From Cause to Profession: the Development of Children's Law and Practice
| Publication year | 2003 |
| Pages | 65 |
| Citation | Vol. 32 No. 1 Pg. 65 |
2003, January, Pg. 65. From Cause to Profession: The Development of Children's Law and Practice
Vol. 32, No. 1, Pg. 65
The Colorado Lawyer
January 2003
Vol. 32, No. 1 [Page 65]
January 2003
Vol. 32, No. 1 [Page 65]
Specialty Law Columns
Juvenile Law
From Cause to Profession: The Development of Children's Law and Practice
by Marvin Ventrell
Juvenile Law
From Cause to Profession: The Development of Children's Law and Practice
by Marvin Ventrell
This column is sponsored by the CBA Juvenile Law Section to
apprise practitioners of substantive and procedural
information concerning the field of juvenile law
Column Editors
Bradley M. Bittan, a sole practitioner in Denver - (303)
283-1791, BBittan@aol.com; David Furman, Magistrate, Denver
Juvenile Court - (720) 865-8289
david.furman@judicial.state.co.us; and Ellen Toomey-Hale, an
attorney in Platteville - (720) 280-6449, ToomeyHale@aol.com
About The Author:
This month's article was written by Marvin Ventrell,
Executive Director of the National Association of Counsel for
Children ("NACC"), headquartered in Denver. He is
the author of numerous publications on children, families,
and the law and is the recipient of the 2002 ABA National
Child Advocacy Award. For more information on children and
the law, contact the NACC at (888) 828-6222 or visit
http://www.naccchildlaw.org, or the Colorado Office of the
Child's Representative at (303) 860-1559;
http://www.coloradochildren.com. See also the October 2002
issue of The Colorado Lawyer, featuring articles and
resources on children and the law.
Over the past forty years, the practice of law for children
developed from a cottage-age industry to a sophisticated
legal specialty. This article, the first in this Juvenile Law
specialty column, traces the evolution of a body of law
regarding children and the practice of law that arose from
it.
The term "child saving" is used to describe the
work of late nineteenth century social reformers who sought
to "save" poor, neglected, abandoned, or abused
children from the effects of poverty brought on primarily by
the industrial revolution.1 Typically, the "saving"
took the form of removal of children from their families and
placement in reformatories. There, through an inculcation of
white, Protestant, middle-class values, it was believed that
these children could become proper citizens. Undoubtedly,
some children avoided lives of destitution and death because
of the child savers. At the same time, there is little
evidence that most of these children lived healthier or
happier lives; rather, they grew up without family and in
harsh work environments that provided little opportunity for
quality of life.
The child savers' paternalistic and authoritarian methods
do not withstand the scrutiny of modern social progressive
thought. They exercised unbridled discretion over the lives
of children and families. Due process of law was ignored and
perceived as an impediment to producing good outcomes. The
child savers believed that they knew what was best for
children and unilaterally implemented their own solutions.
Given the benefit of historical hindsight, it is easy to
criticize the child savers as self-important and misguided.
However, their genuine sympathy for the plight of children
formed the foundation for the child advocacy movement in the
twentieth century. The child savers were the early child
advocates from which current child advocacy practice has
grown. They identified and began a cause that has grown into
a profession - a practice of law for children.
Attorneys and policy-makers seeking to define and understand
the profession of children's law in the twenty-first
century should be both students and critics of the child
savers. Children's attorneys are moved to action by the
same sympathy for children that motivated the child savers,
yet the experience of over a century has taught that children
deserve more than sympathy; they also deserve fair processes
that respect their autonomy as individuals, family members,
and rights-based citizens.
This article is the first in a new juvenile law column in The
Colorado Lawyer. It examines the history and development of
children's law and observes how the corresponding
practice of law for children has grown from a laypersons'
social movement to a professional legal discipline. This
article, and future articles that appear in this column, will
discuss complex issues and identify unresolved legal problems
pertaining to children.
The Development of Children's Law
This section covers the developing body of law that deals
with issues affecting children.2 Children occasionally have
been represented by legal counsel throughout U.S. history.
However, what could be called a practice of law for children
did not begin until the 1960s and 1970s. A legal specialty
requires a body of law at its base; until society and the law
began to view children as having protectable legal interests,
there was not much for lawyers to do. That body of law
developed through a series of stages reflecting the changing
view of children from parental and societal chattel to
children as a protected underclass, and finally to children
as rights-based citizens.3
Children as Property
The first English-language book on children and the law, Law
Both Ancient and Modern Relating to Infants, published in
1697, described children as chattel.4 Children were parental
property, and the property owner had the right to use,
maltreat, or destroy that property. Because infancy was
defined as the period of time before the right to live vested
(typically birth to age seven), killing an infant, for
example, could not be unlawful.5 In fact, infanticide was an
acceptable practice and existed in parts of Europe until as
late as the nineteenth century.6
The historic physical and sexual abuse of...
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