Ounce of
Prevention
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Duncan Campbell launches project to help
at-risk youths while giving law students experience
The Portland girl had been shuttled to twelve different
foster homes and care facilities in just eighteen months.
Poor casework, thought one lawyer. But did the judge have
the authority to intervene? UO law students helped the
attorney find out-and helped a child in the process.
"It was a useful thing, because it made the judge very
comfortable telling the agency what to do," says Professor
Leslie Harris. "Now that memorandum is on the website
for anybody to use."
This is just one example of how the UO's Child Advocacy
Project promotes the welfare of children while giving
law students hands-on experience. The project started
in 2005, thanks to a $250,000 gift from Duncan Campbell,
the founder and chairman of the Campbell Group and founder
of Friends of the Children. The project pursues systemic
legal change to protect children's relationships with
nurturing adults.
"Nobody says they're against children," says Harris,
who is the project director. "But it's easy for children's
needs to get lost in complex cases because parents' lawyers
are obviously advocating for what those parents want,
which may not be consistent with what the child needs
and wants."
The project sponsors an annual conference, promotes
judicial reform, and provides much-needed help for child
advocacy lawyers. Each year, two or three law students
are chosen as Campbell Child Advocacy Fellows. They receive
stipends, conduct research, and organize projects.
"Kids are one of the most vulnerable segments of our
population," says Molly Allen '06, one of the program's
first fellows. "They're also probably the most malleable.
I think that child advocacy law is an opportunity to intervene
before kids become part of the welfare system or the criminal
justice system." Campbell agrees that early intervention
is crucial. "The legal system tells you to work at the
end of the spectrum historically," he says. "I'm trying
to take it to the earlier stages where they create rights
for children and the community gives them resources."
Campbell overcame a childhood of poverty and neglect,
thanks in part to positive adult role models. As a boy
growing up in Northeast Portland, he made a promise to
himself "to not lead the type of life my parents did (welfare,
alcohol, prison) and to be a loving, caring, and nurturing
parent to my children. And to help other children in similar
circumstances in life." He worked his way through college,
earning degrees in both business and law from the UO.
"Before I died, I wanted to change one child's life,"
says Campbell '66, J.D. '73. "Friends of the Children
does that, and fortunately it has grown to change more
than one-it has changed hundreds. But with the law school
you have broader policy issues, legal rights. As part
of a broader community, you have to do both. You have
a micro and a macro and that is why I have been interested
in the university and the law school."
"I am a believer in giving back," says Campbell. "I
feel very fortunate to be able to go to the UO and to
have the opportunity to go to a public school. I was fortunate
enough to have resources later, so I wanted to do something
for the university."
—Ed Dorsch
