This article contributes to an underdeveloped discussion in the scientific and legal literature on Quebec youth protection law, particularly regarding the role, ethics and deontology of lawyers. It presents the results of a discourse analysis based on interviews with lawyers representing parents at the Youth Division, Court of Québec. It highlights the ethical and deontological questions of these practitioners. On the one hand, the context of the practice, characterized in part by the urgency of the procedures and the imbalance of resources between the parties, complicates strict compliance with the rules of professional conduct. Like their clients, the parents’ lawyers find themselves in an unequal balance of power vis-à-vis their colleagues who represent the Director of Youth Protection. The latter may take an adversarial approach to the debate; parents’ lawyers are often coerced to collaborate. On the other hand, the characteristics associated with parents give rise to impasses regarding the professional obligations of lawyers. They struggle to offer quality services to clients who do not meet the requirements nor availability for preparing the file and help their lawyer to help them. Lawyers find it difficult to communicate and be understood by underprivileged or immigrant clients; and, sometimes, to loyally defend parents who are often presumed to be at fault. From the discourse of the participants emerges the feeling of being caught between a rock and a hard place, between the hammer and the anvil.