Page 261 - BOGManual_2023Orientation

Need of Care. Members of these groups also develop CLE programming to address topic-specific
poverty law training needs for the legal services and pro bono organizations.

Other LSBA Standing Committees staffed by the

Access to Justice Department

Children’s Law Committee, Co-Chairs Kellie Johnson and Kathleen Richey
The LSBA Children's Law Committee was established to provide a forum through which attorneys
and judges working with children can promote improvements and changes in the legal system
which benefits children, parents, and the professionals who serve these families. Over the past
several years, the Committee has emphasized the needs of youth in foster care and/or those
experiencing “Child in Need of Care” (CINC) proceedings. The Committee helped publish a
Special Edition of the Bar Journal, for the August/September 2022 edition, that focused on the
Committee’s most recent education work mentioned above such as, CINC related proceedings,
Trauma-Informed Lawyering, Special Education Services in Juvenile Facilities, and working with
Children in the Virtual World. Members are working on other articles to be published at later dates.

In January 2023, the Children’s Law Committee members co-hosted (along with LSPD Committee
and the Language Access Committee) a skills training session with students at LSU Law School’s
“Apprenticeship Week,” where students took turns practicing hypothetical interviews with people
with disabilities, children, and limited English proficiency clients.

Criminal Justice Committee, Co-Chairs Jean Faria and Barksdale Hortenstine, Vice-Chair
Norma Dubois
The mission of the Criminal Justice Committee is to recognize and address issues affecting the
Louisiana criminal justice system, provide a forum for discussion, and work with stakeholders to
develop programs and solutions for fair and effective administration of justice. Representing a
diverse group of stakeholders in the criminal justice system, the Committee brings together LSBA
members that include prosecutors, public and private defense attorneys, and judges.

For several years, the Committee has hosted a Summit in Baton Rouge to engage criminal justice
leaders from across the state in a series of highly interactive working group sessions that focus on
ways to address systemic issues including funding, incarceration rates, mental health, and
sentencing reform. Recommendations are often presented to the committee and bar leadership.

In 2012, the Committee worked with the Louisiana State Law Institute’s Expungement Reform
Task Force to bring stakeholders together and develop recommendations for a revised
expungement statute that would improve the process and make clearing criminal records available
for more people. In 2016, the committee created resources to assist private attorneys appointed in
criminal cases and increase transparency of the funding crisis in the criminal justice system. In
2017, the committee focused on the work of the Justice Reinvestment Task Force created under

12