The numbers are staggering. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 1999 to 2017, almost 218,000 people died from overdoses related to prescription opioids. That’s more than the combined number of residents in Allentown and Erie, the third and fourth most populous cities in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf issued a proclamation of disaster emergency in early 2018, citing Pennsylvania’s rate of drug overdose as 36.5 per 100,000—a statistic more than double the national average. The opioid epidemic is by far the worst public health crisis in the nation, and according to a profile in the New York Times from October of last year, Philadelphia County has the highest overdose rate of any of the 10 most populous cities in America.

Many legal practices have been affected by the more than two million Americans addicted to opioids, from criminal law and bankruptcy, to labor and employment. But perhaps no practice has witnessed more of a dramatic impact than family law. Lawyers concentrating in domestic-relations have seen the steep rise in the number of dependency proceedings as a result of the opioid crisis. Minor children who have had one or both parents die from an overdose face placement in foster care. And there are many teenagers who have died from an overdose as well, leaving families reeling from the trauma of losing a child.

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