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Belief in Pro Bono Client Brings Shattered Family a Happy Ending

New York Lawyer
December 29, 2006

By Thomas Adcock
New York Law Journal

From time to time over decades past, a child born to some hard-luck home comes to a lurid end, prompting newspaper reporters to write disapproving stories about the place meant to protect the young and vulnerable: New York City Family Court.

This is not one of those stories.

Instead, it is the story of an orphaned brother and sister whose mother, when still alive in June, had the luck of befriending an angel in Harlem to provide her children a truly happy New Year.

It is the story of two lawyers who trusted in the angel's simple presence and plainspoken words to lift the spirits of a dreary courtroom.

It is the story of a judge who, for once, did not have to go home in vague despair at the end of a day.

The story happened in the Lafayette Street courtroom of Manhattan Family Court Judge Helen C. Sturm.

The courtroom is typical of its type: linoleum floors impervious to industrial cleansers, water-stained ceiling tiles, orange plastic chairs, sobbing youngsters, drug-dazed or alcoholic parents, social workers and Legal Aid lawyers with files full of numbers that seldom compute, and fluorescent lights that banish the privacy of shadows.

It was a whole new experience for attorneys Carol A. LaFond and Wendy A. Walker, litigation associates at LeBouef, Lamb, Greene & MacRae who are also members of Volunteers of Legal Service.

But newly met discomforts seemed of no concern once an angel called Clara Brooks spoke up, becoming that rarity in Family Court - a responsible adult ready to do the right thing just as others flee from responsibility.

"I'm told that our case was something you just about never see in Family Court," said Ms. Walker, 28, a third-year associate. She said Judge Sturm routinely "tries to force parents to take care of their own, yet here you have an incredible woman coming forward."

"We all had a direct and emotional response to Clara's stepping forward," said Ms. LaFond, 49, a sixth-year associate who enrolled in law school only nine years ago after a first career she described as "mostly taking care of my kids."

Ms. Brooks' kindness was given in the cause of her friend and neighbor Melvina, whose last name is being withheld in the interest of her children's privacy. Melvina, according to Ms. Brooks, suffered severe asthma, although the cause of her death in late June at age 41 was listed as "unknown" in autopsy papers.

She left two children - an 8-year-old autistic boy whose father had abandoned the family years before and a 3-year-old girl whose father is in prison for a very long time.

The day after Melvina died, Ms. Brooks, 38, took the children into her home, a two-bedroom apartment shared with her own 15-year-old daughter. Although some among Melvina's family were willing to take the girl, no one wanted both her and the boy, who, like his mother, is severely asthmatic.

"She always talked about that," Ms. Brooks said she told the lawyers, referring to Melvina's nagging worry about her children being separated if she died before she could properly raise them. "Melvina was my friend. If you have a friend and something happens to you - well, you just hope and pray that someone's going to step up to the plate and respect your wishes if your own family won't."

Ms. Brooks also told the lawyers about how she and Melvina met, she being a pastry instructor and Melvina being a student at Baked in the Hood, a job-training and skills program that helps low-income Harlem residents gain full-time employment.

"We developed a close relationship," Ms. Brooks said. "I could see that Melvina didn't have a support system. A student needs that to continue on. She was doing it all by herself. Melvina was trying to get her son into the right school, fighting the school board every day to get what he's entitled to, assuring her boy all the time, 'You're going to college. You can do it.'"

Melvina had a two-year college degree and was only 30 hours short of a full degree, Ms. Brooks said.

"She had a good-paying job, too. Secretary at a law firm," Ms. Brooks said. "But she had to give it up because of the endless things she was doing for her boy, taking him to therapy and speech training - and going with him on school field trips because the teachers didn't want to take responsibility for anything that might happen."

Belief in Client

The lawyers had Ms. Brooks tell all this to the judge. The strategy behind such counsel, explained Ms. LaFond, was twofold. "First, you recognize that Family Court is a big wheel just grinding along," she said. "Then you recognize that the most important thing to do is maintain belief in your client, and persistence."

Ms. Walker added, "We spent every moment of every day down there in Family Court. All other work stopped."

Ms. Brooks said she explained to the judge, "Now, the boy is high-functioning. He has a speech delay, he didn't start speaking until he was 3. The most challenging thing for me in this situation is not the taking care of him, but not knowing his full history, having to rely on just the medical records. I mean, I don't really know the problems that his mother went through with him. As a parent, you know, you might have a child with a disability but you kind of learn to work with it."

Judge Sturm listened to all this, and more.

"So that's it. I want what's right for these kids, what Melvina wants for these kids. I don't want them separated, I don't want them going to some institution," Ms. Brooks said she told the court.

The judge also heard the lawyers plead the acute emergency of time in the case of the boy, whose Medicaid benefits would expire on Jan. 1 because his mother had died.

Ms. Walker and Ms. LaFond pressed at the initial October hearing that the matter be expedited.

Meanwhile, the lawyers gathered affidavits from the absent fathers, ceding parental authority to Ms. Brooks. The same with those relations unable or unwilling to see what Melvina could see for the future of her son, who, like his mother, needed a system of support.

Judge Sturm, like her colleagues on the Family Court bench, is obliged to make quick and wise decisions on the futures of lives in disrepair that come before her. Sometimes as many as 60 such decisions a day, sometimes on days that stretch into night.

Two days after that initial hearing, Judge Sturm called Ms. Walker, Ms. LaFond, Ms. Brooks and Melvina's children back into her court.

The lawyers remember Judge Sturm, with tears welling in her eyes, telling their client, "Your generosity overwhelms me. I think you are remarkable, and a blessing to these children. What else can I say but best wishes and congratulations."

They have adjusted to one another since then, said Ms. Brooks of herself and her daughter and the two new children for whom she is permanent custodian.

There is one thing, though.

"I'm looking for a bigger place, maybe a house in Brooklyn or Queens," said Ms. Brooks. "Otherwise, we're all doing fine and looking forward to the New Year.

"You know, here I was with a daughter about to go off on her own in a few little years," said Ms. Brooks. "But now I'm starting all over again with a family. It's all right. I have no regrets."

She added, "In my heart, I know if I hadn't done what I did for my friend, I would have been walking down the street in sorrow."