"I want to be optimistic, but nobody has given me reason to be"

Attorney Dawn Kirk, one of the first attorneys to be listed at the Dependency Defense Attorney Directory, is quoted in a Palm Beach Post article from last Friday.

"I think it's an ill-thought-out law," said Fort Pierce lawyer Dawn Kirk, who handles child dependency cases. "My main concern is whether these people will get competent representation. It will cost the state in the long run if the system fails. I want to be optimistic, but no one has given me reason to be."

Amen, Dawn. Personally, my frustration grows daily that even with this website as a platform, I cannot get answers to very basic questions that we as Floridians ought to be able to expect from new public officials. At least a friendly "I don't know" would be something.

Others worry about the law dumping highly specialized child dependency cases on the new agency.

Kirk, the Fort Pierce lawyer, who has handled such cases for 17 years, said lawyers must be able to attend an emergency shelter hearing quickly after a child has been removed from a home because poor parents have a right to representation.

"For us, almost everything is an emergency," she said. "I'm in court every day. I don't know how they're going to do it."

Massa, who was appointed to oversee the district that includes Indian River, Okeechobee, St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach and Broward counties, declined to comment on the controversy surrounding the new system. He said he's concentrating on meeting the January deadline to build his office from scratch.

Massa doesn't have an official office and is working off a BlackBerry and a computer, he said.

A word of advice to the regional counsels, and this is sincere:

Pay someone a few hundred dollars to build you a website. There is an enormous difference between a modest internet presence for a new endeavor and being completely absolutely invisible, untouchable, and unreachable.