[Download] "When Your Attorney is Your Enemy: Preliminary Thoughts on Ensuring Effective Representation for Queer Youth. (Gender on the Frontiers: Confronting Intersectionalities)" by Columbia Journal of Gender and Law # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: When Your Attorney is Your Enemy: Preliminary Thoughts on Ensuring Effective Representation for Queer Youth. (Gender on the Frontiers: Confronting Intersectionalities)
- Author : Columbia Journal of Gender and Law
- Release Date : January 22, 2010
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 356 KB
Description
Attorneys representing children too often become their enemies (1) rather than their advocates. This is especially true when the children are queer. (2) Queer youth caught in the judicial (3) system are often severely harmed, (4) specifically because of where a court decides they will reside. Judges determine where children will reside through custody decisions, or by deciding whether they will be placed in foster care, group homes, or detention facilities in child welfare and delinquency proceedings. (5) Once in the justice system, most children are provided an attorney in part because courts have recognized that children have a liberty interest at stake in the proceedings, (6) including a right to "reasonably safe living conditions" and services necessary to ensure protection from harm. (7) Where a child will be placed is always an important issue in cases involving juveniles and thus a pivotal issue for the child's attorney. However, for queer children, questions of placement are critical, because they can have terrible, even life-threatening, consequences. (8) Unfortunately, attorneys entrusted to represent queer youth are not immune from the heteronormativity (9) and homophobia (10) that pervade our culture. Even unintentional anti-queer bias can distort the relationship between a lawyer and a queer child client--further endangering an already at-risk population. (11) An attorney is generally viewed as someone fighting for her client's rights by giving voice to the client's wishes. However, the image of a zealous advocate does not hold true when the client is a child. Because they can disregard their clients' wishes, lawyers representing children too often become another liability the judicial system imposes on a child. When the client is a queer youth, the risk of harm created when an attorney fails to provide traditional advocacy is magnified.