Discovering Justice Information Session October 6th

Discovering Justice

Thursday, October 6th, from 3-4 pm in Room 301 students are invited to come learn about Discovering Justice and ways to get involved.

http://www.discoveringjustice.org/ Projects include:

· Children Discovering Justice: This program is designed for 1st and 2nd grade students to take a field trip to the courthouse and learn about how the legal system works. They first take a quick tour of the building, and then we bring them to a courtroom where they preside over their own case (usually an issue like a stolen teddy bear). Law students would volunteer to help these students formulate their arguments and generally oversee the case (though we have a staff member who will be leading the program). It typically lasts for about 40 minutes.

· Kids Courts and Citizenship: In this program, the students act as a jury while our volunteers take the roles as defense and prosecutor in a case. After hearing the arguments of the volunteers, the students deliberate and make a decision as a jury would. We are hoping to have attorneys for this since it is helpful for them to talk about what they do as a lawyer, but there may be some room for law students if they are particularly interested.

· Discovering the Bill of Rights: Here we recreate a famous case (typically Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District) and help the kids work through it from a legal perspective. Law students would be helpful in coaching smaller groups of kids to help them understand how trials take place and why the rights provided to us are so important.