Erez Aloni

Erez Aloni’s scholarship examines how the law of family and intimacy both reflects and reshapes broader legal and social orders. He is particularly interested in family law’s exceptional position within private law and in the distributive consequences of regulating marriage, cohabitation, and surrogacy. His work highlights the paradoxes of recognition: how legal reforms designed to promote equality can also entrench hierarchy and produce new forms of disadvantage.

Aloni serves on the Executive Council of the International Society of Family Law and has been Faculty Co-Editor of the Canadian Journal of Family Law since 2017. He is also a Contributing Editor in the Equality Section of Jotwell. In addition to publishing in scholarly law journals and edited collections, he has written op-eds for the LA Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and The Vancouver Sun, and he is a frequent source of expert commentary in media.

At the Peter A. Allard School of Law, Aloni teaches contracts, family law, and law and sexuality. His dedication to teaching excellence was recognized with the George Curtis Memorial Award in 2021, and his research achievements with the Killam Faculty Research Fellowship in 2023.

Earlier in his career, he was a Fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights and Columbia Law School, and an Assistant Professor at Whittier Law School in California. He earned his LL.M. and S.J.D. at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he also taught a course on law and sexuality. Aloni has taught as a visiting professor at Reichman University’s Radzyner Law School, the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University, and the College of Law, National Taiwan University. 

Research and Publications

 To learn more about my research, please visit my PURE Research profile. You can also access my works on the following sites: 

• Allard Research Commons / bepress Legal Repository Search
• SSRN (Social Science Research Network)
• HeinOnline

• Contracts
• Family Law
• Law and sexuality

Books

House Rules, Changing Families, Evolving Norms, and the Role of the Law, UBC Press, 2022 (Erez Aloni & Régine Tremblay Eds.)

Articles

Marital rules for unmarried couples: Feminist objections to a feminist proposal, 39 International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family (2025)

Married by Default, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Volume 62 (forthcoming 2025)

Rich Dad, Gay Dad: The Wealth Traps of Gay Parenthood, 101 North Carolina L. Rev. 1381 (2023)

Compulsory Conjugality, 53 Connecticut Law Review (2021)

First Comes Marriage, Then Comes Baby, Then Comes What Exactly?, 15 National Taiwan University L. Rev 49 (2020)

Introduction to Special Issue: Shifting Normativities, 32 Canadian J. of Family Law 229 (2019) (with Régine Tremblay)

The Marital Wealth Gap, 93 Wash. L. Rev. 1 (2018)
    Reviewed in Jotwell, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots), June 4, 2018, available at: https://trustest.jotwell.com/is-marriage-a-proxy-for-wealth/

Capturing Excess in the On-Demand Economy, 39 U. Haw. L. Rev. 315 (2017) (invited symposium contribution)

Pluralizing the “Sharing” Economy, 91 Wash. L. Rev. 1397 (2016)

The Puzzle of Family Law Pluralism, 39 Harv. J. L & Gender 101 (2016)

Deprivative Recognition, 61 UCLA L. Rev. 1276 (2014)
    Reviewed in Jotwell, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots), July 25, 2014, available at: http://family.jotwell.com/recognition-without-consent/

Registering Relationships, 87 Tul. L. Rev. 573 (2013)
    Reprinted in 26 Minnesota Fam. L. J. 121 (2013)

Cloning and the LGBTI Family – Cautious Optimism, 35 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 1 (2011)

Incrementalism, Civil Unions and the Possibility of Predicting Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage, 18 Duke J. Gender L. & Pol’y 105 (2010)

Book Chapters

A Queer Perspective on Property Protections in Marriage and Other Registered Partnerships, in Research Handbook on Family Property and the Law, pp. 121-138 (Edward Elgar, 2024)

Queer Inequality: The COVID-19 Spotlight, in Routledge Companion to Gender and COVID-19 (Linda McClain & Aziza Ahmed Eds., 2023)

'WAR' and Other Reasons People Move in Together: Analyzing Cohabitating Relationship Progressions in BC, in House Rules (Aloni & Tremblay Eds., 2022)

A Trinity of Inequality: Wealth, Marriage, and Masculinity, in Citizenship on the Edge—Sex/ Gender/ Race (Nancy Hirschmann & Deborah Thomas eds., UPenn Press, 2022)

Legal and Policy Battles over Same-Sex Relationships in The Oxford Encyclopedia of LGBT Politics and Policy (Don Haider-Markel, Ed., University of Oxford Press., 2019) 

 Incrementalism in Same-sex Marriage Litigation, in Same-Sex Relationships, Law And Social Change (Frances Hamilton & Guido Noto La Diega, Eds., Routledge Glasshouse, 2019)

Pluralism and Regulatory Responses, in Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy 143-155 (N. Davidson, M. Finck, J. Infranca, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Commentary on Obergefell v. Hodges, in Feminist Judgements: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (K. Stanchi, L. Berger, B. Crawford, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2016)

Jotwell Reviews

Queering Daddy Issues, review of Daddies of a Different Kind: Sex and Romance Between Older and Younger Adult Gay Men, by Tony Silva (Oct. 2024)

Gender Bullies in Feminist Costumes, review of Cis-Woman-Protective Arguments, by Chan Tov McNamarah, 123 Colum. L. Rev. 845 (2023) (Nov. 2023)

Calling Off Classification, review of Transitions in Sex Reclassification Law by Ido Katri (Nov. 2022)

Judging Gender, review of Exploring Identity, by Marie-Amélie George & Respecting and Protecting Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Children in Family Courts, by Claire Houston, (Sept. 2021)

Free’ Market Too Costly for US Families, review of The Free-Market Family, by Maxine Eichner (Sept. 2020)

Publications listed on the Allard Research Portal.