About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

20 CUNY L. Rev. 1 (2016-2017)

handle is hein.journals/nyclr20 and id is 1 raw text is: 










                       INTRODUCTION

                       Angela  Olivia Burtont

    I. FAMILY  DEFENSE  IN CONTEXT:   THE  EVOLUTION   OF THE
       RIGHT  TO  COUNSEL   FOR POOR   PARENTS  IN CHILD
       WELFARE   PROCEEDINGS   .      ............................... 6
   II. IMPEDIMENTS   TO  HIGH  QUALITY  FAMILY  DEFENSE  ......   12
   III. REIMAGING  FAMILY  DEFENSE: ENHANCING PARENTAL
       REPRESENTATION         ...................................... 15
       A.  Standards  of Practice for Parents' Attorneys........... 15
       B.  Examples  of Parent Representation Models ............ 17
CONCLUSION       ................................................. 20

Parents' fundamental   liberty interest in the companionship, care,
custody, and  control of their children  'does not evaporate  simply
because  they have not  been model   parents or have lost temporary
custody  of their child to  the State. . . . [P]arents retain a vital
interest in preventing the  irretrievable destruction of their family
life.' 
                     Santosky v. Kramer,  455 U.S. 745, 753  (1982).

     Parents' fundamental   liberty interest in the care and custody
of their children  is protected by  the Due  Process  Clause  of the
Fourteenth  Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Despite  the United  States Supreme   Court's ruling  that states are
not required, in every case, to provide a publicly funded lawyer for
a  parent  whose   rights to  family  integrity and  autonomy are
threatened  by  coercive government   intervention,  most  states do
provide a right to appointed counsel  for parents who cannot  afford

   f Angela Olivia Burton is the Director of Quality Enhancement, Parent Represen-
tation at the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services (ILS), a state agency
created in 2010 to monitor, study and make efforts to improve the quality of' legal
representation to persons eligible for free legal assistance in criminal cases and cer-
tain family court cases. N.Y. EXEC. LAw § 832(1) (McKinney 2016). She formerly
served on the faculty of New York University School of Law as a Lawyering Professor
(1995-1998), at Syracuse University College of Law as Director of the Children's
Rights and Family Law Clinic (1998-2003), and as an Associate Professor at the CUNY
Law School (2003-2012), where she founded and directed the Family Law Concentra-
tion, an externship program in which students had the opportunity to work with insti-
tutional providers of parental defense in New York City.
   1 Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66 (2000); see also Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S.
745, 753 (1982) ([There is a] fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the
care, custody, and management of their child .... ).
   2 Lassiter v. Dep't of Soc. Services, 452 U.S. 18 (1981).


1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most