"The Challenge of Representing Juvenile Delinquency Cases and Special Education Rights in Today's Courts System"

Show Guest: Shep Zibberman

According to Shep Zebberman, the biggest challenge in today's juvenile court system is trying to balance the numerous competing interests at play while obtaining the best possible outcome for youth. A delinquency case is essentially a criminal case where the accused was under the age of 18 at the time an offense was alleged to have been committed. Unlike Adult courts, the Juvenile system has rehabilitation as its primary goal.

So when Zebberman represents a minor who is accused of committing a crime, he or she may be 13 or 14 years old and may want something completely different then what the parents want because he or she is looking at the situation through the eyes of a 13 or 14 year old. In the context of a youth seeking educational rights, he or she may be refusing all kinds of benefits offered by the school district for a variety of reasons such as not wanting to change class schedules or not wanting to appear socially different.

Join us as Zebberman gives our audience a startling view into the decisions and pressures children at young ages are up against that at one time did not exist at this level, such as peer pressure to do drugs; pressure not to trust the "system" whether be the educational or judicial; and most alarming of all, pressure "not to succeed".