Registration and Breakfast

Welcome and Business

KEYNOTE: Parenting Beyond Bars-Helping Preserve Parental Rights for Incarcerated Parents by Lilian Hewko of the Incarcerated Parents Project and Shayne Rochester

Lillian Hewko, founder and attorney at the Incarcerated Parents Project at the Washington Defender Association, assists defense attorneys representing incarcerated parents and develops policy and advocacy strategies to help reduce the chances of family separation and parental incarceration. A Gates Public Service Scholar and graduate of the University of Washington School of Law, she co-founded the Incarcerated Mothers Advocacy Project, which provides legal information and resources to women in prison and helps incarcerated people advocate for systemic change. As an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Legal Voice in 2013, she worked alongside incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals to pass the Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill. With the expansion of the nation's prison population, over 2.4 million children currently have a mother or father in jail or prison. Many of these children end up in out-of-home care. Because of existing child welfare laws, poor access to legal information, and barriers to effective representation, incarcerated parents' ties to their children are often permanently severed. This loss ripples through whole communities when children are adopted away from their families or spend their childhoods in the limbo of foster care. The separation these families face can be reduced by developing holistic representation models, training and assisting practitioners in understanding the unique needs of incarcerated parents, and creating better child welfare policies and alternatives to incarceration.

KEYNOTE: Parenting Beyond Bars-Helping Preserve Parental Right for Incarcerated Parents

In 2013, the Washington State Legislature passed SHB 1284-The Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill, nearly unanimously, with the goal of giving incarcerated parents and their children a fair chance to work toward reunification and safe permanency options that do not involve severing familial ties forever. The bill has allowed our child welfare system to be more responsive to families who face parental incarceration and better determine what is in the best interest of the child, however many challenges to effective representation still remain.

In this workshop participants will receive:

Tangible strategies and model programs that shift legal systems to support incarcerated parents by working with formerly incarcerated parents who have now reunified with their children;

Model legislation and social science support for child welfare changes that increase incarcerated parents’ ability to maintain their parental rights;

Model advocacy tools strategies for trial and appellate attorneys representing incarcerated parents. Shayne Rochester, a "Parent Ally" of the child welfare and criminal justice system, will tell his personal story as an incarcerated parent who was able to navigate the child welfare system and reunify with his child. Participants will learn about the direct service programs and policy work that he and other veteran parents are doing in order to increase the chances of family reunification. Participants will also learn how to use parent ally support in their current work.

Networking Break

Measuring Practice: Better Outcomes for Children and Families by DHS/ORS

Brad McGarry, Director of Office of Services Review and Jeff Harrop, Review Manager

This presentation will include an overview of the functions of the Office of Services Review (OSR) within the Department of Human Services and will touch on the procedures and data measures under the administration of OSR. These include: Office of Child Protection Ombudsman, Conflict of Interest Child Protective Service (CPS) Investigations, Child Fatality Review, and child welfare practice and performance measures from the Case Process Reviews and Qualitative Case Reviews.

Dr. Steve (Steven Szykula, Ph.D.) is a frequently appointed child custody evaluator (psychologist) with over 20 years of experience. His experience also includes providing expert consultation to attorneys who are preparing for trial, as well as analysis and consultations regarding psychological testing and psychological evaluation reports. Dr. Steve also owns and operates Comprehensive Psychological Services (website: WeCanHelpOut.com) a large, private, multi-specialty behavioral health clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah. His first presentation will entertain and enlighten participants about how "human nature" obstructs people from the prevention or remediation of burnout. Many of us are at least familiar with the term and concept of burnout. In fact, there are numerous articles, and even research on “attorney burnout." Most articles focus on the definition of burnout, what factors lead attorneys to burnout, and what attorneys should logically do to prevent or remedy burnout. This presentation will humorously demonstrate how human nature and our mind are actually not logical and interfere with the well- intended solutions that are often suggested.

