New York Law Blog

In continuing with a previous post regarding areas outside of our practice, many come to us seeking counsel regarding issues on children, and we’d like to point you in the direction of a great resource for the city of New York. The New York City Family Court “has the authority to make legal decisions over the following types of cases”:

• Abused or Neglected Children (Child Protective Proceeding)
• Adoption
• Custody & Visitation
• Domestic Violence (Family Offense)
• Foster Care Approval & Review
• Guardianship
• Juvenile Delinquency
• Paternity
• Persons in Need of Supervision (PINS)
• Support

The site gives the following overview to this particular court system:

The Family Court of the State of New York was established to take action in the lives of children, parents and spouses. The court has a wide range of powers to fit the particular needs of the people who come before it.

In New York City, each of the five boroughs has its own Family Court. Generally, a case may be filed without fee in the county where one of the parties lives.

Most Family Court hearings (trials) are heard by judges. Support magistrates hear support and paternity cases. There are no juries in Family Court: the judge or support magistrate conducts a hearing and decides the case.

Also included on the site is information broken down by county (Kings, Queens, Richmond, and New York), forms that you might need should you have to have dealings with this particular court, and a great frequently asked questions section. Also included is links to “related services” that can help point you in the right direction outside of this particular court. All of the contact information for each particular court is there broken down by county should you need to contact someone in a specific system, including email addresses. And to make sure as many people are accommodated as possible, a Spanish language version of the site is also available. Should you have an issue with any of the above mentioned subjects with a child, this is the best place to begin your search.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Court System, Other resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.