Kaiponanea Matsumura

Kaiponanea Matsumura, Associate Dean for Research, Professor of Law, William M. Rains Fellow

Associate Dean for Research
Professor of Law
William M. Rains Fellow

Links

• CV

Education

Biography

Kaiponanea Matsumura is an expert on the legal regulation of families. Matsumura's research takes a critical view of the law's promotion of a narrow range of family structures to the exclusion of a wider range of meaningful relationships. In articles published in journals such as Vanderbilt Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Iowa Law Review, and Fordham Law Review, he has argued for broader recognition of nonmarital relationships and offered a roadmap for the legal regulation of plural, or polyamorous, relationships. He has criticized the law's use of seemingly neutral concepts like stability to mask moralistic judgments that punish deviations from the wealthy, marital, heterosexual, monogamous ideal. He has also examined the law’s historical stigmatization of Asian American families, drawing attention to dynamics that persist in the present day.
 
Matsumura is co-author of the popular casebook, Contemporary Family Law (West 6th ed. 2023). He is currently Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission's project to re-envision the law surrounding "ownership" of animal companions when relationships break down. He is a co-founder and co-organizer of the Roundtable on Nonmarriage and the Law, which brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars interested in studying nonmarital relationships, and the West Coast Sexuality, Gender, and the Law Conference. He is also the co-editor of the Family Law section of The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (JOTWELL).
 
A passionate classroom teacher and mentor, Matsumura was twice voted Professor of the Year by the graduating class of Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.
 
Matsumura received his B.S. magna cum laude from Northwestern University and his J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif and was Chief Articles Editor of the UCLA Law Review.  After law school, he clerked for the Honorable A. Wallace Tashima on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California, before working as a litigator at a large law firm. He was then a Thomas C. Grey Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, and a tenured Associate Professor of Law at Arizona State University.

Articles, Chapters, and Essays

• The Illusion of Stability in Family Law, 78 VAND. L. REV. 1133 (2025)
• Asian Americans and the Harm of Exceptionalized Inclusion, 110 CORNELL L. REV. ___ (forthcoming 2025) (with Erin Suzuki)
• Unifying Status and Contract, 56 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1571 (2023) (selected for peer review in JOTWELL)
• The Marital Habitus, 99 WASH. U.L. REV. 2033 (2022)
• Beyond Polygamy, 107 IOWA L. REV. 1903 (2022)
• Breaking Down Status, 98 WASH. U.L. REV. 671 (2021) (selected twice for peer review in JOTWELL)
• Beyond Property: The Other Legal Consequences of Informal Relationships, 51 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 1325 (2019)
• The Integrity of Marriage, 61 WM. & MARY L. REV. 453 (2019)
• Transcending Time and Place: Judge A. Wallace Tashima and the Liberation of LGBT Identity, 66 UCLA L. REV. 1910 (2019) (tribute essay)
• Consent to Intimate Regulation, 96 N.C. L. REV. 1013 (2018)
• Choosing Marriage, 50 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1999 (2017) (reprinted in 32 MINN. FAM. L.J. 23 (LexisNexis, Jan./Feb. 2019))
• A Right Not to Marry, 84 FORDHAM L. REV. 1509 (2016)
• Binding Future Selves, 75 LA. L. REV. 71 (2014)
• Public Policing of Intimate Agreements, 25 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 159 (2013)

Other Publications

• Sixth Roundtable on Nonmarriage and the Law: Introduction, FAM. CT. REV., (forthcoming 2025) (with Albertina Antognini, Naomi Cahn, Anibal Rosario-Lebron, and Gregg Strauss)
• Operationalizing Acts of Love, JOTWELL, Apr. 9, 2025
• Advancing Consensual Non-monogamy in Psychological Research, Practice, and Policy: A Guide for Psychologists, SOC. ISSUES & POL'Y REV. (2024) (peer reviewed) (with Amy C. Moors, Michelle Denise Vaughan, Sharon M. Flicker, and Heath A. Schechinger)
• Looking up to Obergefell, JOTWELL, Apr. 22, 2024 (reviewing Russell K. Robinson & David M. Frost, Marriage Equality and Intersectionality, 23 ANALYSIS OF SOC. ISSUES & PUB. POL'Y 219 (2023))
• Nothing, Nowhere, Not Right Now, JOTWELL, May 5, 2023 (reviewing JAY CASPIAN KANG, THE LONELIEST AMERICANS (2021))
• Nonmarital Relationships: Introduction, 61 FAM. CT. REV. 69 (2023) (with Albertina Antognini, Susan Frelich Appleton, Naomi Cahn, and Amanda Miller)
• Book Review, Cynthia Grant Bowman, Living Apart Together: Legal Protections for a New Form of Family, 56 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 320 (2022)
• Judging in the Shadow of Gender, JOTWELL, Apr. 25, 2022 (reviewing Jeffrey J. Rachlinski & Andrew J. Wistrich, Benevolent Sexism in Judges, 58 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 101 (2021))
• Restating the Law of Nonmarital Contracts, JOTWELL, Apr. 27, 2021 (reviewing Albertina Antognini, Nonmarital Contracts, 73 STAN. L. REV. 67 (2021))
• Expanding Nonmarital Relationships, 58 FAM. CT. REV. 968 (2020) (with Albertina Antognini & Naomi R. Cahn)
• Reproductive Exceptionalisms, JOTWELL, July 3, 2020 (reviewing DOV FOX, BIRTH RIGHTS AND WRONGS: HOW MEDICINE AND TECHNOLOGY ARE REMAKING REPRODUCTION AND THE LAW (2019))
• Perspectives on Nonmarital Relationships, 58 FAM. CT. REV. 142 (2020) (with Albertina Antognini, Naomi R. Cahn, and Emily J. Stolzenberg)
• Purchasing Race; Or, The Pursuit of White Sperm and Eggs, JOTWELL, Apr. 11, 2019 (reviewing Camille Gear Rich, Contracting Our Way to Inequality: Race, Reproductive Freedom, and the Quest for the Perfect Child, 104 MINN. L. REV. 2475 (2019))
• Family Law's Democratic Foundations, JOTWELL, May 25, 2018 (reviewing Sean Hannon Williams, Divorce All the Way Down: Local Voice and Family Law's Democratic Deficit, 98 B.U. L. REV. 579 (2018))
• Book Review, Henry T. Greely, The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction, 57 JURIMETRICS 433 (2017) (invited)
• Reproducing Queer Kinship, JOTWELL, Sept. 26, 2017 (reviewing Michael Boucai, Is Assisted Procreation an LGBT Right?, 2016 WIS. L. REV. 1065 (2016))
• Shades of Discrimination Brought to Light, JOTWELL, April 26, 2016 (reviewing Nancy Leong, Negative Identity, 88 S. CAL. L. REV. 1357 (2015))