Top:
Students, families and volunteers celebrated the completion of this year's Judicial Youth Corps program on Aug. 16.
Bottom (from left to right):
Massachusetts Bar Foundation Executive Director Elizabeth Lynch, Massachusetts Bar Foundation President Jerry Cohen, Massachusetts Bar Association President Robert L. Holloway Jr. and Worcester Teacher James Rosseel.
Dozens of lawyers, judges and court personnel joined students
and their families to celebrate Judicial Youth Corps Appreciation
Day at the John Adams Courthouse on Aug. 16.
This year, 24 students from Boston and Worcester completed the
Supreme Judicial Court's Youth Corps (JYC) program, which gives
urban high school students an opportunity to experience the
judicial system and learn about the law through educational
sessions and hands-on internships in the courts. A mock trial and a
reception marked the culmination of this year's program.
The SJC first established the summer program in Boston in 1991.
The Massachusetts Bar Association has partnered with the SJC since
2007 to expand the program to Worcester.
Speaking on behalf of the MBA, President Robert L. Holloway Jr.
congratulated the students and thanked the volunteers and sponsors,
including the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, the primary sponsor of
the Worcester program, and attorney James Rosseel, who ran the
Worcester program.
"While our reception marks the end of this year's program, today
we also celebrate the future of our legal profession," said
Holloway. "Whether the young men and women of our program today go
on to become judges, lawyers, or clerks -- or whether they choose a
different career path -- we know their Judicial Youth Corps
experience has opened a lifetime appreciation of the law and its
processes."
Although SJC Chief Justice Roderick L. Ireland, a longtime
supporter of the JYC program, was unable to attend the reception,
attorney Gerald Howland, who ran the Boston program, said that
everyone just had to look at the chief justice's smile in the JYC
program photos that were displayed around the room to understand
Ireland's affinity for the program and its students.