N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. . Our Work. With the housing crisis abated, the rest of the family defense team could keep its focus on the family court case. In that capacity, she also represented parents in a wide range of matters related to family law . 347-592-2500. Over the course of five months, Ms. Green fully engaged in therapy and her therapist wrote enthusiastic letters of support that her defense team was able to present in court. from Columbia Law School and graduated from Amherst College summa cum laude with a B.A. The goal of our early intervention is to avoid court filings that have a harsh impact on families. Mr. Sanchez brought Eduardo to a public hospital for medical attention. 70. of 12th graders in Family Foster Care graduated high . Less than a year later, Eduardo sustained another injury in his hip. The teams lawyer then filed a motion for an immediate court hearing to determine whether removal was necessary to protect the childs safety. However, Ms. Anderson progressed so well that the hearing never needed to be conducted. When this happened, not only did she visit her children regularly, her defense team succeeded in persuading the judge (over the agencys objection) to permit unsupervised visits, commonly a necessary interim stage before courts will return children to a parents custody. Id. & Lauren Shapiro, Dir., Family Def. They provide the opportunity to enter a field with an ambitious social justice vision.62. Bronx Defenders began as an organization that only did criminal defense. Brooklyn, NY. . In those counties, the only legal representation afforded to parents in these proceedings was the assignment of solo practitioners who were members of the assigned counsel panel of attorneys eligible for court assignment. In every example, the key to this success is the extraordinary amount of out-of-court time spent on each case and the proactivity engaged in by the defense team.85, The critical characteristics of each of the cases described in the previous section concern the defender teams proactive planning, anticipating next steps, and developing a plan for success calculated to persuade either the agency caseworkers investigating the case or the court. In this sense, family defenders make child welfare work better. 30+ days ago Full Time. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 89. J. Juv. 205 were here. Undeterred by failing to achieve success at the conference, the defense team looked toward the first court appearance as a new opportunity to argue for the newborn to remain in Ms. Andersons custody as well as the first opportunity to leave the judge with a positive impression of the mother. The Center for Family Representation was awarded the contract in New York. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 8 (emphasis in original). Senior . The ongoing relationship may mean the mother became pregnant during the pendency of an ongoing court case (a frequent occurrence). Instead, she would have met her lawyer for the first time minutes before her first hearing, and that lawyer would have to make the argument for the return of her baby knowing only what could be learned in that short time. See, e.g., N.Y. Soc. Brooklyn Defender Services177 Livingston Street, 7th FlBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services156 Pierrepont StreetBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. . The social worker helped facilitate a more complete understanding between Mr. Sanchez and the hospitals medical team. Finally, in Part V, the Article clarifies the leading characteristics of successful parent representation in child welfare cases with a particular emphasis on proactive representation out of court. SCO Family of Services Recognized by Brooklyn Defender Services for Without the defense teams constant communication with Ms. Barrow and her providers about her service plan, she would not have had the support necessary to achieve the progress in her mental health treatment. In these cases, the agency has never met the mother and is brought in to begin a fresh investigation. The agency agreed to settle the case and allow Sophia to be returned to her care if Ms. Green accepted responsibility for the original injury sustained by her daughter (as an act of neglect instead of abuse) with a plan to end entirely supervision of the case in six months if nothing untoward happened during that time. Federal law requires states to have written case plans for every child in care in order to ensure that an appropriate long-term plan is identified for each foster child. The offices social work team, along with the Brooklyn Defender Services immigration practitioners, have developed close relationships with community-based programs serving New Yorks immigrant communities and [are] able to connect clients to culturally competent service providers and access to services in their native language. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 9. . After the baby was born, the agency convened the anticipated child safety conference. On the morning the hearing was to be held, the agency attorney agreed that there no longer was a risk to returning the baby to her mother. The unit is staffed by trained social workers with deep experience negotiating the complexities of child welfare investigations during the time a woman is pregnant and immediately after she gives birth. Yet it was the out-of-court advocacy that made all the difference. In the agency process side of the case, parents are obliged to meet with caseworkers, supervisors, and other employees of the agency responsible for monitoring the parents actions throughout the life of the case. For an excellent recent article describing the sophisticated family defense practice The Bronx Defenders has established when representing parents charged with child abuse based on unexplained serious injuries sustained by children, see Jessica Horan-Block & Elizabeth Tuttle Newman, Accidents Happen: Exposing Fallacies in Child Protection Abuse Cases and Reuniting Families Through Aggressive Litigation, 22 CUNY L. Rev. I think that every parent should have an advocate. info@bds.org. There are too many heroes in those offices to name here; this Article is a celebration of the remarkable work they do every day supporting and fighting for justice for the many parents living in poverty who have to endure the coercive intervention of the child welfare system. for Child.s Servs., https://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/child-welfare/will-acs-take-my-child.page (last visited Oct. 6, 2020). Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. As soon as this case was assigned to Ms. Greens counsel, her team of attorneys and social work professionals began to put in place a strategy to try to have Sophia returned to her care as soon as possible. The notes of the interviews are on file with the author. 42. The agency was unwilling to accept the defense teams claims without doing its own investigation. He gratefully acknowledges the outstanding research assistance provided by Sean Eagan, New York University School of Law Class of 2019, and also thanks Luke Gerber, Chris Gottlieb, Sue Jacobs, Peter Pecora, and Tim Ross for their support and the careful attention they gave to this Article. Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 910. Then the team strategically planned with Ms. Barrow how to share the information with the agency and the court. Very commonly, abuse petitions involving physical injuries to children are filed in the absence of direct evidence concerning how the injury was sustained. Brooklyn Defender Services | LawHelpNY Clients benefit enormously from having a team represent them.60 Not only does it mean they will not be obliged to attend important meetings alone, but it also means that it is considerably more likely that there will be someone available to speak with them between court appearances and to return their phone calls timely. Because she was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the injury, the agency removed Sophia from Ms. Greens custody at the hospital, placed her in foster care, and filed an abuse petition in family court the following day. Judges, Improving Parents Representation in Dependency Cases: A Washington State Pilot Program Evaluation (2003), http://www.opd.wa.gov/documents/0047-2003_PRP_Evaluation.pdf (presenting results of an earlier study of pilot programs in two juvenile courts in different settings and locations). Before going to housing court, the defender offices housing specialist contacted the City office that was providing the rental subsidy to explain the problem and was able to get the office to write an additional check to her landlord to eliminate all arrears on her rent. I had never been so scared in my life. . When Mr. Sanchez met with his lawyers and social worker, he provided the fuller picture. The defense team was able to dispose of it in less than three months. In addition, major improvements have been made to parental representation systems in a number of other states, including Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, and North Carolina. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 5. Several years earlier, she gave birth when she was still in foster care. at 17, 3839 (oral testimony of Angeline Montauban, parent). If I hadnt had the support of BDS, I wouldnt have been able to stop ACS from removing my kids. . Once the report was provided to the court, the judge ordered that the newborn be returned to Ms. Barrows custody in light of the risk assessment and proof that the conditions in her apartment were vastly improved. But the offices nonetheless prevented foster care entirely because of out-of-court advocacy. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923); Pierce v. Socy of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972). from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law where she was a Graduate Fellow, participated in the Defenders clinic and interned with the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Defenders of Philadelphia, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem's Family Defense Practice, the Brooklyn Defenders . Brooklyn Defenders | LinkedIn The previous studies limited their focus to quantitative outcomes achieved at court or to reporting the views of stakeholders focused on the differences between the two kinds of representation made available to parents in New York City.58 This Article starts where the prior two articles left off. Although impressed by all the work Ms. Anderson and her team had begun, the agency nonetheless was unwilling to allow Ms. Anderson to go home with her baby. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. All of the family defender offices in New York City either have special units to represent parents in housing-related matters, in immigration proceedings, and/or in criminal proceedings, or have made alliances with legal offices that do that work. Brooklyn Law School - Lorr Sarah Before she left, the defense teams social worker called the caseworkers supervisor requesting that she be permitted to remain in the conference because the x-ray results were due in another half hour. We push for equitable and humane policies by advocating for better laws, filing systemic litigation and educating the public. Simultaneously, Ms. Greens attorneys and the social work staff worked closely together to help Ms. Green navigate the agencys service and visitation policies. Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. Hum. . Brooklyn Defender Services - Immigration Practice - National How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children: Family Separation in the Obama and Trump Eras, Wolves in Sheeps Clothing: How Religious Exemption Laws for Discriminatory Private Agencies Violate the Constitution and Harm LGBTQ+ Families, American Bar Association medical, dental, optometrical or surgical care, though financially able to do so or offered financial or other reasonable means to do so . Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. Because Ms. Green could not say with certainty what caused the skull fracture, the defense team relied on an expert who analyzed the X-rays and determined that they were fully consistent with an accidental fall, thus providing the needed evidence that Sophias injury was not necessarily the result of abuse. Quite often, the family defender offices in New York City achieve results for their clients that meaningfully advance childrens interests that could not have been achieved without spending considerable amounts of time out of court. 24 The Center for Family Representation represents approximately 1,300 new clients each year in child welfare cases and between 2007 and 2018 has represented more than 7,000 parents with more than . Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. 20. The examining doctors asked Ms. Greens mother what may have happened to Sophia and her mother was unable to provide them with a satisfactory answer. 83. He was kind and understanding. 29. They help their clients persevere what is otherwise a long, lonely, and frightening journey by staying in close, regular contact with them. In only 16 of the 381 casesfour percentwere children placed in foster care with strangers. It turned out the agencys support for releasing Ms. Barrows newborn did not last one week. Recognizing that as soon as the baby was born, the agency would conduct a child safety conference at which it would make fateful decisions involving the family, the new team immediately started planning with Ms. Anderson. 95. See Paredes v. City of New York, No. N.Y.C. In child welfare cases, victories often prove to be short-lived. The company is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. We work alongside people harmed by unfair systems to fight injustice and change things for the better. 82. 62. 64. The defender offices employ a wide range of professionals on each clients legal team, including social workers, parent advocates, interpreters, specialized attorneys, experts, and investigators. Parent lawyers who fail to participate in the development of a case plan and who wait until going to court to advocate for their clients often discover that the original plan developed at the case conference will remain in place throughout the proceeding.66. As defenders, we represent people accused of a crime, parents threatened with child removal, immigrants facing deportation, and students, workers and tenants whose education, employment and housing are at risk due to legal cases. 67. A goal of this Article is to lay the groundwork for leaders in child welfare throughout the United States to embrace the work new family defenders do.59 There are many ways to reform child welfare practice and policy in this country. Find employees, official website, emails, phone numbers, revenue, employee headcount, social accounts, and anything related to Brooklyn Defender Services. Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem shares cases in New York County with the Center for Family Representation, and the Center for Family Representation has a second contract to provide parental representation in Queens. Instead, her lawyers requested that the court order an Imminent Risk Assessment with the courts mental health clinic once the defense team was convinced that Ms. Barrow would be evaluated to present no risk to her newborn. The third office, the Center for Family Representation (CFR), was a relatively new start-up 501(c)(3) office whose only purpose was to provide legal representation for parents in child welfare cases. When parents are unrepresented at these conferences, the plans are more likely to be boilerplate, requiring parents to do things of little value. Easily apply. Livingston St / Smith St. 23. See About Us, Casey Fam. Ignoring them as part of the defensive strategy is only a tiny step away from ignoring the case conferences. Popular Searches Brooklyn Defender Services Bds Skip to main content. Family Defense Practice | Appointment | The Bronx Defenders Even these remarkable efforts would have been insufficient. 42 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.022 [hereinafter Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. 80. (citing N.Y. State Admin. Our team of attorneys, paralegals, advocates, social workers and administrative staff provide a broad range of family defense representation, advocacy and support. The Bronx Defenders was awarded the contract in The Bronx. Brooklyn Defender Services: Employee Directory | ZoomInfo.com Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Emma S. Ketteringham & Caitlin Becker, at 2) [hereinafter Ketteringham & Becker written testimony]. brooklyn defender services Careers and Employment | Indeed.com Ms. Barrow was assigned a family defender office. Brooklyn, NY 11201. One might reasonably suggest they are much more important than what happens in the courtroom itself. Martin Guggenheim is the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law. What the previous articles did not disclose in any depth is what is actually involved in representing parents in child welfare cases and what the staff do in individual cases. The teams strategy was to have two opportunities to present the judge with positive impressions of the mother even before conducting the formal hearing seeking the babys return to her custody. N.Y. Soc. . Rts., Your Rights While Pregnant, Breastfeeding, or Caregiving: A Report on the 2019 Commission Public Hearing on Pregnancy and Caregiver Discrimination, N.Y. State Admin. Her child was placed in foster care. Consider this: In 2003, there were over 28,000 children in foster care in New York City; at the end of 2019, there were approximately 7,800.99. Generally, two of the most important factors in securing the return of a child to parental custody are participation in agency-recommended services and favorable foster care agency reports about parent visits with the child. Of those children who could not be returned to