But to be young was very Heaven

This post is the first in a series by Executive Director and Co-Founder, Bob Schwartz. Over the coming months, Bob will reflect on Juvenile Law Center's four decades of advocacy work for children at risk. This year marks Juvenile Law Center's 40th anniversary, and we're looking forward to celebrating our past successes. However, this year is also about anticipating the next wave of threats to vulnerable youth and ensuring that children at risk have ample opportunity for success as adults.

In 1975, we began representing children in the Philadelphia region.  Marsha Levick, Judy Chomsky, Phil Margolis and I opened a walk-in legal clinic for children. It was the first such law office in the country. It wasn’t the easiest walk-in clinic to find—we were in a 9^th floor doctor’s office—but it was a start. 

We were counsel to victims of child abuse. We represented kids who ran from their homes. We were counsel to truants. We provided legal advice and representation to children with Social Security problems; adoptees; children whose parents were in the midst of divorce; and children charged with crimes, in juvenile court, and in criminal court. 

We represented children with mental health needs, special education students, and students who were the subject of school discipline. We litigated over conditions in juvenile facilities and over the way child welfare systems treated foster children. We took on any case that came our way. 

In 1976 we hired a psychiatric social worker, Gloria Moses. We were among the pioneers of a multi-disciplinary approach to representing children.

Although Juvenile Law Center attorneys quickly became experts in a new field, we had an underwhelming business plan: we represented children who couldn’t pay, and we represented too many of them in too many varied circumstances. 

We needed to reinvent ourselves. Juvenile Law Center started a gradual transition from “retail” to “wholesale.” By 1990, more than half of our work involved policy reform—from litigation to legislative work to training lawyers and judges—that would have an impact on large numbers of children. We still kept some individual cases, mostly children in foster care. While it was tremendously satisfying, we came to realize that our distinctive competence lay in changing policies and practices for large numbers of children rather than representing one child at a time.

We also discovered that our experience and skills could be useful to colleagues and kids outside Pennsylvania. We expanded our geographic reach. And, we built a practice that increasingly focused on older youth who were involved with the foster care or justice systems. 

 It is gratifying to know that we occupy today a place in which we can shape American law, react to emerging issues, and help create movements. This blog series will tell the story of Juvenile Law Center’s 40-year odyssey.