Just Another Day In The Courtroom, Actually Two Of Them

Yesterday I spent about two thirds of my day in a place that has become familiar to me but would not be familiar to most of my friends in Tampa and a place no family member of mine has been. I spent several hours in the George E. Holcomb Courthouse in which legal issues coming before the 13th District Judicial Circuit are heard.

In February, 2006 I became a Guardian ad Litem. A Guardian is a volunteer that stands up for the rights of abused, neglected and abandoned children who find themselves in foster care and end up being shuffled through the child welfare system. We see children to whom we are assigned on a regular basis and we represent them in court with the assistance of a Guardian ad Litem Program attorney. While only a few close friends and my family know I am a volunteer in this program most don’t know the five sibling case I accepted in February, 2006 is still active after being in the court system for 34 months. Most cases don’t last this long. The case I accepted is far from “normal” in terms of its complexity and the time it has taken to work its way through the legal system including a maze of hearings and a trial. My work in the program, which is kept confidential, took me to an another administrative hearing yesterday as we attempt to bring closure to this stage of the lives of the children with whom I work and represent.

Guardians must keep accurate records of visits, phone calls and contacts with anyone in their cases. My records indicate I have met with over 50 people (school teachers, counselors, foster care parents, physicians, therapists, law enforcement personnel, etc), some several times. I have visited with the children over 40 times (some visits are with one child alone, some are combined). I have represented them in court more than two dozen times since I accepted their case. We have shared good times and bad, happy times and sad. I have seen them on holidays and on each of their birthdays. For over two and a half years they were separated after being removed from their home by a Child Protection Investigator following-up on a tip. They then lived in several different foster homes and only saw each other as a group of five, on average, once or twice a month. Currently they are living together with relatives located out-of-state and doing better in school than at anytime in their past. When I speak to them by telephone I hear happy kids. Until yesterday I thought this case was scheduled to come to a close by the end of this year, more than three years after it was opened. However, due to some unexpected legal “wrinkles” I learned this case will go into early next year. During court I was asked by the presiding judge to take on a sixth child, born to the mother in this case in the middle of legal proceedings under way in on effort to terminate her parental rights. Who turns down a judge that leans over his bench, smiles at you and in open court suggests you are one of the strongest Guardians in the County and then suggests you would be his personal choice to take the infant into this case, a child who has no Guardian ad Litem yet? Nobody I know. I accepted. So now my five sibling case is a six sibling case, but it’s not the end of the world. This case is moving forward and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I am but an instrument needed by the Dependency Court, and a small one at that. I do what I can to provide the added oversight for children who can’t speak for themselves in a very complicated legal system that is overburdened and underserved.

I have been asked several times how I ended up with this particular case. It began the night I graduated from the required training course to become a Guardian ad Litem, after I took my oath and was sworn in. While my fellow graduating classmates were being served cake and ice cream two Guardian ad Litem attorneys suggested I take a look a table full of file folders rather than stand in line for the desert being served. So with a program attorney on each arm we sauntered over to the table of files. I noticed some were in green folders, some were in plain manila folders but one was on top, in a red folder, with a Post-It-Note stuck to it. The note said “Needs GAL ASAP”. I opened the cover and read a summary of the case within the folder. The Court had assigned this case to the Guardian ad Litem Program due to the nature and level of expected difficulty of the case but that was three months earlier. And no Guardian ad Litem had yet agreed to accept this case as their own. I quickly read the summary and laughed out loud about the absurdity of taking on such a difficult case as my first one. Neither attorney laughed with me or said a word. I continued to open and read the summaries of other files in the other folders. But I kept coming back to the red folder. After approximately ten minutes I just stopped, picked up the red folder and slowly read the summary, carefully one more time. I then stepped back from the table and said “I’ll take this one”. The two attorneys then laughed loudly, gave each other a high five and told me to return to the office the next day to pick up all the corresponding materials and a more complete folder.

On my way to find what was left of the cake and ice cream one of the attorneys stopped me and asked why I made the decision to select this case. She admitted to me they were hoping I would but remained curious why I did it. My answer was simple. I did not volunteer to take only easy cases. This case was lingering, looked like a huge challenge, and after surveying my classmates with whom I had just graduated I determined none of them would have taken it. I took this case because I felt confident that what I had learned in the Guardian ad Litem classes added to my own life experiences would help me get through this case with a good outcome for the children.

I mentioned I was in two courtrooms yesterday. Following the Guardian ad Litem Hearing I attended another Hearing in which I was represented by legal counsel. Earlier this year I brought a lawsuit against a firm that did not pay me following my completion of consulting services for them last November. This situation was, of course, quite different than my court experience earlier in the day. Once again I cannot go into details as the case is pending but I could not help but compare how my day was going and the differences between dependency court and civil court in terms of the relevant laws and legal proceedings. In my more than 30 years in business I have had plenty of contract law exposure. Money lawsuits and courtrooms are not foreign to me. But this is the first time I have sued someone since becoming self-employed because they have not paid me.

We were in court to present an argument for a Summary Judgment. Simply put, my attorney and I felt our case was “open and shut”. I was asked to perform an assignment. We had a written agreement covering the details of the assignment and my fee. I completed the assignment. The client has not paid. The defendant is now represented by his third attorney. Two others that previously were defending him, for reasons I should not discuss, are doing so no longer.

The current defense counsel seems to want to make this into a Supreme Court case. They asked for and managed to get a second delay in the proceedings yesterday. This request came in open court without any affidavits or motions being filed prior to our arrival in court. Typically these kinds of maneuvers are not accepted by most judges. That was not the case yesterday. The request for a continuance was requested by the defense team so they could acquire additional discovery from me and others involved in my case. Sadly, the continuance was granted. I completed this assignment last November. At the rate we are going we could be hearing this case about a year after I did the work for which I was not paid. And people wonder why suing someone is sometimes discouraged by those in the legal profession.

Today is another day and I have other “fish to fry”. Actually, I don’t eat fried fish, but I certainly will be working on my Guardian ad Litem responsibilities and working toward obtaining additional clients. Those who pay on time…