The Organization of Child Representation Services in Child Welfare Cases: A Study of Washington State

• Published date: 01 July 2016
• Author: Britany Orlebeke,Andrew Zinn,Donald N. Duquette,Xiaomeng Zhou
• Date: 01 July 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12239

THE ORGANIZATION OF CHILD REPRESENTATION SERVICES

IN CHILD WELFARE CASES: A STUDY OF WASHINGTON STATE

Andrew Zinn, Britany Orlebeke, Donald N. Duquette, and Xiaomeng Zhou

To date no empirical studies have analyzed delivery of legal services to children and considered the implications of organiza-

tional structure for child representation practice. This study of 126 attorneys in Washington State compares children’s lawyers

working in solo practice, private law firms, and specialty staff attorney offices. The manner in which child representation is

organized has lessons for the recruitment, training, and support of such lawyers. Staff attorney offices offer a number of advan-

tages but rural areas with fewer cases may not be able to support such offices and the attorneys in specialty offices were less

experienced and report lower incomes.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

Readers will learn what characterizes attorneys who work in solo practice, private law firms, or in specialty staff attor-

ney offices, including their experience, continuing legal education, types of law practice, access to different resources

like investigators and social service professionals and attitudes toward their practice as child representatives.

On these same dimensions, readers will learn whether attorneys who work in solo practice, private law firms, or in

specialty staff attorney offices differ from each other.

Readers will have the opportunity to reflect on the implications of these findings for the organization of child represen-

tation services and for future research.

Keywords: Attorneys; Child Representation; Child Welfare; Family Court; QIC-ChildRep; Solo Practitioners; and Staff

Attorneys.

INTRODUCTION

Children appearing before juvenile dependency courts have at stake a number of significant lib-

erty and related interests, including physical custody and freedom of association, safety and well-

being, and integrity and permanence of family relationships (Heimov, Donnelly, & Ventrell, 2007;

Pitchal, 2006; Smiles, 2003). These interests can often be at odds with those of other parties, includ-

ing parents, child welfare agencies, and the state (Pitchal, 2006; Taylor, 2009). Because of the poten-

tial conflicts, and because these other parties are typically afforded legal counsel, the quality of

children’s legal representation is fundamental to assure children’s due process rights and may materi-

ally affect children’s dependency court outcomes. Indeed, recent scholarship suggests that the

appointment of attorneys in dependency cases is associated with higher rates of exit from foster care

to home of parent and adoption (Zinn & Peters, 2015).

As important as legal representation can be, appointing attorneys for children in dependency cases

is a relatively recent development. However, since the passage of the Child Abuse Prevention and

Treatment Act in 1974 first required the appointment of guardians ad litem for children in depend-

ency cases,

1

the number of states mandating appointment of children’s attorneys has grown consider-

ably (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2014; First Star & Children’s Advocacy Institute, 2009).

Concomitantly, the lawyers’ specialty of representing children in dependency cases (henceforth

“child representation”) has increased in legitimacy and scope. Indeed, in 2001, the American Bar

Association (ABA) established child welfare law as a distinct specialty with its own certification

(ABA Standing Committee on Specialization Approval of NACC Definition, 2001), and many law

schools now conduct child advocacy clinics (Ventrell, 2005).

Correspondence: azinn@ku.edu, borlebeke@chapinhall.org, duquette@umich.edu, xiaomeng.zhou@gmail.com

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 54 No. 3, July 2016 364–381

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C2016 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

Despite its increasing legitimacy, there remains considerable debate concerning several key

aspects of child representation, including an ongoing discussion of the unintended consequences of

providing children with legal representation (Guggenheim, 2006; Smiles, 2003), and the relative

merits of expressed versus best interests advocacy (Appell, 1996; Duquette, 2000; Khoury, 2010;

Taylor, 2009). Because child representation is a relatively new legal specialty, much ongoing discus-

sion concerns the conditions required to assure quality child representation. For example, legal schol-

ars have argued that the complexity of child welfare cases necessitates that child representatives be

supported by adequate resources and staff expertise (Fines, 2009; Heimov et al., 2007).

An important element of this discussion has focused on the organization of child representation

services. Based on anecdotal accounts (Heimov et al., 2007), as well as on emerging empirical evi-

dence (Goodman, Edelstein, Mitchell, & Myers, 2008; Orlebeke, Zinn, Duquette, & Zhou, 2014),

child representatives appear to practice in a variety of organizational settings. Courts appoint private

practitioners on a case-by-case basis (sometimes called “panel attorneys”), and some children appear

with staff attorneys employed by dedicated child welfare legal offices. These offices include organiza-

tions, or units within organizations that, (a) are “organized and operated for the purpose of delivering

legal services to children and youth” and (b) “employ a minimum of three full-time staff attorneys

with substantial involvement in child welfare law” (National Association of Counsel for Children

[NACC], 2006).

2

Examples include private nonprofit law firms and dedicated child representation

units within local government offices.

3

Several scholars a nd advocates argue t hat dedicated child welfare leg al offices offer sever al

advantages over alternative organizational settings. In brief, by pooling resources and expertise,

child welfare legal offices provide their attorneys with higher compensation, greater opportunities

for training and profes sional consultatio n, and greater access to clin ical and other support staff t han

alternative organ izational setting s (Heimov et al., 2007; Q uality Improvement C enter on the Repre-

sentation of Children in the Child Welfare System [QIC-ChildRep], 2010). Also, it has been argued

that the contractual arrangements between child welfare legal offices and juvenile courts help to

mitigate against the possibility of attorneys metering their advocacy so as not to alienate the indi-

viduals (e.g., judges, court clerks) responsible for making court appointments (Heimov et al.,

2007). Perhaps refl ecting the strength o f these arguments, the NACC, the nation’s primary pr ofes-

sional association for child representatives, takes the position that child welfare legal offices are the

preferred organizational setting for delivering legal services to children in dependency cases

(NACC, 2006).

Despite the face validity of arguments favoring child welfare legal offices, little, if any, empirical

evidence supports these arguments. To date, no studies have compared the characteristics of child

welfare legal offices to those of alternative settings or examined the relationships among those char-

acteristics and children’s legal and permanency outcomes. To begin to address this gap, the current

study examines and compares the characteristics, experiences, and circumstances of child representa-

tives working in several types of organizational settings in Washington State.

Explicating these differences is important for several reasons. Most directly, doing so will help

inform the debate about the relative merits of various organizational settings. For example, do

some settings provide greater levels of resources and support than other settings? Do some settings

afford better access to training and mentoring? Are child representatives in some settings better

compensated than those in other settings? More broadly, examining these questions would eluci-

date the challenges facing child representatives practicing in these respective contexts and thus

support and improve delivery of child representation. For example, a better understanding of

differences in child representatives’ experiences and expertise; educational opportunities; and

caseload composition across organizational settings could inform the content, design, and imple-

menting of clinical law school and professional continuing education programs. Also, differences

across organizational settings in available resources, contract arrangements and remuneration, and

caseload size and composition could inform efforts to reform organization and delivery of child

representation.

Zinn et al./THE ORGANIZATION OF CHILD REPRESENTATION SERVICES IN CHILD WELFARE 365