Child custody cases often involve the use of a guardian ad litem (GAL), a child representative, an attorney for the child, or some combination of the three. However, the way these important participants are used varies dramatically from circuit court to circuit court.

The ISBA's Family Law Section Council's Committee on Representing Children wants to start a statewide dialogue on how attorneys are used to represent children. Marilyn Longwell and Treva O'Neill describe this effort in the September 2015 ISBA Family Law newsletter ("We need a statewide dialogue on the use of attorneys appointed to represent children," at http://bit.ly/1MKN7Pl).

Longwell and O'Neill recognize that economic and other factors may prevent creating a uniform system across the circuits. The committee hopes to "form a consensus as to what are the best practices in using attorneys to represent children" and to "accommodate for economic and other factors which impinge on those practices." Find out more in the December Illinois Bar Journal.