Program on Children and the Law

Welcome to the Program on Children and the Law at the University of Michigan Law School. For more than 30 years, Michigan Law has been a leader in the development of the jurisprudence regarding children. In 1976, the Law School launched the Child Advocacy Law Clinic: the first clinical law program in America to specialize in problems of child abuse and neglect and children in foster care. Since then, Michigan Law has developed one of the most respected and influential child law programs in the country. Please explore our website. Whether you are a prospective student, researcher, policy maker, or practitioner in the field, we hope some of these resources are helpful to you.

Recent Activities

• The work of two of Prof. Sankaran's clinic students is featured in U-M's "View from the cube" blog.
• Professor Sankaran was named the 2011 Parent Attorney of the Year by the Michigan Foster Care Review Board, an arm of the Michigan Supreme Court.
• Professor Sankaran argued the case of In re Mays before the Michigan Supreme Court, in which he represented a father whose rights had been terminated.  Among other issues, Professor Sankaran argued that ordering an unadjudicated parent to comply with services violated his constitutional rights. Watch the oral argument here.
• Clinical Assistant Professor Frank E. Vandervort and John Seber, 3L, wrote a Detroit Free Press op-ed, "The Supreme Court should set protections for children questioned in crimes," which appeared in the March 22, 2011, edition.
• Professors Vivek Sankaran and Joshua Kay prevailed in the Michigan Supreme Court in a case addressing how the Department of Human Services makes adoption decisions on behalf of permanent wards of the state and what kinds of evidence a trial court must consider in reviewing such decisions. The Supreme Court adopted the reasoning of a dissent in the Court of Appeals to require that the Department thoroughly investigate a case prior to making an adoption decision, provide factual support for the reasons for the decision, and that a trtial court admit evidence relevant to the question of whether the Department's decision was arbitrary and capricious, including evidence that could show that the Department relied on incomplete or invalid information. Read the Supreme Court Order here, and the Court of Appeals dissent here.
• Professor Sankaran's article, "A Hidden Crisis: The Need to Strengthen Representation of Parents in Child Protective Proceedings" appeared in the October 2010 issue of the Michigan Bar Journal.  Read the article here.
• The Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded the University of Michigan Law School a five-year, $5 million dollar grant to serve as the National Quality Improvement Center on the Representation of Children in the Child Welfare System.  Read the article in Ann Arbor.Com by clicking here.