Seiser & Kumli on California Juvenile Courts Practice and Procedure

Gary C. Seiser is one of California’s leading authorities on juvenile dependency law and practice. He was certified in 2006 as a Child Welfare Law Specialist (CWLS) in the first group of California attorneys certified as CWLS by the National Association of Counsel for Children, which is accredited by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization. In 2010 he received the L. Michael Clark Civility and Professionalism Award from the County Counsels’ Association of California, Child Welfare Study Section: "For exemplifying the highest standards of professionalism and civility in advocating for social workers, social services agencies, children, and families at the trial, appellate, and legislative levels." An experienced trial and appellate attorney, he has more than sixty-five published appellate decisions. Mr. Seiser's writing in this treatise has been cited by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the California Supreme Court, and numerous California appellate courts. His published work also includes articles for the American Bar Association Child Law Practice and a chapter in The Handbook of Juvenile Forensic Psychology (Jossey-Bass, 2002). A former Commissioner of the Riverside County Superior Court assigned to the Juvenile Court and a former prosecutor, Mr. Seiser also served as a member of the SB 1195 Task Force, which rewrote much of California’s dependency law through Senate Bill 243 [Stats. 1987, ch. 1485]. Mr. Seiser has served as a consultant on the Judicial Benchguides for dependency hearings published by the California Center for Judicial Education and Research (CJER). He has also served as faculty for CJER, the California Judges Association, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the ABA Center on Children and the Law, and the National Association of Counsel for Children. After working for 28 years in the dependency system, in 2012 he retired as a supervising deputy with the Juvenile Dependency Division of the San Diego County Office of County Counsel.

Kurt Kumli was a California Superior Court Judge for the County of Santa Clara until his passing in 2014, the county's Presiding Judge of the Appellate Division of the Superior Court, a former Commissioner on the State Commission on Juvenile Justice, and an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. He was a juvenile law curriculum advisor for the California Center for Judicial Education and Research (CJER) and served as one of CJER's primary faculty members for all matters relating to juvenile law and policy. He was instrumental in creating specialized delinquency courts for drug offenders, family violence and restorative justice, was the co-creator of the country's first juvenile mental health court, and implemented Santa Clara's juvenile deferred entry of judgment (DEJ) process, which now accounts for nearly 30% of all first-time court referrals in that county. A nationally recognized expert on juvenile law and policy, Judge Kumli taught delinquency law and policy classes throughout the United States. The National Institute of Justice chose Judge Kumli as a recipient of a John B. Pickett Fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government for Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program. Judge Kumli had been a member of the California Judicial Council's Family and Juvenile Law Advisory Committee, an advisory board member for the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, the Juvenile Law Chair for the Task Force for Criminal Justice Collaboration on Mental Health Issues, and a faculty member and technical advisor for the California District Attorney's Association where he chaired its Juvenile Justice Committee. He published numerous articles on gang prosecution, juvenile justice reform, juvenile mental health court and California's adult court certification (Fitness) process.

LaRon Dennis retired in 2018 as the Supervising Deputy District Attorney of the Juvenile Justice Unit of the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office. Prior to joining the D.A.'s Office, LaRon served as an attorney specializing in delinquency law and policy with the Judicial Council’s Center for Families, Children, and the Courts, and an adjunct professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and the University of San Francisco School of Law. She previously worked as a Senior Program Associate at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice at the University of California, Berkeley Law School and as a deputy legislative counsel for the Office of Legislative Counsel in Sacramento. Mrs. Dennis spent 12 years as a juvenile probation officer in Santa Clara County prior to attending law school. She has authored articles on juvenile mental health issues, girls in the juvenile justice system, and the first published academic article on California's Juvenile Deferred Entry of Judgment practices.

John P. Passalacqua is certified as a Child Welfare Law Specialist by the National Association of Counsel for Children, which is accredited by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization. He is the Executive Director of Dependency Legal Services (DLS), a California non-profit public benefit corporation, which represents children and parents in dependency proceedings in Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Placer, Solano, Stanislaus, Sonoma, and Yolo Counties. Mr. Passalacqua has been representing children, parents, and de facto parents in dependency cases for over 28 years and was responsible for the formation and management of a Sacramento agency that represented parents in dependency cases. He has also served on numerous committees that developed policy and procedures in dependency matters for the Counties he has served in. Mr. Passalacqua is a former First 5 Mendocino Commissioner and a frequent presenter on juvenile dependency law throughout the state including serving as faculty at the Beyond the Bench conference and for the Dependency Representation, Administration, Funding & Training (DRAFT) program. He is a contributing author and editor for the Dependency Quick Guide, which is published by the California Administrative Office of the Courts, Center for Children, Families, and the Courts, as a reference manual for attorneys representing parents and children in dependency proceedings. Mr. Passalacqua is a graduate of McGeorge School of Law and the State University of New York, College at Buffalo. Mr. Passalacqua would like to thank Emily Bartholomew for her contributions to the updating of the 2022 Edition.

