What I would like to do today is to launch my own exploration into what family means in a peculiar context, one in which it seems that there are few legal obligations but some of the strongest and most important relationships in life. Today I want to focus for awhile on what I call the family franchise-the relationships present even after the strongest legal bonds are broken by emancipation, adoption, or divorce. Perhaps you share some of these situations as well. I first think about my elderly and increasingly idiosyncratic parents. I have siblings with families of their own who nonetheless taunt me with snatches of remembered intimacy. I consider the father of my children, who-though we are no longer legally husband and wife-daily teaches me about responsibility and faithfulness. Finally, I dwell on my oldest child, whose birthday was my happiest day, and who is now beginning her own independent life in college. I know these are all people to whom I am somehow, thankfully, forever closely bound. Despite such people's importance in our lives, we do not spend much time in law school courses thinking about them, about how we as lawyers and lawmakers can strengthen these relationships.