Kristin Nicole Henning

Co-Director, Juvenile Justice Clinic, Professor of Law

B.A., Duke; J.D., Yale; LL.M., Georgetown

Areas of Expertise:

Clinical Education, Criminal Law and Procedure, Family Law

Professor Henning joined the faculty of the Georgetown Law Center in 1995 as a Stuart-Stiller Fellow in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinics. As a...

Professor Henning joined the faculty of the Georgetown Law Center in 1995 as a Stuart-Stiller Fellow in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinics. As a Fellow she represented adults and children in the D.C. Superior Court, while supervising law students in the Juvenile Justice Clinic. In 1997, Professor Henning joined the staff of the Public Defender Service (PDS) for the District of Columbia where she continued to represent clients and helped to organize a Juvenile Unit designed to meet the multi-disciplinary needs of children in the juvenile justice system. Professor Henning served as Lead Attorney for the Juvenile Unit from 1998 until she left the Public Defender Service to return to Georgetown in 2001. As lead attorney, she represented juveniles in serious cases, supervised and trained new PDS attorneys, and coordinated and conducted training for court-appointed attorneys representing juveniles.

Professor Henning has been active in local, regional and national juvenile justice reform, serving on the Board of the Mid-Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center, the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services Advisory Board and Oversight Committee, and on local D.C. Superior Court committees such as the Delinquency Working Group and the Family Court Training Committee. She has published a number of law review articles on the role of child’s counsel, the role of parents in delinquency cases, confidentiality in juvenile courts, and therapeutic jurisprudence in the juvenile justice system. She is currently writing about victims’ rights in juvenile court, parental consent in the Fourth Amendment context, and sexual abuse of juveniles in detention facilities among other projects. She is also a lead contributor to the Juvenile Law and Practice chapter of the District of Columbia Bar Practice Manual and has participated as an investigator in eight state assessments of the access to counsel and quality of representation for juveniles.

In 2005, Kris was selected as a Fellow in the Emerging Leaders Program of the Duke University Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Professor Henning also traveled to Liberia in 2006 and 2007 to aid the country in juvenile justice reform and was awarded the 2008 Shanara Gilbert Award by the Clinical Section of the Association of American Law Schools in May for her commitment to social justice on behalf of children, service to the cause of clinical legal education, and an interest in international legal education.

Recent Scholarship

Forthcoming Works and Works in Progress

Kristin Henning, Juvenile Defender Training Manual (D.C.: National Juvenile Defender Center & MacArthur Foundation’s Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network forthcoming).
Kristin Henning, Standards Relating to Dual-Jurisdiction and Crossover Youth, in Juvenile Justice Standards (D.C.: American Bar Association forthcoming).

Contributions to Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals

Kristin Henning, Criminalizing Normal Adolescent Behavior in Communities of Color: The Role of Prosecutors in Juvenile Justice Reform, 98 Cornell L. Rev. 383-461 (2013). [L] [W] [SSRN] [Gtown Law] [WWW]
Kristin Henning, Juvenile Justice After Graham v. Florida: Keeping Due Process, Autonomy, and Paternalism in Balance, 38 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol'y 17-51 (2012). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
Kristin Henning, The Fourth Amendment Rights of Children at Home: When Parental Authority Goes Too Far, 53 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 55-109 (2011). [HEIN] [L] [W] [SSRN] [Gtown Law] [WWW]

All Scholarship 2000 - Present

Forthcoming Works and Works in Progress

Kristin Henning, Juvenile Defender Training Manual (D.C.: National Juvenile Defender Center & MacArthur Foundation’s Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network forthcoming).
Kristin Henning, Standards Relating to Dual-Jurisdiction and Crossover Youth, in Juvenile Justice Standards (D.C.: American Bar Association forthcoming).

Contributions to Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals

Kristin Henning, Criminalizing Normal Adolescent Behavior in Communities of Color: The Role of Prosecutors in Juvenile Justice Reform, 98 Cornell L. Rev. 383-461 (2013). [L] [W] [SSRN] [Gtown Law] [WWW]
Kristin Henning, Juvenile Justice After Graham v. Florida: Keeping Due Process, Autonomy, and Paternalism in Balance, 38 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol'y 17-51 (2012). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
Kristin Henning, The Fourth Amendment Rights of Children at Home: When Parental Authority Goes Too Far, 53 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 55-109 (2011). [HEIN] [L] [W] [SSRN] [Gtown Law] [WWW]
Kristin Henning, Denial of the Child’s Right to Counsel, Voice, and Participation in Juvenile Delinquency Proceedings, Child Welfare, Sept./Oct. 2010, at 121-138.
Kristin Henning, What's Wrong with Victims' Rights in Juvenile Court?: Retributive Versus Rehabilitative Systems of Justice, 97 Cal. L. Rev. 1107-1170 (2009). [HEIN] [L] [W] [SSRN] [Gtown Law]
Kristin Henning, It Takes a Lawyer to Raise a Child?: Allocating Responsibilities Among Parents, Children, and Lawyers in Delinquency Cases, 6 Nev. L.J. 836-889 (2006). [HEIN] [L] [W] [Gtown Law]
Kristin Henning, Loyalty, Paternalism, and Rights: Client Counseling Theory and the Role of Child's Counsel in Delinquency Cases, 81 Notre Dame L. Rev. 245-324 (2005). [HEIN] [L] [W]
Kristin Henning, Eroding Confidentiality in Delinquency Proceedings: Should Schools and Public Housing Authorities Be Notified?, 79 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 520-611 (2004). [HEIN] [L] [W]

Book Chapters and Collected Works

Kristin Henning, Juvenile Law and Practice, in 1 The District of Columbia Practice Manual (Wash., D.C.: District of Columbia Bar Association 8th-17 ed. 1999-2008). [BOOK]
Kristin Henning, Defining the Lawyer-Self: Using Therapeutic Jurisprudence to Define the Lawyer's Role and Build Alliances that Aid the Child Client, in The Affective Assistance of Counsel: Practicing Law as a Healing Profession 411-446 (Marjorie A. Silver ed., Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press 2007). [BOOK]

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