The Heart of the Matter – Suzanne Chester Gives a Voice to Children Through The Child’s Advocate
Attorneys such as Suzanne Chester make it possible for a child in a custody case to have an advocate in court – one who has their best interests at heart.
Chester, director of The Child’s Advocate, is a champion for children’s rights. The program is dedicated to improving the lives of children in custody disputes by pairing them with a legal representative.
These disputes are complex, often involving cases of neglect, abuse, and domestic violence, and child clients may have special needs or a mental illness.
After a judge determines a child would benefit from representation, the court appoints an attorney through the program.
The Child’s Advocate is a project of Legal Aid of North Carolina, and it is unique because it is offered without cost to clients or their families.
The program was created in 2008, when Sally Scherer established it as a nonprofit. After Scherer served as director for six years, LANC inherited the program in 2014.
Chester became the director. Now, with a team of three attorneys, Atiya M. Mosley, Katie Jenifer, and another attorney who will join in September, as well as a group of pro bono attorneys, Chester works to advocate for children so that their point of view can be considered and valued before a decision is made.
“So much of the traditional custody case is one parent has an attorney, the other parent has an attorney. The perspective of the child is – well, in North Carolina, children don’t have a right to any kind of representation in these cases, so when a child does have an advocate, it gives us the opportunity to bring that child’s perspective to the forefront of the case, rather than it being just about what the parents want, and what the parents think is best for the child.”
A custody decision will have a lasting impact on a child, and yet they are not able to speak for themselves. Attorneys such as Chester are able to step in, talk with a child and speak on their behalf.
“We bring a whole new dimension and the whole idea of having some rights, like basic human rights, and to have some influence over what is going to happen to children. Because obviously a custody decision is life-changing in itself. For some children it can be really good. For some children it can be really bad.”
As director of the program, Chester assigns cases to her fellow attorneys on staff, supervises cases, and ensures each child has an advocate. She also trains pro bono attorneys and manages her own caseload. She is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Family Law Section and Juvenile Justice & Children’s Rights Section.
One underlying goal of the program is to provide each client a voice. Asking questions, listening to a child’s wants and needs, and building rapport are all critical to a successful attorney-client relationship, especially one in which the client is a child.
What does it look like to give a voice to a child in a custody case?
“In concrete terms, let me give you an example. I’ve had several cases along these lines, but it might be a case where a parent is planning on relocating to another state, and a parent wants to take the child with them to another state. And there may be reasons that the child really wants to go, or doesn’t want to go, depending on the relationship with the parent. Some of our cases involve cases where there are custodial situations where they are really not happy. It might be very bad with a stepparent. It could be mistreatment in the form of very poor parenting by the actual parent. Some of our cases involve allegations of abuse, or some kind of mistreatment. It could be a child whose gender identity or sexual orientation isn’t being recognized or affirmed by a parent.
“We really hope by bringing the child’s voice to the table, allowing the judge to hear about what a child thinks may be so different from what the judge might’ve heard through the parents, that I feel it’s a great way of furthering children as people who have valid opinions and perspectives which need to be listened to.”
She illustrates what it looks like to build a case on behalf of a child client.
“Without confidentiality, I don’t think we could be effective as children’s advocates. Our work usually involves us meeting with a child, anywhere from three to 10 times. Some of these cases go on forever before they are settled. We talk with each child client minimum of three times – that would be a small amount. We find the more they get to trust us and the more they get to understand that what we tell them won’t be shared, they are much more apt to disclose what their concerns are, or what they may have been feeling about disclosing before.
“People often talk about, yes, the child’s wishes need to be considered. But just knowing their wishes isn’t enough. It is really important for the judge to hear what are their reasons behind their wishes, and their concerns and their preferences. It is central to our mission at the Child’s Advocate that we credit what children tell us, and that we really investigate our cases, and we look for the information that supports what the child is saying. Obviously, if we find out the child has not been truthful, we take that into account. But that is very unusual. Most of our clients are asking for things we think are very reasonable within the context which they are asking for them. They have very good reasons for what they want.”
Because custody disputes determine where and with whom a child will live, a child’s future is up in the air for as long as the case goes on. The uncertainty can place stress on a child that will only increase if the case is brought to a judge.
Concluding a case early in the process is one of Chester’s goals. She asks questions and listens to a client so that they are able to vocalize their preferences. The more a child shares their perspective, the more likely it is for Chester to be able to negotiate for them, if a child gives her permission to share these preferences. In many instances, communicating a child’s needs to parents’ attorneys can result in a more swift outcome than if a case is decided in court.
She and her team resolve most of their cases without going to trial.
“We stay in a case until a permanent order is put into effect. Sometimes there may be short hearings before the permanent order is entered. Eighty percent of the time, we are able to settle them with either the attorneys for the parents or settling them directly with the parents, so that there doesn’t need to be a hearing in front of the judge, so a lot of these cases as you can imagine are very contentious.
“Usually the judges are particularly prone to appoint us when they feel like a child is being harmed by a conflict. So being able to settle a large percentage of those cases I know is appreciated by the judges because it means they have more time on the calendar. Our judges work so hard. They have huge dockets, so they love to see cases being settled. It is better for the family if it is resolved.”
