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Amy Vasquez, a solo practitioner in Burlington, has represented children and parents in child welfare matters for nearly 25 years. She is chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) Child Welfare Law Section and co-chair of the Pro Bono Committee. She also serves on the NJSBA Board of Trustees. Vasquez was a recipient of the inaugural Haywood Burns Fellowship for Civil Rights from City University of New York School of Law Public Interest Law Association. While in law school, she worked at the Innocence Project in New York, where she located and preserved physical evidence. Her efforts helped exonerate and free three clients after decades of imprisonment. ...

By Amy Vasquez Amy Vasquez is chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) Child Welfare Law Section and an NJSBA Trustee. Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared in In re Sarah , the Child Welfare Law Section newsletter. Read the full issue here (login required). Under N.J.S.A 30:4C-23, N.J.S.A. 9:3-38, N.J.S.A. 9:3-41(d), and N.J.A.C. 10:133J, “surrender” means the voluntary relinquishment of all parental rights. The Administrative Office of the Courts form to offer a voluntary termination in Court was last revised in 2019 and is titled “Voluntary Surrender of Parental Rights Form.” Language matters. A parent who is inclined to ...