About Membership
Membership in the Illinois Juvenile Defender Resource Center (JDRC) is open to any licensed attorneys who advocate for youth in the delinquency or criminal court system, including public defenders, panel attorneys, private counsel, pro bono counsel, and attorneys working with non-profits and law school clinics. Attorneys who are involved in any way, directly or indirectly, with law enforcement or prosecution activity, or who are judicial officers or court staff, are not eligible for JDRC membership.
As a member, you will have access to our document library. The document library is continuously under construction, with additional materials added as they become available. We'll notify you via the discussion forum as new documents are added. This library is intended to be a document sharing source, and it is our intention to solicit documents from members to add to the collective library.
As a member you will automatically be subscribed to our listserv. You have the choice whether you receive notification of messages/threads from the listserv via email, or solely by accessing the listserv/forum on the website. The default setting is that you only access the listserv from the website, but you can change your preferences to receive email notification. To change your settings, go to Profile (under your name in the upper right hand corner), scroll down to Forums, click on Forum General Preferences, and select notification by email.
The listserv will serve as a forum for attorneys throughout Illinois to pose questions or relay issues that are occurring in the field of juvenile justice. In order to comply with the rules of professional conduct, specificallly Rule 1.6 - confidentiality, we ask that any discussion of ongoing cases be couched as hypotheticals so as to maintain the confidentiality of the minor/client. At this time, in order to be sure that we are in compliance with Rule 1.6, the listserv will be moderated (any questions or announcements will be filtered through the staff of JDRC before being posted).
As a member you will also have access to our case law and legislative updates. These areas are intended to provide not only a factual summary of relevant legislation or case law, but also ideas about how to use the cases or legislation to the benefits of our clients.