Advocating in Action
Most cases are negotiated prior to going to court, but if a case does move to a trial, Chester and her team provide support to a child throughout litigation. For example, it may be possible for the child to speak with a judge.
“By the child’s having an attorney, if the child is old enough and wants to speak to the judge, we can prepare the child for that. We can be present when the child talks to the judge, and that can allow the judge to hear directly from the child about what is going on in their life and the reasons for their preferences.
“Usually judges are most comfortable with children 12 and older. Judges’ preferences overall are not to have to speak to the child. In our experience, they are a lot more comfortable when a child is represented by their own attorney, because they know then the child has been prepared for what is going to happen.”
Chester shares another way she supports a child during court cases: she can advocate so that a child is not required to speak to the judge, if a child would prefer to not testify.
“We can also play a protective role in the situation. One parent wants the child to speak to the judge, and the child doesn’t want to. We can bring those reasons to the attention of the judge. If the child really doesn’t want to, it prevents them from getting forced to do it by a parent.”
In some cases, a child chooses to speak to a judge to describe their story firsthand. The words can be difficult to hear.
“To be able to hear the child express to himself or herself and articulate to the judge these sometimes very awful, very difficult concerns or facts about the case, it can feel quite emotional sometimes. It can be quite emotional for the judge to be hearing it.”
Chester faces some difficulties in her role, such as seeing how a lengthy trial affects a child’s mental, emotional and physical well-being.
“One of the biggest challenges is when the litigation just keeps going on and it is hard to get to the point of a resolution, and you see a child who is really suffering. We can certainly help to mitigate that by being in the case and getting to a settlement, but all of these cases take a good while to work themselves out when they do, and it can be painful to see a child really suffering under what is happening.”
In one instance, a child had been involved in a contentious dispute for ten years before they were appointed to represent him.
The length of a trial can have a negative impact on a child’s state of being, and other factors can make their experience more difficult, such as when a child avoids contact with a parent, a topic Chester has written about in a blog post published in 2020. Some of her clients have serious mental health issues and are experiencing trauma. Other clients have been hospitalized following a suicide attempt.
She and her team are able to meet with a child, to listen to their concerns and to offer support to them in whatever circumstances they face.
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Listening to a child as they navigate the ups and downs of a case is one of the ways she helps them. Another way she lessens a client’s stress is by maintaining the confidentiality of their mental health records.
“One of the things about child custody cases that is pretty shocking is that under North Carolina law, parents have a legal right to see their children’s confidential mental health records, right up until they turn 18. Imagine being a 16-year-old child in an extremely contentious custody dispute and your parents could find out anything you tell your therapist!
“Unfortunately, it regularly happens that parents’ attorneys issue a subpoena for a child’s mental health records. As attorneys for the child, we can – and do – ask the court to restrict a parents’ access to the ‘progress notes’ – the record of the child’s actual sessions with a therapist. The importance of preserving this confidential relationship is something our judges understand and so, once we ask for this, they are generally ready to restrict parents’ access in some significant way.”
By representing the child’s best interests, an advocate can make a difference in the life of a child, both during a custody hearing and after its resolution.
It is especially heartening to see a child’s life improve because of a case’s outcome.
“When you see a child get to a position where, for example, his parents are no longer fighting about his custody, and he is flourishing as a result, where a child gets to be away from a parent who has been abusive, and is in the care of a protective parent whom they love, and the child is really flourishing, hearing from children afterwards, after the case is over and seeing how well they are doing in many of these situations is extremely rewarding. You do have a sense that the legal representation and the role of being a child’s attorney can have a transformative effect, and that is very rewarding.”
What are some of the specific ways a child’s life can improve?
“Rather than focusing on one memorable case I prefer to look at some of the types of cases where my colleagues and our pro bono attorneys have had a transformative effect on a child’s life.
“For example, we have had several cases where a child has been ordered to attend reunification therapy for years with a parent who has a history of mistreating them – whether it be sexual or physical abuse or grossly inappropriate parenting over a prolonged period. In certain cases, the reunification process itself takes a huge toll on the child because it forces the child to be exposed to a parent who refuses to take responsibility for their past or ongoing conduct. When the court credits the evidence presented by TCA and orders a stop to this kind of therapy, it can be life-changing for these children.
“Another area where my colleagues and I feel that our advocacy for a child can make a big difference is when one parent falsely accuses the other parent of alienating the other child, often in response to the child wanting limited time at the home of that parent. We hear parents make this accusation all the time! But after talking extensively with the children involved – and sometimes their therapists – we rarely find it to be true. Where we see it really happening the most is when there is a history of domestic violence. After the parents separate, the perpetrator sometimes maintains control by trying to alienate the kids against the other parent.
“What we do find is that many of the children have very good reasons for not wanting to split their time evenly between their parents – they may always have had a closer relationship with one parent, they are at an age where they want to be primarily based at one home instead of packing up their things and switching houses every Friday, or they may be rebelling against having to spend half of their lives with a stepparent who treats them poorly. Another example is when only one parent is supportive of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
“Although our clients do not always get what they want, knowing the court has heard them and given serious consideration to their perspective also helps our clients to accept the outcome.”
