Children’s Law Center director Liberty Aldrich: more than 8,000 children served in 2025 as group pushes for 'children’s voice' in Bronx courts
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Summary
On Bronx Talk, Liberty Aldrich, executive director of the Children's Law Center, said the organization served more than 8,000 children in 2025 and described courtroom and community work—including social-work supports, fellowship programs, and litigation—to give children a voice in family-court proceedings in The Bronx and beyond.
Liberty Aldrich, executive director of the Children's Law Center and a retired judge, told Bronx Talk listeners that the nonprofit ‘‘served more than 8,000 children in 2025 across the city’’ and that the center now serves more children in The Bronx than in any other borough. The organization represents children in family-court matters such as custody, guardianship, domestic violence, abuse and neglect, and immigration-related cases and combines legal work with social services to support each child.
The comments came during an interview about the center’s nearly 30 years of work advocating for children's participation in court. Aldrich said the center was founded by three women — one of them former Chief Judge Kaye — to fill a gap in legal services for young people and that the group has litigated cases that changed law, including work involving Hague proceedings to secure children's access to hearings in international custody or abduction cases. "We are lawyers for the children, but we don't decide. The judge decides," Aldrich said, stressing that attorneys for children are assigned by the court when a judge identifies a concern for a child's well-being.
The Children’s Voice Fellow, Haley Fletcher, described efforts to elicit and present children's perspectives in systemic and individual cases. "What New York does, which is very unique, is giving a child a voice in these family matters," Fletcher said, and she described a national convening intended to share practices with other jurisdictions. Fletcher also outlined outreach and prevention work in schools and community programs in The Bronx, and described the Children's Voice Project, which brings former clients with lived experience into fellowship roles to inform practice.
Aldrich gave a recent case example to illustrate the center’s role: attorneys for a 16-year-old who reported abuse by a relative filed for and obtained a temporary order allowing the teenager to move to live with her father; a final custody order followed. "So we're able to make a difference for that child to live somewhere that she feels safe, heard, and respected," Aldrich said.
Both guests described CLC’s holistic model: lawyers coordinate with a team of social workers (Aldrich said the Bronx team includes three social workers) to address education (including IEP hearings), medical needs and immigration-related issues in addition to courtroom advocacy. Aldrich also noted a recent Bronx Community Foundation grant: the Children’s Law Center was one of six organizations that received more than $100,000 from the foundation's day of action, a funding boost the moderator noted at the top of the interview.
The interview closed with Aldrich inviting schools and community groups to seek preventive outreach and with a website contact: clcny.org. The program ended after the moderator thanked guests and production staff.
The Children’s Law Center’s work in The Bronx combines courtroom representation, social-work support and community outreach; Aldrich and Fletcher said the organization is expanding fellowship and convening efforts to help other jurisdictions give children a clearer voice in family-court decision-making.
