Course Description: More than 50 years after the Supreme Court guaranteed youth the right to counsel and other due process protections in In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967), youth of color continue to face persistent injustices in the juvenile and criminal legal systems. Join the National Juvenile Defender Center's Sherika Shnider as she walks through training, resources, and information necessary to fight the over-policing, over-criminalization, and school exclusion of youth of color to help juvenile defenders view racial justice advocacy as an integral and essential component of their youth advocacy.
Course Instructor: Sherika Shnider joined NJDC as a Staff Attorney in August 2019 where she works on legal and policy initiatives related to juvenile defense, including reducing and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile legal system. Sherika is currently leading NJDC's Juvenile Cash Bail Reform efforts. She received her J.D. from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law where she was the recipient of the William P. Cunningham Award for exceptional achievement and service to the law school, as well as the Clinical Legal Education Association Outstanding Team Award for her representation of youth who were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and students in school disciplinary proceedings.