The Uniform Representation of Children in Abuse, Neglect, and Custody Proceedings Act: Bridging and Divide between Pragmatism and Idealism
![handle is hein.journals/famlq42 and id is 79 raw text is: The Uniform Representation of
Children in Abuse, Neglect, and Custody
Proceedings Act: Bridging the Divide
Between Pragmatism and Idealism
BARBARA ANN ATWOOD*
Over the last decade, standards governing the representation of children
have received more attention from courts, legislators, and policymakers
than ever before.' New statutory and rule-based directives for children's
lawyers seem to appear almost daily,2 and children themselves have
* Mary Anne Richey Professor of Law, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College
of Law. The author, who was the Reporter for the Uniform Representation of Children in
Abuse, Neglect, and Custody Proceedings Act, thanks Sabrina Davis, Lori Price, Kristin
DeWitt-Lopez, and Sarah Seizer for valuable research assistance throughout the project. An ear-
lier version of this article was presented at the Hot Topics Program of the Family and Juvenile
Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools at its 2007 annual meeting in
Washington, D.C.
1. The Administration for Children & Families, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services,
for example, has published guidelines for states, including brief explanations of the role of a
child's representative under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, codified in part at
42 U.S.C. § 5106a(b)(2)(A)(xiii). See CHILD WELFARE POLICY MANUAL, available at http://
www.acf.hhs.gov/j2ee/programs/cb/laws-policies/laws/cwpm/policy.jsp?idFlag=2 (last visited
November 5, 2007). Moreover, various professional associations have crafted their own rec-
ommended standards for children's representation. See infra notes 58-78 and accompanying
text. An influential conference entitled Ethical Issues in the Legal Representation of Children
was held in 1995 at Fordham Law School and produced a set of recommendations to improve
the professional practice of lawyers who serve on behalf of children. See Recommendations of
the Conference on Ethical Issues in the Legal Representation of Children, 64 FORDHAM. L. REV.
1301 (1996) [hereinafter Fordham Recommendations]. A ten-year anniversary conference was
convened at the University of Nevada Law School in 2006. The Nevada Conference on
Representing Children in Families: Children's Advocacy and Justice Ten Years After Fordham
carried forward the work of the Fordham conference and yielded a further set of recommenda-
tions. See Recommendations of the UNLV Conference on Representing Children in Families, 6
NEV. L.J. 592 (2006) [hereinafter UNLV Recommendations].
2. A few of the new statewide standards that have been recently promulgated include Rule](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/famlq42&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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