From its inception, JLC sought to fill gaps in legal services for children and youth. JLC dedicated itself to listening to children’s voices and opinions, building the trust of their clients, and instilling in them a basis for trust in the systems that served them. JLC implemented a multi-disciplinary approach to the problems youth faced, "providing its clients with "adequate diagnostic work-ups and follow-though on placements and dispositions" in addition to quality legal representation. JLC took a "rights-based" approach to representing children and youth, exercising two core principles: coercive government intervention into their lives should be prevented, or limited to the degree necessary, to protect them (in a dependent child case) or the public (in a delinquency case); and when necessary, intervention should be accomplished in a fair manner, consistent with the due process of law.

JLC’s work in the late 1970’s focused on alleviating abusive conditions, including overcrowding, that youth suffered in institutional settings, and establishing alternative community placements (Santiago v. City of Philadelphia). JLC also addressed issues of transfer of children and youth from juvenile to adult court, and represented children and youth in child abuse and neglect cases, and in school discipline matters. In each of these arenas, JLC collaborated with other organizations, both legal and non-legal. By 1979, JLC's docket of more than 25 major cases set the stage for the next decade of work and the development of philosophies for change in the fields of juvenile justice and child welfare law.

In the 1980’s, JLC began to expand its funding sources and its geographic reach (officially changing its name from the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia to Juvenile Law Center to reflect that expansion). During the eighties, JLC refined its strategic themes--adding support for families and the coordination of services across child-serving systems (e.g., mental health, drug and alcohol, and education and special education services) as part of its effort to limit coercive government involvement in the lives of children and youth. JLC developed a range of non-litigation strategies to pursue its goals. It added media work, publications, training (of lawyers, judges, social workers and others who work with children and youth), and legislative efforts. JLC was often invited to testify and help shape legislation, both in Harrisburg and in Washington. Two of JLC’s publications had enormous impact on the systems that serve children and youth. Child Abuse and the Law and A Guide to Judicial Decisions Affecting Dependent Children: A Pennsylvania Judicial Deskbook became primary resources for judges, lawyers and lay people who worked with children and youth. JLC also published a bi-monthly newsletter, Children's Rights Chronicle, a forerunner to the information now posted on this website. By the end of the Eighties, Pennsylvania’s appellate courts were regularly citing JLC's publications in their opinions and JLC was receiving invitations to serve on advisory boards helping to develop policy on the wide range of issues regarding the health and welfare of the children and youth addressed in its seminal publications.

The 1980’s also saw JLC expanding the ways in which it used litigation to initiate change in the juvenile justice and child welfare fields. A federal class action law suit challenged Pennsylvania law and practice governing detention of youth charged with committing delinquent acts (Coleman v. Stanziani), and lead to the Coleman Standards. JLC also challenged Philadelphia’s aftercare probation system, reducing the caseload of probation officers from 150 to 25 and requiring compliance with Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission standards (T.B. v. Pennsylvania). At the same time JLC continued its ongoing individual representation of hundreds of dependent (abused, neglected or ungovernable) children using a multi-disciplinary approach, assigning a lawyer, social worker, and case manager to each case, a practice which would become the norm for representation. To close out the decade, in 1989, JLC, along with the ACLU, filed a suit against the city of Philadelphia seeking appointment of counsel for all children in dependency proceedings as guaranteed under state law (T.M v. City of Philadelphia).

Collaboration to advance the scope of its work became a mainstay of JLC’s planning. In 1988, JLC joined with the Education Law Center (ELC) and the Disabilities Law Project (DLP) to create a children's mental health project. By linking its work to that of ELC, DLP and, among others, the Mental Health Associations of Southeast Pennsylvania; Parents Involved Network; and Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), JLC was able to leverage its expertise and avoid duplicating the efforts of others. Collaborative efforts continue to be a critical foundation of JLC’s local, state and national reform initiatives.

In the 1990’s, JLC continued to seek out and develop new methods to reform public systems that serve children and youth in jeopardy. Mediation, executive searches, training, testimony before administrative and legislative bodies, and extensive service on task forces and committees, joined our litigation, publications and court reform efforts. In 1992, the Annie E. Casey Foundation supported the Juvenile Law Center, in conjunction with The Conservation Company, as we examined the feasibility of using debt financing to pay for the transitional costs associated with moving from institutional-based systems to community-based systems of care for children and youth adjudicated delinquent. The work resulted in the publication, Building Bridges, a guide to state and local governments in the financing and planning of system reform. JLC and The Conservation Company supplied technical assistance on financing issues to five U.S. cities that participated in the Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI). When the Initiative concluded its work at the end of the decade, JLC contributed a volume on promoting and sustaining detention reform to JDAI's multi-volume publication, Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform.

JLC also spent the 1990’s, pursuing its creative litigation strategies. JLC challenged the way the state implemented the funding formula that paid for services for delinquent and dependent children and youth (City of Philadelphia v. PA). The settlement required that Pennsylvania establish a "needs-based" budget process to ensure that the needs of at-risk children were met with a predictable and adequate funding source. In 1991 the General Assembly incorporated the "needs-based" budget requirement into Pennsylvania law, the first state legislature to do so. Other states have since followed suit. In the 90’s, JLC began to use its increasing national influence to organize "friends of the court" (amicus curiae) briefs in cases that would have a significant impact on issues central to JLC’s mission. JLC organized a national amicus curiae effort to prevent the trial in adult court of a nine-year-old accused of murder (Commonwealth v. Kocher) and helped lead the amicus effort when the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the issue of states' obligations to make "reasonable efforts" to serve abused and neglected children in their own homes. (Artist M. v. Suter).

