By: Michele Lynn
Clinical Professor of Law Beth S. Posner launched the Family Defense Clinic in 2025 with two goals: provide Carolina Law students the opportunity to serve as court-appointed attorneys for parents in child welfare cases and help address a growing statewide crisis of many families in need of legal assistance and too few attorneys.
Toward these goals, students in the yearlong clinic receive the same specialized training and support provided to parent defenders statewide through the North Carolina Office of the Parent Defender and the UNC School of Government.
From Posner, the students also gain skills in interviewing and counseling, trial preparation and advocacy, trauma-informed and client-centered lawyering, and professionalism. The co-curricular course, children and the law, taught by Maxine Eichner, Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law, provides students with the historical and political background of child welfare and other legal interventions in family autonomy.
In the clinic’s first year, eight students represented 14 clients who had been accused of abuse or neglect of their children and/or had their children removed from their care. In their role as parent defenders, students worked directly with every major participant in the child welfare system, including social workers, county attorneys, Guardians ad Litem, treatment court personnel, other court-appointed attorneys and judges.
Students represented clients from the initial stages of family separation and at numerous subsequent court hearings with the goal of family reunification. At times, the students engaged expert witnesses whose testimony can be critical in countering biases and assumptions that often contribute to prolonged family separation. Most importantly, the students developed relationships with their clients over the course of the year.
The clinic’s advocacy extends beyond the courtroom. Students help clients secure services essential to family reunification, including housing assistance, mental health treatment, substance use treatment and domestic violence support.
When Linzy Mahoney ’27 signed up for the Family Defense Clinic, her goal was to gain litigation experience. “The first time I went into a courtroom, I literally dropped all of my papers in front of the judge because I was so nervous,” said Mahoney. “By the end of the year, I had become familiar enough with the rules of evidence that I could be confident enough in the courtroom to respond to a completely baseless objection by a seasoned attorney and the judge agreed with me. I became formidable enough to stand up for my client.”
During her clinic training, Mahoney was surprised to learn that the vast majority of North Carolina children who are removed from their parents by child welfare authorities have not been physically or sexually abused and are not at risk of being abused in this way. “I also learned that the separation by the Department of Social Services is intensely traumatic,” said Mahoney. “That separation traumatizes children more than whichever condition of poverty caused the Department of Social Services to remove them.”
Mahoney has accepted a position at a law firm in Milwaukee, near her hometown, upon her 2027 graduation. While her practice will focus on business, she hopes to do pro bono parent defense work in Milwaukee County. “This experience made me much more conscious of poverty because it is the reason that both of my clients ended up in Department of Social Services court with their children removed,” said Mahoney. “I want to stay involved in this kind of work.”
Over the course of her 22 years at Carolina Law, Posner has taught in the Civil, Immigration, Domestic Violence, and now Family Defense Clinics. She said that she always hopes that her students gain essential lawyering skills as well as the desire to use those skills for public good.
“I want my students to understand that we, as lawyers, are responsible for our community,” said Posner. “The lawyer’s job is to be a caretaker-advocate of sorts and to make sure that the least heard among us have their voices projected. I also want the students in all my clinics to learn that what is required to be a really great lawyer is to be a really decent and kind human being.”
Lucas Lawrence ’26 took that lesson to heart. He said that the most challenging aspect of his experience in the clinic was counseling his clients when the case wasn’t resolved in their favor. “You can learn the legal rules and the right thing to say to the court,” said Lawrence. “But learning the right thing to say to clients when they’re experiencing that level of trauma and suffering takes a lot more practice.”
He said that Posner modeled how to interact with clients in a trauma-informed way. “The biggest piece of advice Professor Posner gave was to always lead with empathy when counseling our clients,” said Lawrence. “Instead of jumping straight into the law, we would start by acknowledging the gravity of their experience: ‘This has to be terrible for you. I’m so sorry. Tell me what you’re going through.’”
While both Lawrence and Mahoney found the work emotionally taxing, they are grateful for the experience and for the skills they developed. “I was able to do a full trial by myself, from opening to cross-examination, direct examination, to closing,” said Lawrence. “That is a huge amount of litigation experience that people don’t normally get in law school.”
Lawrence said that he plans to use his legal skills on behalf of people who do not have a lot of power by virtue of their position or systemic issues. He is now a local government law fellow at the UNC School of Government, a one-year fellowship in which he provides litigation support for the City Attorney’s Office in Durham.
Posner, who is currently running the second year of the clinic, wants to help increase the number of lawyers who support families in this way. By law, parents are entitled to an attorney provided by the state. “As a public institution, Carolina Law has a responsibility to fill that gap by doing this type of work and teaching people how to do it well,” said Posner. “The right to parent is a fundamental liberty protected by the Constitution. When something goes so wrong that a parent is at risk of losing that right, they should have lawyers who listen to their fear and pain with empathy and advocate for their families with the highest level of skill and passion.”
