Page 264 - 2024 Orientation Manual

trainings requested by Legal Services Organization and trainings for new solos in the LIFT Legal
Incubator and Accelerator Program

Louisiana Justice Community Conference
Every fall, the LSBA’s Access to Justice Department hosts the Louisiana Justice Community
Conference. This is typically a two-day in-person event that provides civil legal aid attorneys 9.0
hours of relevant CLE training and networking opportunities with the Louisiana access to justice
community. During the pandemic, the conference was held virtually to support social distancing
and at the request of attendees. In lieu of the conference last year, the ATJ Program hosted the
Disaster Law Summit with training designed for disaster response and legal aid communities. This
year, ATJ will bring back the in-person LJCC in Baton Rouge. In addition to substantive law,
professionalism, ethics, and technology training, the conference includes the CINC pre-
conference, the Pro Bono Subcommittee meeting, and the Louisiana Civil Legal Aid Awards.

Louisiana Civil Legal Aid Awards
In 2015, the LSBA introduced two new awards at the Louisiana Justice Community
Conference recognizing excellence and ingenuity in the civil justice community. The Legal
Service Excellence in Advocacy Award recognizes an individual advocate who has
displayed the highest levels of dedication, passion, and professionalism in representing
vulnerable clients. The Legal Service Innovation Award recognizes an individual attorney
or organization that has developed an innovative program or service that effectively meets
the legal needs of vulnerable populations in Louisiana. To learn more about the awards and
past recipients, visit this link.
Statewide Task Forces
The ATJ Department staffs six statewide substantive law task forces to provide practice area-
specific forums for discussion among civil legal aid and volunteer attorneys. The Task Forces
include Elder Law, Disaster Response, Family Law, Housing and Consumer Law, Public Benefits
Law, and Child in 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
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