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Even after 30 years of experience in

children’s rights, Lowry is consistently

outraged by how government systems fail

children. That outrage and indignation were

what inspired her to start Children’s Rights

and drives her to work to make the system

better for kids in the future.

Lowry was working for the American Civil

Liberties Union in New York when she decided

the most vulnerable members of society

needed an organization of their own. About �0

years ago, she started Children’s Rights, a New

York-based national advocacy organization for

abused and neglected children.

Children’s Rights generally brings class-

action suits against state governments,

although recently, Lowry personally

represented three of the four teenage

boys found starving in their New Jersey

home, where their adoptive parents were

supposedly being monitored by case workers.

The oldest of those boys was �9 and weighed

less than 50 pounds and was found digging

through a neighbor’s trash for food. His three

younger brothers weighed even less. Lowry,

who became guardian ad litem for the three

younger boys, said she will never understand

how the government social workers, who

were present in the house, did not report

the abuse. The four boys had been adopted,

but caseworkers were present because the

family was in the process of adopting one of

the other foster children living in the house.

“How can something like that happen? Beats

me,” she said. “I represent three of those

kids, and I couldn’t to this day tell you how

anybody could have been in that house and

seen those four boys, who were so stunted in

their growth, and not immediately report it to

the abuse hotline. I can’t give you an answer

to that. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Children’s Rights now employs �0 attorneys

and a staff of 3� and uses its expertise to

change child welfare bureaucracies. They

scrutinize failing systems and provide

solutions to systemic problems. If a system

fails to respond, Children’s Rights uses

litigation to force reform and monitor its

implementation.

Lowry said she has always been interested

in civil rights and public interest law, but

did not initially intend to focus her career

on children. She spent four years working

as a journalist before going to law school.

Growing up in Florida, in the segregated

South, she said, fueled her interest in civil

rights. A liberal aunt in New York who was a

lawyer piqued her interest in the law.

“I felt that I couldn’t accomplish enough as

a journalist. I wanted to be more actively

involved in resolving social problems,”

she said. “As a journalist, all you can do is

document and point out issues—and you

have to be neutral—and I decided I wanted to

be more actively involved in identifying the

problems, not just solving them.”

After earning her J.D. from the New York

University School of Law, Lowry won a public

interest fellowship and worked for the legal

services program in New York. It was then

that she chose to specialize in children’s

rights.

“I thought that children’s issues would be the

most interesting and the one [area] where I

could make the most difference in people’s

lives,” she said. “I didn’t start out with that

particular goal, but once I started working on

it, it just seemed to me [to be] the area where

there was the greatest opportunity to have a

positive impact on people’s lives.”

After that fellowship, Lowry spent a year

with the New York City Child Welfare

agency before joining the New York Civil

Liberties Union to start a litigation program

for children, which has proved invaluable

because Lowry’s job involves understanding

and identifying problems within child welfare

bureaucracies.

Accountability is the single biggest problem

in child welfare across the country, Lowry

says. Most states have good laws to protect

and serve children. The problem is no one

pays attention to the laws, she said.

She said voters should hold governors more

accountable for child welfare systems and

that a failed system is a reflection of a failing

governor.

“Ultimately, in any state system, it’s the

governor who is responsible for having the

state agencies perform properly. And it’s just

not a priority, because the voters don’t know

about it; and if they knew about it, it wouldn’t

be affecting them,” she said. “And these are

kids who don’t vote, and often their parents

have been unable to care for them and have

their own problems. So nobody who elects

officials pays attention to these kids. That’s

why we have to go to court.”

continued on back

Marcia Robinson Lowry, Founder and Executive Director of Children’s Rights [by Regan Morris]

Attorney Marcia Robinson Lowry started Children’s Rights a decade ago to represent children and advocate on

their behalf in the courts. LawCrossing speaks with her about her career and the organization she founded.

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Children’s Rights has cases in numerous

states across the country in various stages.

As executive director, Lowry supervises the

legal department and the policy side. She

is also directly involved in cases in Georgia;

Washington, DC; Tennessee; and Nebraska.

Lowry said attorneys interested in doing

pro bono work with Children’s Rights must

be willing to dedicate long hours to the

cases. There are opportunities with other

organizations if attorneys can only dedicate a

few hours per month, she said.

Lowry said she couldn’t imagine swapping

her public interest career for a dazzling

private-firm salary. Too many lawyers don’t

realize that it’s perfectly easy to live on a

public interest salary, she said.

“We work with local firms whenever we

can. It’s taken on as a case by the firm, and

as I said, it’s really a major commitment of

time and resources,” she said. “Courts are

enormously powerful devices to affect social

problems. And I think the more creative we

are with the use of the law, the better we can

serve the people who are less fortunate than

we are. And there is an enormous amount of

pro bono work that can and should be done.”