Faculty and Administration Profiles
About
Professor Coupet joined the Loyola law faculty in 2004. Her research focuses on the regulation of families, including the privileges, rights and interests of those within the family. Her scholarship on policy and practice issues in child and family welfare have been published in, among other journals, The Michigan State Law Review, American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law and the New York University Review of Law & Social Change. Together with Prof. Ellen Marrus (Houston), Prof. Coupet is the editor of Children, Sexuality and the Law (NYU Press, 2015), a groundbreaking book that contributes greatly to the dialogue about children’s agency. Prof. Coupet presents nationally on issues related to family law, child welfare, children’s rights, LGBTQ youth and diversity & inclusion in law practice. Her research aims to incorporate empirical inquiry into legal discourse with a particular emphasis on the use of social science in the development of law and policy.
Prior to joining the law school, Professor Coupet received her Ph.D. in Psychology (Clinical) from the University of Michigan, serving, while in graduate school, as a psychological consultant to the Michigan Child Welfare Law Resource Center, the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School, county juvenile court and state human service departments. While at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as a James Wilson Fellow, she continued her psychological consulting practice and served as an Associate Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She clerked for the Honorable Theodore A. McKee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, and then for the Honorable Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Immediately prior to joining Loyola’s faculty, Professor Coupet was a Dean's Fellow at the University of Michigan Law School, where she taught for two years in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic. She continues to teach in the University of Michigan Law School’s Bergstrom Child Welfare Summer Fellowship Training program and is a Distinguished Fellow at the University of Houston Law Center, Center for Children, Law and Policy. In 2006, Professor Coupet co-founded the AALS Section on Children & the Law and currently serves as Chair-Elect of the AALS Section on Poverty Law. In 2011, Professor Coupet served as the Reporter for the American Association of Matrimonial Lawyers, Child Custody Evaluation Standards.
Degrees
A.B., Washington University, 1991
M.A. (Psychology), University of Michigan, 1994
Ph.D. (Psychology), University of Michigan, 1997
J.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2000
Program Areas
Child, Parent and State
Family Law
Family Law Practicum
International and Comparative Family Law
Science in the Law
Selected Publications
Selected Publications:
Articles
What Price Liberty? The Search for Equality for Kinship-Caregiving Families, 2013 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1249 (2013)
The AAML Child Custody Evaluation Standards: Bridging Two Worlds, 25 J. Am. Acad. Matrim. Law. 295 (2013).
Beyond “Eros”: “Agape” Parents and Why Parentage Should Not Depend on Sex, 20(3) Am. U. J. Gender, Soc. Pol’y & L. 611(2011).
“Ain’t I a Parent?”: Exclusion of Kinship Caregivers from Debate over Expansions of Parenthood, 34 NYU Rev. l. & Social Change 595 (2010).
Book Chapters
Grandmothers Raising Grandchildren: Balancing Burdens and Blessings, in Older Women: Current and Future Challenges of Professionals with an Aging Population(Teresa Kilbane and Marcia Spira, eds., Bentham Books, 2016)
Policing Gender on the Playground: Interests, Needs and Rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Youth, in Children, Sexuality and the Law, Ellen Marrus and Sacha M. Coupet (Eds.) NYU Press (2015).
Books
Children, Sexuality and the Law, Ellen Marrus and Sacha M. Coupet (Eds.) NYU Press (2015).
Recent Presentations:
Addressing Risks and Embracing Benefits of Kinship Care, Invited Speaker, Casey Family Programs Judicial Training, Springfield, Missouri (2018, April).
Whose Hearts and Minds? The K-12 Battle over Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Kids, Invited Panelist, Midwest People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cleveland, Ohio (2018, April).
A Legal Perspective on Gendered Harassment in K-12 Educational Environments, Invited Speaker, Educational Theory Colloquium, Chicago, Illinois (2018, April).
Cultural Competency in the Practice of Child Advocacy in Family Law, Invited Speaker, Illinois State Bar Association, Family Law Section, Chicago, Illinois (2017, September).
Shedding Gender Identity at the Schoolhouse Gate: The Role of Parental Filtering in Public Schools, Invited Panelist, Workshop on Family Law, Southeastern Association of Law Schools, Boca Raton, Florida (2017, August).
Brown v. Board of Education: Looking Back, Looking Forward, Chicago Bar Association, Young Lawyers Section, Chicago, Illinois (2017, May).
Rethinking Foster Care, Invited symposium participant, University of Michigan Law School (2016, May).
Women and Incarceration: Where Does it Lead To? Panel Moderator, 13th Annual Norman C. Amaker Retreat, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Woodstock, Illinois (2016, March).
Gender Identity Rights Obscured Behind Parental Claims, Invited Panelist, Mid-Atlantic People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference: On the Rights of Children, American University Washington College of Law (2016, January).
Childhood Trauma: the Roles of Law, Society, and Institutions in Identifying, Addressing and Reducing Childhood Trauma, Invited Panelist, AALS 110th Annual Meeting, Section on Children and the Law (2016, January).
Bridging Two Worlds: The Role of the Psych-Law “Ambassador,” Keynote Speaker, 10th Annual Research Symposium at Prairie View A & M University, College of Juvenile Justice and Psychology, Prairie View, Texas (2015, April).