Court: The office for Two Lawyers

Court: The office for Two Lawyers
By: Liz Welborn
Musty-smelling. Dark hallways. Overhead lights blinking. All of these are adjectives that describe the High Point City Courthouse on East Greene St. For two lawyers, this courthouse is where they go day after day to fight parental and child injustices.
Clarence Mattox has been a lawyer since 1974 when he graduated from University of North Carolina’s law school. He’s dad was a lawyer, “so I just thought it was natural that after college I would go to law school.”

Mattox deals with the Department of Social Services mainly. One of his most memorable cases was with a 22-year-old mother that was diagnosed with a severe mental illness. While Social Services kept her children, the woman would not take her medicine regularly. Mattox said the hardest things are to figure out, “does she act out because her children were taken away, or because she was abused herself when she was a child?”

The case that still sticks in Mattox’s mind is the one he had three years ago. A 3-year-old died under suspicious means, choked to death. Mattox had to determine if the choking was due to neglect, that the parents were not watching the child properly, or if the child’s death was an accident. The hardest thing, is determining if the cause of neglect is accidental or on purpose.

One of Mattocks’ colleagues, Amy Bullock first wanted to do criminal law but somehow ended up is DSS court. She says one of the hardest things in Guilford County is parents who are on drugs. Parents rather buy and use drugs than take care of their small children. These parents are given a chance to reclaim their children if they submit to random drug testing and pass. Bullock says that this process of DSS reclaiming a child can happen several times if the parents “relapse into their drug habit.” No matter what, Bullock has to do what is best for the child.

Once a parent has been removed as guardian they cannot have any contact with their child. The parent cannot even know where they child is. Mattocks recalls in one case, that a father that had been denied his parental rights came up to the courthouse on his daughter’s 18th birthday, asking where she was since she is a legal adult at 18. The parent still cannot know where the child is when the child turns 18. If the child wanted to know where their parent was then she could contact Child Services then.

Mattocks and Bullock go to work through the dungeon-like court everyday knowing that their work is creating better lives for children. To them, that is worth the less-than appealing surroundings in which they work.