Youth Summits
Lawyers Lead, Participate, and Support
Lawyers and bar associations offer valuable expertise and resources to youth summits
because of their unique relationship to justice in our society. Lawyers also serve as
important role-models of civic involvement. Aside from the development and direction that
bar associations and lawyers provided in the programs below, lawyers and their
associations aid youth summits in a variety of capacities-as consultants on the
development of materials, as sponsors, as experts and speakers, or simply as facilitators.
The Wyoming Youth Summit is a striking example of what can be accomplished through the
collaboration of bar associations, law-related education programs, and students. The
Wyoming Bar Association and Foundation have cooperated with the Wyoming LRE Council to
develop highly effective youth summits that provide students from around Wyoming with an
opportunity to meet one another and explore ways to prevent violence. In the course of the
1995 Summit, for example, the 75 students attending decided that their state should pass
legislation to create teen courts. The students visited the state capital to make
presentations in support of teen courts to House and Senate Judiciary hearings. Their
lobbying was a success and teen court legislation passed in 1996. Subsequently, the state
bar association and the Wyoming LRE Council cooperated to create teen courts in four
Wyoming cities. The resources of the Wyoming Bar Association allowed the Law-Related
Education Council to develop a youth summit that will have lasting impact on the students
involved, as well as young people throughout the state-the future beneficiaries of the
teen courts created by the summit.
With a grant from the Lincoln National Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Young
Lawyers Division of the American Bar Association partnered with local organizations to
create "Youth Empowerment Summits" for middle and high school students in 22
cities. One such summit occurred in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in May of 1998.
A planning committee of six public school and two parochial school students developed a
format in which adult leaders planned the logistical aspects of the summit, while the
students were responsible for choosing topics. Three topics were chosen-teachers' strikes,
diversity, and "dangerous choices." The Young Lawyers invited a diverse group of
170 7th and 8th graders from public, private, and parochial schools in Allen County,
Indiana to attend. They developed a program using the Youth for Justice Youth Summit
Planning Guide. One session featured a television talk show format with a panel of
teachers, two student moderators, and the superintendent of the local school district, who
discussed a teachers' work slowdown and contract negotiations. In other sessions, students
presented skits on party/drinking scenarios, and local hospital resource people discussed
statistics on teen pregnancy and gun violence. The summit was so successful that the
schools involved put it on their next year's calendar and expected that it would become an
annual event.
For more information on these or other programs that involve lawyers directly in
law-related education, contact the ABA Division for
Public Education or call 312/988-5735.
>>OJJDP and Youth Summits
>>Lawyers Lead, Participate, and Support
>>Young People Across the U.S. Confront the Problems That
Affect Their Lives
>>Profiles: Addressing Concerns of Young Women; Solving
Problems in the Virtual World
>>Profile: The International Youth
Environmental Summit
>>A Closer Look at Exemplary Youth Summits: Delaware
>>A Closer Look at Exemplary Youth Summits:
Minnesota
>>A Closer Look at Exemplary Youth Summits: Oregon
>>A Closer Look at Exemplary Youth Summits: Illinois
>>Conclusion: The Future of Youth Summits; Best
Practices
>>Resources and Links
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