Some difficult clients I experienced at legal aid were juvenile cases. Often the juvenile was accompanied by a parent or guardian. One example that stands out was a custody battle. A mother brought her autistic daughter to legal aid because the father, who lives out of state, insisted that the daughter stayed with him all summer. It was written into their parenting plan. According to the mother, the daughter refuses to see the father and has told her therapist that she would hurt herself if she was forced to go. In this situation I chose to ask the mother to leave the room. This way, I could speak with the juvenile without the input and influence of an adult. I think in these cases it is important to make sure the juvenile has a say in his or her case. Often that might be difficult when a parent is in the room doing most of the talking. In this case, it turned out that the daughter's story matched the mother's. My suggestion to Ralph as a result was to re-negotiate the parenting plan to more closely align with the child's interests.
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