Bruce A. Boyer
Bruce A. Boyer

It might not look it, but the small lounge on the 11th floor of Loyola University Chicago School of Law is one of the school’s most important spaces.

That’s because it is the site of Coffee Talk, a speaker series hosted by the Civitas ChildLaw Center.

Students gather on most Wednesdays to listen to prominent Chicagoans involved in legal issues facing city children.

“That’s the most inspirational part of a given week for me,” said 3L Rupa Ramadurai. “It’s a great networking opportunity and a great opportunity to be exposed to people who you want to be like when you graduate.”

It’s also a great place to recharge and refuel, students say.

Founded in 1993, the Civitas ChildLaw Center is a space on the school’s 11th floor that includes offices, lockers, the coffee talk space and the child law clinic that, Director Bruce A. Boyer said, “is a functioning law office within the law school.”

The clinic works with approximately 20 students per semester under the guidance of Boyer, Diane C. Geraghty and Stacey E. Platt.

“The basic idea is that (students) will be the ones chiefly responsible for every aspect of the representation of their child clients,” Boyer said. “They meet with the clients. They meet with others involved in the cases including parents, caseworkers, lawyers. They do research, case planning.”

Boyer, Geraghty and Platt are more than just instructors and supervisors. Since child law cases usually outlast any one student’s time at Loyola, each of those three attorneys is a thread running through any particular case.

Like the one Riya Shah, a 2005 graduate now employed at the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, worked on with Boyer in which a 17-year-old who suffered a traumatic brain injury after being shot.

She recalled traveling with Boyer to the rehabilitation center to visit their client.

“I was very struck by Bruce’s level of commitment and compassion for this young man who he had worked with for many years,” she said. “He told him he would be continuing to work on his case. It was very moving.”

Shah said her purpose there was to soak up the best practices of, in this case, Boyer.

“Obviously, he wanted to be there to talk with him but he wanted to use it as a learning opportunity so I could see how to talk to clients (and how to let) them participate in their own representation as much as possible,” she said.

Phillip A. Brigham learned similar lessons at Loyola. He joined the clinic while in the school’s LL.M. program on child and family law.

His favorite experience was telling a pair of preteen girls that their adoption was finalized. The adoptive parents asked Brigham to deliver the news because they thought the girls might not believe it unless it came from a lawyer.

“When they learned that it really was going to be over and finished, they were overjoyed,” said Brigham, who now works downtown in private practice.

Visiting also gave him a chance to share his own experiences — Brigham was adopted as a baby.

“I was able to talk to them about … how to address it when somebody starts to say something about how you were adopted,” Brigham said. “It really felt like I had done something important and significant, even though I know that the vast majority of the work came before me.”

Brigham’s interest in child law came in part from work he did at his alma mater Antioch College in Ohio where he worked as a community manager. He came to Loyola to continue his work with children and the law.

Ramadurai did too.

Before coming to Loyola, she taught English and intensive reading in Miami through Teach For America (TFA) while also earning her master’s in education and social change.

At first she wanted to work her way up in education, but her experiences in TFA combined with her experience earning her master’s gave her new perspective.

“I was feeling frustrated with strictly being an educator for my students,” she said. “I really wanted to explore options in educational reform work.”

A native of Hinsdale and Burr Ridge, Loyola appealed to her for the opportunity to return home and work in the ChildLaw Center as a fellow.

The defining experience for Ramadurai was learning about the intersection between the law and the juvenile justice system.

“Once a week we had the opportunity to go to the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center and work with a class of youth that were currently being held in detention,” she said. “It was like being a teacher all over again.”

Immediately she thought of her students in Miami, especially while dealing with a boy who’d been apprehended for robbery. His lone concern was missing school.

“So many people are quick to write off these kids as children who aren’t invested in their education,” she said. “Even the term ‘delinquent’ holds really negative connotations with it.

“Being able to see the connection between what my law degree could offer me as well as my experience as an educator bridged that connection that I needed to reaffirm my decision to come to law school.”

For student Victoria Carmona, that reaffirmation arrived in the form of a child-parent reunion.

A mother from Argentina had abducted her 5-year-old daughter from the girl’s father who had been raising the child alone for three years.

Along with Boyer and another student, Carmona represented the father.

“Working with the father in South America who didn’t speak English, it was very scary and stressful for him,” she said.

When the hearing began in July 2013, the father had not seen his daughter in eight months, a period that included her sixth birthday.

“At court, the father immediately started crying,” Carmona said. “There’s really nothing as his attorneys that we could say to comfort him.”

Only one person could do that — his daughter.

“During one of the breaks at the hearing, the daughter came out of one of the rooms,” Carmona said. “(She) saw him and got the biggest smile on her face. She immediately ran to the father ... and curled up in his lap in a big ball.”

Soon everyone was in tears — the girl, the father and the attorneys, including Carmona. She is still in touch with the father, who took the girl home shortly after the hearing.

“When you think of child law you think of DCFS; you think of social workers taking away kids from their parents,” she said. “But there also needs to be a focus on who these kids are and the people who really love them.”