{"id":5395,"date":"2023-11-16T11:12:35","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T16:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/?page_id=461095"},"modified":"2025-12-01T18:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:19:12","slug":"jjc-50th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/experiential-learning\/clinics\/our-clinics\/juvenile-justice-clinic\/jjc-50th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"JJC 50th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cserendipity\u201d: Looking Back at the Clinic\u2019s Formation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Clinic\u2019s roots trace back to the first experiential course at Georgetown Law, the E. Barrett Prettyman Program, which started in 1960 as a fellowship for recent graduates devoted to providing representation to indigent clients in criminal cases. By 1971, other clinical programs at Georgetown had sprouted, including the Institute for Public Representation and a Criminal Justice Clinic that spun off from the Prettyman Fellowship Program. Two years later in 1973, former Georgetown Law Dean (then Professor) Judy Areen founded the Juvenile Justice Clinic and hired Professor Wally Mlyniec to serve as its first director.<\/p>\n

Professor Mlyniec, who still serves as Senior Counsel to the Clinic, is a Georgetown Law alumnus and was only a few years out of law school when Professor Areen hired him to be Georgetown Law\u2019s first full-time clinical instructor. As a student, he worked as an investigator with the Prettyman Program and the D.C. Public Defender and volunteered in the District of Columbia Juvenile Court helping the Court meet the mandates of the Supreme Court case of In re Gault<\/em>. Following his graduation, he worked for a Georgetown Law faculty member on a research project through which he represented many youth in delinquency cases. Professor Mlyniec initially agreed to work with Dean Areen\u2019s new juvenile defense clinic for two years, planning to leave to pursue a career as a public defender. Those two years turned into 50.<\/p>\n

\u201cSerendipity,\u201d Professor Mlyniec said. \u201cMy whole existence here is serendipitous.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of the Clinic\u2019s founding, providing lawyers for children charged with crime was a somewhat novel enterprise. It was only in 1967, following the Supreme Court case In re Gault<\/em>, that children received the right to have legal representation in delinquency cases. The legal system was still figuring out how to treat juvenile courts and Professor Mlyniec was asked to serve on the committee that revised the District of Columbia\u2019s juvenile court rules. Excellent legal defense was new in the juvenile court. Public Defenders and Clinic students were now advancing legal arguments that had never been heard in that court before to expand the rights of children in Washington<\/p>\n

Additionally, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the explosion of clinical teaching. Prior to that time, law was taught in accordance with the traditional academic institution model, with little opportunity for practical learning experiences. Professor Mlyniec and other clinical faculty at Georgetown and across the country were at the forefront of creating a distinct clinical pedagogy that merged theoretical knowledge with legal practice. These initial clinical faculty members began to unite yearly for conferences to develop and refine the pedagogy, review videotapes of each others\u2019 clinical teaching, and critique and improve their teaching methods. Over the years, Georgetown became a center for training teachers in the clinical method.<\/p>\n

Along with these conferences, the Clinic\u2019s own work shaped the development of its focus and teaching: unifying theory and practice. Initially, the Clinic hoped to handle not just juvenile delinquency and education cases, but any case involving a child that was brought to its door. Soon after its conception, Professor Mlyniec and Professor Areen, who helped run the Clinic for its first few years, realized that if they were going to be part of an academic institution rather than a legal aid office, they had to prioritize cases that provided a rich theoretical learning experience for students.<\/p>\n

