Professor David Pimentel

Profile

David Pimentel is a graduate of Brigham Young University, with advanced degrees in Law and Economics from University of California, Berkeley. He has worked in the U.S. federal courts, and United Nations courts and rule of law initiatives around the world. He has written on a variety of topics including international rule of law promotion, but his most widely read scholarship deals with issues of child protection and parental rights. His first article on that topic, “Criminal Child Neglect and the Free-Range Kid: Is Overprotection the New Standard of Care?” has been downloaded over 25,000 times, and has been cited by appellate courts in overturning findings of child neglect and endangerment.

Research

Publications

Punishing Families for Being Poor: How Child Protection Interventions Threaten the Right to Parent while Impoverished, 71 OKLA. L. REV. 883 (2019)

Free-range parenting gets legal protection in Utah – but should the state dictate how to parent? THE CONVERSATION (June 5, 2018) https://theconversation.com/free-range-parenting-gets-legal-protection-in-utah-but-should-the-state-dictate-how-to-parent-97284

Protecting the Free-Range Kid: Recalibrating Parents’ Rights and the Best Interest of the Child, 38 CARDOZO L. REV. 1 (2016), republished in 30 MINN. FAMILY L. J. 235 (2017)

Fearing the Bogeyman: How the Legal System’s Overreaction to Perceived Danger Threatens Families and Children, 42 PEPP. L. REV. 235 (2014)

Op-Ed, NJ courts interfere with parents’ child-rearing rights, N.J. STAR-LEDGER, January 30, 2014 http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2014/01/nj_courts_interfere_with_paren.html

Criminal Child Neglect and the “Free Range Kid”: Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?, 2012 UTAH L. REV. 947 (2012)

Expertise