By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Attorney Bill Ladd landed in a career in juvenile law quite by chance — but finding it to be interesting and rewarding, he has been a strong and outspoken voice for youngsters ever since.
“I found the kids I represented to be both entertaining and charming—sometimes not at the same time!” he says. “Representing kids has always been interesting to me and they are clearly one of our most disenfranchised groups. I’ve always felt that representing the interests of kids is the best way to get adult institutions to be more sensitive to the least powerful.”
Ladd guides the next generation of attorneys to take up the torch, by teaching as an adjunct professor at Cooley Law School and at his alma mater, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law where he teams with Professor Deb Paruch in the UDM Juvenile Appellate Practice Clinic, launched last fall.
Students represent children in appeals from decisions of the Juvenile Division of the Wayne County Family Court in cases involving parental rights terminations and juvenile delinquency.
“Having the opportunity to teach law school gives me the chance to interact with young aspiring lawyers and to give them a more practice-based and real-world view of the practice of law,” Ladd says. “I hope it gives them a dose of realism and context for what they are doing in law school and how working with kids can be a rewarding career choice.”
Ladd, who has also taught at Wayne Law, received the UDM Adjunct Faculty of the Year Award in April, sharing the honor with his wife and fellow UDM adjunct professor, Juvenile Court referee Jennifer Pilette.
Ladd earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Swarthmore College — an interest fueled by his favorite aunt who was a high school history teacher — and his JD from the University of Detroit.
“Law seemed to follow logically from both my interest in history and my interests in social justice,” he says.
His first job was as a research attorney with the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office in Detroit, representing indigent defendants.
“I learned how to analyze legal issues and to write legal briefs,” he says. “SADO was and is one of the best places in the country to learn how to be an effective and zealous advocate of the disenfranchised. At the same time it was also a very supportive place to work.”
He then moved to the Juvenile Defender Office — later named the Juvenile Division of the Legal Aid and Defender Association (LAD) — where he learned to be an effective advocate for abused and neglected youngsters and delinquent children, sometimes in federal courts but primarily in the Wayne County Circuit Court, Family Division, Juvenile Section.
“I had the luxury of continuing to do appellate work where it was appropriate in representing my clients,” he says. “For much of my time at LAD I was fortunate to work in an organization that was committed to representing children in an aggressive yet caring manner and in supporting me as an attorney.”
He was a member of the Wayne County AWOL Task Force, developing alternative strategies for neglected court wards that leave their placements; and was a member of the Wayne County Workgroup on the Representation of Children.
He was appointed by the Michigan State Court Administrator’s Office to serve on its Advisory Group on Evaluation of the Representation of Children in Child Protective Proceedings, and Advisory Committee on the Lawyer/Guardian ad Litem Protocol.
For the past two years, Ladd has been an appellate and juvenile trial attorney with the Michigan Children’s Law Center in Southgate.
A nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation that teams with social workers, doctors, psychologists, school personnel and other professionals, MCLC provides legal services to children in trial and appellate courts, advocates for the safety and wellbeing of children in the courts and through other programs and services, and represents children who have been neglected or abused or charged with delinquent behavior.
Ladd, appellate counsel in several notable Michigan appellate cases including, In re Ricks, In re EP, In re AMB, recently argued In re Mays in the Michigan Supreme Court.
He is a frequent author and lecturer, and co-author of the chapter on juvenile delinquency in “Michigan Family Law” (6th ed) from the Institute of Continuing Legal Education.
A past president of the Children’s Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan and recipient of their 2003 “Child Advocate of the Year” award, Ladd has also been nationally honored by the non-profit organization, Children’s Rights and is a “next friend” in the ongoing federal class action, Snyder v Duane B.
“I received the award as a result of my efforts to represent my clients as their next friend in the federal lawsuit brought against Michigan’s child welfare system,” he says. “I had made efforts to represent the interests of my individual clients who were named plaintiffs in the federal suit and I had also provided general input to the lawyers at Children’s Rights regarding more general aspects of the system here in Michigan.”
Ladd received Child Welfare Law Certification through the National Association of Counsel for Children, which launched the certification program to recognize the importance of this specialized area of the law.
“The process of preparing for the certification test gave me a chance to broaden my knowledge of this area of the law and to gain some national recognition for specializing in this area of the law for so long,” he says.
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