Fearless Children's Lawyer of the Month

    Every day, lawyers across the United States represent children in a variety of legal matters including education, child welfare, juvenile justice, and immigration cases. This representation is exceedingly challenging and mostly goes unrecognized. This series will celebrate work from advocacy that results in a system wide change to advocacy that improved the life of one child client. 

    The Children’s Rights Litigation Committee is launching the Fearless Children's Lawyer of the Month series to recognize and celebrate lawyers who accomplish remarkable results. To nominate a lawyer for this series, please contact cathy.krebs@americanbar.org.

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    September 2020—Abre' Conner

    “How do we make sure there is equity in the education system?” That is the question Abre' Conner puts forth. When in law school, Abre' was able to stop and take critical stock of some of her previous educational experiences. She looked back and saw too many times where an inequitable and inadequate education system failed her. Now, as a staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, she is the one students in the Central Valley of California can call for help and to make a change.

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    August 2020—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.

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    July 2020—Marion Donovan-Kaloust

    Marion (“Mickey”) Donovan-Kaloust is the directing attorney at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s Riverside, California, office. ImmDef defends immigrant communities against injustices in the immigration court system and is leading the fight for the right to counsel in deportation proceedings.

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    June 2020—Atteeyah Hollie

    Atteeyah Hollie is a senior attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights, whose mission is achieving equality, dignity, and justice for people impacted by the criminal legal system in the Deep South. She has litigated cases challenging the denial of the right to counsel for children and poor Georgians, illegally closed courtrooms, inhumane prison conditions, and the denial of utility services because of court debt and is a leader in the battle to end extreme sentences for nonviolent drug offenses in Georgia.

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    May 2020—Cristina Law Merriman

    For five years, Cristina Law Merriman has been a fearless lawyer at Chicago’s Lawndale Christian Legal Center, a unique organization that provides both minors and emerging adults with holistic, community-based legal services. The organization is based in the Lawndale community on Chicago’s Southwest side and works to meet the needs of justice-involved youth in order to keep them in the community with support, education, and employment instead of felony records or in prisons.

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    April 2020—Daniel Rosenberg

    Daniel Rosenberg is the senior attorney in the County of Imperial, California, area assigned to represent children who are victims of abuse and neglect and who are active in the juvenile dependency or foster care system. Representation is provided through a specialized child advocacy unit in the County Public Defender's Office.

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    March 2020—Claire Bazata

    Claire Bazata, our first Fearless Children's Lawyer of the Month, hails from a small town in Nebraska where her clients include youth and children for whom she is appointed counsel by the juvenile courts. Claire began her path toward child advocacy at Health and Human Services where she worked as an investigator and an ongoing caseworker for abuse and neglect cases. She has also worked in a group home for youth with developmental disabilities both doing direct care for youth and then also managing a group home.

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