For Immediate Release
May 6, 2008

Media Contact:
Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9500

Prof. Kristin Henning

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Recognized as a rising star in clinical legal education and an advocate for juvenile justice reform, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Kristin Henning was presented the Margaret G. Shanara Gilbert Award from the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Clinical Legal Education in Tucson, Arizona, on May 5.

"Kris' commitment to her clients and juvenile justice issues is outstanding," said Randi Mandelbaum, Clinical Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law - Newark and co-chair of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education. "She has done an amazing amount in a relatively short time to promote and support clinical legal education and truly exemplifies all that this award stands for."

The Gilbert Award is given annually to an "emerging clinician" in legal education who demonstrates a commitment to social justice, particularly in the areas of race and the criminal justice system, a passion for providing legal services and access to justice to those most in need, service to the cause of clinical legal education and an interest in international clinical legal education.

Henning, who joined the Georgetown Law full-time faculty in 2004, is deputy director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic, one of 14 programs in Georgetown’s nationally recognized clinical education curriculum. She came to the Law Center in 1995 as a clinical fellow, representing adults and children in D.C. Superior Court and supervising law students in the Juvenile Justice Clinic. She returned to the Law Center as an adjunct professor from 1999-2001 and as a visiting associate professor from 2001-2004.

Henning is the author of several articles, including "What’s Wrong with Victims’ Rights in Juvenile Court: Retributive v. Rehabilitative Systems of Justice" (California Law Review, forthcoming), "Eroding Confidentiality in Delinquency Proceedings" (New York University Law Review, 2004), "Loyalty, Paternalism and Rights: Client Counseling Theory and the Role of Child’s Counsel in Delinquency Cases" (Notre Dame Law Review, 2005) and "It Takes a Lawyer to Raise a Child?: Allocating Responsibilities Among Parents, Lawyers and Children in the Juvenile Justice System" (Nevada Law Review, 2006). She is also the author of "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 (Carolina Academic Press, 2007).

Henning, who holds an LL.M. from Georgetown Law and a J.D. from Yale Law School, joined the staff of the D.C. Public Defender Service in 1997, where she continued to represent clients and helped to organize a unit designed to meet the needs of children in the juvenile justice system. She was the lead attorney for the Juvenile Unit from 1998 to 2001.

An advocate for juvenile justice reform on the local, regional, national and international levels, she has served on the Oversight Committee and the Advisory Committee of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, the board of directors for the Center for Children’s Law and Policy and the Mid-Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center, and the Family Court Training Committee and the Juvenile Working Group for D.C. Superior Court. She has also worked with the National Juvenile Defender Center investigating the quality of and access to representation for juveniles in eight states, including Florida, Illinois and Mississippi.

Henning was selected as a fellow of the Emerging Leaders program of the United States – Southern Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values for the 2006-2007 academic year. During the yearlong fellowship, Henning traveled to South Africa and engaged in a series of projects on ethics and accountability in public life, Western and African paradigms of leadership and strategies for personal renewal. In 2006 and 2007, she traveled to Liberia to assist in ABA Africa’s juvenile justice reform efforts, through the auspices of the American Bar Association and the U.N. Children’s Fund.

 

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