Common Law Pros And Cons

When the United States was established as a country in 1776, the government adopted English common law as its legal foundation. This common law holds that minors must exercise through their parents any legal rights they may have and that minors have no legal standing to contract or bring lawsuits. The law with respect to minors has seen significant changes since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Before legal reforms, children were treated almost the same way as the property of their parents (especially the father), and the government seldom interfered with parents’ control and authority over their children. In Massachusetts during the 1600s, children could be executed if found to be stubborn and rebellious. Reforms have included laws that prohibit child labor, require compulsory school attendance, and, more

Due to their legal status in our society, children are not able to enter into contracts. Because the counseling relationship is contractual in nature, minors cannot legally agree on their own to be counseled. Thus, minors usually need parental consent before they can receive counseling services. Several exceptions to this requirement, however, have been created by statutes enacted by federal and state legislative bodies. Clients who cannot comprehend what is being requested in a consent for disclosure or who are unable to make a rational decision are not able to give valid informed consent. As a general rule, the law stipulates that clients under the age of 18 are not adults and, therefore, are not competent to make fully informed, voluntary decisions. Although counselors may argue that many minor clients are developmentally capable of making these decisions for themselves, the law does not support this belief. The privacy rights of minor clients legally belong to their parents or guardians (Remley et al.,