brooklyn defender services, family defense practice

Id. The strategy worked. This meant the team not only had to work towards regaining the custody of her two children; it would have to prepare for the possibility that the agency would seek the removal of her newborn. at 14. BDS provides innovative, multi-disciplinary, and client-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal Read more about this organization Issue Areas Include Family Immigrants or Refugees Legal Assistance Location Instead, the agency staff members told Ms. Anderson and her team that they would not allow Ms. Anderson to leave the hospital with her baby and to prepare to go to court the next day when they would be filing a petition alleging neglect based on the allegations in the case of Ms. Andersons previous child. It turned out the agencys support for releasing Ms. Barrows newborn did not last one week. How, if at all, have they addressed the concerns that led to the initial placement? 88. These conferences are expected to take place in front of the judges court attorney, rather than the judge, and are commonly used to provide a forum to resolve issues and move toward settlement. Because the new offices ethical duty is to strive to accomplish their clients objectives, and because almost all of their clients want to keep or regain custody of their children as quickly as possible, family defender offices are in the business of trying to achieve the identical objective everyone else in the child welfare field has: keeping children safely with their families and avoiding the needless placement of children into foster care.95, The interdisciplinary approach is recognized as a best practice.96 In 2019, a panel commissioned by Judge Janet DiFiore, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals in New York, recommended an expansion of interdisciplinary law offices from New York City throughout the state of New York due to their success.97, The impact created by high-level law offices devoted to representing parents in child welfare cases goes well beyond the statistics from the study. The goal was to secure evidence from an independent, well-respected therapist that Ms. Green possessed the temperament and capability of raising her child safely. In countless cases over the past decade in New York City, pregnant parents have had the benefit of representation by one of the family defender offices before any case was brought against them. N.Y. Comp. In addition, the social work staff helped Ms. Green coordinate and expand visitation. make applications for investigators or other experts where appropriate . Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Emma S. Ketteringham & Caitlin Becker, at 2) [hereinafter Ketteringham & Becker written testimony]. 105163 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163 [hereinafter Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. & Fam. The prior quantitative and qualitative studies focused exclusively on outcomes of cases and on the views of professionals who see the work of the family defenders in family court. The social worker helped facilitate a more complete understanding between Mr. Sanchez and the hospitals medical team. FAMILY DEFENSE. Law 409-e(2) (McKinney 2020) (mandating preparation of case plans by the social services district in active consultation with the childs parent or guardian). 77, 105 (2016). SCO Family of Services Recognized by Brooklyn Defender Services for Instead of the family being reunited, the case might have resulted in a termination of parental rights. 1012(f). . Lucas A. Gerber et al., Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, 102 Child. Three months later, the two children in foster care were reunited with their mother and the family has lived together without further intervention by the agency. Appreciating the likelihood that the agencys failure to hear this information in person would, at minimum, severely delay a resolution of the case, the defense teams social worker requested that the surgeon write a letter to the court explaining that, although he recommended that Eduardo have the surgery, the surgery was not medically necessary and Mr. Sanchezs preference to give nonsurgical treatment one more try was an appropriate exercise of parental discretion. Compare Child Welfare Watch, Tough Decisions: Dealing with Domestic Violence 15 (2003), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53ee4f0be4b015b9c3690d84/t/54138debe4b037d2d5803f6b/1410567659179/CWW-vol9.pdf [https://perma.cc/P79M-8T6A], with N.Y.C. Bronx Defenders began as an organization that only did criminal defense. Prior to joining If/When/How, Noran began her legal career as a public defender in 2018 at Brooklyn Defender Services in the Family Defense practice representing parents and families who were impacted by the family regulation system. As the field continues to improve, all parents should be given lawyers working in an interdisciplinary practice. Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. He explained that even though the surgeon recommended that Eduardo undergo surgery to repair the hip, the surgeon also acknowledged the risks associated with the surgery. 30. Who We Are | If/When/How Skip to main content. View info about Brooklyn Defender Services (bds.org). The plan was to update the judge on Ms. Andersons progress and to request that the court schedule a formal hearing to determine if it still was necessary to keep the baby in foster care. 1337, 133839 (2012). Yet it was the out-of-court advocacy that made all the difference. 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 . For most panel lawyers, if a matter is continued on the court calendar for six weeks, the lawyer is able to put the case in a folder and reopen it one or two days before the next court date. For better or for worse, preventing a parent from becoming homeless is not within the portfolio of the agency caseworker (even if it should be). Lauren Shapiro has been working as a Managing Director, Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services for 16 years. It also means that parents represented by panel attorneys almost never are able to benefit from creating pushback by their legal team to reshape a proposed case plan to better address the particular needs of each client. 8 Brooklyn Defender Services jobs available in Brooklyn, NY on Indeed.com. 64. . This kind of advocacy can only be implemented by multiperson offices. Immigration. 32. See National Alliance for Parent Representation, Am. Our Ler mais sobre Emprego Resumo dos Detalhes Comprometimento de Tempo Carga Horria Integral Salrio See N.Y. Cty. Rev. The father abused her after the babys birth and the agency brought a case against Ms. Anderson for failing to protect her child. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children.