Jennifer Kaye Williams currently serves as an administrative law judge for the San Francisco Human Services Agency. From 1999 to 2012, she was a Deputy City Attorney for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. She initially served as trial counsel for the San Francisco Human Services Agency, and then became General Counsel to the Agency and served in that capacity for over 10 years. She also handled all appeals and writs generated from the City Attorney’s juvenile dependency unit. As General Counsel Ms. Williams provided legal advice regarding the administration of the dependency division, all public assistance programs, including General Assistance, CalWORKS, and Food Stamps, and the San Francisco Adult Protective Services division. She also worked with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on legislation impacting the populations served under these programs. Ms. Williams began her career in 1994 when she started handling dependency cases in the Riverside County Counsel’s office at both the trial and appellate levels. She then worked for the Administrative Office of the Courts under a federal grant to improve statewide compliance with Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. There, she spent time in multiple California counties, working with social services agencies, probation departments, and juvenile courts, improving compliance with federal requirements in juvenile matters. She has argued before the California Supreme Court and on numerous occasions before California Courts of Appeal, and has provided training statewide for agency attorneys handling juvenile dependency matters. She continues to consult on dependency writs and appeals. In 2016, she was elected to a four-year term serving as a Trustee on the Alameda Unified School District Board of Education, and in 2020, she was re-elected to another four-year term.

Alyssa Skolnick, contributing author to Chapters 1 and 2, is a Principal Deputy County Counsel for Los Angeles County. She worked in the Juvenile Dependency Division from 1998-2019. While in that position she acted as the Legislative and Confidentiality Attorney, providing advice to the child welfare agency on legislation, and issues of confidentiality as they apply to dependency cases. Ms. Skolnick currently works in the Social Services Division where she serves as general counsel to the Department of Children and Family Services and Adult Services. Ms. Skolnick is also the lead attorney for the Los Angeles County Counsel Child Abduction Unit, a position she has held since March of 2001. The Abduction Unit handles all dependency child abduction cases for Los Angeles County. Ms. Skolnick works with the Office of Children’s Issues at the State Department, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the US Embassy in Mexico, and many other local, state, and federal agencies to locate and recover missing children. Ms. Skolnick is the chair of the Los Angeles Inter Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect and provides training on international child abduction to child welfare agencies, law enforcement, and child welfare attorneys. As a county counsel, she also spent years in the trial court litigating child welfare cases. Ms. Skolnick provides advice to child welfare agencies on all warrant-related issues including exigency and consent, and has developed policies for filing warrants with social media sites to assist in recovering missing children. Ms. Skolnick has been a presenter on juvenile dependency law at statewide conferences for the County Counsel Association, LACBA, Beyond the Bench, and the State Bar of California. Ms. Skolnick has testified in the state Senate on pertinent legislation to the County of Los Angeles. Ms. Skolnick was an adjunct professor at her alma mata, Loyola Law School, where she taught a class on dependency law.

Kirstin J. Andreasen-Mullis, contributing author to Chapters 1 and 2, is a Senior Deputy County Counsel for Los Angeles County where she has worked in the Juvenile Dependency Division since 2007. For the last 6 years she has been a lead member of the team of attorneys that implemented L.A. County’s Dependency Warrant protocols. In this role she provides advice to the child welfare agency on all warrant-related issues including exigency and consent, develops the policies, forms and procedures for the implementation of the warrant protocols throughout the county, and prepares removal warrants, investigative search warrants, requests for orders for medical or mental health evaluations, and requests for school interviews. Ms. Andreasen-Mullis is the lead attorney for Sensitive Cases Unit, whereby she supervises and coordinates the attorneys that provide advice to the child welfare agency on high profile matters. As a county counsel, she also spent years in the trial court and served as an appellate attorney. She has analyzed and provided review of major dependency legislation, including the non-minor dependent and warrant related statutes. She is a certified Child Welfare Law Specialist by the National Association of Counsel for Children, which is accredited by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization. Ms. Andreasen-Mullis has been a presenter on juvenile dependency law at statewide conferences for the County Counsel Association, and at the Beyond the Bench conference. She has authored published articles pertaining to adoption, paternity, and civil rights issues in the juvenile dependency arena. She started her career in 2005 by representing children at the Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles, where she had also interned during law school. She graduated Order of the Coif from University of San Diego School of Law in 2004.