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Council urged to prioritize family‑protection representation as caseloads, lawyer shortages strain county systems
Summary
TIDC and council staff highlighted gaps in legal representation for children and parents in CPS cases, new fee schedule and attorney‑choice laws, and uneven pay and capacity that leave rural counties vulnerable.
Council members heard a detailed presentation on family protection representation—court‑appointed attorneys in child‑protection cases—highlighting caseload size, workforce trends, and two new state laws that will affect local practice.
Crystal Lafpione, director of family protection representation at the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, told the council that Department of Family and Protective Services statistics show just over 28,000 children in conservatorship last fiscal year and roughly 61,000 children involved in DFPS‑related cases when family preservation and other orders are included. She said about 9,000 children were legally removed under court order in the last fiscal year.
Lafpione said TIDC’s 2021–23 data showed more than half of counties reported a decline in the number of attorneys on appointment lists and that attorney lists skew toward older license years; just 28% of reporting attorneys were licensed in the last 15 years in the sample discussed. She and other speakers linked recruitment and retention challenges to compensation, workload and burnout.
The presentation reviewed two bills that passed this session affecting representation. SB 1838 requires every county to maintain a fee schedule specific to court appointments in child‑protection cases; staff said some counties will need to update schedules to comply. SB 2501 creates an attorney‑choice mechanism allowing indigent parents to select their attorney so long as the attorney meets county qualification ceilings; chosen counsel will be paid the county’s standard rate.
Speakers suggested that in counties with few available attorneys, SB 2501 could pose logistical challenges and urged planning for implementation. Lafpione also encouraged county officials and judges to consider how federal Title IV‑E reimbursement (which returns a portion of eligible expenditures to counties) could be used to support representation systems and cautioned counties to plan how they will use any reimbursements so funds support representation improvements.
Ending: Lafpione asked council members to prioritize family protection representation during the interim and to consider subcommittee work on funding, recruitment and systems building for rural counties.
