Child welfare consultant Ed Cotton is switching teams.

Cotton, whose independent case reviews in 2006 highlighted the inadequacies of Clark County Family Services, has agreed to be an expert witness for the National Center for Youth Law.

The California-based group is suing Clark County and Nevada in federal court, alleging that child welfare agencies are jeopardizing the safety of minors in public custody.

When asked Thursday why he was going from performing contract work for the county to serving as a resource for an advocacy group, Cotton's reply was blunt.

"For a while, I thought that the reports would result in changes being made in Clark County, by Clark County," Cotton said. "I don't think that anymore. I think the commitment is more toward explaining the problems away rather than fixing them."

Cotton and his team of reviewers examined a sampling of 1,352 open cases within Family Services in 2006. Among the problems uncovered were inconsistent case documentation, a failure to investigate abuse and neglect in a timely fashion, poor caseworker training, lax supervision and a failure to visit regularly children involved in open cases.

Tom Morton, director of Clark County Family Services, said he had been told of Cotton's decision and was unsurprised by it. But Cotton's contract as a consultant does contain a confidentiality clause that may be used by county legal counsel to limit the scope of his testimony, Morton said.

Bill Grimm, senior attorney for the National Center for Youth Law, said he fully expected the county to try and block Cotton from serving as an expert witness for his organization.

"That's the county's track record," Grimm said. "They try not to let anything see the light of day because that will expose the nature and extent of the problem."

Grimm is seeking to have Cotton's reports on Clark County Family Services admitted as evidence in the center's federal court case.