For decades, advocates, scholars, and practitioners have called on states to ensure quality legal representation for children in dependency, abuse and neglect, and termination of parental rights proceedings. In 1996, the American Bar Association declared, “All children subject to court proceedings involving allegations of child abuse and neglect should have legal representation as long as the court’s jurisdiction continues.” In its Enhanced Resource Guidelines, the National Conference of Juvenile and Family Court Judges asserted, “Children [in dependency and custody proceedings] are entitled to representation by attorneys.” The need for such representation is backed by studies and research that have demonstrated procedural and substantive benefits arising from high-quality representation for children.
Since its promulgation, many states have incorporated this mandate or strengthened it. Today, a majority of states and the District of Columbia mandate some form of legal representation for all children in dependency proceedings. In fact, in the 2019 version of the Child’s Right to Counsel National Report Card, five states earned A+ ratings for their laws and procedures providing legal representation for all children. Five states, however, received F ratings because, among other issues, they did not mandate legal representation and, in some instances, even limited when legal representatives could be appointed to children.
Given the interests at stake, the complexity of the proceedings, and the mounting evidence supporting high-quality legal representation for all parties, states have few reasons not to mandate representation. Part II of this Article briefly explains dependency proceedings and the rights at stake, children’s roles in those proceedings, and how those roles relate to the need for legal representation. Although there are as many legal representation practice models as states, Part III looks at proposed uniform models and current models of representation. Part IV compares the representation models in the five F-rated states with the models employed in some of the A+-rated states to illustrate the disparity between jurisdictions. Finally, Part V considers recent research that provides empirical evidence of the value of quality legal representation for children and obstacles that still stand in the way of both legal representation and high-quality legal representation.