws on academic literature, American Law Institute's Principles of Family Dissolution, (II) and practices and jurisprudence in other states. …