I divided my summer between two placements: the Cherokee County Juvenile and Family Court and the Atlanta Legal Aid Society's Team Child Atlanta project. Between the two sites, I worked on a wide variety of challenging and engaging projects that have greatly enhanced my understanding of the child welfare system.

I spent three days each week at the Cherokee County Juvenile Court, where I assumed many of the responsibilities typically associated with a summer clerkship. The majority of my time was devoted to traditional legal research and writing assignments. Under the supervision of Presiding Judge Ellen McElyea and Judge John Sumner, I logged numerous hours on Lexis-Nexis, exploring a number of interesting and often perplexing questions. Subjects for memoranda covered a range of topics, arising from the delinquency, unruly, and deprivation cases under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court, as well as custody and visitation issues that were the province of the Family Court. During my first weeks in Cherokee County, I analyzed a recent Georgia Supreme Court case dealing with paternity and legitimation in custody disputes that affected two cases pending before the Judges. Initially, I addressed the specific factual circumstances presented by the cases at hand, and then provided a more general analysis of the current state of the law for wider use. Over the course of the summer, I completed several other memoranda, all of which allowed me to read and write on timely and specific issues before the Courts.

Judge Sumner and Judge McElyea told me from the start that they wanted me to feel fully integrated into the Court, and I certainly felt I was by the end of the summer. The Judges never failed to alert me whenever either had cases on their calendar that they believed I might find interesting. In fact, some of my most illuminating experiences came from my court observations. Because the Judges hear both juvenile and family law cases, in addition to some criminal family violence matters, I had occasion to glimpse a little of everything. Furthermore, the Judges were always willing to discuss the cases and answer my questions, which presented a rare and invaluable opportunity for me to understand the countless considerations that go into every decision a judge is called upon to make. Additionally, I sat in on a number of Judicial Citizen Panel Reviews and met with CASA's, children, parents, and foster parents.

One project was ongoing throughout the summer. As a number of counties across the state of Georgia have begun to implement visitation centers, the Juvenile Court sought to determine whether such a center would be feasible for Cherokee County. The Judges asked me to prepare a report presenting issues for their consideration that could be submitted at the conclusion of the internship. My first step was to read the manual produced by the Barton Clinic on community supervised visitation centers. The manual provided a comprehensive guide to starting a program and gave me a sense of the information I needed to garner to prepare my report. I then interviewed representatives from existing visitation centers to get a sense of the planning, implementation, and operation protocols that other sites had employed. This part of the process allowed me to meet a cross-section of individuals and organizations invested in reunification. I was very encouraged by the enthusiasm and commitment of the volunteers and social workers who had made other visitation centers quite successful. The culmination of my project was a site visit to a visitation center in Cobb County, where I spent an evening shadowing the volunteer coordinator and getting a sense of how an existing center operated. My final report detailed what I had learned from my interviews and site visit, and made suggestions for a community supervised visitation center in Cherokee County.

The remaining two days of each week, I worked in the downtown office of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society (ALAS) under the supervision of Beth Reimels, former Equal Justice Works Fellow and Director of the TeamChild Atlanta pilot project. The TeamChild model was conceived in Seattle and has since been successfully duplicated in several cities around the country. Using a holistic model of representation, TeamChild Atlanta provides legal advocacy for children who have been adjudicated delinquent or unruly by the Fulton County Juvenile Court. Beth, as the TeamChild attorney, works to address the needs of children that are typically beyond the purview of the court: special education, mental health, health care, and public benefits. While she acts as an advocate during civil proceedings, Beth also serves as a "coordinator," identifying other agencies and providers that interact with the child and establishing a team to ensure that the child's varied needs are met. The goal of the TeamChild project is to address the myriad factors causing the child to act out, thereby preventing further court involvement and allowing the child to remain in the community.

On my first day at ALAS, Beth gave me my two assignments, one of which involved research and writing on school discipline policies and the other on direct representation of a child client. The research project required me first to analyze Georgia's laws related to school discipline and then to survey other states' laws to determine how Georgia's might be improved. My final product was a paper that examined the state of Georgia's law and offered suggestions for improvement in policies.

My primary responsibility was handling a client file under Beth's supervision. When I arrived for my first day of work, Beth had just received a new case referral from the Fulton County Special Education Advocate. This file became my "baby" for the duration of my internship. I was responsible for conducting the initial screening interview to determine whether the client and her parents met ALAS' income requirements and to perform a basic intake. Following the screening interview, I reviewed the contents of the file and assessed what my goals and priorities should be. One of my most exciting jobs was to conduct a two-hour interview with the client at ALAS. Beth sat in on the meeting, but allowed me to conduct it almost entirely on my own. The process was a bit daunting, to say the least, but it provided an excellent opportunity to test my interviewing skills, interact with a client (instead of just a file!), and begin to understand the unique challenges the client's situation presented. Once the interview concluded, Beth and I had an opportunity to de-brief it and strategize about the case plan. My work on the case continued throughout the summer, and I learned a tremendous amount about education law from my experience with TeamChild.

I feel very fortunate to have had a summer filled with such incredible learning opportunities. All of my supervisors were eager to encourage my interests and to help me make the most of my internship. The combination of my experiences allowed me to interact with an array of individuals, agencies, and courts and to research and write on many timely and complex legal issues related to children and families.