Separating a child from its mother can be very painful. But nobody wants to talk about it.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. I am a child protection defense attorney.

About six years ago, I took on a pro bono (no fee) case where Child Protection took away my client's five children (ages 3 to 8) without a valid court order, across state lines. And CP conducted a ruthless campaign in court for almost four years to terminate my client's parental rights and have the foster parents adopt her children.

On top of that, my client was the victim of domestic violence (which brought her existence to the attention of CP). Instead of seeking treatment and protection for my client, CP found reasons why she was neglecting her children (poverty) and denying them education (poverty). CP found a judge who acted "in the best interests of the children" and we lost Round One.

But we also found an expert in domestic violence and a secret domestic violence guidelines that CP was supposed to follow and one of the first things they DIDN'T DO was to keep mother and children united. Instead CP separated the children from our client, gave them to a foster family who declared their intention to adopt within a month of getting the kids.

We also found out that if foster children are adopted, the caseworker for CP gets $8,000 per child as a bonus for effecting the termination of parental rights and adoption. This C/W was looking at $40,000. Why would he want reunification?

Epilogue: We finally won. We had a new judge who surprised us by literally giving us the kids back in court. CP never appealed. The kids are now resettled in a new state. Our client divorced her abusive husband. The kids are now 10 to 17, in school, and doing well with their mother and grandmother.