For the past month and a half, I have worked at Howes Law Firm as an intern, following one of their attorneys who works in juvenile court. I have been able to attend many juvenile court hearings and watch how cases proceed. My goal for this internship is to experience what a career as a juvenile lawyer looks like and to determine if that is the right path for me.
Juvenile court is a lot more relaxed than a typical courtroom. Most attorneys aren’t wearing full suits, and there are rarely ever objections. Coming into this internship, I knew that juvenile court would be less formal, but I didn’t expect it to be as relaxed as it is. Here I am allowed to have visible tattoos and wear business casual outfits that aren’t full suits (as shown to the left).
I’ve learned that winning a case in juvenile court is done outside of the courtroom. Parents have to do their part at home to be sober and take care of their mental health and the attorneys all talk before walking into court to know what each party will agree to. Once it gets to the point of a trial, what is said in court is mainly just for the record; no defense can change what a parent has or hasn’t done throughout the case.
Since starting my internship I have attended about 20 hearings about parental custody and children in need of advocacy. Most of these hearings have been review hearings where the court and the parties go over what services the parents need and what they need to do going forward in order to reunify the parents with their children.
Juvenile court’s main goal is reunification and to bring families back together with the support they need the parents to continue to raise their children in a healthy way. After a year of review hearings, if the case hasn’t been closed with custody returned, then there is a permanency hearing where the state files to terminate parental rights. At that point, there is a trial where the state has to prove the parents are not capable of caring for their child any longer. I have seen two two termination of parental rights trials, both of which resulted in the parents lost their parental rights. However, I have also seen multiple hearings where custody of the children has been returned to the parents, and the cases have been closed.
The other part of juvenile court is juvenile delinquency. I have only been able to attend one review hearing so far for a juvenile delinquency case. I was able to join my supervisor on a trip to the detention center to visit one of his clients who has an upcoming hearing to discuss moving him to a center in another state.
In my time outside of my internship, I have been very busy working two part-time jobs and preparing to apply to law school. I received my score back from taking the LSAT and am happy with the score I received (166) so I am starting to work on writing a personal statement in order to apply to the University of Iowa College of Law.
I also just finished my training at Mister Car Wash where I have been working part time in order to pay for school next year. Here, I have met some great coworkers who I have been able to talk to about living in Iowa and plans for the future.