Wendy Sotolongo leaves behind a blueprint for continued progress toward a shared vision for the social work program she created to: continue improving the lives of families; and to ultimately expand statewide… regardless of who is at the helm.
Newest on the scene of the five existing State defender offices, the North Carolina Office of the Parent Defender began serving indigent parents and families in abuse, neglect, dependency (A/N/D) and termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings upon its point of establishment in March 2018. Prior to the opening of the OPD, the work was long getting done since 2006, under the auspices of the Office of the Appellate Defender as the Office of Parent Representation. But even before that, Wendy Sotolongo had spent many years as an attorney for DSS and as an attorney for the Guardian ad litem program, before realizing over time that to really help children, you must first help their parents. And so, she “switched sides” beginning a two-decade-long career promoting zealous representation for parents and which ultimately landed her the job of the first Parent Defender for the State of North Carolina. Sotolongo was appointed by the IDS Commission on June 8, 2018, to serve in the new role. And while she was reappointed with great confidence from the IDS Commission on July 15, 2022 for another two-year term, as the close of that term approached, she announced her plans to retire. And on June 30, 2025, she will pass the torch on to the next leader.
In terms of “legacy,” Sotolongo said “I am very proud of the partnerships we have built with State DSS, judges, State GAL and others—that we can work together on changing things that we agree will improve the system. And for families, I am really proud of the support we have been able to give parent attorneys. I feel like every one of them knows—and it they don’t know, they should—that we are here and we are their biggest cheerleader. We have created a community… our attorneys know each other, and they look out for one another.”
But Sotolongo will tell you that the greatest accomplishment during her tenure as State Parent Defender is and will always be the launch of the social work program, officially known as the “Interdisciplinary Parent Representation Program” (IPRP). The pilot began in four counties: Cleveland, Mecklenburg, Buncombe and New Hanover. It now spans six counties, with the addition of Wake and Lincoln, and though Sotolongo is stepping away without seeing it expand statewide, she is optimistic that efforts will not halt just because she will retire. She continued, “With the IPRP, we are not just bringing in another resource for attorneys. That does not come close to giving it justice for what it is or for what the social workers actually do. It is changing the lives of our clients,” she said. “For the first time, they have someone who is actively, squarely in their corner with the skills and the time and the passion to not only help them with their case— but help them with their quality of life. That’s huge.”
The state’s top Parent Defender did not always defend parents
When I went to law school, I always knew I was going to do public interest. I knew I had zero interest in big corporate work. It’s valuable, but that’s not what I wanted to do. And so, I really wanted to help children, and I truly thought the best way to help children would be through either representing the Department of Social Services (my first job) or representing the children as the guardian ad litem (GAL). That would make sense, right?
But each time I will say that it felt like I wasn’t really doing what I wanted to do, and it took me a long time through those jobs and in private practice to realize that if I really wanted to help children, I had to help their families.
I mean this literally and figuratively and emotionally, you cannot remove children from their parents. Children are not a standalone entity that is “okay” apart from the parent(s). They are part of a family, and when you do remove them, you are causing trauma to both the children and their parents. And so, the only way to really make it work is to help the parents. It took me a very long time to figure that out.
And so, what I tell law students is, “I’m giving it to you, I’m telling you this now, I’m giving you the secret: Go help the parents because then, parents can help their children.” And that’s what we want. We want children to be in safe, secure families and the only way to do that is to make sure their parents have adequate housing, opportunities for employment, opportunities for services, and support in the community.
And when the worst day of their life happens and their kids are taken, someone’s got to be there. And if it’s not a parent attorney, I don’t know who it’s going to be.
Because of Sotolongo’s effective advocacy and program development success, North Carolina was the first state in the Southeast Region (made up of 10 states) to access federal funds for parent defense that is “not comingled with IDS money.”
These federal dollars, known as IV-E monies (from Title IV-E of the Social Security Act) fund the social work program, pay for the 2022 $10-per-hour hourly rate increase for parent attorneys as well as pay for the 2024 $10-per-hour incentive rate, approved by the IDS Commission to award parent defenders who are certified child welfare specialists.
Why she wanted to be the first Parent Defender
I was an experienced attorney. And having represented [all] the different parties and having been in private practice, I could see clearly that the parent attorneys in general—not on the whole, but in general—were the younger, less experienced attorneys in the courtroom.
A lot of the times it was lawyers straight out of law school or young associates in a firm who were not only learning how to practice law, but they were learning how to practice law in one of the most complicated, emotionally fraught areas of law—where people’s children have been taken from them.
