Children's Rights Litigation Committee | ABA Section of Litigation

The Children’s Rights Litigation Committee (formerly the Task Force on Children) was created by the Section of Litigation to address the vast underrepresentation of children in all aspects of the legal system. The Committee endeavors to increase the number of children’s legal projects and pro bono attorneys to represent children, along with providing training materials and programs in order to assist advocates in providing the highest quality of representation for children.

The Committee has the unique ability to help local groups who are interested in starting or improving children’s legal programs. We have a working group of nationally known children’s law practitioners who can assist groups interested in starting children’s law projects by providing organizational materials that serve as a blueprint for establishing the program and by providing the expertise of members to assist the groups in designing their plans to meet the specific needs of children in their communities.

Additionally, the Committee provides assistance in the recruitment and training of volunteers, including:

Helping projects share training materials.
Providing experts for training when possible.
Assisting projects’ outreach to potential volunteers through customized direct mailings (sorting the ABA membership list by zip code and practice area) and by publicizing trainings in ABA publications.
Recruiting volunteer attorneys at ABA conferences.

The Children’s Rights Litigation Committee sponsors programs at the Section's Annual and ABA Annual and Midyear Meetings to train attorneys in the representation of children and to disseminate information about the plight of children in the legal system. The Children’s Rights Litigation Committee also publishes a Directory of Pro Bono Children's Law Programs [PDF], presently in its fourth edition, which is a compilation of children’s law programs across the country.

If you have or know of a resource that would assist other children’s lawyers providing representation in education, immigration, delinquency, or child welfare matters, please consider sharing the resource through the committee’s website.

Looking for a lawyer for a child? Our committee cannot provide legal advice or referrals to lawyers, but findlegalhelp.org may put you in touch with a lawyer who may be able to assist you. Click here for more information.

Summit Highlights

Plenary sessions from Raising our Hands Summit

On October 23, 2009, 200 lawyers gathered at Raising our Hands: Creating a National Strategy for a Child’s Right to Counsel and Education. To view the dynamic plenary sessions from the summit, click on the below links:

» View Morning Plenary Session |

» View Lunch Keynote Address |

The School to Prison Pipeline: Is it a Human Rights violation?

At the summit on October 23, 2009, the Children’s Rights Litigation Committee sponsored an unprecedented event: a Socratic Dialogue—a forum that encompassed a round table discussion on the School-to-Prison Pipeline. The dialogue used fundamental human rights principles to incite critical thinking about the ethics and policies surrounding education, school pushout, the criminalization of student behaviors, and the need to enshrine education as a human right.

» View the Discussion |

The Education Subcommittee of the Children’s Rights Litigation Committee has formed a work group to explore the widespread and growing problem of “pushout,” and we welcome your participation.

» Learn More