law-related education
State Bar of Georgia Takes Active Role
in Law-Related Education
By Deborah C. Craytor
Director of Law-Related Education
State Bar of Georgia
W
hile Law Day provides an obvious opportunity for
attorneys to reach out to students about the legal
system, Law-Related Education (“LRE”) is a yearround activity of the State Bar of Georgia. In 2006, the State
Bar Georgia started the Journey Through Justice program,
which is a free, interactive, four-hour field trip for students
in grades 4-12. During the program’s inaugural year, about
2,000 students participated in 50 Journeys Through Justice.
After I was hired in February 2008 as the first full-time Director
of Law-Related Education, the number of students taking
part more than doubled. Attendance continues to blossom.
During the 2010-2011 bar year, attendance reached almost
11,000 students attending some 181 Journeys Through
Justice. This year, the program expects to see some 12,500
students over the course of more than 200 tours.
The program’s genesis is attributed to U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Anthony Kennedy who, during the dedication of the
State Bar’s new headquarters, imagined the many social and
educational possibilities of the new facility. With its dedicated
classroom, its fully functional courtroom, and its Museum
of Law, the State Bar’s headquarters held great promise,
particularly as an academy. The Journey Through Justice
program honors that promise.
Each Journey Through Justice program begins when a
teacher-docent portraying Edith Galt Wilson, President
Woodrow Wilson’s second wife, greets the students. (Wilson
practiced law on Marietta Street for about a year before
pursuing graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University to
become a teacher.) She leads the students on a tour of
President Wilson’s law office, which has been reproduced
in the lobby, complete with the original door, desk, and other
office furnishings.
Then an experienced attorney makes a presentation to
the students in the classroom. These presentations have
the additional benefit of offering a variety of law lessons
correlated to the Georgia Performance Standards, the
curriculum standards the Georgia Department of Education
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THE ATLANTA LAWYER
April 2012
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mandates for public schools. And because the lessons
focus on subjects that must be taught anyway, it is easier
for teachers to obtain administrator approval for the field trip.
After a sack lunch brought from home (the Bar provides
drinks), students proceed to the courtroom, where they put
on a scripted mock trial. They then tour the museum, which
includes walls devoted to famous U.S. and Georgia trials, the
civil rights movement, cruel and unusual punishment, and
the need for an independent judiciary. The tour concludes
with a 12-minute video called “Reel Justice,” a compilation
of 75 clips from movies about lawyers and the legal system.
For schools that cannot make the trip to the State Bar, the
LRE conducts a modified version of the Journey Through
Justice on the road. During a Journey Through Justice onthe-road visit, the program often reaches 400 to 600 students
in a single day. Local bar associations, law firms, and other
legal organizations sometime provide assistance to enable
students to make the trip to the State Bar’s building; for
example, Justice Served, Inc. donated $30,000 this year to
provide transportation assistance to schools traveling more
than 100 miles.
While Journey Through Justice is the most highly-publicized
component of the State Bar’s LRE effort, its LRE Program
offers a variety of other resources to Georgia teachers and
students. For example, conducting free teacher workshops
for teachers in grades K-12. During these sessions, teachers
learn strategies for teaching law-related information,
including the substantive information necessary to meet
the GPS and practical activities to use in the classroom.
The LRE Program issues an electronic newsletter, The
LRE Circuit, and, with the assistance of the Young Lawyers
Division’s LRE Committee, publishes a high school textbook,
An Introduction to Law in Georgia. The LRE Program makes
the newsletter, textbook, and a variety of lesson plans
available to all Georgia teachers through its website ]