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A report released Tuesday calls for major reform in the way Michigan legally represents parents and children in child protection proceedings.
The report of the Child Protective Legal Representation Task Force has recommended that lawmakers create a statewide legal representation office for parents and children, replacing the current system in which each of Michigan’s 83 counties operates independently in setting attorney contracts, wages and demands.
The report concluded that the current structure results in varying levels of legal support for parents and children in child protection proceedings, and ultimately in unequal treatment based on the province in which their cases are heard. It also found that some Michigan counties are struggling to maintain an active schedule. of lawyers willing to take on child protection cases.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that courts across Michigan have struggled for years to attract and retain court-appointed attorneys for this important work,” Judge Megan Cavanagh said at a meeting. Zoom briefing with reporters.
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Cavanagh, who co-founded the task force with fellow justice Kyra Harris Bolden, said low funding, competition from other private and publicly funded justice systems and the complex nature of child protection proceedings were among the main reasons for that struggle.
“The lack of sufficient attorneys to represent children and parents in these proceedings is a situation that simply should not occur in our state,” she said.
The report was the result of input solicited from parents, children and the legal community during a public listening tour held across the state last year, which included in-person sessions in Detroit, Cadillac and the Upper Peninsula, as well as virtual sessions, including in Berrien counties and Kent. In addition, the Task Force studied the experiences of other states, as well as models used in Michigan to represent individuals in various legal settings.
Bolden said the input they received made it clear that the current system is not conducive to good representation.
“I was really impressed with some of the surprising data we collected. For example, more than 50% of the young people surveyed indicated that their… lawyer-guardian ad litem (L-GALs) did not meet them outside the court,” she said.
“Forty percent of parents reported that their attorney had not met with them outside of court hearings, or that they felt they could not talk to their attorney when issues arose. And 50% of parents felt their attorney did not effectively advocate for them in court.”
Bolden, a Democrat-nominated judge, is seeking election for a four-year term on the Michigan Supreme Court against Republican-nominated Judge Patrick William O’Grady of the Branch County Circuit Court.
To address the issues of inequity in representation among counties, the Task Force recommended that the Michigan Legislature establish a statewide Parent and Child Legal Representative Office, along with regional offices, which would, among other things, would be with:
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Establishing minimum standards for attorneys representing parents and children with minor children
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Protective procedures
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Establishing attorney compensation standards
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Establishing caseload limits
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Establishing minimum standards for attorney training
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Creating an attorney application and appointment process
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Providing access to expert witnesses and other support for parent advocates and L-GALs
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Appointment of Parent Advocates and L-GALs in Child Protection Proceedings
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Facilitate payment of parent attorneys and L-GALs for their services
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Ongoing assessment of the attorney’s performance for eligibility to remain on the appointment list.
Additionally, the task force recommended:
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All counties are working with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to determine how they can access available federal funding to improve legal representation in their county.
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Courts require court-appointed L-GALs to submit a verified statement of service before each hearing.
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The State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) is amending child protective court forms to ensure that courts grant children’s wishes when and as required by law.
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SCAO continues to provide training to judges and lawyers on the importance and impact of directly hearing young people, and on different ways to involve young people in the court.
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MDHHS is exploring the use of federal funds to establish a summer program to place law students in judicial, judicial, or other offices that focus on child protection law.
Also at the Zoom briefing was Sen. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing), chairman of the Senate Oversight Committee, who said that once the report is completed, they can begin conversations about how to fund the proposed state office, either through state and/or local resources, and then take it to legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle, hoping to work with the appropriate committees during next year’s session.
“We will start establishing the draft process quite quickly, working with the budget agencies on the budgetary impact of the creation of this agency,” he said, adding that an example of this type of reform already exists.
“I think in Michigan we actually have a road map from others who have come before us – the Michigan Armenian Defense Commissionas well as the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office” said Singh. “Those processes have come before us, which the Legislature has provided for the development of these offices.”
When asked whether they expected any pushback at the provincial level toward establishing a state-wide representation system for child protection proceedings, Professor Vivek Sankaran, task force member and director of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and Child Welfare Appellate Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School, said he expected the opposite.
“I don’t expect any resistance from the provinces at all. What we’ve heard through the work of our task force is actually the opposite: that counties are really struggling right now to find high-quality attorneys who can even do the work,” he said. “County administrator after administrator has more or less told us that they can’t find people who can handle both the trial court appointments and the appellate appointments in this area. So I expect they will welcome the help.”
Cavanagh said their main aim is to ensure participants in child protection proceedings receive the best possible representation. This effort is not about starting from scratch, but about leveraging what works best.
“Some counties are doing some things very well, and we want to balance the need for some kind of statewide system that can provide the support, compensation and training and set standards without hopefully losing some of the benefits that individual provinces have done for what works in the country. their community, which may not work in another community. We don’t want the kind of one-size-fits-all that excludes some of the things that actually work well,” she said.
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