DEPENDENCY LEGAL SERVICES

Dependency Legal Services is a non-profit, interdisciplinary law firm dedicated to serving children and parents in child abuse and neglect cases. Our attorneys are court appointed to serve clients in Marin, Placer, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, and Yolo County dependency proceedings. Dependency Legal Services is a dynamic law firm, with opportunities for growth, which values quality representation as well as quality of personal life. (info@dependencyls.com). Dependency Legal Services served approximately 2356 total clients at any given time in all our counties: This was comprised of approximately 911 children and 1445 parents. For a further breakdown by County:Marin: 95 Children and 86 ParentsPlacer: 1 Child and 206 Parents Sonoma: 8 Children and 276 ParentsSolano: 312 Children and 258 ParentsStanislaus: 139 Children and 312 ParentsYolo: 356 Children and 307 ParentsWith regard to Program Accomplishments, Dependency Legal Services continues to raise the quality of services to our clients in various ways. Firstly, DLS remains active in the legislature. Dependency Legal Services co-sponsored a very important bill that was signed into law by Governor Newsome. A.B. 2664 requires that, when the court orders the custody of a child to be retained by the parent or guardian at disposition, even if the child was initially detained, and then subsequently removes the child at disposition on a petition brought pursuant to a subsequent petition, as specified, the child is deemed to have entered foster care on the earlier of the date of the jurisdictional hearing held pursuant to the subsequent petition or the date that is 60 days after the date the child was initially removed from the physical custody of their parent or guardian on a subsequent petition. The bill requires that the disposition on a subsequent petition be considered the initial disposition for specified circumstances. The bill requires, for purposes of calculating the date of a continued permanency review hearing or a subsequent permanency review hearing, as specified, the child is deemed to have been originally removed from the physical custody of their parent or guardian on the date they were taken into custody by the social worker based on a subsequent petition, as specified. A.B. 2664 essentially vitiates In re Michael G. which had the impact of starting the reunification clock from removal at a detention hearing, on a prima facie standard even though the child was not removed at the disposition hearing. As with all of our legislative efforts, we strive to advocate for policy changes that support families, increase reunification and promote stability for foster youth throughout California. Dependency Legal Services attorneys serve on the Family Law Advisory Committee, the Family Justice Initiative workgroup and the Family Law/Juvenile Law Committee as well. DLS attorneys also continue to be contributing authors to Seiser & Kumli on Juvenile Courts Practice and Procedure. This year senior staff rolled out several training courses for both DLS staff and dependency counsel and social workers across the state. This included a Judicial Council training on Legislation, and Basic Dependency, a training with a lived experience expert on the parents experience in the dependency system, a training on visitation and two trainings at the National Association of Childs Counsel on rethinking termination of parental rights and unlikely allies in legislation. Additionally, ten staff members were sent to this training in Salt Lake City, Utah. Four of our management staff have obtained Child Welfare Law Specialist status. DLS continues to explore pre-filing work in our counties. We have an in house working group that is meeting regularly to segway into this work and we will be pursuing grant opportunities.DLS also continues to improve our Human Resources department. We have entered into a contract with People Rock Human Resources to provide guidance and oversight on numerous H.R. issues. This has resulted in a much more robust onboarding process and greater documentation reflecting changes in employment. This year we focused on the best practices regarding employee evaluations. It is also hoped that this will reduce Labor attorney costs. DLS continues to integrate social workers into our multi-disciplinary practice. We are seeing the value social workers bring in parent and child representation. DLS continues to put an emphasis on recruitment and retention and was happy to raise the starting salary for attorneys.DLS continues to draw down federal funding for our work. We also continued to be part of The Judicial Councils summer internship program for first- and second-year law students. Stipends were for $3,600 times 5 interns for 240 hours a week. DLS supplemented this funding by several dollars per hour to make it more worthwhile for the interns. The program was successful with the hope of recruiting these students once they pass the bar exam.