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.
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