About the Committee

Mission

The Children’s Rights Litigation Committee is one of the more than 40 practice groups open to all members of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation. Joining the committee entitles a member to a number of benefits (see list below). The committee’s leadership is made up of experienced litigators from all over the country working to improve access to justice, engage pro bono lawyers, and improve outcomes for all children who come into contact with the legal system. As it works toward that vision, the committee exercises the unique ability to help local groups who are interested in starting or improving children’s legal programs.

In order to accomplish the goals of improving the quality of the legal representation of children and providing members with opportunities to learn and to lead, the committee provides its members with these benefits:

• Children’s Rights, a quarterly publication
• Online access to  Practice Points to assist you in your practice, which include our “Five Tips” Series.
• Opportunities for leadership in the development of children’s legal policy initiatives
• Training that includes webinars and online programs, (for example, the award-winning video Interviewing the Child Client)
  
• Opportunities to write for committee publications and participate in one or more active subcommittees

Whether you want to receive Children’s Rights, learn from and network with children’s lawyers from around the country, contribute to our programs and publications, or all of the above, join our committee. Section of Litigation members may join as many committees as they like at no charge.

Message from the Chairs

Thank you for visiting the Children’s Rights Litigation Committee website. The website aims to house many resources to assist you in your legal representation of children, whether you provide that representation full time or on a pro bono basis.

We have a number of toolkits which can be found on our homepage, including Sibling Relationships are Sacred: Benefits of Sibling Placement and Contact. These toolkits are meant to assist you in your litigation for children and youth. We also have a webpage with a variety of resources to assist children’s lawyers in addressing the workforce issues we have been seeing in the field. Those can be found here: The Future of Children’s Lawyering. We also regularly publish articles which can be found on our homepage, on a variety of different topics ranging from practical tips, to overviews of new laws, to descriptions of innovative programs as well as hot topics in children’s law. The committee also maintains a Directory of Children's Law Programs, a national state-by-state listing of children’s law centers, clinics and resource centers. If you know of a program that is not currently listed or needs to be updated, please contact our committee director, Catherine Krebs. Lastly, we publish the Fearless Children's Lawyer of the Month series which is a great place to learn about children’s lawyering as well as find some inspiration.

The hope is that these materials will support the legal community as we aim to elevate and improve the legal representation of children so please do take advantage of these resources and share them with your colleagues.

If you have ideas for resources, programs or articles, please contact us. We would love to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Currey Cook
Riya Shah
Kim Williams
Cochairs, Children's Rights Litigation Committee

Subcommittees

Our active subcommittees include:

Content Development/Editorial Board

This subcommittee provides the opportunity to assist in the development and dissemination of written content that highlights important developments in the law, practice, and sociology of representing children in our judicial system. Our content is distributed via the Committee webpage, our quarterly newsletter, and other publications that we solicit for publication. This group has quarterly phone calls to discuss topics, expert resources, and placement opportunities.

Advocacy: Right to Education

The Advocacy: Right to Education subcommittee provides a forum for lawyers working on the critical issues that impact the right to education for so many of our youth. Issues have included the school-to-prison pipeline, school push-out/zero tolerance, and other critical issues. Participation in this subcommittee provides the opportunity to work on important national initiatives, including the development of a model school code.

Advocacy: Right to Counsel

We have made great strides toward realizing a national right to quality legal counsel for all children who enter our judicial system, but there is much more to be accomplished. The Advocacy: Right to Counsel subcommittee brings lawyers together from across the country to continue this important work. The subcommittee’s current focus is the institution of a right to counsel for children in abuse and neglect cases. This subcommittee holds monthly strategy calls and has an active list serve for sharing developments and ideas in this rapidly developing area of law.

Please reach out to us to join a subcommittee or to suggest a new subcommittee.