Our Mission: Taking Youth from Courtroom to Community

Youth Represent’s mission is to ensure that young people affected by the criminal justice system are afforded every opportunity to reclaim lives of dignity, self-fulfillment, and engagement in their communities.

Youth Represent utilizes a holistic, client-centered model of legal representation and advocacy for youth age 24 and under in New York City. We not only provide juvenile defender representation, we also address other legal issues that may stem from a young person’s involvement in the criminal justice system. Unlike other agencies, we define youth not by statute or jurisdiction, but by age. This enables us to cross jurisdictional boundaries by representing youth in both the family and adult criminal justice system.

A criminal accusation can bring other problems into the lives of youth and their families, even when there has been no conviction. Youth Represent addresses the impact of involvement with the criminal justice system and provides civil legal services in three key areas that are critical for future stability: housing, education, and employment. We provide representation when a client is denied employment, suspended from school, excluded from or denied public housing, or threatened with eviction due to court involvement.

Since all of Youth Represent’s lawyers are trained to provide both criminal defense and civil legal representation, each client is assigned only one attorney for representation in both the criminal case and other collateral legal issues that stem from their involvement in the criminal justice system. Because we have one lawyer assigned to each client, the broad knowledge each attorney gains about their client during a criminal case enables them to be more effective advocates in other areas when a client’s criminal record is an issue and facilitates an ongoing relationship with their young clients to ensure they receive the support they need. In addition, Youth Represent’s young clients are not referred to different attorneys or agencies as new issues arise. This allows staff attorneys to anticipate, not frantically respond to, new issues.