1-1 By: Lindsay S.B. No. 609
1-2 (In the Senate - Filed February 19, 1999; February 22, 1999,
1-3 read first time and referred to Committee on Jurisprudence;
1-4 March 17, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote: Yeas 4,
1-5 Nays 0; March 17, 1999, sent to printer.)
1-6 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-7 AN ACT
1-8 relating to the duties of an attorney ad litem in a suit affecting
1-9 the parent-child relationship.
1-10 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11 SECTION 1. Subsection (b), Section 107.014, Family Code, is
1-12 amended to read as follows:
1-13 (b) An attorney ad litem appointed to represent a child
1-14 shall within a reasonable time after the appointment:
1-15 (1) interview the child if the child is four years of
1-16 age or older;
1-17 (2) interview the child's caregivers;
1-18 (3) interview individuals with significant knowledge
1-19 of the child's history and condition; and
1-20 (4) [(3)] interview all parties to the suit.
1-21 SECTION 2. This Act takes effect September 1, 1999, and
1-22 applies only to an attorney ad litem appointed on or after that
1-23 date. An attorney ad litem appointed before the effective date of
1-24 this Act is governed by the law in effect on the date the attorney
1-25 ad litem was appointed, and the former law is continued in effect
1-26 for that purpose.
1-27 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the
1-28 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-29 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-30 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-31 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
1-32 * * * * *