LA CTY. DEPT. OF CHILDREN ETC. v. Superior Ct.

Randall Pacheco and Sonia Villanueva for Real Party in Interest.

Jo Kaplan, Richard G. Novak, Robert Stevenson and Steven Shenfeld as Amici Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest.

OPINION

JOHNSON, J.

In this writ proceeding we are asked to order the Los Angeles Dependency Court to appoint lawyers from the Los Angeles County Counsel's office to represent all children involved in dependency proceedings except in instances of "actual conflict of interest" between the county and the child. We conclude under existing statutory law the decision whether to appoint the county counsel to provide "dual representation" to both the county and to the child in the same case rather than appointing an "independent counsel" for the child is a matter within the court's discretion. We further conclude the Los Angeles Dependency Court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a policy (now a local rule) formalizing the ongoing practice of appointing independent counsel for children in nearly all proceedings before that court. Accordingly, we discharge the alternative writ and deny the petition for writ of mandate and prohibition.

In mid-June 1996 Shawn B.'s mother abandoned her four-year-old…