Lynn Vogan

Lynn Vogan is a staff attorney at the Youth Law Center in Des Moines, Iowa. The Youth Law Center represents children and youth in child welfare and delinquency proceedings in Polk County, Iowa, and is one of the leading child advocacy programs in the state of Iowa. In addition to Lynn’s work representing young people in a variety of kinds of cases, she also serves as the juvenile defense attorney in Polk County’s Girls’ Court Program, Too Good to Lose (TGTL).

Lynn loves the challenges of child advocacy and works tirelessly for her clients. She thinks that investing a lot of time early in the case, when she can help shape the narrative through investigation and negotiation, is critical. Recently, she was able to get a delinquency case dismissed and obtain a stipulated resolution in a child welfare case by interviewing key witnesses that helped the state think differently about her clients.

For Lynn, the best part of child advocacy is the relationships she builds with her clients. Nowhere is that more evident than her work in TGTL. In TGTL, young women have the opportunity to work with an all-women team of lawyers, juvenile court officers, judge, and other supportive professionals. The young women meet with their court team often, and the frequency of contact makes her clients even more likely to reach out when they have a problem or just need a little support during a rough time. The role of a defense attorney can be challenging in specialty court programs, but Lynn can switch adeptly from being a cooperative member of the team when appropriate, to filing a motion to suppress or arguing against a more restrictive placement when necessary. Each client knows she has their back. 

Lynn did not know she wanted to represent children in court when she went to law school at Drake University—she expected to work in business law after graduating from Northern Arizona University with an undergraduate degree in Hotel Management. But her career goals shifted when she participated in the Children’s Rights Clinic at Drake. Lynn had been a long-time employee with her local Boys and Girls Club in Arizona and was thrilled by the chance to use her new skills as a student attorney to help clients much like those she had met in her work. When she graduated, she accepted a position at the Youth Law Center and found a place where she could work on the cutting edge of child advocacy in Iowa. 

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