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 15,000 children.25 Between 2007 and 2017, the Bronx Defenders represented more than 11,000 parents and, as of 2018, had a staff of more than 50 attorneys, social workers, and parent advocates. They specify the steps an agency must undertake to reunify a family and the tasks the parent must perform as the condition for keeping or regaining custody of his or her child. at 17, 3839 (oral testimony of Angeline Montauban, parent). Despite agreeing to attend the meeting, however, the agency caseworker never came to the meeting. 26 days ago. Criminal Defense Practice Social Worker. The Bronx Office was part of a larger organization whose principal work was indigent criminal defense. That knowledge commonly results in the offices achieving better, faster results for their clients than the child welfare agency is capable of, with considerably less disruption of the family, eliminating or significantly shortening the time children are forced to live apart from their families. These criminal justiceoriented officials gave the role of representing parents in child welfare cases to solo practitioners from an assigned panel of available lawyers.10 These lawyers, known colloquially as panel lawyers, were already being used to represent parties eligible for court-assigned counsel in juvenile delinquency proceedings, among a number of other specialized areas of the law.11 These lawyers generally did not work in an interdisciplinary way. Our team of attorneys, paralegals, advocates, social workers and administrative staff provide a broad range of family defense representation, advocacy and support. As Ms. Barrow and her defense team were making these strides, two intervening actions were taking place, either of which had the potential to negatively impact the prospects of a successful outcome. Prior to joining the faculty at Brooklyn Law School, Professor Lorr was a Supervising Attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice, providing free legal representation to parents at risk of losing their children to foster care. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. The hospital then called Ms. Green and asked her what she could tell them. Ms. Barrow disclosed to her defense team that she was pregnant. Brooklyn Defender Services | New York NY - Facebook See Paredes v. City of New York, No. mediarequests@bds.org. The agency then filed a neglect petition in family court charging Mr. Sanchez with failing to provide his son with medically necessary treatment and seeking an order that the agency be granted permission to consent to the required surgery. 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. 74. BDS attorneys, social workers, paralegals, investigators and administrative professionals have an unwavering commitment to the people we represent. The Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defenders has been representing parents and other caregivers in Family Court since 2007. But, as the examples in this Article show, the offices undertake significant out-of-court work that dramatically impacts the child welfare practice in New York City. 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. 262(c); Merrill Sobie, Practice Commentaries (McKinney 2020). Because Ms. Andersons parental rights to her older child had only recently been terminated, the agency took the position that it was premature to allow her to take custody of her newborn child. The investigator also met with Eduardos primary care physician, but not with the orthopedic surgeon. BDS | Get Help The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. John B. Mattingly, Safety Planning for Newborns or Newly Discovered Children Whose Siblings Are in Foster Care: Child Safety Alert #14 (Revision), N.Y.C. Serv. from Columbia Law School and graduated from Amherst College summa cum laude with a B.A. When the meeting ended, the surgeon continued to recommend surgery, but he now acknowledged that there are many children with this hip condition who can participate in sports, live happily, and never receive surgery. Many of those changes need to happen upstream from the time and place children are reported to child welfare officials as being at risk of harm. They provide the opportunity to enter a field with an ambitious social justice vision.62. Gottlieb et al., supra note 60, at 559. Unless otherwise noted, the discussion in this Article concerning the history and practice of parental representation in New York City is based on my own experience and knowledge from almost fifty years of working in this area as a litigator, clinical professor, scholar, policy advocate, and board member and advisor for government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Alice received her J.D. L. & Poly 141 (2002). Davis. Id. As we will see, the lack of anyone in that office with substantive knowledge of family court or child welfare deeply disadvantaged parents and families for the next forty years. Brooklyn Defender Services: Employee Directory | ZoomInfo.com Ct. Act 1046(a)(ii) (McKinney 2020) ([P]roof of injuries sustained by a child or of the condition of a child of such a nature as would ordinarily not be sustained or exist except by reason of the acts or omissions of the parent or other person responsible for the care of such child shall be prima facie evidence of child abuse or neglect, as the case may be, of the parent or other person legally responsible.). Unfortunately, a complication temporarily derailed the effort just when the team was hopeful for a satisfactory resolution of the visitation motion and the underlying petition itself. 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. But because she would be applying for shelter housing at a time when her children were not in her custody, she would be counted as a single person living alone and would be eligible only for a studio-sized apartment, unsuitable for children. Fighting for you, your family & our community. 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. 25. 76. It is used whenever the office is representing a mother who becomes pregnant during the course of the case, whether she already is court-involved or not. The ongoing relationship may mean the mother became pregnant during the pendency of an ongoing court case (a frequent occurrence). For most parents, this conference, occurring at one of the most emotionally laden moments of their lives, and which will fatefully determine whether they will be allowed to bring their child home with them from the hospital, is something they endure alone without representation or support. On the judicial side, petitions are filed in family court and the allegations in the petitions are (sometimes) resolved through contested evidentiary hearings. Bar Assn, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/ (last visited Oct. 19, 2020). As this case discussion reveals, the amount of out-of-court advocacy involved is well beyond what panel lawyers generally are able to provide or have ever been able to provide in New York Citys history of parental representation. Work Prac., The Bronx Defenders). Today, we are the primary provider of legal representation to parents facing the removal of their children to the foster system in Brooklyn Family Court. