PARENTS LACK SAVVY LAWYERS DEPENDENCY COURT: THOSE TRYING TO REGAIN CUSTODY OF CHILDREN OFTEN ARE REPRESENTED BY INEXPERIENCED ATTORNEYS.
December 5, 1999 
Section: Local 
Edition: Morning Final 
Page: 1B 
HOWARD MINTZ, Mercury News Staff Writer 
Memo: RELATED STORY: page 6B

Illustration: Photos (2), Chart

Caption: PHOTO: JUDITH CALSON -- MERCURY NEWS
Santa Ana lawyer Gary Proctor, above,
secured a contract to provide legal representa-tion to
parents trying to regain custody of their children in Santa Clara County.

PHOTO: JUDITH CALSON -- MERCURY NEWS
Left, Superior Court Judge Leonard Edwards says Proctor's project is doing 
a good job with limited resources.


           On most mornings, the three waiting rooms in Santa Clara County's juvenile dependency court are a jumble of activity. Social workers huddle with families. Mothers and fathers, accused of neglect or abuse and facing the prospect of losing their children, sit and listen. Some bury their heads in their hands. Others, like one mother who keeps jabbing a finger at her case file, become animated and angry.

          It is usually in one of these drab waiting rooms, or in the hallways outside court, that the mothers and fathers first meet their lawyers. Parents thrust into the child welfare system, most of them poor and unfamiliar with the legal terrain, might then get a few minutes to tell their story before they find themselves in front of a judge. 

          To juvenile law experts, this fleeting encounter between parents and their court-appointed lawyers illustrates a serious problem provoking debate in Santa Clara County and across California. Critics say overworked, underpaid and often inexperienced lawyers are shortchanging parents in a near-invisible but crucial corner of the justice system.

          ''The memory for me will always be that we weren't represented in a way we should have been,'' said a Campbell mother who has been fighting since early 1998 to get her four children back, and who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''I've had three different attorneys who come in and don't know anything about your case, and then tell you they can't do much. It's scary.''

          The account is all too common in the secret world of child dependency law, according to experts. Whether it is Silicon Valley or the Central Valley, in today's legal system a lawyer is likely to spend more time with a client involved in a lawsuit over an auto accident than with a parent who might be forced by the state to surrender a child.

          ''It's safe to say that too often, the very worst representation in juvenile court is the representation provided to parents,'' said Howard Davidson, director of the American Bar Association's Center on Children and the Law. ''That's an issue that has to be addressed.''

          Legal representation for parents -- many of them accused of the type of neglect society despises most -- has taken on unprecedented importance in recent years as a result of tough new child welfare laws.

 Private program
Debate flares over
hiring of law firm

          Concerns about such representation have percolated to the surface in Santa Clara County, where the local judges this fall renewed a contract for acontroversial, for-profit Santa Ana-based outfit hired three years ago to handle the task.

          To its supporters, including Superior Court Judge Leonard Edwards, perhaps California's leading expert on juvenile law, Santa Clara Juvenile Defenders is a successful, cutting-edge experiment that is doing a good job with limited resources. Juvenile Defenders handles about 2,500 cases a year with 14 attorneys who are working in a tense legal environment many lawyers shun.

          ''Frankly, I've been pleasantly surprised by what we've seen,'' Edwards said. ''It's clear to me that (the dependency firm) has delivered legal services better than any entity we've had in this county.''

          But to its critics, the experiment has failed hundreds of parents filtering through the system each year.

          It is difficult to evaluate individual cases because of strict 
confidentiality laws governing dependency proceedings. Attorneys are reluctant to speak on the record because of those laws, as are parents who fear they will jeopardize their cases. But there are widespread reports of frazzled, ill-prepared lawyers who don't have the resources or training they need to protect their clients' rights.

          Complaints range from failing to challenge the findings of social workers to declining to appeal cases. And some of these reports are from lawyers who once worked for the dependency firm, which has been plagued by high turnover.

          Five former members of the office interviewed for this article described frustration with the operation and admitted that they could have done more for their clients.

          ''We had so many clients at one time that I didn't know my clients' names until I'd look in the file just before court,'' said Elisabeth Hansen, who worked for Juvenile Defenders in 1997, shortly after law school. ''I didn't feel they were getting the representation they deserved.''

          Added another recently departed lawyer: ''(The) way dependency legal services is set up, no one is keeping the system honest.''

          The new federal and state child-welfare laws make it is easier than ever for agencies to take a child away from parents in cases involving allegations of abuse and neglect. Parents who choose to fight for their rights now face an uphill climb, and experts say they need good lawyers to protect them in court. 

