Howard Davidson is 2009 CFLC Scholar in Residence

Tentative Schedule

Photograph: Howard Davidson.Howard Davidson, Director of the ABA Center for Children and the Law, will spend three days with Washburn Law students and faculty from March 11-13, 2009.

Mr. Davidson will present the Children and Family Law Center's Lunch and Learn Lecture on March 11. His presentation will be "Young Lawyers Making a Difference for Children."

He will speak to classes, meet with small groups of students, and conduct a faculty professional development presentation, "Thirty Years of Advancing the Cause for Children."

Mr. Davidson will also be the keynote speaker at the Children at Risk CLE, where he will present, "How Legal Advocacy Can Help Reduce Trauma Experienced by Abused and Neglected Children: Using the New Federal 'Fostering Connections' Law and Other Federal Statutes to Help."

More information about Howard Davidson

Howard Davidson has been actively involved with the legal aspects of child protection for over 33 years. He has directed the ABA Center on Children and the Law since its 1978 establishment. It provides extensive training, technical assistance, consulting, and publications for lawyers, child welfare agencies, juvenile (dependency) courts, and programs that provide legal representation in these cases.

He has chaired the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect and is a founding board member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He has authored many legal articles, book chapters, and other materials on child maltreatment and the law. In the 1970's he spent five years as a legal services attorney exclusively representing children in juvenile court and created the Children's Law Project at Greater Boston Legal Services, one of the country's first children's law centers. In 2006 Mr. Davidson was asked by ABA President, Karen Mathis, to help direct a new ABA Commission on Youth at Risk.

He was a member of the committee that drafted the ABA Standards for Lawyers Who Represent Children in Abuse and Neglect Cases (1996) and the ABA Standards for Lawyers Representing Children in Custody Cases (2003). He was one of the early voices alerting lawyers to the potential harm to children from observing domestic violence in the home. He has worked on children's issues and would like to see the United States ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child.