By Gwyneth K. Shaw
Addie Gilson ’25 was an undergraduate at Princeton when she got her first glimpse of the child welfare system. As a sociology major and a former camp counselor, she was drawn to an internship with a law firm representing kids in foster care.
It was an eye-opening experience, she says — particularly seeing the experience of the parents.
“In my first week, I witnessed Child Protective Services remove a newborn child from her mother,” Gilson says. “Before that day, I had only ever thought of the child welfare system in terms of the injustices inflicted on children by their parents, not those imposed on families by the state.”
“This new perspective captivated me.”
She spent the rest of the internship talking to parents as much as she could during home visits and outside courtrooms, and began to understand how the legal standards for child neglect mapped neatly onto the conditions of poverty.
Gilson went back to Princeton and turned those conversations into her senior thesis, using a methodology of in-depth interviews.
“I knew that the most accurate and meaningful findings would come directly from the lived experience of parents,” she says. “The population of parents involved in child protective services is not cataloged anywhere in the public record, presenting a challenge to participant recruitment.”
Connecting with parents
In between classes and other activities, Gilson drove to laundromats, soup kitchens, churches, and community centers scattered throughout New Jersey. It was slow work at first, and she wondered whether she could get a statistically significant sample size.
But she kept showing up to wherever the parents wanted to meet — in libraries, fast-food restaurants, or at home — for interviews that often lasted several hours.
“I made friends with pastors who posted my flier on their weekly bulletins, and librarians who agreed to advertise over the loudspeaker during busy hours,” she says. “The calls started to roll in.”
After graduation, she worked as a research assistant to Princeton sociology Professor Matthew Desmond, partnering with graduate student Gillian Slee. They expanded Gilson’s thesis, ultimately conducting 81 interviews and analyzing over 5,400 pages of transcripts using qualitative data analysis software.
Their article, which explores how kin networks impact parents’ experiences in the child welfare system, was recently published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. It was no easy task for a full-time law student who also has dedicated a significant amount of time to the Family Defense Project (FDP), a student-led pro bono initiative advocating for low-income parents involved in, or at risk of becoming involved in, dependency court proceedings.
“The peer review process is not for the faint of heart. It required countless revisions,” Gilson says. “There were definitely some long weekends involved in bringing this project to fruition. I think I was able to balance it with my studies because I didn’t overcommit myself in law school. I pursued the pro bono work and extracurriculars that I really cared about, and nothing else.”
She also appreciates Berkeley Law’s grading system, which includes not ranking students.
“It helped take some of the pressure off and gave me breathing room to pursue valuable independent work like this project,” she says.
A different path
Gilson came out of Princeton thinking she’d pursue academia but was confronted with the sense that as much as she liked research and writing, she wanted a career that would bring her closer to the people whose voices she sought to uplift and defend.
She began working as a Partners for Justice Advocate at the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, with her own caseload helping clients access public benefits, substance use treatment, housing, employment, and education. Gilson quickly ran into a big roadblock.
“One day in family court, my client asked the judge if I could speak on his behalf to help tell his story. The judge refused: ‘Ms. Gilson isn’t an attorney,’” she says. “I started working on my law school applications that night.”
She was drawn to Berkeley Law because of its strong public interest programs — and had already fallen in love with the East Bay.
“I found mentors and friends at the Alameda County Public Defender’s office. I developed a love for trail running in the hills. I connected deeply with my clients, and I came to know the landscape of local people and the resources that could help support them,” Gilson says. “In short, I had found community, and I wanted to build on that community while I was in law school.
“Attending Berkeley Law has afforded me an extraordinary opportunity to do just that.”
Student service
Another draw was FDP, one of Berkeley Law’s 40 Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects, which she’d heard about through local family defense practitioners. After talking to founding leaders Ariane Walter ’24, Greta Sloan ’24, and Justine DeSilva ’24 during her 1L fall, Gilson was inspired by their passion and jumped right in, joining the first cohort of student volunteers.
She worked on a project designing a workshop for parents about the child welfare system, interviewing parent advocates, social workers, family defense attorneys, and activists across the country about tools, information, and strategies to help parents successfully navigate their child welfare case. During her 2L year, Gilson oversaw the project as new 1L students turned the findings into the interactive session.
Last spring, one of the group’s partner attorneys at the San Francisco Bar Association suggested submitting to present the workshop at the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law national conference in Washington, D.C. It was accepted, and Gilson sat on a panel with a 1L, a parent who’d been through the system, and a partner attorney. FDP members were the only law students at the conference.
“I met dozens of people doing innovative, exciting family defense work around the country,” Gilson says. “I’m so grateful to have had this experience so early in my career.”
Joining FDP meant she didn’t have to step away from what she loved in law school and also got to put her existing deep understanding of the topic into policy work. Gilson just wrapped up an internship at the Public Defender Agency in Palmer, Alaska, where she got the chance to participate in a jury trial, and is planning for a career in public defense — ideally in both family and criminal defense.
“I’m beyond thrilled that Berkeley Law is continuing to make room for family defense,” she says. “This is an area of public interest law, beginning to gain national traction, that desperately needs committed, passionate advocates.”