For Professor Mlyniec, the most memorable of these early cases was a class action lawsuit brought with the Children\u2019s Defense Fund on behalf of handicapped children who were institutionalized without thorough assessment by the District\u2019s child welfare agencies. More than 400 children were in the group. While a small number of children had disabilities that required institutional help, most were placed in institutions for insufficient reasons and were capable of living with support in foster homes and group homes. Some could even be returned to their birth families. Ultimately, the city settled the case and agreed to have every institutionalized child reevaluated by independent professionals, who would determine whether institutionalization was necessary. If not, the children would be placed in family-like situations. Professor Mlyniec litigated the case and monitored the case post-settlement during which most of the children were removed from institutions and placed in foster families and group homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the one case I will remember for the rest of my life because it had such a wide impact. It affected not only members of the class, but also all of the kids that came after them. No longer could they just be labeled handicapped because of a bad assessment and then pushed out of the sight and never thought of again,\u201d Professor Mlyniec said. \u201cThat\u2019s the one that I\u2019ll remember forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Committing to Holistic Advocacy and Policy Reform<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By 2001, Professor Mlyniec became Associate Dean for Clinical and Public Interest Programs and his duties expanded. Georgetown appointed former fellow Kristin Henning, who had joined the staff of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and led its Juvenile Unit after her fellowship, as a visiting professor and Deputy Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic. Professor Henning was appointed to the full-time faculty after a few years and ultimately took on the Clinic\u2019s directorship when Professor Mlyniec stepped into the Senior Counsel role about 10 years ago. When she rejoined the Clinic team as a visiting professor, one thing she wanted to implement from her time with the Public Defender Service was a holistic approach to advocacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I talk about holistic advocacy, it\u2019s a recognition that the legal case, the delinquency case, is a critical foundation of the Clinic, but it is just a small portion of the kid\u2019s life, and so we need to take a more holistic approach,\u201d Professor Henning said. Bringing this approach to the Clinic involved hiring social work specialists as adjunct professors to provide insight on accessing mental health services, vocational opportunities, tutoring, and other support the children and their families need. Additionally, the Clinic hired an adjunct professor who specializes in education advocacy because so many of its young clients are referred to the juvenile legal system by their schools and because the judges care so much about its clients\u2019 school performance. Education advocates assist the Clinic in navigating this intertwined relationship and managing other factors such as educational deficits and school discipline.<\/p>\n

As Professor Henning stepped into her role as Clinic Director, this holistic advocacy grew to encompass other work within the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWitnessing the disruptive, harmful impact the juvenile legal system has on children\u2014especially Black and brown children\u2014makes it difficult to do the work without wanting to blow up the entire system,\u201d she said. To address these concerns, the Clinic has launched a number of racial justice initiatives, engaged in systemic reform, and brought on Professor Eduardo Ferrer, a former Clinic student, to assist with local policy reform. He now serves as Policy Director of the Clinic\u2019s Juvenile Justice Initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn thinking about my expectations for the Clinic, I realized that we, at an institution like Georgetown, have a responsibility to our city,\u201d Professor Henning said. \u201cWe have a responsibility to use our resources to effect change in the city.\u201d The Clinic\u2019s commitment to policy reform and engaging with local officials in city government and the juvenile delinquency system dates back to Professor Mlyniec\u2019s work forming juvenile court rules.<\/p>\n

Racial justice is now a central focus of the Clinic & Initiative\u2019s work. That focus was inspired, in part, by Professor Henning\u2019s concern that she has only represented four white clients in more than 25 years of representing children in D.C. Every other client she has served has been African American. The explicit and implicit biases that pervade the legal system present unique challenges in the juvenile legal system. For example, sociological studies show that people\u2014including police officers, judges, and prosecutors\u2014overestimate the age of Black children, which can lead to harsher treatment. Continuing effective advocacy while navigating these prejudices is one of the hardest tasks for Clinic students.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to change the narrative of the conversation to make sure everybody is seeing the strength and resilience of these kids and not just seeing the bad thing that they may have done,\u201d Professor Mlyniec said.<\/p>\n

Inspiring Perspective and Fostering Skills in Clinic Students<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Clinic participants are all third-year students who work as front-line defenders for children in delinquency cases. They go out in the field and to local detention facilities to interview and counsel clients. They litigate and argue Constitutional issues under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in court, through written and oral advocacy. They conduct fact investigation, cross-examine police officers and other witnesses in court hearings, and meet with their clients\u2019 families. In some semesters, Clinic students take cases to trial. In sum, they receive a thorough education in criminal litigation and change the lives of dozens of children yearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most rewarding part of the work is the relationships we develop with the clients we serve,\u201d Professor Henning said. \u201cAnother really rewarding piece, second only to our clients, is the fabulous relationship and mentoring that we share with our law students. I love watching our students evolve beautifully into excellent lawyers and advocates for children!\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Mlyniec echoed a similar sentiment, stating that the most rewarding part of the job is watching the students, from the first day of orientation until the end-of-year celebratory crab party, learn about the positive impact they can have on the world, one child at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have watched them develop to the point where they can be appointed to a new case and tell us how to proceed, as opposed to coming in our offices and asking, \u2018what should I do next?,\u2019\u201d he said. Clinic students also gain a deeper understanding of the realities of life for children who are poor people of color. They begin to learn things about themselves, as well as the way systems work, and frequently leave with a different perspective of how the world works.<\/p>\n