Becoming an Advocate for Children
Chester has been an advocate for many years. Her passion for serving vulnerable populations began early in her life and was influenced by her academic pursuits.
Chester, who is from Ireland, found her way to the law by reading and learning about marginalized populations and then serving as a volunteer on their behalf. As an undergraduate, she studied French and Spanish language and literature at University College Dublin, located in the city where she was born.
Her research led her out of Ireland and to the United States to pursue a doctoral program in French literature and women’s studies at Louisiana State University. She realized she wanted to be actively involved in improving the lives of others – specifically, the populations she was researching and writing about.
In Baton Rouge, she began serving and working with women in her community. She had considered becoming a professor, but volunteering made her realize she wanted a position where she could assist others in a practical way.
“Working on these very concrete areas where you see how the laws and cultural issues affect people’s lives made me long to do something that would be more concrete and more applied, where I would be helping real people. I’m so glad now, 27 years down the road, that I did make that decision, because I really enjoy practicing law. I get a lot of satisfaction from it.”
After Chester and her husband moved to North Carolina, she worked on writing her dissertation and was an instructor for several years at North Carolina State University. She finished her Ph.D. in 1990 and decided to go to law school at the University of North Carolina’s School of Law.
How did she become a part of The Child’s Advocate?
It was her interest in representing underserved populations that led her to LANC, and, in turn, to the program.
“My background with critical race and gender theory – I learned so much from that. That really carries over into the work that I do over the years, particularly representing children, the gender dynamics in custody cases, the idea of giving children a real voice that is meaningful in court.”
Chester’s academic background was important in her path to becoming a children’s attorney, as was her experience as a parent. She and her husband raised two daughters, now 19 and 24. Her role as a parent strengthened her commitment to advocating for children as an attorney.
“Having my own children has taught me a lot about the need for children to have a voice in major decisions that affect them.”
After graduating from law school, Chester began her career as an attorney at North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services. She represented prisoners for three years, and during that time, she realized she wanted to pursue a trial-based role, where she could assist clients before a conviction was made.
Chester became a staff attorney with LANC in 1998. She served in domestic violence court and represented tenants who were facing eviction, as well as abused immigrant women who were seeking a green card. She practiced for fourteen years and supervised the family law unit before stepping into her current role.
Reaching More Children
How can The Child’s Advocate serve as many clients as possible?
This question has been a primary focus for Chester over the last eight years. She and her team have worked on two projects to broaden the program’s impact and reach.
One goal was to expand the program’s services beyond Wake County, where the program was originally based. After observing a need to offer services in more locations, she and her colleague, Atiya Mosley, spearheaded an initiative in 2020 to offer their services in Durham.
“Prior to COVID, we primarily existed in Wake. We also served a few cases in Orange and Chatham, but we weren’t in Durham County, and during COVID, we took advantage of that lull to expand our services to Durham. Now that we have expanded to Durham, we are seeing a big increase in our Wake County appointments and also a lot of appointments in Durham where Atiya is leading our efforts.”
“In Durham, many of the parents of our clients are pro se, so we get to serve children from families with very few resources. These kids may be missing a parent who is incarcerated or living with parents with severe mental illness.”
The second project was to establish a training program for pro bono attorneys, so that they could serve as volunteer advocates for children.
“We have developed a pro bono program from scratch, and we do these annual trainings where we have judges do a panel discussion. Attorneys always love hearing from the judges about their view of having an attorney for a child and what difference it makes in the case, and we do trainings for the attorneys about how to represent a child.”
She further explains how important pro bono attorneys are to the program.
“We have a very generous group of pro bono attorneys in Wake County who will take cases and who will represent a child in a case if we have a conflict, or if we are inundated with cases and don’t have the capacity.”
Chester enjoys teaching volunteers, and she is grateful for the pro bono attorneys who are willing to give of their time to help children in Wake, Orange and Durham.
What does she hope the program will have in the future?
“More attorneys,” she shares.
“Right now, we are getting a huge number of appointments and we are having a hard job meeting the need. It would be great to get more interest from Family Law Attorneys who want to get trained. That really gives, apart from the infrastructure we have within the office, that really helps us to meet much larger capacity.
“Resources are very costly. The Child’s Advocate has a small budget. We do have four attorneys: me, a senior attorney, and we just hired two new attorneys whom we are training. The four of us serve Durham and Wake County and then a handful of cases in Orange and Chatham. If the demand continues to spike like it does in Wake, we will need more resources, but currently we don’t have the resources to do more hiring.”
Attorneys who would like to volunteer with The Child’s Advocate can take part in the annual training or view a virtual, recorded training created by Chester and her team in which they guide attorneys through a case.
By joining together with The Child’s Advocate team, attorneys can help children in custody cases to feel heard, seen and valued, and to anticipate a future bright with hope.
Jessica Junqueira is communications manager for the North Carolina Bar Association.