The Child Protective Services Collaborative Law Project was
launched in Region 3 of the Texas Department of Family and
Protective Services in 2009. A panel of over 50 volunteer lawyers,
mental health professionals, financial professionals, and
mediators trained in the collaborative law process as it relates
to CPS are committed to providing pro bono services to the parents
and children in cases in which the parents are involved in Family
Based Safety Services or Court-Ordered Participation. CPS in the
Dallas area is represented by the Regional Attorney's office.
After over a year of working with such families toward the
parents' and CPS' goal of family reunification, the Project is now
well-established in the Dallas area.
With the passage of the Uniform Collaborative Family Law
Act (Title 1-A of the Texas Family Code), the project can now be
expanded to those jurisdictions in which either only the regional
attorney's office or only the district attorney's office
represents TDFPS, because it is now possible to isolate the
collaborative state's lawyer from further participation in the
matter after the case concludes, permitting transfer to a
different state's attorney who will handle the case if the matter
is litigated. There is much interest internationally in the
expansion of Collaborative Practice to this field of law. We use
the forum of the Texas Lawyers for Children (TLC) Online Legal
Resource and Communication Center as a place to congregate in
order to access resources, improve and expand the use of the
collaborative process in the CPS context, promote professional
development in this field, and collect data pertaining to the
project. If you would like to volunteer your services for this
project, please click
here to access the (Required Form) CPS
Collaborative Project Volunteer Information Sheet. Texas
attorneys, please also register for the Pro Bono Network by clicking here.
Information on
CPS Collaborative Law Project