In re Gabriel C.

Syllabus

The respondent mother appealed to this court from the judgments of the trial court terminating her parental rights with respect to her minor children. The trial court found, pursuant to statute (§ 17-112 (j) (3)), that the mother had failed to achieve a degree of personal rehabilitation as would encourage the belief that within a reasonable time she could assume a responsible position in the children's lives. The mother claimed that the court, inter alia, improperly denied her motion to disqualify the attorney acting as the guardian ad litem for the children on the ground that the attorney had acted as the mother's guardian ad litem when the mother was a minor, and that the court had improperly admitted into evidence social studies submitted by the Department of Children and Families because the social studies consisted of hearsay and were not ordered by the court in accordance with the applicable statutes (§§ 17a- 112 (j) and 45a-717). Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the respondent's motion to disqualify, as the mother failed to meet her burden of demon- strating that the proceedings in which the attorney served as the mother's guardian ad litem in 2005 were substantially related to the issues addressed in the 2019 termination of parental rights trial; rule 1.9 of the Rules of Professional Conduct was not implicated as the information received by an attorney acting as a guardian ad litem for a minor child was not subject to attorney-client confidentiality pursuant to the Judicial Branch's Code of Conduct for Counsel for the Minor Child and Guardian Ad Litem, the mother made only conclusory statements that the attorney for the minor child might divulge confidential information regarding the mother from the 2005 proceeding, the mother provided no record of the issues in the 2005 proceeding, and the material that might have been confidential in the 2005 proceeding was no longer confidential as the mother had addressed her earlier histo