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin (July 16, 2019) (on file with the author). View job. In exchange for Ms. Anderson consenting to a finding that she neglected her child, the parties agreed to what is known in New York as an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal.81 The parties agreed to a settlement order that ensured that Ms. Anderson would have custody of her daughter and be subject to supervision for nine months on the understanding that the finding of neglect would be vacated and the petition dismissed in nine months unless the agency could show that Ms. Anderson placed her daughter at risk in the interim. 78. He was kind and understanding. The defense team then went into action. Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. These factors included demographic characteristics of parents and children, family size, severity of allegations and types of allegations, judge, court borough, and prior involvement with the child welfare system. The leading characteristic of the offices method of representing parents is to participate actively in the case conferences held at the agency where the case plan for each case is established.65 These plans set the stage for all that follows and are often the single most important factor in a cases outcome. When the case was first filed in court, the judge only permitted Ms. Green twice-weekly supervised visits at the foster care agencya sterile environment unconducive to an engaging opportunity for parents and children to maintain ties. The first article, Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, was published in 2019.1 It described the results of a multiyear study in New York City that compared the outcomes of child welfare cases in which parents were represented by multidisciplinary family defender offices with cases in which parents were represented by solo practitioners assigned from a rotating panel of lawyers.2 The outcomes were dramatically better in cases handled by these offices, as measured by the reduced amount of time children were kept from their parents custody as compared with parents whose lawyers were solo practitioners.3 The second article was a qualitative analysis that described the interviews conducted of a wide group of professionals and former clients who work closely with the two different kinds of legal representation models that were compared.4 That article revealed the opinions of a broad range of professionals working in the courts on what distinguishes the family defender offices practice from the work done by panel lawyers.5. 65. . The supervisor denied the request, approved the caseworkers leaving the conference, and explained that the agency had all the information it needed. 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. The offices help parents negotiate all aspects of the process throughout the life of the case. What follows are case examples of how the offices achieved great success for their clients.67 They are offered both to bring to life how the offices do their work and why everyone committed to a better-functioning child welfare system should want offices like this practicing throughout the country. 384-b(7)(f)(1). Brooklyn Defender Services 566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. 42. It is impossible to wholly disentangle the many interrelated factors that affect how many children are in foster care at any given time, but there is little doubt the outstanding work of the family defenders, both in the courtroom and at high-level policy meetings, has contributed to the continued shrinking of New York Citys foster care population. Accepting these conditions, Ms. Andersons lawyer requested that the court hold a status conference for the case within the following month to be convened by the judge. We were very lucky to have [our lawyer] on the day that [my son] got in trouble. 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. Director of Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice. 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. Then she engaged a cleaning service to address the roaches and the condition of Ms. Barrows home. The national family defender movement is based at the American Bar Associations Center on Children and the Law under the leadership of Mimi Laver. Add to those situations the countless cases where, even though the out-of-court advocacy failed to dissuade the agency from filing a petition, the agency was persuaded not to seek a removal of the child. Above all else, what characterizes the differences between the family defender offices and their solo practitioner counterparts in New York City is the purposeful assembly of a holistic team designed to work closely with clients throughout the proceedings. In the year before the petition was filed, Eduardo sustained an injury that required medical attention. Countless aspects of practice have been improved through these macro advocacy efforts, none of which had ever been undertaken twenty years ago.98 To provide some perspective, without intending to give the defender community too much credit for the results, the foster care population in New York City has shrunk to an astonishing degree over the past twenty years (a trend not followed nationally). 24 Public Defender jobs available in Bay Terrace, NY on Indeed.com. [or] ensure that clients receive necessary services and prepare appropriate service plans . Brooklyn Defender Services serves communities in the State of New York. A case like this would not even show up in the results found in the quantitative study, which focused on the length of time children remain in foster care and other outcomes of cases. Ultimate success in many cases can be achieved by creating and developing plans designed to keep children safely at homeor to return them home as soon as can safely be accomplishedand by pushing hard for the plans prompt implementation. Email Us. The office added one of its attorneys with expertise in housing court to the case. Mr. Sanchez took his son to Mexico and completed the treatment. 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. From $74,000 a year. Visit Us . These plans are best developed out of court in conjunction with the agency overseeing the case.64 No good lawyer can afford to ignore the administrative process, which commonly begins when a family comes to the attention of an investigating caseworker following a report of suspected maltreatment made to the child protection agency. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. Because the agency caseworker failed to attend this medical conference, however, the agency continued to insist in court that the surgery was required and assert that the surgeon considered Mr. Sanchezs refusal to consent to the surgery as placing Eduardo at serious risk of harm.