Defenders!
Thank you all for making our first round of Youth Defender Forums a huge success! From East to West, we had such a great time meeting each one of you, learning about juvenile court in your area, and providing updates in juvenile delinquency law. The Youth Defender Forums exist to both help foster the youth defender community and to provide quality juvenile defense education statewide. We want to come to you and make sure our trainings are targeted towards your needs. We learned something different from each of our Forums and will use that to make our 2023 Youth Defender Forums even better.
We also want to give a special thanks to all our local presenters. One of the features of our Forums is uplifting the local juvenile defense community. All throughout the state, we have amazing attorneys who are committed to providing zealous representation to our young clients. We want to feature attorneys statewide and connect attorneys in the same area for brainstorming, questions, and support. Thank you very much to Assistant Public Defender Tim Henderson for presenting at our Western Youth Defender Forum, Assistant Public Defender Lyana Hunter for teaching at our Eastern Forum, and to Attorneys Starr Ward and Christon Halkiotis for presenting at our Central Forum. We are so grateful for your support and commitment to juvenile defense.
Also, a special thanks to all our sponsors. King Law based in Rutherfordton, NC helped provide snacks for our Western Forum. Strickland Agner Pittman provided lunch at our Eastern Forum. And although, we had to cancel our first planned Central Forum due to Hurricane Ian, we are grateful to Baked by Faison who provided cupcakes. Additionally, we are thankful to the NC Community College system for hosting us at Western Piedmont Community College, Lenoir Community College, and Randolph County Community College. Thank you all for making our Forums a success!
Our Youth Defenders Forums will be a foundation of OJD going forward. We will choose different regional locations each year, but we will plan to always have an Eastern, Central, and Western Youth Defender Forum. The content each year will be the same in each region as we want to ensure that we are bringing the trainings to you and fostering the juvenile defender community in your area. We are currently in the planning stages for our 2023 Forums but be on the lookout for more details soon!
Thank you all again for your hard work, dedication, and for making our youth defense system better. Below you’ll find some pictures from each of our Forums. Until we see you next year, consider checking out our Virtual Training Series which offers a CLE each month, our Materials for Defenders section of our website, and our Defender Portal which has defender specific resources to assist you in your cases (contact LaTobia Avent if you need the password). Again, we loved meeting all of you and hope to see you again at our Forums and other trainings.
From OJD!
