Donald N. Duquette

Don Duquette was a social worker specializing in child protection and foster care prior to earning his J.D. at U-M in 1974. Before joining the UM law faculty, he served as an assistant professor of pediatrics and human development at Michigan State University College of Medicine. He founded the Child Advocacy Law Clinic in 1976, which is the oldest such law clinic specializing in child welfare law in the U.S. His 1990 book, Advocating for the Child in Protection Proceedings, formed the conceptual framework for the first national evaluation of child representation as mandated by the U.S. Congress. Duquette collaborated with the National Association of Counsel for Children to develop a national specialty certification in child welfare law, gaining American Bar Association accreditation in February 2004. His most recent book, Child Welfare Law and Practice: Representing Children, Parents and State Agencies in Abuse, Neglect and Dependency Proceedings (Bradford Legal Publishers, Second Edition, 2010), defines the scope and duties of this new legal specialty in child welfare law and prepares experienced lawyers for a national certifying examination. Child Welfare Law Specialty certification is now available in 32 U.S. jurisdictions. Don also directs the National Quality Improvement Center on the Representation of Children in the Child Welfare System (QIC-ChildRep), a five year, $5 million project of the U.S. Children’s Bureau. The QIC-ChildRep is to gather, develop and communicate existing knowledge on child representation, promote consensus on the role of the child’s legal representative, and provide the first ever randomized experimental design research on legal representation of children.