\u201cAside from the crab party, we have a last class where students just reflect on their work during the year,\u201d Professor Mlyniec said. \u201cWe get to see the confidence the students have developed and their maturity as young lawyers. We see students on the cusp of their careers who now know that they can do things they never thought they could do. All of those things develop in a relatively short time. It is both ennobling and humbling for Kris and me to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emerging as a National Leader for Juvenile Advocacy, Racial Justice, and Clinical Teaching<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Over the years, the Clinic\u2019s reach has expanded widely. While its main goal is still training students, Professors Henning and Ferrer now train attorneys from across the country in the practice of youth advocacy through various programs under the Juvenile Justice Initiative, which was established in 2015. The Initiative oversees the Youth Defender Advocacy Program Summer Academy through which 42 attorneys from across the nation are selected to come to Washington, D.C., for a week-long intensive training program focused on various issues specific to youth defense, hosted by Georgetown Law in partnership with the Gault Center. The Initiative also includes the Ambassadors for Racial Justice Program, a year-long program through which youth defenders complete capstone projects, such as hosting and leading trainings in their jurisdictions related to racial justice or driving legislative reform and campaigns involving juvenile justice stakeholders.<\/p>\n

Professor Henning trains youth defenders, prosecutors, judges, and other actors in the juvenile legal system, such as police officers and school officials, on topics ranging from implicit racial bias and trauma in adolescents. She hosts monthly webinars on racial justice advocacy, often in partnership with the Gault Center, which are available on the Clinic\u2019s webpage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Clinic\u2019s work has reached internationally, as well: Professor Mlyniec recently served as Co-Director of Georgetown\u2019s Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London, where he taught an international children\u2019s rights course to students from more than a dozen countries. Additionally, he has taught on clinical pedagogy at several international conferences of clinical teachers. Closer to home, his training course for Law Center clinical fellows has spread nationwide, as more than 200 former fellows now teach at law schools across the country.<\/p>\n

Professor Mlyniec credits the great support from Georgetown Law\u2019s deans for the success of the clinical programs. From Dean Paul Dean\u2014who served as dean of the Law Center from 1954-1969 and under which the Prettyman Program began\u2014to our current Dean Treanor, every dean has been supportive of clinical education and of bringing practice into the law school, he said. This support has shaped Georgetown Law into one of the nation\u2019s biggest public interest firms and the preeminent center for clinical teaching in the world.<\/p>\n

Looking Ahead and Celebrating 50 Years of Excellent Work<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Promoting racial justice will be a continuing theme moving forward in Clinic litigation, trainings, and scholarship. Looking ahead, Professor Henning expects there will be many new opportunities to educate the field and serve as expert witnesses and consultants on juvenile and criminal cases. Professor Ferrer leads a number of policy initiatives that are also a priority for the Clinic. Professor Ferrer engages in advocacy, organizing, and public education in the D.C. area to reduce the number of youth who enter the juvenile legal system and to improve services for those within it. For example, the Initiative has hosted the Every Student Every Day Coalition that aims to reduce school push out and create effective truancy interventions. Along with the racial justice and youth engagement work, other upcoming endeavors include a forthcoming book on clinical pedagogy by Professor Mlyniec.<\/p>\n

The Clinic\u2019s 50th anniversary celebration, \u201cLooking Back \u2014 Looking Forward,\u201d took place in D.C. on June 1, 2024. The reunion provided an opportunity for alumni to reconnect, reflect on the Clinic\u2019s evolution, and contemplate how the experience affected their careers. Additionally, alumni had the chance to learn about the new frontiers and policy issues in juvenile justice work and consider whether they might be able to engage in those issues in their own work. The Juvenile Justice Clinic reunited its family to commemorate the half-century of impactful work it has accomplished while serving the youth of D.C. and the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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