And so, it was really clear to me from some of the other hats I was wearing that these attorneys were the ones that really needed the most help and support. And I knew they didn’t have it. I knew this because when I was a DSS attorney, we had a DSS attorneys’ conference, we had DSS attorney training; we had on our team social workers and paralegals and expert witnesses and all these people that nobody else had access to. So, I knew that it was an imbalanced playing field, and I knew the parent attorneys were the ones that were getting the short end of the stick. So, when the job got advertised, I felt that, but even more so, I thought “I know what the gaps are. I’ve been in this courtroom for a very long time, and I know I can help these attorneys.”
I knew I could give them the resources that they need. And so, I applied for the job.
“I have always been extremely grateful to IDS and the Commission that created my position,” said Sotolongo. “I love working for IDS because it is both ‘big picture’ and ‘little picture.’ You get to help and work with individual people, and you also get to work and try to make big changes. And that is why this job is so wonderful.”
Before the OPD was created, the then/former IDS Director Staples Hughes had the “foresight and acknowledgement” to recognize that parent attorneys need specialized resources just as much as the capital defenders and juvenile defenders. The IDS Commission soon recognized that parent attorneys are doing TOUGH appointed work. In Sotolongo’s words, “These are tough cases fraught with trauma and poverty barriers, and families whose kids have been taken away from parents. These cases are very serious, and to have that acknowledgement from the Commission that parent defense deserved its own standalone office made a lot of difference. It resulted in parent defenders feeling supported for the incredibly difficult work they were doing.”
What’s next for Sotolongo? While she looks forward to retirement, Sotolongo said she is not interested in stopping working. “But I would like a little more flexibility, and there are a few things that have really called out to me.”
Among those “callings” are traveling with her husband, David, to visit friends in 48 states, visiting her two daughters who both live in New York state, and maybe even catching another Beyonce concert because the last one was such a blast. Sotolongo plans to take on a few nearby court cases here and there, she said, because “There are clients who need good attorneys.”
Sotolongo will also keep her eyes on UNC Chapel Hill this fall as the School of Law starts its first clinic to train law students to represent parents. Under the third-year practice rule, students who are in the second semester of their second year or in their third year may represent clients in court as long as they have a supervising attorney. OPD has been meeting with the professors developing the clinic and will help with some of the law student training. All the OPD attorneys are excited to support the next generation of parent defenders.
Other career highlights that elevate and highlight the importance of parent defense include:
- Chairing the Committee of the NC State Bar that, in 2021, received approval from the NC Supreme Court to create a new specialty in Child Welfare Law
- Success in providing annual conferences and additional training opportunities for parent defenders with support from the UNC School of Government
- Inclusion of recommendations from her testimony to the NC Committee on Civil Rights’ federal Report on the impact of Rylan’s law and how it negatively and disparately affects families of color
- Bipartisan support in the 2025 Long Session for Child Welfare Reform (HB 612)that passed both the NC House and Senate and is awaiting the Governor’s signature.
- IDS Commission approval for a 2024 pay rate increase for parent defenders who are State Certified Child Welfare Law Specialists.
While Wendy Sotolongo may be retiring, she will not disappear into the shadows. We’ve not seen the last of her on the state, local and national levels, nor is this a goodbye or even a pause, really! Passion like hers cannot be turned off with the flip of a switch. Some people’s light shines way too brightly and it has lit the way for the next Parent Defender to keep the momentum and to “stay the course” into an era of new leadership.
At the close of the May 2, 2025, meeting of the IDS Commission, Chair Bryan Jones announced that the commission had voted to appoint Annick Lenoir-Peek as the next Parent Defender. She will serve a two-year term, set to begin July 1, 2025.
When I got the green light to hire an attorney for the office in 2008, I knew I wanted to hire Annick. She was already an experienced trial and appellate attorney and had a deep knowledge of child welfare law. That hire has been one of the best decisions I’ve made as the head of the office.
Annick has been a great partner in fulfilling our office’s mission to provide and promote quality legal representation for parents. Since 2008, she has continued to zealously represent her clients in over a hundred appeals, she has created dozens of sample pleadings and other resources for both trial and appellate parent defenders, and she has provided thousands of hours of case consultations.
Anyone that has worked with Annick knows her passion and her dedication to defending parents. She is highly qualified to be the next Parent Defender, and I look forward to watching her take our office to the next level.
Wendy Sotolongo