California and Los Angeles Dependency Law is a very trade specific area of law, and should not be handled by Lawyers who are not familiar with this area of law. Even the best litigators need help from experienced Dependency Lawyers to help travel the many travails of Dependency practice and Dependency Litigation.
If you are viewing this website, you are either a legal professional looking for guidance, a parent who is engaged with the Department of Children and Family Services, or, a relative or caretaker who is deeply involved and concerned about a child in the foster care system. As such, I would like to offer some preliminary observations and advice to help you frame your issue.
The stuff you won't find in a Law Book about Dependency Practice.
First off, every child and Dependency case filed in the California Juvenile Courts is confidential and tried in front of a judge not a jury (In a Law Book). Well, what does that mean? To me, that means that each Judge, and each Courtroom has its own unique culture. The effect creates, what some of us in the legal profession like to call: a "home town" environment.
So, it is very important for a Lawyer to know who the judge is, and what the "home town" environment is like. Even in Los Angeles, the difference between Monterey Park Courthouse and Lancaster is crucial, as is the difference between San Diego and Orange County, OC is more typically prone to the practice of "home towning" more than the others.
The Second tidbit off the books, is that each Social Worker assigned to the case has a Supervisor. The supervisor signs off on every social worker report sent to the Court which is often mailed to you. Sometimes a simple call phone call to a Social Worker's Supervisor will resolve all your issues.
I am a parent, and my child has just been taken from my home by a police officer and a social worker, what happens next?
These are some of the most dreaded words in the english language. I have seen grown men in prison take a 10 year stretch without blinking, yet they will dramatically break down into tears when it comes to the fate of their child, as they are taken away from their family by DCFS.
The First thing is that a Social Worker can not legally detain the child beyond 72 hrs without holding a hearing on the detention.
That means that you will get notice of a Court date and a Court room, and must be there promptly at the time of the hearing. It is akin to a bail hearing in Criminal Law, wherein, you are read the charges filed against you by County Counsel on behalf of the Social Worker, and you get a chance to admit or deny the charges, AND ARGUE FOR RELEASE OF THE CHILD to the parents. Herein, knowing the courtroom and the Judge is crucial for a release order.
Hopefully, if your child was detained they were placed in a relative home, which will ease the tension of the situation with the child, and allow you to visit with them often, if you unfortunately lose this hearing.
If you get the child home, often this will lead to a dismissal of charges at the following court date/settlement conference, which may be somewhere within the 30-45 day mark after detention. If not, you can have a trial in 10 days after the detention or, 45-60 days after the detention. The more complicated the issue, the more you need the time to prepare for trial, so you must embrace the realistic possibility that your child will not be home for the very minimum, 60 days if detained.
Studies show that the psychological impact of detention on a child does most its damage in the early phase, so it is crucial to have vigorous representation at this point in time to achieve the most effective results.
Here are a list of the charges of neglect that are filed in the Detention Report, as found in the California Welfare and Institutions code:
300 (a) - Physical Abused caused Harm to the child.
300 (b) - General Neglect of Childs Needs
300 (c - Abuse suffering Serious Emotional Damage
300 (d) - Sexual Abuse of Child
300 (e) - Physical Abuse caused Serious Injury
300 (f) - Abuse/Neglect caused Death
300 (g) - Unsupervised Care
300 (h) - Adoption Denied
300 (i) - Subject to Acts of cruelty including torture
300 (j) - The Sibling also gets detained because of behavior in the other subsections.
Its important to have this in mind when analyzing the facts stated in the report. The Social Worker Reports submitted to the Judge are nearly unassailable as Hearsay, only in certain circumstances can you attack the Hearsay in these Reports, otherwise, the Report comes in as evidence. A statement in the Report maybe excluded upon proper motion and failure of the declarant to appear.
The last but not least, evaluating hiring a private attorney.
A lot of times, the "home towning" of a Courtroom can create an environment wherein only the Lawyers who work there can get what the client wants from the Judge. Often this is a line given by both the Public Defender, or, a Panel attorney in an effort to keep their numbers up, so that the organization or individual get paid by the courts and they keep their jobs. Having a private attorney throws a wrench into this design and can have great effect in certain cases that may be treated as a "run of the mill" case, when in fact, the case actually deserved extra special attention. Here is where an expert in this area of law can have great value, and I invite you to call and have your case analyzed for Free.
Fees subject to change on a case by case basis.
