Kevin Whalling, Chief Counsel for the Whalling Law Group, PLLC as part of his pro bono work was recently assigned to assist an eleven-year-old girl named Rachel Deckard. Ms. Deckard has been subject to physical and mental abuse by family members. Reviewing Ms. Deckard’s files, Mr. Whalling can easily assess that the court-appointed special advocates representing Ms. Deckard have all been poorly equipped to handle Ms. Deckard’s case and have been poor advocates. Mr. Whalling intends to present draft legislation proposals to the Arizona legislative judiciary committee to professionalize through licensure court-appointed special advocates.
Mr. Whalling knows that this is a novel subject for the judiciary committee and therefore he needs to mount a persuasive argument concerning the issue of whether court-appointed special advocates should be subject to licensure requirements. He also needs to make sure that this action is worth pursuing.
Mr. Whalling has asked you to prepare a Memorandum of Law about court-appointed special advocates.
Remember that this is an internal memorandum for Mr. Whalling; while his job is to potentially attempt to persuade the judiciary committee, you can provide an objective analysis concerning court-appointed special advocates.
Use the “Topic 4 Memorandum of Law” template to write a memorandum of 500 to 750 words. Follow the prompts within brackets in the template to complete the assignment.
Memorandum of Law:
Issue
[In a short one or two sentence statement, provide what the issue is for Mr. Whalling.]
Facts
[Explain what a Court Appointed Special Advocate is. Examine and explain the different types of services that a Court Appointed Special Advocate can provide.]
Discussion
[Evaluate whether these services are helpful to the court system.]
Conclusion
[Explain whether these services should be professionalized and further regulated – meaning should you have to have additional training and credentials to be a Court Appointed Special Advocate.]
Citations
Cite your sources in the legal memorandum (case law, etc.), using APA formatting and create a separate document for citations.
Note regarding citations: Be sure to cite three to five relevant scholarly sources in support of your content. Because of the practical limitations of the course, you will not be learning legal citation work such as what would be found in the Bluebook, a citation tool utilized by attorneys. Instead, you will follow APA formatting for citation work. Remember to still cite in your legal memorandum (case law, etc.), and create a separate document for citations.
Sample Solution