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Lawyers Go to Bat For Children in Florida Care

July 25th, 2009   No Comments   Foster Care, Rights of Foster Children

Plantation lawyers Howard Talenfeld & Jesse Diner hope to improve legal representation of kids in state care.

Jesse Diner, left, and Howard Talenfeld are working together to help Florida's foster care and vulnerable children.Jesse Diner, left, and Howard Talenfeld are working together to help Florida’s foster care and vulnerable children.

Two Broward lawyers are hoping to work toward a major change for kids who have been taken from troubled homes.

Howard Talenfeld and Jesse Diner, both of Plantation, say they want to make sure every child in state care has a voice when moving through the court system. Both have taken on lead roles in recent months with the Florida Bar Association and one of their main priorities will be to improve the legal representation of children in foster care.

“I realized the single greatest improvement we can make in the child welfare system is to give every child a voice when they are taken away from their parents,” said Talenfeld, a longtime foster care and child advocate attorney.

Read Complete Miami Herald Story Here.


Doing Good Can Be Good For Foster Children, the Developmentally Disabled & Practice

March 16th, 2009   No Comments   Foster Care, Guardian ad Litem & Representation, News & Events, Rights of Foster Children

Doing Good Can Be Good for Florida’s  Foster Children, the Developmentally Disabled, and Even Your Legal Career — a summary of a presentation to the Jacksonville Bar Association to encourage lawyers to do pro bono representation which occurred on March 19, 2009.*

By Howard Talenfeld

When I attended law school, like many other students, I did not pursue any specialization. After launching my practice as attorney in 1980, I was fortunate and handled significant commercial litigations (and not so important small claims cases), large personal injury claims (and not so important soft tissue injury cases), critical cases behalf of a municipality (and some traffic citations), and appeals in cases affecting thousands of people (and appeals affecting few).

Indeed, by many measures I was successful and even made partner in my present firm, Colodny, Fass, Talenfeld, Karlinsky & Abate, P.A., after one year of practice. However, something important was missing.  In spite of my financial, personal and professional successes, my practice did not give me great personal satisfaction.

In 1988, my law firm began representing the Florida Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services (“HRS). It happened as a fluke because one of its ALF licensees was seeking to hold the Governor Martinez in contempt. This opportunity occurred because our firm had a good reputation for its work as outside counsel hired by the state of Florida Division of Risk Management, and my partner, Joel Fass, was also the “go to” lawyer for Department of Regulation prosecutions. Our immediate success in this case mushroomed in to representing HRS as outside counsel across all of its major program areas: Children & Families, Delinquency, Economic Services, Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Licensing & Certification.

However, it was no accident that this occurred. (more…)

Florida Foster Children Must Fight – and Be Protected From – Identity Theft

March 3rd, 2009   No Comments   Foster Care

By Howard Talenfeld

identity theft by d70focus from flickrWhen Todd Davis announces with confidence on national TV how LifeLock will protect subscribers from identity theft, it’s likely he’s not marketing to foster children.

Yet they’re just as vulnerable to identity theft as anyone else. Even more so, by some accounts. As a Florida attorney focused on protecting the rights of the state’s most vulnerable citizens, including those in foster care, I have seen the potential for abuse and identity theft these children face. We need to help them learn how to protect themselves today.

In a recent Newsweek article, “Sabotaged by the System,” writer Jesse Ellison told the story of Tyrome Sams, a 20-year-old former foster child. When he applied for credit cards, Sams was repeatedly refused. He later learned that eight years earlier someone had swiped his identity and accrued hundreds of dollars in utility bills.

“Sams’s case isn’t just an unfortunate fluke,” Ellison wrote in the magazine (http://www.newsweek.com/id/183711). “Identity theft among foster kids is common, and for good reason: they’re easy targets. They move often among various homes and schools, so their personal data pass through dozens of hands.” (more…)