Law Firm and Corporate Volunteers Gear Up to Empower Underserved Youths

This article describes a past program. See Street Law’s Legal Life Skills Programs to learn about our current work with vulnerable populations.

Our Youth in Transition program partners companies and law firms with young people who are transitioning into adulthood—with little help from family and community resources. Teams of volunteers teach homeless/runaway youths, young people aging out of foster care, LGBTQ youths, and other underserved youth populations about law and the legal system and develop in them the skills to use that knowledge to successfully transition into adulthood.

Street Law and its partners are preparing for a busy fall with Youth in Transition programs at the following sites:

Casa Central, Chicago, IL

Volunteers from various departments at Allstate will partner up with youths at Casa Central—the largest Hispanic social service agency in the Midwest.

Center on Halsted, Chicago, IL

Volunteers from Allstate’s law department will work with young adults who frequent the Center on Halsted, the Midwest’s most comprehensive community center dedicated to advancing community and securing the health and well-being of the LGBTQ people of Chicago.

La Casa Norte, Chicago, IL (new site!)

Lawyers and support staff from Verizon and the law firm of DLA Piper will teach youths at with La Casa Norte, which serves homeless families and youths by providing housing and other services.

This Youth in Transition site is supported by the Chicago Bar Foundation.

Lawrence Hall Youth Services, Chicago, IL

Volunteers from Allstate’s Staff Counsel Office will teach youths at Lawrence Hall Youth Services, a child welfare agency that assists at-risk youths and their families. Participating young people are part of Lawrence Hall’s Older Adolescent Program, which provides young adults with comprehensive services designed to meet their individual needs as they prepare to emancipate from the child welfare system.

San Diego Youth Services, San Diego, CA (new site!)

Volunteers from the law firm of DLA Piper, members of the San Diego Bar Association, and law students from California Western School of Law’s Institute for Criminal Defense Advocacy will work together to teach young adults served by San Diego Youth Services, a nationally recognized, comprehensive nonprofit organization that has helped stabilize the lives of more than a half-million young people and their families since 1970. This Youth in Transition site is funded by the Price Family Charitable Fund.

Somerset Home for Temporarily Displaced Children, Whitehouse Station, NJ

Volunteers from Merck will work with homeless youths at the Somerset Home, which provides a stable environment and supportive services to young people in order to help them become contributing members of society.