With support from the William Penn Foundation, JLC and ELC continued to lead reform efforts in children's health issues. The two offices helped create and staff the Pennsylvania Children's Health Coalition. Both offices joined a host of public interest law offices, headed by The Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, in a lawsuit challenging the legality of Pennsylvania's system of providing health care to poor children and youth who were eligible for Medical Assistance. (Scott v. Snider). The Pew Charitable Trusts awarded JLC a grant to help coordinate and implement a five-agency effort to shape Pennsylvania's transition to managed care, furthering its health care work. A coalition, including JLC, ELC, DLP, Pennsylvania Health Law Project and Community Legal Services, worked for four years on the initiative. Many of the coalition’s priorities, including a definition of "medical necessity" which was one of the best in the nation, and a requirement that all children have access to a pediatrician as their primary care provider, were adopted. In the late 1990s, JLC trained hundreds of Pennsylvania social workers, administrators and foster parents in the workings of the new system. JLC also monitored the enrollment process for over 6,000 foster children in the custody of Philadelphia Department of Human Services. In early 2000, Smith Kline Beecham awarded JLC one of its prestigious Community Health IMPACT Awards for its efforts to ensure that foster children have access to health care.

JLC continued to advocate for expansion of family preservation services, conducting extensive research on the workings of the system throughout the state. JLC published a manual based on its investigations: Stories Behind the Statistics: Family Preservation Programs in Pennsylvania. JLC was also actively involved in initiating and planning a state-wide, DPW-sponsored, Family Preservation conference. JLC also helped launch Philadelphia Family Court's Reasonable Efforts Task Force. The Task Force, which included judges, court staff, City Councilpersons, city administrators, and child advocates, led to the creation of a new unit at Family Court to help distressed families. The Task Force also developed systems to expedite adoptions of children who had languished in long-term foster care.

In 1993, as the nation's mood toward juvenile offenders became more punitive, JLC participated in several national juvenile justice initiatives. Supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, JLC organized, with the ABA's Juvenile Justice Center and the National Association of Child Advocates, a HandsNet computer bulletin board aimed at providing reliable information on juvenile justice policy. The JLC-ABA-Youth Law Center coalition began a national initiative to increase the quality and quantity of counsel for delinquent youth. The coalition conducted the first comprehensive national survey of representation of delinquent youth, visited juvenile courts around the country, and at the end of 1995 published A CALL FOR JUSTICE: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings. The coalition assembled representatives of juvenile defender offices from each of the fifty states to begin developing the capacity of the juvenile defense bar. The first two Juvenile Defender Leadership Summits, held in Chicago in 1997 and 1998, trained attorneys in adolescent development, substantive law, and case load management. The Summits led to the creation of the National Juvenile Defender Center.

In 1996, JLC turned its attention to the link between education and juvenile justice. The Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute supported JLC and ELC in an effort to ensure that youth involved with the juvenile justice or adult criminal system were not denied educational opportunity. JLC and ELC worked to reduce referrals to juvenile court of students involved in school-based disciplinary matters, to improve the quality of education for children in the juvenile and criminal justice systems; and to make it easier for youth to return to school after being confined. That year, JLC and ELC filed a statewide class action lawsuit to challenge the denial of education to school age youth detained as "adults" in county prisons and jails. PDE agreed to direct school districts to provide basic and special education to most of the plaintiff class. (Brian B. v. PA Department of Education).

Continuing their earlier collaboration on the issue, JLC, ELC and DLP, worked throughout the decade to reduce institutionalization, and to improve conditions in institutions, of children and youth with disabilities. Supported by the Developmental Disabilities Planning Council, the three-agencies also trained advocates across the state to speak on behalf of parents and children with disabilities. In the late 1990s, JLC led the groups' critique of residential care regulations proposed by Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare. These activities significantly improved the regulations, which govern the care of children, including children with disabilities who are placed in a wide variety of residential programs across the state.

In the first seven years of the new century, JLC has expanded upon expertise gained since its inception in 1975. Two of its founding lawyers, Robert Schwartz and Marsha Levick, continue to lead the organization’s experienced legal team and staff. (link to our staff) With the advent of the Zubrow Fellowship, a new lawyer joins JLC each year for a two-year internship, supplementing our staff and training future lawyers to make significant contributions in the field. We continue to collaborate with partners both in Pennsylvania and throughout the country to move our efforts forward in a manner most productive and efficient for the reforms we seek to implement.

JLC continues to work to ensure that children and youth are treated fairly and do not end up, unnecessarily, in either the juvenile justice or child welfare systems and once in the systems, a smooth exit is afforded them, helping them to become productive adults. As a leader in the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative, JLC continues to make its expertise available to judges, lawyers, agency staff and advocates for children and youth throughout Pennsylvania and the nation. We continue to pursue the rights of youth through both direct and amicus curiae litigation efforts. Our initiatives in the areas of education, healthcare and housing, pursued by all of the means we, and those we collaborate with, have developed over three decades working in the field, continue to strive for the best outcomes for children and youth in jeopardy.