          It is against this backdrop that the debate over legal services is taking place. If nothing else, experts say, these parents -- most of whom don't have the means to hire a lawyer on their own -- need a savvy legal guide to walk them through the process. Although Santa Clara County's dependency court as a whole is considered a model in the state, there is profound disagreement over one aspect: whether the lawyers most often representing parents here are doing an adequate job.

          The system changed in 1997, when the board of supervisors, on a 3-2 vote, approved a little-noticed $1.3 million contract for Juvenile Defenders, a group headed by Gary Proctor, a prominent Santa Ana lawyer. The county, among other things, picked Proctor's group because it would save nearly $1 million a year.

          The contract rankled local lawyers. For one thing, it involved abandoning the old system of using the public defender's office and a panel of local lawyers to represent parents. The small circle of dependency lawyers in the county also viewed Proctor as a carpetbagger who would spend more time on his law practice in Santa Ana than in San Jose. And Proctor was chosen over local candidates, including the Legal Aid Society.

          ''Any time you have an outsider coming in and displacing the local (system), there is going to be anger and discontent,'' said Howard Siegel, a former chief of the public defender's dependency unit who was hired by Proctor to supervise one of his two offices. ''In this case, I'm satisfied most of the criticism is sour grapes.''

          With Edwards' endorsement, the Superior Court in September decided to renew Proctor's contract. The three-year deal is worth roughly $1.76 million per year, although it may be cut short if more state funding does not come through in 2000.

Legal Aid left out
Lack of public debate
draws criticism

          Critics say the Superior Court judges should have opened up the matter for public debate before renewing Proctor's contract. Legal Aid, which now has the local contract to provide court-appointed lawyers in criminal cases, wanted the dependency work, but didn't know about the renewal until told by the Mercury News.

          ''We were interested in doing that work,'' said Susan Sutton, president of Legal Aid's board of directors. ''I'm not sure we've got the circumstantial guarantee that (the current setup) is the best we can do.'' Judge Edwards, asked about the bidding issue, replied: ''I think (Legal Aid) would be a good contract bidder next time. But we just decided to go ahead and roll it over this year.''

          Sutton and other dependency experts say Proctor's office has cut too many corners, leaving parents without recourse against the findings of social workers.

          Opposing lawyers also express concern that Proctor's staff, while energetic and dedicated, often is overburdened and green. The county counsel's office, which represents the social services department, and the district attorney's office, which represents children, both staff dependency court with experienced lawyers who make substantially more money than the attorneys appearing for parents. Starting salaries for Proctor's lawyers are often $10,000 a year less than a starting salary for DAs or a county counsel.

          Until recently, Proctor's office was staffed primarily with lawyers fresh out of law school or with little legal experience. By comparison, other counties, such as San Mateo and San Francisco, have panels of lawyers with years of experience in dependency court.

          ''The individual attorneys are very bright, very conscientious, but they don't have the type of experience I think would make for better representation,'' said Deputy District Attorney Penny Blake, who has represented children in dependency matters for 11 years.

          ''There is a problem with a lack of visible advocacy,'' adds Michael Kresser, director of a San Jose appellate project that inherits cases from Proctor's office and reviews their work. ''We see a lot of these cases submitted . . . without any evidence or any argument in favor of the client. They are not contesting anything.''

 Admitting problems
More experienced lawyers added

          Proctor concedes his original plan backfired. As a result, he has gradually replaced rookies with more experienced lawyers, although many of them still have limited experience in dependency work.

          ''It didn't work out up here,'' Proctor said. ''This is a much more adversarial, litigious courthouse than Orange County.''

          Proctor and his supporters say he is getting a bum rap. In many quarters he is considered an innovator in the world of dependency law. He has embraced a philosophy that judges such as Edwards and San Diego Superior Court Judge James Milliken, another juvenile-law leader, consider groundbreaking.

          Proctor maintains lawyers for parents should act as social workers to help reunify families, many torn apart by drug addiction; he pushes his staff to abandon the confrontational approach used in other areas of the court system. 

          While critics say this approach leads to poor advocacy, Proctor insists it benefits parents and their children if his lawyers can get services for clients instead of spending their time fighting in court.

          ''There is no question in my mind that across the board (this program) is providing a higher level of representation than the old (panel of attorneys),'' said Siegel. ''It is working as well as it possibly can with our budgetary restraints.''

          For better or worse, Proctor's experiment in Santa Clara County may not last much longer if those budgetary restraints don't loosen. Sounding frustrated, Proctor says the courts must find a way to provide better funding for legal representation or he might pull out of the county next year, which the contract allows him to do.

          ''This isn't a cash cow,'' says Proctor. ''The court has got to do everything it can to get the money from the state. If it doesn't happen, they may need to find a different way of doing business. It's not fair to our parents to be in a battleground where we're so outnumbered.'' 


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