Who We Are

Founded in 1996, Children’s Law Center is now the largest legal services organization in the District of Columbia and the only one that provides comprehensive representation specifically on behalf of children.

Children's Law Center’s 70 person staff, together with hundreds of pro bono partners, directly represent 1,200 children and caregivers every year.  Children's Law Center takes the expertise and experience of representing so many children and advocates for system-wide changes that improve the lives of the tens of thousands of children living in the District.

To expand our capacity, Children's Law Center recruits, trains, and mentors volunteer attorneys from prominent local law firms enabling us to serve more children than our staff of attorneys could directly represent. Each year our pro bono partners donate millions of dollars worth of legal services.

We operate on the philosophy that children’s needs don’t fit into neat, easy, legal categories. Thus, we have expertise in many of the areas that affect children’s well-being … abuse and neglect, adoption, custody, guardianship, special education, school discipline, mental health, health care access, domestic violence, public benefits, housing conditions and delinquency. In addition to providing a comprehensive range of free legal services to children and their families, we are committed to sharing our expertise with the community, other professionals and policymakers through training and technical assistance. 

We are guided by the following values:

Holistic Representation … We take a holistic approach to meeting the needs of our clients. We focus on the whole person, not just the legal problem.

Impact ... We approach our work with a sense of urgency and make a big difference by taking small steps. We also focus on the long-term and understand that change can take time.

Creativity … We develop innovative solutions to the challenges we face.

Teamwork … We work with our clients, staff members and allies to meet our clients’ needs and to achieve our collective goals.

Tenacity … We don’t give up.

Respect … We nurture a collegial environment in which staff members have the support and flexibility they need. We value the diverse skills and experiences that our staff members bring to our work.