Grace Bauer is Community Organizer, Advocate, and Director of the Lake Charles Chapter of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC). She first came to FFLIC as a parent in 2001 and right away became an instrumental member as she began recruiting new members, providing peer advocacy, leadership development and campaign organizing with parents of incarcerated children in the Lake Charles area. In October 2004, Bauer was hired with FFLIC to become the first parent staff member.

Prior to joining FFLIC, Bauer worked with Families Helping Families in Lake Charles, La. as Program Coordinator, There she advocated for children & families in a wide range of service systems, planned workshops and empowered families to successfully advocate for their children.

David L. Bell is the Chief Judge of Orleans Parish Juvenile Court. Judge Bell received his Juris Doctorate in 1995 from Southern University Law Center on a President’s Scholarship. In 1996 he established David L. Bell & Associates. As an attorney, he focused on legislative advocacy, family law, and criminal law matters. He was elected juvenile court judge in 2004 and became Chief Judge in 2005. With the support of his colleagues on the bench, the New Orleans City Council, and stakeholders across the system he is leading the juvenile justice reform efforts in New Orleans.

Norman Dorsen is the Stokes Professor of Law and Counselor to the President, New York University. He studied at Columbia, Harvard Law School, and the London School of Economics. In his first year out of law school, while performing military service, he assisted in fighting McCarthyism during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings. He then clerked for Chief Judge Magruder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for Justice John Marshall Harlan of the Supreme Court. After joining the NYU law faculty, Dorsen was active in the ACLU, becoming general counsel in 1969 and serving as president from 1976 to 1991. He argued several cases before the Supreme Court, including In re Gault, the leading juvenile justice case; Levy v. Louisiana, which first recognized the constitutional rights of nonmarital children; and U.S. v. Vuitch, the first abortion-rights case heard by the Court. Dorsen participated for the ACLU as amicus curiae in many cases, including the Gideon case, the Pentagon Papers case, the Nixon Tapes case, and Roe v. Wade.

He is the author or editor of 13 books, including three casebooks, and many articles. He was the founding president of the Society of American Law Teachers and the U.S. Association of Constitutional Law, and served as chair of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. In 1993-1994 he was the founder and first director of NYU Law School's Global Program. He also founded and served as editorial director of the International Journal of Constitutional Law.

Gerald Gault was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 to parents filled with love but with little means to support their family. In 1960 they ventured west toward California to provide what they hoped would be a brighter future and greater opportunities for the family. When their car broke down in Arizona and they could afford to go no further, little did they realize their son Gerald would change the course of history for all children in the United States.

Gerald woke up in his family’s mobile home on June 8, 1964, in Globe, Arizona to one of his first days of summer vacation. Not unlike many other 15 year olds, he found himself with one of his friends figuring out how to spend their time. These two adolescent boys were accused of making a lewd phone call to a female neighbor who in turn called the police to complain. After a series of events that did not include written notice, adherence to rules of evidence or an attorney for Gerald, he was ultimately sentenced to a secure institution until his 21st birthday.

Several weeks later, badly shaken, and still in shock over the loss of custody of their son, Gerald’s parents were determined to fight the case. They were referred to a volunteer attorney from the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Amelia Lewis. Although she had no prior experience in this area, she agreed to take Gerald’s case and worked hard to fight the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Amelia Lewis was appalled at the status of Gerald’s case. She found it inconceivable that a child could be incarcerated for a period of years in a secure institution without the benefit of counsel. Gerald’s parents could not afford an attorney to undo the injustice brought upon their son, and it was fortuitous that they met Lewis. She ultimately referred the case to Norman Dorsen, a law professor at the New York University School of Law and a champion of civil liberties and civil rights, who argued the case before the high court.

Gerald was in the military from 1969 to 1971, was married in 1972, and had his first child in 1973. He and his wife, Connie, decided that the military would provide a solid foundation for their growing family and he re-enlisted in 1973 and spent the next 18 years traveling with his two boys and his wife serving the United States. While in the army, Gerald earned a degree in Automotive Electronics and also has a degree in Computer Electronics. After retiring from the military in 1991, Gerald worked in the computer industry, until learning of an opportunity to run heavy equipment with the Operating Engineers Union, where he still works today.

Gerald is a devoted family man who has two sons and two grandchildren. He and his wife Connie will celebrate 35 years of marriage just 5 days after the 40th Anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in his case, In Re Gault. Had the Supreme Court come down differently in his case, Gerald would have had limited opportunity to become a productive and valuable member of society. During his successful military career Gerald learned a lot about discipline and respect, but at the state training school he learned only to be angry and to fight.

Gerald holds on to the dream of one day becoming a vocational education teacher.

Robert Listenbee serves as Chief of the Juvenile Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia and co-director of the Northeast Juvenile Defender Center. During the past five years, he has overseen significant enhancements to the Unit, which handles between 6,000 and 6,500 delinquency cases each year. During the last five years, the Juvenile Unit has been reconfigured to include a pre-trial attorney, a mental health/complex disposition attorney, a drug court attorney, a special education attorney, and a juvenile justice policy analyst.

Listenbee has served on and co-chaired numerous governmental committees, including the Subcommittee for Juvenile Justice for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System, the Disproportionate Minority Contact Committee of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and the Philadelphia Juvenile Treatment Court Team Planning Committee. He is also a Board Member of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth. He is an active member of the West Oak Lane Church of God where he serves on the Board of its Christian Academy.