Improvements in family law

This morning, while driving through a fire station, there was a handsome young firefighter talking to a group of young children, who were neatly dressed in white, beige and blue uniforms. They listened with great attention and the scene was moving because it conveyed all the joy, innocence and enthusiasm of youth.

I compared that scene to the one in the Philadelphia Family Court, where I spent much of the day before. Hundreds of people, usually low-income and minorities, spend hours and hours waiting in a large courtroom until their cases are called. These members of society are the least able to afford to lose income if they are absent from work or to look for work waiting and waiting and waiting. When one looks around the room, it is a sad sight of a mass of humanity waiting for an overloaded judicial system to rule their lives and families.

The case in which I was involved resulted from allegations of sexual misconduct by a boy towards his brother. The family consisted of 5 children. That conduct was reported to the Department of Human Services. That report launched a process that involves numerous people who are appointed by the court to monitor, supervise, analyze and represent various family members. This does not include the judge and other members of the judicial system involved in monitoring and scheduling these types of cases. In this case, four of the children have been sent to foster homes and the fifth child lives with his great-grandmother. The parental rights are in the process of being terminated and one of the children’s aunts who lives in another state is trying to adopt them. I represent the maternal grandmother. Although each case is different, the pattern is similar.

The pattern involves spending large amounts of money on a system that is very slow and heavy. People the system pays include representatives from various agencies, child advocates, court-appointed attorneys for parents, social workers, children’s attorneys, therapists, social workers, adoptive parents, and various agencies that offer services. . When you’re involved in the system, you can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a better, efficient, less emotionally demanding, and far less expensive way to help these families, many of whom are impoverished and lack education and life skills. However, no one seems to have been able to suggest and / or implement such a system. And you wonder who would be interested in doing it, since the system most likely does not pay people. Of the cases in which I have been involved, I am the only one who is paid privately; everyone else is being paid by taxpayers, including me.

I am not suggesting that the people involved in the system are overpaid, as that is not the case, and court-approved attorneys do not get rich through the system, and many of the people involved are dedicated to your tax jobs. But, the large number of people involved in helping each family adds a lot of effort and money. If the process were more streamlined or efficient, perhaps more private attorneys could be involved, because family members could pay their fees. As it currently stands, we have attended two hearings in a month that resulted in postponements after hours and hours of waiting. We are billing our clients to sit and wait, but since “an attorney’s time and advice are their value in the trade,” a saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln, we have no other choice.