Prof. Donald N. Duquette founded the Child Advocacy Law Clinic, the oldest such clinic in the United States, in 1976. His 1990 book, Advocating for the Child in Protection Proceedings, formed the conceptual framework for the first national evaluation of child representation as mandated by the U.S. Congress. His most recent book, Child Welfare Law and Practice: Representing Children, Parents and State Agencies in Abuse, Neglect and Dependency Proceedings, Second Edition (Bradford Legal Publishers, 2010), defines the scope and duties of a brand-new legal specialty in child welfare law and prepares experienced lawyers for a national certifying examination. Prof. Duquette initiated and was co-director of a National Association of Counsel for Children project to develop a national certification program in child welfare law, which gained American Bar Association accreditation in February 2004 and is now available as a specialty in more than 35 U.S. jurisdictions. In October 2009, the U.S. Children's Bureau made a $6-million, multi-year grant to Michigan Law to serve as the National Quality Improvement Center for Child Representation in the Child Welfare System (QIC-ChildRep) with Prof. Duquette as director. The QIC-ChildRep developed a Best Practice Model of child representation and a training in the Six Core Skills essential to that model and is now embarking on the first-ever random assignment experimental design research on child representation in the states of Georgia and Washington to test the effectiveness of the QIC approach. What it is that a child's legal representative does that makes a difference in a child's life?

Prof. Duquette hails from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is a graduate of Michigan State University, and was a social worker specializing in child protection and foster care prior to earning his JD at Michigan Law in 1974. Before joining the faculty, he served as an assistant professor of pediatrics and human development at Michigan State University.