By the LAARK Team — Catherine West, Kerry Clayman, Deshanna Brown, and Celeste Miller
KCBA’s newest legal aid program recently turned two years old and has been successfully helping kinship caregivers around the state with their legal issues, especially minor guardianship. The Legal Advice And Referral for Kinship Care (LAARK) program is staffed by two full time attorneys, one part time legal assistant, and is supervised by the statewide kinship care legal aid coordinator. It is separate from KCBA’s Kinship Care Solutions Project (KCSP), but the two programs work closely together, even referring cases to each other when needed. LAARK is a statewide program that provides consultations and legal advice and does not have an income limit. LAARK does not provide representation in court, but does provide brief and extensive services to eligible clients, which includes multiple consultations, help drafting court documents, and advice on preparing for court. KCSP is for King County residents who are under 200% of the Federal Poverty Level and matches clients with volunteer attorneys for their minor guardianship cases. Sometimes, Paul McVicker, the KCSP Staff Attorney, will advise clients who haven’t yet been placed with a volunteer. When LAARK has a client who is eligible for KCSP, they refer them to the program to get on the list for a pro bono attorney. This month’s PBS spotlight highlights a client who received help from both of KCBA’s Kinship programs, with a successful outcome!
Bethany Carter* is a grandmother who has been raising her grandson since birth. Ms. Carter ran into trouble making decisions for her grandson, except at school. Ms. Carter has worked closely with the Kinship Program at Catholic Community Services. They referred her to the LAARK program for legal assistance. The LAARK legal assistant completed a phone intake with Ms. Carter in May 2023. A few weeks later, a LAARK attorney gathered additional information and drafted Minor Guardianship pleadings for Ms. Carter to file on her own.
Ms. Carter was apprehensive because she knew the legal system was unfriendly to people without a lawyer. She filed the documents in July. Ms. Carter knew it would be impossible for her to locate the parents to serve them the documents, so she requested a Court Visitor be appointed. The court appointed Family Court Services to see if the parents could be located with reasonable diligence, as per the statute. While Family Court Services was doing its investigation, LAARK referred Ms. Carter to the Kinship Care Solutions Project to see if a volunteer lawyer could be assigned to her. In the end, Ms. Carter was able to finalize her case without a volunteer lawyer in September 2023.
When LAARK caught up with Ms. Carter she said she takes the guardianship order with her everywhere, so there’s no problem. Ms. Carter said she’d recommend LAARK to anyone and ended by saying: “you don’t know how much you’ve done for me and my grandson.”
