A plan for the first day

Is there a plan for the first day that the Regional Counsel offices will be responsible for dependency cases? I don't know. I do know that those offices are supposed to take over on Monday, October 1, 2007. As I write this, that is 18 days away; 11 business days, considering that tomorrow is a Jewish holiday.

On Monday, October 1, 2007, in juvenile courthouses across Florida, parents will report for shelter hearings. In a representative courthouse -- let's say mine in Orange County -- there is likely to be a good number of shelter hearings. DCF's child protective investigators are on the job seven days a week, and child removals don't stop for the weekends. On Monday, therefore, there will be shelter review hearings for parents who had their children removed from them on the previous Friday or Saturday (defense counsel are not appointed on weekends -- will the Regional Counsel attorneys be working on weekends?) and fresh shelters from children taken on Sunday -- and if CWLS is very efficient, possibly some from early Monday morning removals.

So potentially, on the first day that the Regional Counsels are responsible for providing defense attorneys to indigent parents, they will be handling up to four days worth of removals. There may, in fact, be no cases. There might be one, two, five, eight, or ten cases, and most of them will have indigent parents showing up.

In each of the cases, there is likely to be more than one parent. On any given day, cases come in with three or four parents, and sometimes more. For the uninitiated (who are unlikely to be reading this, I imagine), many dependency cases involve one mother but two or more fathers. Yesterday, for instance, I was on "duty" meaning that it was my turn in rotation to take whatever cases might come in, as was another attorney. Every day we have two on duty, because most cases have a minimum of two parents involved. Yesterday we had to round up two extra attorneys who happened to be at the courthouse, for a total of four accepting new clients, because of the number of parents appearing in some of the new shelter hearings.

So on October 1, 2007, throughout the state, there will be cases in which it is alleged that children are exposed to domestic violence. A mother and father will show up. One will be alleged to be a perpetrator, the other a victim, but who also is alleged to fail to protect the children from the violence. Will the Regional Counsels have two attorneys on duty so that both get representation? Of course not, not only because it is improbable, given the budget and resources afforded the new Regional Counsels, that two whole attorneys will be devoted to each county juvenile court each day solely for dependency cases, and also because if the Regional Counsel takes on one of the parents, there is an obvious and immediate conflict of interest in representing the other. After all, we don't really know the facts yet. Nothing is yet properly in evidence, and maybe it is not so simple as deciding one is a perpetrator and one is a victim just by looking at them. Will one of them get an attorney on that day, and the other have to wait weeks until arraignment, all the while questioned and pressured by investigators, before he or she talks to counsel?

Also on that day, somewhere in the state, there will be a case alleging that a baby has serious skull or other fractures, and nobody knows how it happens. The Court is likely to be inclined to permit the removal of the child into foster care or with a relative, and restrict both parents' contact with the baby. Will both parents be given an attorney on October 1, 2007, or will one get an attorney and the other one wait weeks until arraignment, all the while questioned and pressured by investigators and facing a looming criminal case, before he or she talks to counsel?

Also on that day, there will be a mother accused of abandonment, or a filthy house, or a severe drug problem, and there are four kids by four fathers, each of which might appear, and not having done anything wrong to cause this problem, will at least have an opinion about what is best for his child and even be willing to step in to this emergency and take care of his child. The Mother, accused of abandonment, will naturally have counsel appointed. Will those who have done nothing wrong then be the only ones without counsel to make a case for what might be best for the children?

I'll quit with the scenarios there. You get the point. The legislation creating the Regional Counsel offices was not sufficiently thought out with regard to dependency cases. In every county on October 1, 2007, rotation attorneys had better be present and ready to fill the gaps that the judges will know need to be filled.

As far as the October 1st date goes, I'll go on record as saying: I doubt it. January 1, 2008 is more likely, and I've heard from one official who has some knowledge about it in Tallahassee who supports that prediction. Still, on January 1, we will still have the same conflicts I've spoken of here, and we will still need private counsel on these cases, so we'd better be ready.