New York, NY —

With a 30 percent rise in the number of child abuse and neglect reports received by the city’s child welfare system more families are ending up in family court. Reporter Cindy Rodriguez spent some time observing the court room of one judge in Queens:

REPORTER: On a recent winter morning, dozens of people are waiting to pass through a security scanner and begin their day at Queens family court. The facility is only the third busiest in the city – still more than 2-thousand people pass through its doors each day.

The building is clean and plenty of light beams down from an atrium. It’s newer and nicer than other family courts in the city. Each floor has a sitting area where adults and a few children wait to be called into courtrooms.

Attorneys who may go in front of a judge as many as 30 times in one day scurry through the halls rolling around bags full of case files. They huddle with clients and other attorneys on benches, and in corners discussing the intimate details of a family's life.

It’s a typical busy day inside the courtroom of Judge Edwina Richardson Mendelson. She’s on her lunch break now, which she says she often works through, and is sitting at a remarkably clean and organized desk full of family pictures: In a two hour period the more than 7 different cases have gone before her.

RICHARDSON-MENDELSON: I definitely wasn’t keeping track I just do them as they come. I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw 7 cases. I think you arrived around 11:30 between 11:30 and 1:30.

REPORTER: The stylish judge who can be intimidating when she sits behind the bench flips the pages of a report showing her annual caseload since she started her judgeship 4 years ago. In 2004, about 894 cases came before her. Last year was her highest caseload so far:

RICHARDSON-MENDELSON: so it’s about a three hundred case increase? Do you feel that in your everyday work. Oh, do I feel that in my everyday work, I sure do feel that in my everyday work. I do and I’d like to say that this is representative of all the judges in family court. Our caseloads have increased tremendously and our staffing has remained fairly stable.

REPORTER: And the cases she sees are serious and sometimes disturbing. During her morning hearings the judge demanded that a city caseworker do more to track down a mother and her children who disappeared after her husband was accused of harming them. The family is undocumented and the judge speculated she may have returned back to her homeland. Another case involved a young boy whose older adult cousin wanted to become his foster parent. His mother did not show up for the hearing but the cousin and three other relatives did. The judge asks precise questions, demands precise answers and moves quickly. It took her about five minutes to decide that a 17 year old boy would not be put up for adoption and would instead be allowed to continue visits with his biological mother:

RICHARDSON-MENDELSON: I conducted a full termination of parental rights proceeding against all of her children so I knew that case very, very well and I see that case on my calendar approximately every 3 months.

REPORTER: Since losing custody of her other children, the mother has been getting treatment for a mental illness and obtained housing. She sat quietly behind her court appointed attorney wearing a heavy winter coat and blue jeans. The judge praised her for her progress:

RICHARDSON-MENDELSON: I wanted to look her in the eye as being the same judge that ended her rights to other children and tell her that I’m recognizing that she’s making strides to try to work for this one child.

REPORTER: For 10 years prior to becoming a judge, Richardson - Mendelson represented parents in these same types of cases. Its that experience she says, that lead her to believe encouraging parents is important. Attorney Sarah Tirgary has appeared before the judge several times and praised her for listening to all sides – parents, children and the Administration for Children’s Services – all have different lawyers representing them at a hearing.

TIRGARY: She follows the rules of evidence. She’s fair, she’s smart…it’s a relief to be in her courtroom.

REPORTER: The soft-spoken attorney is sitting at a conference table inside her modest office. Soon she will need to rush into a courtroom across the street

Tirgary used to be a city attorney representing ACS. Switching sides is common for lawyers. But regardless where you sit the job is demanding. Inside Richardson-Mendelson’s courtroom it was clear some attorneys were representing children and parents who they hardly knew. Tirgary says that’s a lot of pressure especially in new cases where ACS is looking to remove a child from a home:

TIRGARY: At that point I would get assigned to either the child or the parent and I’d have to take a position right away not having even met my client at all.

REPORTER: Kim McLauren is a supervising attorney at Legal Aid and represents mostly children in the courtroom. She agrees it’s a high pressure job and says the system needs more resources in order to do better work. Mics and tape records aren’t allowed inside family court so we speak inside the lobby of a nearby building:

McLAUREN: We would like to be in a situation where more of our older clients can be in court but that requires a lot more time and a lot more hand holding. We would like to do home visits every other month, or every three months and see our clients….where they live but to do that you need fewer cases and more attorneys.

REPORTER: McLauren has just finished arguing a case on behalf of an 18 year old child whose father spoke to the courtroom from prison. Her client does not want to be adopted and would like to attend college. The child has two other siblings. While it’s considered one case, she must argue differently for each child according to what they need and want. McLauren says an experienced attorney in her office has about 200 to 400 clients at a time:

McLAUREN: The national standard is 100 clients per attorney. We far exceeded that.

REPORTER: Still McLauren maintains the attorneys in her office do an excellent job with the limited resources they have. Back in the judge’s chambers, it is nearing time for her afternoon hearings to begin. It’s not clear what they will include but there’s little doubt the stakes will be high and the often messy and complicated lives of families will be front and center. The judge agrees that outbursts are common in family court:

RICHARDSON-MENDELSON: Every single day there’s tears, there’s screaming, there’s yelling and there’s emotion. And there should be emotion because you are dealing with the most intimate issues that families are dealing with and we’re dealing with the right to parent your child and if there was an absence of this emotion, I’d be concerned.

REPORTER: The waiting room outside her courtroom is full. She will likely work late into the night hearing cases and filling out the mounds of paperwork each case generates. Doing this work she says, makes her want to go home and hug her children. For WNYC, I’m Cindy Rodriguez