Defending New Yorkers
Family Defense
Keeping families together
Family Defense Practice
Keeping families together
As residents of the most heavily disinvested borough in the city, families in the Bronx experience the highest rates of family policing and parent-child separation. We serve as the primary institutional provider defending parents and caretakers against the painful and unnecessary removals of their children in the Bronx. Together, our attorneys, social workers, and parent advocates provide the legal defense and support necessary to keep families together and interrupt generational cycles of family court involvement.
Our Approach
At The Bronx Defenders, we believe every family deserves to stay whole. For twenty years, our Family Defense Practice has done just that—providing Bronx parents with strong legal defense and holistic support to prevent unnecessary separation and surveillance.
Our interdisciplinary teams advocate in and out of court—at Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) meetings, in emergency hearings, and anywhere families need a voice. We connect families to services, build strong legal strategies, and help parents to advocate for themselves. In addition to these services, we continue to push for a system that protects children by strengthening, not separating, their families.
Get Support
Your Family, Your Rights.
We are proud to have cofounded an advocacy and education website created for parents impacted by the family regulation system to get informed, get help, and get involved.
Healthy Parents, Healthy Babies.
Every newborn deserves the chance to bond with their parents—but too often, infants are taken from hospitals and placed in foster care simply because their parents have past legal system involvement. Healthy Parents, Healthy Babies works to prevent these unnecessary separations by providing pregnant people with social workers, advocates, and essential resources to create a safe and stable home. Through counseling, legal advocacy, and connections to vital services like prenatal care, mental health support, and family-strengthening programs, HPHB helps parents and caregivers build a secure future for their children—keeping families together from the very start.
Legal Wins that Protect Families.
Our attorneys have successfully litigated on behalf of the people we represent in the First Department of the Appellate Court, establishing important legal precedent for all cases pending in Family Court.
Correcting and Sealing Criminal Court Records.
Currently, there is no expungement law in New York State, so we fight to uphold sealings laws and challenge the use and dissemination of sealed criminal records in civil courts.