Orenstein Lawyers

12/06/2024

We are currently hiring! If you or someone you know might be interested, please reach out and/or share. cheers

Make a difference for young people and families

19/01/2023

Make a difference for young people and families

19/01/2023

https://www.notion.so/orensteinlawyers/Children-s-Law-Graduate-Vacancy-69bc6ca7d327461d8adfa1995b106053
We are looking to hire a new lawyer to join our team.

We do important and innovative work in the area of children's rights and are specialists in Children's Law and Criminal Law.

We are looking for someone who is interested in working collaboratively with a passionate and supportive expert team to get the best outcome for vulnerable clients.

You need to be smart, passionate about helping others, fearless and ready to learn.

Make a difference for young people and families

16/10/2021

Last week Child Protection Amendment Bill was tabled by the Government and quickly passed through the Victorian lower house which, amongst some positive and welcome initiatives, also contains provisions that drastically undermine the rights and protections for children and parents contained within the current system. These proposed changes include:

1). Removing bail justices and extending the timeframes that Child Protection has to file any material in Court for two "working days", which in practice means that it could be up to 6 days following the apprehension of a child (currently CP are required to present their case either within 24 hours either before a bail justice or the Court); This means that parents and children have no recourse to contest the removal of the child for a significant period and can lead to unjust, unwarranted or unlawful removals going unchecked for extended period of time;

2). Removing the discretion of the Court contrary to the well-established best interests principles to be able to place a child in the care of their parent in circumstances where they live with a suitable person and their care of the child is supervised/monitored by that person to ensure the child's safety/wellbeing. In practice this will require the Court to remove children from the legal custody of victim/survivors of family violence who remain at risk from the perpetrator of the violence, regardless of whether the Court were of the view that the risk posed to the child could be mitigated with conditions. The result is that children in such circumstances will be fast-tracked to be permanently removed from their parent's care given the strict legislative timeframes under the Act.

3). Including a provision that potentially extends the coverage of the Act to every family in the State being open to a finding that their child is in need of protection.

The Bill is due for debate in the Legislative Assembly in the week commencing 26/10. I urge those that share these concerns to contact your local member and share among your networks.

For a more detailed analysis, please see the attached briefing paper.

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I form part of the executive of the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) Child and Youth Issues committee, am an accredited specialist in the area of children’s law, and have represented thousands of families in the jurisdiction for over 15 years. I was part of the “cabinet in confidence” consultat...

06/10/2021

I wanted to share an important issue. Today was the second reading speech of a bill that has been introduced by the Victorian Government which, amongst other nasties, seeks to remove oversight of the removal of children by the State from their parents care by removing altogether the requirement of a bail justice hearing and also delaying the ability of families to anyway contest a removal before a Court for two “working days”.

We routinely appear in cases in the Children’s Court where Child Protection have removed a child/children from parental care and are successfully able to have the children returned once a parent or child has had the opportunity to present their case.

In such cases, the court determines that the removal of the child was not warranted nor in the child’s best interests.

As you can imagine, for any child to be removed with no ability to contest this for what amounts in practice to up to 3 days, will cause irreparable damage to children, particularly where a court finds that the removal was not warranted.

If you are interested in what is contained in the bill, it can be found here: https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/bills/children-youth-and-families-amendment-child-protection-bill-2021

Please get in contact with me if you’d like further info and have some ideas about our campaign against these changes.

Thanks

legislation.vic.gov.au

25/07/2021

I posted this on Friday night after a big week.

I never remember to share what we do or our successes (and failures). We are so consumed with our heads down doing the work that it never would occur to me to share more broadly what we do day in/day out.

So glad I did share as it has hit a chord. I’ll remind myself to look up from time to time to share and celebrate what we do. Thanks for all the likes and lovely supportive comments!

On Monday our team successfully defeated an application to remove a newborn Aboriginal baby from his mother.

On Tuesday we successfully appealed a decision to the Supreme Court of Victoria for a newborn that had been removed from his mother in circumstances where the mother had not been afforded procedural fairness in the Children's Court. The Supreme Court ordered that baby be returned to his mother.

On Wednesday we got all charges brought by police against an intellectually disabled Aboriginal teenager dismissed in circumstances where he should never have been charged in the first place.

On Thursday we got an application against a young family struck out as an abuse of process.

On Friday we successfully appealed a decision in the Supreme Court of Victoria to refuse bail to a vulnerable 17 year old.

This is why we do what we do!

23/07/2021

On Monday our team successfully defeated an application to remove a newborn Aboriginal baby from his mother.

On Tuesday we successfully appealed a decision to the Supreme Court of Victoria for a newborn that had been removed from his mother in circumstances where the mother had not been afforded procedural fairness in the Children's Court. The Supreme Court ordered that baby be returned to his mother.

On Wednesday we got all charges brought by police against an intellectually disabled Aboriginal teenager dismissed in circumstances where he should never have been charged in the first place.

On Thursday we got an application against a young family struck out as an abuse of process.

On Friday we successfully appealed a decision in the Supreme Court of Victoria to refuse bail to a vulnerable 17 year old.

This is why we do what we do!

24/06/2021

This has also been my experience advocating for young people in care.

Two-year inquiry by the Commission for Children and Young People lays bare generations of trauma that are still being felt in long-standing, systematic failures.

10/05/2021

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/these-children-are-too-important-call-to-overhaul-youth-protection-system-20210509-p57q7w.html

The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare has urged the Andrews government in its May 20 budget to boost early intervention programs that stop children from entering residential care.

18/04/2021

Thirty years on from the Aboriginal deaths in custody report, the NT government is preparing to introduce bail changes it concedes will lead to more young people behind bars and could require an expansion of the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

25/02/2021