Today I started working at the school's law clinic. The clinic offers pro bono legal services, mainly in family law. As I worked through my cases, mainly custody cases, I couldn't help but think back to last year's National Adoption Day.
Years ago, someone noticed how many children were waiting for permanent homes, living either in foster care or with other relatives. Many of these families want to formally adopt the children, but they cannot afford legal services. An adoption can take a long time to finalize, often years. This is especially true when you have older children whose parents must have their parental rights terminated before the children can be adopted. And the longer it takes something to be finalized, the more expensive it is for the client.
Fort Worth, like many cities nationwide, participates in National Adoption Day. On this day, participating courthouses are devoted entirely to finalizing adoptions. In Fort Worth, this meant all ten family court judges put aside everything else and did nothing but give hundreds of children "legal" homes. The entire courthouse was decorated, there were refreshments for the families, and all the children received books and toys. When I arrived at the courthouse that day, I couldn't believe the sheer number of people. There were grandparents adopting their grandchildren; there were foster parents adopting their foster children; there were brothers and sisters adopting their younger siblings; there were aunts and uncles adopting their nieces and nephews; there were grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors welcoming the newest members of the family. And of course, there were children everywhere!
One family in particular caught my attention, probably because they were one of my cases. It was a set of grandparents adopting their three grandchildren. When I say it can take years to get adoptions taken care of, this is the family I'm thinking about. These grandparents had actually wanted to adopt all five of their grandchildren. However, they couldn't afford an attorney. All of the attorneys that participate in National Adoption Day do so free of charge. This means waiting lists. By the time this family's number came up, the two oldest grandchildren were no longer minors.
Attorneys are only a small part of the puzzle that must come together to make National Adoption Day work. Most of these attorneys are fabulous, but some are not. The attorney originally assigned to this family decided not to come to the courthouse that day. Imagine how this family felt when after so many years of waiting, their dream was shattered minutes before they were to step in front of a judge. The grandmother flagged me down about 15 minutes before their scheduled hearing, panicked because she couldn't find her attorney. I quickly tracked down another attorney from the firm, who told me the attorney on the case was not coming to the courthouse. They left if up to me to tell the family. The grandmother was devastated, the grandfather was angry, the children were confused. As I told them I would try to find them another attorney, I was worried this would not be possible since all the other attorneys had their own clients to worry about.
My plan was to find my fellow law students and ask their assigned attorneys if they could help this family (and the other families my attorney was supposed to represent). I never got to my plan. Here is where the fabulous attorneys come in. All of this was happening outside the courtroom where families and attorneys were meeting and waiting to be called. As I left the family, I managed to take about three steps before I was stopped by a gentleman. He noticed the family was upset and wanted to know if there was something he could do. His name tag identified him as an attorney, so I told him the family's attorney was not coming to the courthouse. That was all he needed to hear before he said he'd take the case. I introduced him to the family and gave him the information he needed to represent them.
A couple of people overheard me tell this gentleman the situation. Some were family members or friends of other families, some were attorneys. As soon as I stepped away from this family, I had four more attorneys volunteering to take the rest of my cases. I'm sure if I had waited another five minutes, I would have had twelve more volunteers. In the end, all the families were taken care of and all of the adoptions were finalized. One attorney caused a family a lot of stress and potential heartache, but many more stepped up to guarantee them a happy ending.
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