This popcorn plenary will feature "Tommy the Movie" a 2019 short-length feature film about a young boy whose parents are ensnared in a bitter custody battle. The speaker will discuss the responsibilities and opportunities - whether parents' attorneys, GALs, or Judicial Officers - for helping children through their parents' divorce. This plenary will include discussion on the responsibility of all attorneys in the family law system to understand how children respond to divorce; how an attorney's duty of diligence and competence never requires that the interests of a child be used as leverage for advantage in litigation; and the role of all attorneys in the legal system requiring divorcing parents be educated about the impact of divorce on children.
Speaker: Barbara A. Glesner Fines, Dean, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, Kansas City