School: Harvard Law School

This summer, I was hired by the Barton Clinic at Emory Law School to work for ten weeks in the Emory Summer Child Advocacy Program at a placement in child advocacy. I interviewed at five possible placements, and I was chosen by Tammy Hardin, the court administrator in Catoosa County Juvenile Court, to work with her in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit's juvenile courts. After a week of training in child advocacy at Emory Law School in May, I moved up to East Ridge, Tennessee, from which I could commute to Catoosa County Courthouse in ten minutes or to Walker County Courthouse in less than an hour.

My summer was spent traveling through the circuit's juvenile courts and the agencies that the juvenile courts work with such as the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) and the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The circuit has four counties: Dade, Chattooga, Catoosa, and Walker, and there is a juvenile court in each of the four counties. Judge Poston and Assistant Judge Giglio are part-time juvenile judges in Catoosa County Juvenile Court. Judge Westbrook is the part-time juvenile judge in Chattooga County. Judge Henry is the full-time juvenile judge in Walker County. Judge Henry is the only full-time juvenile judge in the circuit, so he also presides over Dade County Juvenile Court. Dade County is a much smaller county than the others, and there is no need to have an extra juvenile judge who sits only in Dade County Juvenile Court. I spent much of my time throughout the summer in these courts.

I observed court in each of the four counties and under each judge, and I observed cases concerning traffic violations, juvenile delinquents, unruly children, temporary guardianships, and deprivation. There was a time when an intern could have acted as a guardian ad litem in juvenile court. Now a guardian ad litem has to have special training to serve in court. I did not have this training, but I settled for spending my court time meeting the people in court and getting to know what they did. I did not have the opportunity to do much work during court myself, but I still learned a surprising amount of information about court procedure, trials, and what attorneys do. I met and got to know the administrator for each juvenile court, the court reporters, and the deputies who sit in court. These people worked in the court regardless of what kind of case I was observing. In addition, there were certain attorneys who represented parents and/or children and there were volunteers who were trained to serve as guardians ad litem. These people also appeared in court for a number of different types of cases, and I got to know many of them well.

During traffic, unruly, and delinquency cases I would also see Aleks Jaqiella, the juvenile prosecutor, and Jennifer Nelson, the juvenile public defender, in court. These attorneys work with the Department of Juvenile Justice, which sends probate officers to court to work with the juveniles being charged with offenses. During deprivation or guardianship cases I would see Steve Ellis, the Special Assistant Attorney General for DFCS and several DFCS workers in court. Some children who have committed delinquent offenses or unruly offenses are also under the jurisdiction of the Department of Family and Children Services. For those children's cases, DFCS, the SAAG, the juvenile prosecutor, DJJ, and the juvenile defender would sometimes all be present. I learned quickly that a juvenile courtroom can become very crowded very fast. This was all the better for me, though, because it gave me more time to watch these people work together, learn from them, and ask them questions about their jobs.

My interactions with the people I met in court extended out of court as well. Tammy was often very busy organizing the court calendars and taking care of the various responsibilities of a juvenile court. I helped with office work such as filling out forms subpoenaing witnesses or giving notice to parties in a case. I also researched a few legal questions about new or complicated law for Tammy. For example, I spent a few afternoons researching the new voluntary paternity acknowledgement forms and I did some research on how to treat a temporary guardianship case that has been transferred from probate to juvenile court. In addition, I did some research and legal writing for Judge Henry. I wrote out two orders terminating parental rights, and through this experience I discovered how complex termination of parental rights really is (to illustrate: one of the orders ended up being approximately fifteen pages long and the other ended up being approximately six pages long, even though the parent had consented to having his rights terminated -- I had no idea there was that much to termination). Writing orders gave me a more comprehensive view of the legal capabilities of a juvenile court and what rules the juvenile judges are bound by when making their decisions, so I felt that those assignments from Judge Henry were especially helpful to me as an intern working in juvenile law.

In fact, I was very privileged to have the chance to get to know Judge Henry. He is very knowledgeable about juvenile law, and I spent a lot of time discussing the juvenile code with him. Among other topics, we discussed the standards necessary to call a child deprived and the requirements of termination of parental rights. At first it was particularly difficult for me to accept the long length of time it takes for a child to be taken from a deprived situation, but I talked with Judge Henry quite a bit about issues of notice, and throughout the summer I came to see the necessity of taking the proper and legal steps when it comes to taking a child from the home. Those steps prevent major legal problems from coming up after a case is supposed to be closed. I also had several conversations with Judge Henry and others in the juvenile courts about the problems of methamphetamine in this region. Many of the cases I saw in juvenile court were related to methamphetamine abuse, something that came as a shock to me. Coming from the suburbs of Michigan, where I hardly ever came into contact with anything even remotely drug-related, I had not expected drugs to be such a problem in a rural area. My internship was very enlightening in this way, and I feel that I gained quite an education in the problems facing juveniles and juvenile law in Georgia today.

Despite my research projects, I had a lot of time when there was no court. That gave me the opportunity to plan short field trips for myself to various places. I spent a day with Aleks Jaqiella in the District Attorney's Office and a day with Steve Ellis learning what a SAAG does. I spent time in the DJJ offices, learning about probation and follow-up meetings, and I spent time with Jennifer Nelson touring one of the short term treatment centers that delinquent children are sometimes committed to. I spent a day tagging along with DFCS workers who had home visits to attend to and I spent a day following the people at the Catoosa County Child Advocacy Center around and watching forensic interviews with them. I attended Citizen Panel Reviews, and I even attended an anger management therapy session one week.

Even after the time I spent with Tammy and Judge Henry, the research and writing projects I was given, and my field trips to DFCS and other places, I still had a lot of time on my hands, so I requested an extra project from the Barton Clinic. I was given the task of researching emancipation of minors and making recommendations for a new emancipation statute that may be introduced as part of the juvenile code re-write. I worked with Representative Mary Margaret Oliver on this project, researching the emancipation statutes of the fifty states and recommending language to tidy up a proposed emancipation statute. Later, I met with Representative Oliver to present my recommendations to Representative Mark Butler. This was my first real experience working with new legislation, and the project gave me a lot of insight into the process of proposing and advocating for particular legislation. Also, it kept me busy during my free time!

My internship made this a very valuable summer to me. It was especially helpful to me that the Barton Clinic supervised my internship. A few times during the summer I drove south to Atlanta to attend meetings for the Emory Summer Child Advocacy Program interns. We toured a neo-natal intensive care unit and we toured the Fulton County Child Advocacy Center. I also volunteered at the Celebration of Excellence through the Barton Clinic and I attended the mid-summer de-brief meeting for interns. Despite the drive to Atlanta, I feel that those meetings were part of what made my summer extremely worthwhile. They gave me a chance to connect my experiences with the experiences that other interns were having and they gave me a chance to meet and build relationships with other people who are working in child advocacy. Without the Barton Clinic, I would have felt that my internship was somewhat unsystematic, but the Barton Clinic's central focus on child advocacy in general gave me something to ground my experiences in. I am glad to have been a part of the Emory Summer Child Advocacy Program this summer of 2005, and I am sure this experience will stay with me long into the future. It will certainly have an affect on my future career plans, and I plan on staying in touch with the people I've met during my internship.