Team Wins Hague Convention Case for Pro Bono Client

A BCLP team recently prevailed for a pro bono client under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

The multilateral treaty seeks to return children to their native country to allow child custody proceedings to take place in that country, to prevent a parent from obtaining custody by abduction. The BCLP team successfully argued in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas on behalf of the client, a Mexican mother, for the return to Mexico of four of her children who were wrongfully removed from her custody and taken without her consent to Kansas City, Kansas.

Less than three weeks after BCLP filed the petition, the court held emergency proceedings at which BCLP presented testimony and other evidence and argued for the immediate return of the children to Mexico.  That same day, the court ruled in the client’s favor and, after 10 months apart, she was reunited with her children and they returned together to Mexico.

The BCLP team consisted of Associate Grace Colato Martinez, Partners Jennifer Berhorst and Tim Davis, and Paralegal Ann Woeppel.

This work was part of BCLP’s long-standing participation in the nationwide Hague Convention Attorney Network, in cooperation with the U.S. State Department. Partner Chris Schmidt coordinates these client representations at BCLP.