“We thought we could use the law to help kids, to make sure their voices were heard when decisions were made about them.” -- Robert Schwartz, of the Juvenile Law Center
Robert Schwartz was fresh out of college in 1971 when he landed a job at a youth center that helped keep kids off the streets and out of trouble by providing structured activities.
It was a great position that gave him the chance to follow his passion to help troubled youths, he said. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.
“Kids set fire to the place about four or five months after I started,” he said.
It was an incident that could very well have crushed the idealism that drove the then-21-year-old Schwartz to public service. Rather than become jaded and angry, he remained determined to make a difference in the lives of young people.
Four years later and with a new law degree in hand, Schwartz joined with fellow Temple University Law School graduates Marsha Levick, Judith Chomsky and Philip Margolis to form the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, the nation’s first nonprofit public interest law firm to focus on the rights of juveniles.
Fast forward 35 years. Schwartz, 60, and Levick, 58, remain with the center, leading it as it tackles what many believe to be one of the worst juvenile justice scandals in the nation’s history in Luzerne County.
A judge last week dismissed the last of an estimated 6,500 juvenile cases handled by disgraced former judge Mark Ciavarella, the end result of an investigation prompted by legal action the JLC filed in 2008.
Its work in Luzerne County has brought national attention to the center. Schwartz, Levick and other attorneys have been interviewed by media outlets worldwide, including for a segment on the ABC News television program “20-20.”
But its efforts in Luzerne County make up only a fraction of the work the advocacy group has done in the past 3 ? decades.
The group is actively involved in numerous issues impacting juveniles, ranging from fighting for improvements in the child welfare system to challenging laws in some states that allow juveniles to be sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide crimes.
It also produces multiple publications relating to juvenile justice and child welfare issues that are used by attorneys, social service providers and judges nationwide, Levick said.
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