LUNCH

Tech Tips, Sites, and Apps to Help Your Practice by Lincoln Mead, IT Director, Utah State Bar

Lincoln Mead currently serves as the Director of Information Technology for the Utah State Bar and is an obsessive mourner for Cubs baseball. He assists attorneys with evaluation of practice management technology, implementation, and policy. He is a frequent technology and practice management speaker at Utah State Bar events and has been a guest speaker at law and technology related events across the country. He is a past Chair of the IT Section of the National Association of Bar Executives and a past member of the ABA Techshow Board. He has overseen the implementation of Casemaker for all Utah attorneys; assisted in the roll out of the state’s mandatory filing system and in the design and implementation of the public WiFi system at the new Federal Court House. He is currently assisting on the development of a new attorney directory as part of the attorney services management portal https://services.utahbar.org and the implementation of a legal practice innovation committee. He is the proud father of three Irish sons: War, Plague, and Pestilence, and the husband of a mysterious and beautiful Welsh wife.

Case Law Update by Danielle Allison

Danielle Allison is a Presidential Scholar who graduated with honors with an Associate of Science and an Associate of Applied Science in Legal Assisting from what is now Utah Valley University in 1995. She began her career as a paralegal in child welfare immediately thereafter with the Salt Lake City law firm of Laherty & Associates. Following some time at Snell & Wilmer she started Expert Paralegal Services in the Fall of 2002 with the goal of assisting parental and public defenders through freelancing.

Expert Paralegal Services grew rapidly, providing both trial and appellate researching and drafting throughout the entire State of Utah in child welfare and criminal law, but ultimately becoming a general practice firm in all different areas of law. In 2005, the paralegal firm expanded by creating a network of freelance paralegals with differing areas of expertise. In 2013, Ms. Allison assisted on five appeals that obtained reversal before the Utah Court of Appeals and Utah Supreme Court, which were also in five different areas of law. This accounts for approximately 10% of all reversals in the entire State of Utah for that year. She has additionally had the privilege recently of drafting three appellate briefs before the United States Supreme Court in civil, child welfare and ICWA matters.

Ms. Allison's expertise in appellate law earned her recognition from the Parental Defense Alliance in 2010, being presented with their Appellate Advocacy Award the only paralegal to have ever received this award. Ms. Allison currently serves on the Utah Valley University Legal Studies Advisory Board and is a frequent presenter at the Parental Defense Conference on the case law update.

Ms. Allison will be reviewing notable decisions from our appellate courts over the last year that have an impact in child welfare, discussing appeal issues currently pending before the appellate courts, and analyzing potential issues to raise in future cases.

Networking Break

Appeals Panel by Brent Hall, Neil Skousan, and Colleen Coebergh, moderated by Mark H. Tanner

This presentation will provide members with the opportunity to ask some of our most distinguished appellate practitioners, including past Appellate Attorney of the Year winners, questions on how to improve their own appellate skills.

Brent served as a court-appointed parental rights defender in Salt Lake County for 8 years. He has appeared in child welfare cases in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Eighth Districts. Brent previously served as a member of the Third District Drug Court Executive Management Committee and is currently serving his third term on the Utah Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Juvenile Procedure. He serves as a board member for the Fathers and Families Coalition of Utah and as Development Chair for the House of Hope. Brent currently is in private practice. He can be reached at brent@jmutah.com and 801-243-3079.

Neil Skousen has been in private practice since 2004 focusing in the areas of parental defense, DUl/criminal defense, appeals, and employment discrimination cases throughout Utah. He has served as a court-appointed parental rights trial and appellate attorney in Utah County for the past 11 years. Neil has represented clients on important appellate issues such as the recent Utah Supreme Court's application of the Americans with Disabilities Act to Utah child welfare cases; the Indian Child Welfare Act; the Utah County Jail Pay to Stay program; criminal restitution; and other matters. The Parental Defense Alliance awarded Neil with the 2011 Appellate Attorney of the Year and 2015 Lifetime Achievement Awards. Neil has been a member of the Parental Defense Alliance, the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Utah Employment Lawyers Association for many years. When distracted away from the law, Neil likes to ride his mountain bike, travel, read books on American and English history, and looks forward to the monthly humor and political satire of Alfred E. Neuman in MAD Magazine. Neil can be reached at www.attorneyneilskousen.com or 801-376-6666.

