History and Mission In July 1993, the ABA Presidential Working Group on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children and Their Families issued America's Children at Risk: A National Agenda for Legal Action, which exhorted lawyers to devote their skills to the legal needs of children and urged the provision of essential services for all families in need. The Steering Committee on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children was born from that working group. In the years that followed, it was charged with facilitating the ABA's efforts to implement the recommendations the publication and to develop and promote model legal programs that would strive to address the legal concerns of children and their families. The Steering Committee's primary role is to encourage, facilitate, and coordinate activities on behalf of children by ABA entities, state and local bar associations and their members, while promoting outreach by the organized bar to government officials and policy makers at all levels in order to address the ongoing problems that face our nation's most fragile group. The Steering Committee also cooperates with entities throughout the Association to develop policy, programs, and publications responding to the legal needs of children and their families; they coordinate efforts by ABA entities to enhance the ability of volunteer lawyers to work effectively on behalf of children and their families; and they study legal issues and make recommendations for addressing the unmet legal needs of children. In recent years, the Steering Committee has released several publications on issues such as adoption, advocacy and pro bono representation, and homelessness. They have co-sponsored conferences, programs and workshops on the concept of unified family courts, on pro bono opportunities, on improvements in the legal system's representation of children, and on school-based legal clinics. Every year at the ABA Annual Meeting, the Steering Committee brings together local child advocates, members of the legal profession, and ABA entities who work on children's issues for their Annual Children's Breakfast in order to talk about what has been done in the interest of children and what remains to be addressed, so that all children's lives will be improved. Three years ago, the Steering Committee began the work of writing an update to America's Children at Risk. In August 2001, ABA President, Martha Barnett, presented the Committee's landmark report, America's Children Still at Risk, to the press and to the nation. In the coming months, the Steering Committee will work to implement the report's recommendations by focusing on their mission to increase both the quantity and quality of advocacy that is necessary for addressing children's unmet legal needs.