Who We Serve

Serving our Clients, One Family at a Time

CFR has been the leading indigent legal defense provider for parents in child protection cases in family court since 2007 in Manhattan, since 2011 in Queens, since 2022 in the Bronx, and since 2024 in Staten Island. In that time, we’ve served over 13,000 families and more than 26,000 children.

We work with approximately 3,000 families each year including over 700 new clients and consistently prevent more than half of our clients’ children from entering the foster system; for those who do enter the foster system, our representation significantly shortens the length of stay.

  • 100% of CFR’s clients are indigent
  • 94% are people of color
  • 61% are women
  • 33% are single parents
  • 23% identify as victims of domestic violence
  • 28% identify as immigrants
  • 28% are or were homeless at some point
  • 21% have a mental health diagnosis
  • 14% were in the foster system themselves
  • 33% have a companion criminal case, usually growing out of the same set of events that lead to the family court case

* Data as of January 2024.