Colleen Coebergh is a long term member of the PDA with extensive experience in parental defense. She won the PDA Appellate Attorney of the Year award in 2013. She practices in the Third District.

Legislative Update by Senator Todd Weiler

Senator Weiler has represented District 23 in the Utah Senate since 2012. He is an attorney by profession and is the Vice President and General Counsel for Logistics Specialties, Inc.

Registration and Breakfast

Business

Termination of Parental Rights: Weaknesses of Psychological Evaluations in the State and Legal System by Steven A. Szykula, PhD (Steve@WeCanHelpOut.com)

We are fortunate to get to hear from Dr. Szykula twice this year. His second presentation will be on Termination of Parental Rights: How are we "messing up?" At times, we focus on what is obvious and familiar.

We sometimes fail to focus on pivotal and obscure factors which may be most important to a child's well-being. Also, conflicts of interest and bias of court appointed evaluators and therapists unwittingly lead to the emotional harm of children who are placed out of their parents' home.

This presentation uses actual case examples and will expose our errors and make suggestions to engage in the process in a more judicious way.

You will be sensitized to the following themes: "the streetlight effect"; "cant's see the forest for the trees"; and "roosters guarding the hen house". Psychologists, Attorneys and the State need to recognize when these themes are occurring during the Termination or Reunification process in order to protect children and parents from erroneous conclusions that can significantly alter lives.

The Truth About UA's from the Trenches by Craig Webb and Richard Larsen

Craig Webb started his law enforcement career in 1997 with the Davis County Sheriffs Office. Since 2007 he has worked for the Davis County Attorney's Office, Bureau of Investigation and was promoted to Bureau Chief in 2010. Craig has also worked for the Clearfield and Woods Cross Police Departments. Throughout his career, he has worked many different areas of law enforcement. He favored investigations into Narcotics and Crimes against Children and his favorite part of the investigation is the interview. He prides himself with flooding cases with information and the ability to get people to talk regardless of the situation.

Richard Larsen received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and his Juris Doctor degree from Brigham Young University. Richard has been employed with the Davis County Attorney's office as a prosecutor since 2004. He has prosecuted all levels of offenses including handling numerous homicide and attempted homicide cases. His specific assignments have included prosecuting domestic violence, child physical abuse, and child sexual abuse and exploitation. He also serves on the Davis County Child Abduction Response Team. Richard is also the training coordinator for the Davis County Attorney's, providing training for law enforcement agencies throughout Davis County. In addition to these assignments, Richard has served as the Davis County Drug Court and DUI Court prosecutor since 2010 and has received extensive training in relation to drug testing and treatment. In addition to his employment at the Davis County Attorney's Office, Richard has been employed as a prosecutor for Centerville City since 2009 and has taught as an adjunct professor at Weber State University since 2007, teaching courses on criminal law and procedure.

Break

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel in Parental Defense Cases by Paul Dodd

Paul Dodd is an experienced litigation attorney and who has handled thousands of cases and dozens of bench trials and jury trials. He is currently the head civil litigator for the City of West Jordan. He also represents the City of West Jordan in Federal and State Court on claims such as contract disputes, zoning, personal injury, wrongful death, employment law, eminent domain, 1983 claims and many other various claims. He also advises the City on other civil legal issues.

Professionalism and Civility Challenge by Grant Dickinson

Grant Dickinson is on the Board of Directors for the Parental Defense Alliance representing the 4th District. He has been a member of the Parental Defense Alliance since 2010. Grant's practice focuses mainly in Utah County and, like many of our members, focuses on Parental Defense, Criminal Defense, and Family Law related cases. Grant achieved the Parental Defense Alliance 2012 Appellate Attorney of the Year for a case in which he finally obtained a reversal of the trial court's termination of his client's parental rights in L.G. v. State. While studying at Willamette University, Grant served each year on the executive board of Willamette University's Public Interest Law Project. Prior to Law School, Grant was employed at the Fourth District Court as Deputy Clerk in Commissioner Patton's Court and also as a Deputy Probation Officer.

Lunch