KCBA’s New Child Law Section: Collaboration Will Lead to Solutions for Our Children
By Jill Geary
After many months of effort by a group of dedicated and enthusiastic advocates spanning several converging areas of law, the KCBA Board of Trustees approved a resolution at their November 20, 2024 Board Meeting to add a new Child Law Section to its practice area section offerings. This is exciting news because, while other organizations and institutions address different aspects affecting children, none of these groups provide a place for attorneys and advocates spanning a variety of practice areas to come together to form real solutions.
Collaboration is Key
As a parent special education attorney and education advocate, as well as former education Administrative Law Judge and former Seattle School Board member, I helped lead the charge for this new Child Law Section because I saw a need for collaboration. Indeed, the main drive behind the new Child Law Section was the need to bring practitioners from a variety of practice areas together to encourage cross referrals, problem solve, and gather resources to ensure support for practitioners, parents, and children alike. The Section will strive to be a place for all attorneys and advocates focused on child justice to create congenial, professional relationships that could potentially turn into a source of long-term, institutional legal solutions to the benefit of King County’s children.
In formulating the Section, lots of questions arose but one stood apart from the others: “Why aren’t the existing organizations and resources sufficient?” Those of us working to create the Child Law Section agreed that these structures weren’t enough, either because they focused primarily on one segment of law or excluded important subsections of the community working toward child justice. For example, some allow only parent advocates, some restrict membership to attorneys, and some only serve non-profit attorneys. In the world of child justice there are many legal spaces where non-attorney advocates are doing important work. The Child Law Section creates a place where all advocates working in the field can come together to identify issues, educate one another as to the impacts, learn about possible practical solutions, and advocate together for change.
Civility in Practice
Those working in child justice are grappling with very heavy issues, and the relationships between opposing counsel are woefully adversarial, both in and out of litigation. The new Child Law Section will not only provide community for attorneys and other advocates, but we hope it will also bring together different experiences, views, and practice areas to create long-term, institutional solutions for the benefit of the children of King County.
An adversarial legal system such as ours that requires zealous advocacy on behalf of one’s client by ethical canon does not give advocates a space to work collaboratively on systemic solutions. And yet, I can name many examples in the special education realm where school district attorneys have gone on to provide legal services to parents. A neutral space would allow problems to be identified and looked at from every perspective, such that new approaches and solutions could be created and advocated for on a larger scale.
Advocates at one point or another will be in a forum that requires a level of decorum—it is possible to bring that level of respect and propriety into a bar section. And, hopefully, over time, as people have the chance to engage with one another as colleagues and not opponents, the temperature in the room would moderate to a productive simmer, demonstrating a collective passion to make things better for children in our county.
A Resource for Families
Another reason for a section focused on children’s rights is to provide support to the parents and guardians who are fighting for their children. They need legal systems to be better. They are exhausted. Regardless of income, they feel the economic pinch of trying to find the right solutions for a child in crisis. Further, it is rare for a child to show up in the system with just one set of legal issues: a child with disabilities is likely to have healthcare and educational issues; a child in the juvenile justice system likely has criminal, welfare and educational issues; children who are immigrants may have multiple issues, along with language barriers. Every time a parent is required to tell the long, painful story of their child’s history, a little bit of them crumbles—yet by the time they are talking to an attorney, they have told that story tens of, if not a hundred times.
The new Child Law Section hopes to eventually become a hub for parents and attorneys to find local resources and the support they need to assist children in crisis. The new bar section community hopes to search for ways to streamline procedures and provide helpful information to support the many people who cannot find or afford legal counsel.
A Matter of Equity
Beyond collaboration and family support, it should be our ethical duty to bring together those attorneys who work in education and criminal justice—because systemic and institutional discrimination can only be perpetuated if these two groups are kept apart. Many of the youth who find themselves in the juvenile justice system have histories of being poorly served in the educational system. It is no secret that public education has a long history of racial inequality in terms of resource distribution, opportunity, and outcomes. Many students feel that disparity as early as preschool, and for them, school is simply their entry point into the school-to-prison pipeline. It is a matter of equity, therefore, to bring our advocacy and energy to changing the system and helping these individuals before they hit the pipeline. If we can agree that is a collective goal, we need better coordination and delivery structures to help families identify issues, and access resources early and often, as problems arise.
Education on Complex
Children’s Issues
Finally, the Child Law Section will allow local attorneys to educate one another through low cost continuing legal education that addresses the intersections of many of these issues. If you are like me, you may be tired of relearning the “basics” on legal issues having to do with children—which is about all one can find currently. The new Section will be an opportunity for us to share our own knowledge and experience and provide a more sophisticated look at the complex myriad of laws pertaining to children.
As a countywide bar, we need to support a stable, accessible bar that can provide support, education, and community to all the attorneys and advocates that work on behalf of children. And from that community, we will be able create a known entry point for parents and parent advocates to a countywide system of resources for a wide variety of children and families. It is a thrill to be at the start of this new and important endeavor.
Jill Geary has worn a number of different legal hats in the Puget Sound, from Office of Administrative Hearings ALJ, to Family and Special Education Law attorney, to Seattle Public School Board Director. Most recently, Ms Geary obtained a Masters of Education and Social Justice from UCL. She now works to break down systemic barriers preventing families and children accessing legal resources.
