Martin Guggenheim

At around nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning, two days after giving birth to her second child, Vanessa left a hospital in Queens, New York, and boarded the subway. She was headed to the borough’s courthouse on a mission: to regain custody of her newborn daughter.

New York City’s brand of wrap-around legal representation may not prevent the removal of children from their families. But they might be getting home much faster, and without any risk to their safety.

An emboldened parent defense movement convened at a Ritz-Carlton near Washington, D.C., last week, intent to capitalize on recent policy victories and public attention. The goal? To reduce the number of parents they believe are unnecessarily separated from their kids by the child welfare system.

On Thursday, scores of attorneys, judges and other child protection professionals descended on Washington, D.C., for the American Bar Association’s National Conference on Parent Representation. The conference’s name is suggestive of the family justice revolution brewing within child welfare law.

Documentarian Karen Grau has been filming dependency court proceedings for decades. In her experience, there’s one variable that makes it easy to know early in a case if justice will be served.

The Los Angeles Times and columnist Steve Lopez launched a critically important series on child poverty Sunday. Replete with both haunting and inspiring photos taken by the talented Francine Orr, readers are introduced to Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima, which has the inauspicious designation of “having more homeless students than any other in the district.”

A small but influential pro bono family law clinic at New York University has received a gift to expand its efforts to protect parents’ rights, the school announced this week. The gift comes from the prominent New York City real estate developer (and President Trump pal) Elie Hirschfeld.

Marcia Lowry, the crusading child welfare attorney, works out of an office on Hardscrabble Road. She didn’t name this leafy suburban New York lane, but it suits her reputation: The slew of big-ticket settlements she’s secured against large foster care systems made her one of the nation’s most respected, winning and – in some quarters – loathed attorneys for vulnerable youth.