In the District of Columbia, when a child is removed from the custody of one parent, the child may go live with another parent after a quick investigation and approval by the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) — usually within 72 hours. The child is only placed in foster care if the other parent is deemed unfit.

However, if the other parent lives out of state, D.C. requires that parent to undergo a home study investigation by his or her state to determine fitness. If the other state, after investigations that sometimes last several months, deems the home study unsatisfactory, CFSA may deny custody to that parent.

Unlike the rule for D.C. parents, that denial is not dependent on a finding that the other parent is unfit. Importantly, while these studies are being completed, the children are temporarily in foster care.

Earlier this month, two Maryland fathers, represented by Arnold & Porter and with the help of the Children’s Law Center, filed suit against the District of Columbia. The fathers are claiming violations of due process and equal protection rights. Essentially, their children were removed from custody of their D.C.-based mothers, and the Maryland fathers were not allowed to take custody until Maryland completed a home study.

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… or maybe longer if I decide to renew you. Due to high rates of divorce early in marriage and the accompanying stress on the court system, Mexico City officials are considering a bill that would require couples to sign contracts prior to marrying.

Couples would be signing essentially a renewable prenup. The couple must agree how they will divide up money, property and custody arrangements in this contract. They also have to provide for the length of the marriage, the minimum length being two years.

I’m not completely on board with every aspect of this bill, and I do realize it raises many religious (and romantic) implications. However, I do think it’s something to think about.

While I don’t know how much of a stress divorces are on the Mexican court system (or exactly how divorces affect U.S. courts for that matter), I do know people go to court for some pretty ridiculous reasons. And the time and money spent on attorneys and court often adds up to more than the value of what the couple is fighting over and usually doesn’t end up in a groundbreaking solution that both parties are fully satisfied with.

What do you think about this bill? Is it the epitome of government involvement in our lives? I mean, if you want to go to court over who gets the big screen TV, isn’t that your decision? Do we really need a law that essentially saves people from themselves when divorcing, or does the judicial system really suffer when people can’t honor their vows?

For me, while I do find the idea of reading over fine print with my fiancé to be a BIT unromantic, I do like the leverage possibilities that come with being a free agent at the end of two years.

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The first line of my introductory Generation J.D. blog post plays right into a debate sparked by Amy Chua’s New York Times Bestseller, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

“Coming from a home with your typical overbearing Korean parents, I was given several limited career options when I was heading into high school,” I wrote. While that statement specifically addressed my choice in profession, you could really insert strict instructions about anything and everything in my life.

Spanning the last half of January, the Wall Street Journal and NPR released a series of articles and interviews covering Chua’s memoir about her experiences in Chinese parenting. Amy Chua is actually Professor Chua to students at Yale, where she teaches Contracts and International Business Transactions.
There is no denying her impressive background. She is an accomplished author with two bestselling non-fiction books. Her CV is littered with a clerkship at the U.S. Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit), an associate position at a top-tier law firm, and various stints in academia at highly ranked law schools.

Chua credits her “extremely strict, but extremely loving” (her words, not mine) parents for her success, and believed in the Eastern child-rearing technique so much that she used it on her own two daughters. She forbade her daughters to participate in “Western indulgences” such as sleepovers, playdates, extracurricular activities at school, and TV or video games. She forced them to learn only the piano or violin, and made them practice several hours a day.

Unfortunately, many of the synopses provided by the Wall Street Journal and NPR leave Chua demonized into a militant psychopath.  While there were experiences she relayed that made me shudder, a complete opinion can only be made after reading the entire book.

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There’s been some activity in the case of the Muslim woman whose foster care application was denied. If you want the backstory, check out my first blog post: Turning down a helping hand.

In a nutshell: Tashima Crudup, a Muslim, enrolled with Contemporary Family Services (CFS) to become a foster care parent. She was in foster care for a time as a child, and she wanted to help others the way she herself had once been helped. CFS is a private agency licensed by the state to help train and approve foster parents.

After completing the fifty-hour-plus training course, Ms. Crudup’s application was denied because her religious beliefs prohibit pork products in her home. Note that Ms. Crudup would not prohibit her foster children from eating pork products anywhere else in the world (ballgame, movie theater, friends’ houses, etc…). Furthermore, Ms. Crudup pledged to help children placed in her care observe their own religious beliefs.

The ACLU of Maryland got involved, and helped Ms. Crudup file a complaint with the Baltimore City Community Relations Commission. That got the ball rolling, and the state has now twice cited CFC regarding their discrimination against Ms. Crudup. The state gets an A+ for quick action. Read the rest of this entry »

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Apparently, there are no kids in Baltimore City who need foster care.

Apparently, everyone is very well taken care of, and the city doesn’t need good-hearted people willing to come forward and take care of children who have been abused or neglected.  Apparently, everything is just rosy in the city.

That’s the only possible explanation for rejecting the application of a good-hearted woman who only wants to help care for children in foster care the way she was once helped. It was her attempt to give back in a way that obviously has a lot of meaning for her.

But, the problem with her application seems to be that she is Muslim.

Last week, the Daily Record reported that the ACLU of Maryland is helping Tashima Crudup, a Muslim woman, to file a complaint with the Baltimore City Community Relations Commission. The offending (and potentially offensive, though I’m trying to keep my outrage in check) entity is Contemporary Family Services, a private agency that the State of Maryland uses to certify foster families.

According to the ACLU, Ms. Crudup’s application was denied because she does not allow pork products in her home. It seems that Contemporary Family Services also asked inappropriate questions (with no foundation) about whether Ms. Crudup’s husband would take another wife. All the facts given so far point to clear discrimination.

Can Contemporary Family Services’ refusal be justified?  Here’s what the ACLU of Maryland says: Read the rest of this entry »

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A few weeks ago, I attended a Town Hall meeting aimed at addressing issues that arise in cases involving self-represented litigants.  While in law school, I don’t believe the thought of having a case against a party not represented by counsel ever crossed my mind.  However, the reality is that the number of cases being filed and tried by pro se parties is increasing at an astounding rate.  As was discussed during the Town Hall meeting, this reality poses a complex set of hurdles that many lawyers have trouble stomaching.

Looking at Rule 4.3 of the Maryland Rules of Professional Conduct, titled “Dealing with Unrepresented Person,” a lawyer, in dealing on behalf of a client with a person who is not represented by counsel “shall not state or imply that the lawyer is disinterested.  When the lawyer knows or reasonably should know that the unrepresented person misunderstands the lawyer’s role in the matter, the lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to correct the misunderstanding.”

While this Rule provides some instruction in how to define your role as advocate for the opposing party, it does not provide concrete advice as to how to interact with an unrepresented party during the course of litigation.  There are many concerns that attorneys, regardless of experience, have expressed when dealing with pro se opposition. Read the rest of this entry »

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