- D O N A L D M. D U Q U E T T E w

I AM OBSESSED WITH HOW SOCIETY responds when mothers and fathers fail to can? for their children. Clinical teachmg in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic allows me to pursue this obsession while also sewingthe "trinity" of the Universityb mission statement: t e a c h , research and senrice.

CLINICAL

PROFESSOR OF

LAW AND

DIRECTOR,

CHILD

ADVOCACY

c m c

B.A. MICHIGAN

STATE

UNIVERSITY*

J.D. UMVERsrrY

OF MICHIGAN

LAW SCHOOL

Teachngservice: Individual child prot&tion cves provide the base and inspiration for all my other professional work. Sometimes I am asked, "Don't you ever get tired of handling chld cases? Doesn't it get boring or repetitive?" To which I answer a resounding "No!" Each child is different. Each family, each court - and each team of student attorneys - adds to the diverse mix that fuels the rest of my work. Besides, students like the &ld Advocacy experience because of the immense satisfaction they get from using their new legal skills to help a specific child. My satisfaction is doubled because not only do I share in the pleasure of providing the very best legal senrice for a child or parent, but I also revel in the students' performance and their invoduction to a humane and altruistic aspect af h law.

Teaching/research: Real cases ground me in the real world but also provide a data base for the question of %tb wrong with this picture?" Part of my job is to understand the real world and teach students to work effectively in it, but another part of the job, and a part I really like, is the creative Yvisioning," - that is, seeing things that are not there and devising alterna&es to a reality so many accept. People sometimes look askance when I say part of my job is to "see things that aren't there." I suppose this is a variation on the old saw "you don't have to be crazy to do t h job, but it helps."

My research and writing rests on the experiences of particular cases and often involves student work of some sort. One of my most Influential books, Advocatingfor the Child in Protection Proceedings, was co-authored by an intehciplinary group of graduate students in the Bush Program on Child Development. When the U.S. Congress mandated? national evaluation of legal representation of children, that book formed the conceptual framework for a National Center on Chdd Abuse and Neglect study In Michigan child w e l k reform, the Supreme Court, Govemorb office or State Bar

have often appointed me to task forces and commissions and I have tried to involve students in various ways when appropriate. Michigan child protection and foster care statutes include sections initially drafted by Michgan law students. Going back to the early '80s, Lisa D'Aunno and her partner Jennifer Levin, both '84, helped draft sections of the bdk that made Michgan5 child welfare court process one of the most efficient in the nation. One of the best and most recent examples of student involvement in researchlpublic service is a bill to define the role of the childb attorney in child protection cases. Greg Stanton, '95, helped draft a set of recommendations subsequently adopted by the State Bar Childrenb Task Force, of which I was co-chair. When Lt. Governor Binsfeld asked for our help in drafting legislation, Rachel Lokken,P7, and ~rikin schutjh, '98, developed some very important bill language. Albert Hartmam, '98, wrote a law review article on the topic (Hartmann, "Crafting an Advocate for the Child," 31 Michigan@mal of Law Reform 237 [Fall 19971) and last March, he and 1, at the Lt. Governor's invitation, testified in support of the bills before a joint committee of the Michgan

4 THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL

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Far QvET 20 yeam I him been blessed by c w ,students and suppoItive and insqjhtful coIIeqpai, like 5uelly-n Scarneeel, '81, and David chamks. It has been exhihating to pursue justice for U b and to participate in the r e m t i o n of child $dhre juxispmdeslm. Our Child Advocacy Law niaic is Jxloked u p as the model of such clinics awund the nation and we are often called upon to advise other schools in the development of similar p m m : What else but at the Wve* of Michigan Law W o l mud one get the 1d of institutional mid intellectual support necessary to sustain such an ent"prk7 I look f o m d to the next 20 years. I

S U E L L Y N Q C A R N E C C H I A Associab Dm for Clinical Affairs and Clinical Professor of Law B.A. Northwestern University, J.D. Unhrersity of Michigan Law School

Children's Law Center, Washington, D.C. B.A. Michigan State University

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