their families, 40 percent more children ended up with a permanent disposition of guardianship when their parents had multidisciplinary representation than children whose parents were represented by panel lawyers.41, The study concluded that family defender office representation also saves an enormous amount of money that would otherwise have been spent on children remaining unnecessarily in foster care.42 The study found that full implementation of a multidisciplinary representation model in New York City would reduce the foster care population by 472,000 bed days per year and annually reduce foster care costs by $40 million as compared with exclusive reliance on panel lawyers.43, The qualitative findings in the study were equally impressive.44 Not only did former clients praise the kind of representation and support they received from the new offices, the professionals working in the court system also indicated significant satisfaction with the new kind of representation the offices provide.45 Of the three categories of professionals interviewed in the qualitative study, two were unequivocally positive in describing the important contributions the new offices had on practice in the courts.46 These groups were the judges and court attorneys who serve as the judges trial-level law clerks and childrens lawyers employed by The Legal Aid Society who appear in most child welfare cases as the attorney for the child.47 The third group, the lawyers prosecuting the cases, also expressed very positive things about the contributions made by the new offices but, perhaps expectedly, some attorneys in this group also complained that lawyers in these offices were too litigious and fought too hard on cases that did not deserve it.48, The study found that the professionals in the court system regarded the critical tools the family defender offices introduced into the practice as an insistence that the court conduct evidentiary hearings when the agency seeks a court order that children be placed into foster care, combined with filing motions to ensure that judges oversee case planning decisions promptly.49 Court stakeholders unanimously described a dramatic increase in motion practice, most commonly brought to challenge the agencys request to remove children from their families, to seek the return of children home, and to request other specific orders from judges.50 The study concluded that the increased use of these motions played a significant role in the offices success in securing court orders returning children to their families.51 Using each court appearance to advance the parents case, filing motions to seek better services or eliminate needless ones, and asking for more visits and for the return of children from foster care promptly are leading characteristics of the family defender office model.52, The qualitative study also found that the stakeholders identified out-of-court advocacy undertaken to be a significant, and distinctive, characteristic of the family defender offices.53 This includes accompanying clients to out-of-court case conferences held at the childcare agencies.54 Finally, the qualitative study found that the multidisciplinary offices achieve distinctive results in part because they attend much better to their clients well-being than the panel lawyers do throughout the time the case is active in court.55 The study found that the family defender offices place a premium on attending to the emotional well-being of their clients.56 Emotional supports that help parents believe in their abilities are crucial, since the outcomes of many cases depend on the parents bearing up well during the process, engaging in required services, maintaining a regular visitation schedule with their children when they are in foster care, and otherwise satisfying the requirements of service plans.57. Each office was expected to accept approximately half of the new case assignments to represent parents charged with abuse or neglect of their children (what this Article calls child welfare cases).18 The remainder of the filings were to be assigned, as before, to panel attorneys. Fighting for you, your family & our community. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children. Succinctly summarizing the advantages of the multidisciplinary offices to clients, Chris Gottlieb wrote: For clients, being represented by organizations rather than solo practitioners means having a team on your side: an advocate you can reach on the phone when your lawyer is in court; another lawyer from the office available to step in when yours is on leave or stuck in a different courtroom; the benefit of a brief bank so your lawyer doesnt have to draft every motion from scratch; and office space where your kids can play while you meet with your lawyer. Chris Gottlieb et al., Discovering Family Defense: A History of the Family Defense Clinic at NYU School of Law, 41 N.Y.U. This catch-22 problem made preventing Ms. Barrows eviction vital on multiple fronts. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Experienced Attorney's for the Criminal Practice's legal team. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking an experienced Attorney for the Custody Practice of the Family Defense Team. Once Ms. Barrow was living in an apartment too small for her children to live in with her, a new barrier to the childrens return would be to secure suitable housing, which would certainly extend the childrens stay in foster care. In testimony presented to the New York State Commission on Parental Representation, Bronx Defenders presented fiscal year 2018 data concerning the outcomes for 381 parents the office advised during their ACS investigations: Of those parents, 164 (43%) were never charged with abuse or neglect in the Family Court. What services have they completed? The units signal distinction is making sure that someone from the defense team is present at the hospital when the baby is born and is available to participate in all meetings the agency will arrange to discuss the plan.