Advocating for Children

Through Kelley Drye’s work with Access Justice Brooklyn, we were referred a 17-A Guardianship case. Associate Caitlin Hickey successfully obtained an order of guardianship for her client, the mother of an adult child with autism and a rare genetic neurological and developmental disorder that affects the way the brain develops and leads to progressive loss of motor skills and language. Caitlin argued that an Article 17-A guardianship appointment was appropriate in this case because the adult child in question had the intellectual and emotional development of a young child, making it impossible for her to make her own medical or financial decisions. In fact, Caitlin demonstrated that the adult child was incapable of performing even the activities of daily living without her mother’s assistance. The grant of guardianship will enable the mother to continue to care for and make medical decisions for her daughter.

Associate Joe Donaldson and a small Kelley Drye team obtained Guardianship and Special Findings Orders from the Bronx Family Court for a family of five siblings seeking refuge in the US after experiencing years of abuse and neglect at the hands of their former step-father in their home country of Honduras.

Initially, Joe and the team represented the eldest of five siblings, who was still a minor. After learning the details of the family’s abuse, Kelley Drye extended its representation to include the client’s four younger siblings in connection with their applications to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. His clients have begun to receive an education, a critical element of life previously unattainable in home country. They have adjusted to their new lives, no longer consumed with the fear of considerable threats they received.

It was a Kelley Drye team effort, including work with the family to prepare them for the hearing. The Court issued the orders that day, which has enabled the Kelley Drye team to petition the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), and, eventually, permanent residency.