Lawsuit Filed to Keep Legal Service Off Child Abuse Cases

The Juvenile Court Bar Assn. and two veteran Dependency Court lawyers filed suit against the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday to halt a new procedure that critics maintain will create legal conflicts in the handling of child abuse and neglect cases.

The board last year agreed to form the Dependency Court Legal Services Inc., which would represent indigent family members involved in child abuse cases. It is scheduled to begin handling San Fernando Valley Dependency Court cases this week--the first step in a plan that eventually would include the bulk of the approximately 50,000 abuse and neglect cases heard throughout the county each year.

The new system was implemented to save money. But critics have charged that it is inherently unfair to poor families whose members may have separate interests. For example, the legal group would be assigned to all sides in cases in which a parent is accused of abusing a child and the court must decide whether removing that child from his home or returning him to his parents is in his best interest.

Previously, separate lawyers had been appointed to represent each party--parents and children--in these proceedings.

“This new corporation will hurt children in a way no other limitation of access to the courts can,” said Robert Totten, president of the Juvenile Courts Bar Assn. “Both the children and the (adults) will be injured by a system fraught with conflicts.”

The suit alleges that the new program “will violate rights of those receiving appointed counsel . . . (and) will create numerous irresolvable conflicts of interest problems for attorneys.

“It will prevent the minor children and the parents from being properly represented in legal proceedings which will have a fundamental impact on their lives.”

Plaintiffs in the suit include Dependency Court lawyers Emma Castro and Elaine Rosen, and the Juvenile Courts Bar Assn., on behalf of its 180 members.

Named as defendants were individual members of the Board of Supervisors, County Counsel DeWitt Clinton, county Chief Administrative Officer Richard Dixon, Dependency Court Legal Services Inc., and its director, Alan Oberstein.

A spokesman for Mike Antonovich, acting chairman of the board, said the supervisor had not seen the suit and could not comment on it. But, he suggested, the Bar association’s criticism of the plan may be a veiled concern “about full employment for lawyers.”

After a hallway conference Wednesday afternoon outside the courtroom of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Yaffe, however, the defendants’ representatives--Al Kaufer and Steven Carnevale--temporarily agreed to several demands of the Bar association until the matter can be resolved in court, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Dan Stormer.

Stormer said that agreement, presented to Yaffe, holds that the legal group will accept only one party to a case and will not use the system outside the six dependency courts in the San Fernando Valley.

A hearing on the matter was set for May 22, when Stormer said he will urge the court to make additional changes to eliminate conflicts of interest. For example, he said, the new group might be ordered to represent only children, with other lawyers appointed for their parents.