By Lindsay                                             S.B. No. 609
         Substitute the following for S.B. No. 609:
         By Goodman                                         C.S.S.B. No. 609
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the duties of an attorney ad litem in a suit affecting
 1-3     the parent-child relationship.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 107.014(b), Family Code, is amended to
 1-6     read as follows:
 1-7           (b)  An attorney ad litem appointed to represent a child
 1-8     shall within a reasonable time after the appointment:
 1-9                 (1)  interview the child if the child is four years of
1-10     age or older;
1-11                 (2)  interview individuals with significant knowledge
1-12     of the child's history and condition, including the child's foster
1-13     parents; and
1-14                 (3)  interview all parties to the suit.
1-15           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999, and
1-16     applies only to an attorney ad litem appointed on or after that
1-17     date. An attorney ad litem appointed before the effective date of
1-18     this Act is governed by the law in effect on the date the attorney
1-19     ad litem was appointed, and the former law is continued in effect
1-20     for that purpose.
1-21           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-22     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-23     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-24     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-1     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 2-2     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 2-3     passage, and it is so enacted.