Julie Kunce Field, Lawyer in Famous Custody Battle, to Join Washburn Law

From: The Topeka Capital-Journal, Monday, November 13, 1995, p. 6-A.
Photo caption and credit at end of article.

By JENNIFER Jh. CHOI
The Capital-Journal

For Michigan attorney Julie Kunce Field, winning a high profile appeal of a woman who lost a custody case for putting her daughter in day care was a deeply personal experience.

"I have a 3-year-old in day care, and I'm expecting another in December," Field said. "The case struck a chord in me as a parent, as it did many other parents."

Field will join the Washburn University Law faculty in February as an associate professor and director of the Law Clinic.

The civil attorney from the Midwest represented Jennifer Ireland, who recently regained legal custody of her 4-year-old daughter Maranda when the Michigan Court of Appeals overturned a judge's order that the girl be put in her father's care.

Ireland, 20, placed her daughter in day care while she attended classes at the University of Michigan. The mother's ex-boyfriend sued for custody in 1993, saying the child would be better off with him because his own mother could care for her.

The case received national attention when the 1994 ruling that gave custody to the father outraged women's groups and other organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union.

But the custody battle came full circle Wednesday when the appeals court ruled that a judge can't consider a working parent's child-care arrangement when deciding a custody suit.

Fighting on behalf of women and for women's issues is nothing new for the attorney.

Field, who has directed the Women's Law Clinic at the University of Michigan for the past four years, has specialized in cases dealng with domestic violence, employment discrimination and family law.

"I see myself as an attorney for people who have always been treated as peripheral to the legal system," Field said. "My interest in domestic violence came from work I did in law school and seeing the enormous need women have in the legal system."

What is new for Field is the attention. The Ireland case received national and international publicity.

"This has been the most significant case in my career," Field said. "It educated me in many ways, the ways of the media world. I have been educated probably in ways I've never even had a chance to contemplate yet."

Coming to Washburn will be like coming home, said Field, who has extended family in the area. Field, who is from South City, Neb., spent part of her adult life in the Midwest.

After attending low school at the University of Chicago, Field clerked for a federal district judge in Kansas City, Mo., for about two years. She went to a private firm in Boston following that, and then to Michigan.

"It seemed like a good fit to come to Washburn," Field said. "I look forward to directing the law clinic and to teaching the diverse student body that Washburn has. I also look forward to spending time with my extended family."

Photo by: The Associated Press.
Photo caption: Attorney Julie Kunce Field on Wednesday hugged her client, Jennifer Ireland, foreground, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Field, who won the high-profile day-care custody case, will be joining the Washburn University Law faculty in February.