This study creates a comprehensive picture of decisionmaking in care orders in administrative courts. Findings of the study show that oral hearings are more common when private party or parties have a legal adviser. Appeals are more common when a lawyer participates in the case. In this research there was a lawyer present in all cases where the application to take a child into care was dismissed. Reasons for the administrative court's decisions were more thorough if the private party had a lawyer, showing that the use of a legal adviser has influence on legal safety of the parties. The research evidence for this study includes documentary material of all care orders used in administrative courts in Finland between February and May of 2010; seven oral hearings were observed in administrative courts in cases where a child had been taken into care. Forty-one experts in the field of administrative procedure and child welfare were surveyed as were 4 families with a child taken into care were surveyed.