Edelman Children's Courthouse
Court Guide

The Edmund D. Edelman Children's Courthouse sits at 201 Centre Plaza Drive in Monterey Park. It is the courthouse Los Angeles County uses for juvenile dependency matters — the child-welfare side of juvenile law.

Dependency is a category of case that most people have never encountered until it happens to their family. It begins when a petition alleges a child has been abused or neglected or is otherwise at risk, and it asks the court to decide questions of protection, placement, reunification services, and ultimately whether parental rights are preserved. No one is accused of a crime in that proceeding, and no one is convicted or sentenced in it.

That is precisely why this work has its own building. General-jurisdiction courthouses in the area — East Los Angeles and Alhambra — handle adult criminal, traffic, and civil calendars where the parties are defendants, plaintiffs, and prosecutors. Dependency runs on a different statute, a different vocabulary, and a different set of participants: social workers, children's attorneys, parents' attorneys, and appointed advocates. Housing it separately keeps children out of adult criminal corridors and gives the calendar the specialized courtrooms and support services it needs.

Because we are a bail bond company, we want to be direct about the limits of our role here. There is no bail in a dependency case and no bond we can write for one. Where we help is the situation families frequently find themselves in: a dependency matter proceeding in Monterey Park at the same time as an adult criminal case somewhere else in the county, with a parent or relative sitting in custody and unable to attend either one. Getting that person released is a bail problem, and it is one we can solve at any hour.

Official court information: Superior Court of Los Angeles County — Juvenile Division