This basic training will focus on how to file a Petition for the Guardianship of a Minor Child in the Probate Court. Our clients are often grandparents and other relatives of children whose parents are unavailable to care for them. The training will provide a nuts and bolts approach to a simple guardianship where the ward's parents have assented. The training will include instruction on how to complete the petition and accompanying pleadings, waive fees and costs, obtain assents from the ward's parents, and how to handle issues of service and the bond. This is an excellent area of practice for new attorneys as well as an additional area of practice for attorneys experienced in other areas of law, but unfamiliar with the guardianship practice. Participants will receive VLP's manual on handling Guardianship of Minor cases.

This class will give participants the tools they need to handle simple guardianship of minor cases from filing through the establishment of a permanent guardianship. In addition, attorneys and law students who attend this class will be qualified to participate in the VLP/Senior Partners for Justice guardianship petition assistance projects in the Norfolk (Wednesday), Middlesex (Thursday) and Suffolk (Tuesday and Wednesday) Probate & Family Courts on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. These are limited assistance representation projects in which volunteers help pro se petitioners complete and file the guardian of minor petition and other pleadings. For more information, please contact Barbara Siegel at bsiegel@vlpnet.org.

VLP trainings are offered free of charge to active volunteers. Please see the VLP Training Policy.

Sign up for this training online at http://vlp.volunteerhub.com.