Therese Gray

Legal Services for Children

Legal Services for Children (LSC) is the Bay Area's leader in trauma-informed lawyering for children and youth. Founded in 1975, LSC is one of the first non-profit law firms in the nation dedicated to providing free legal and social work services to children. LSC serves over 1,000 youth each year, 98% of whom are children of color and 60% of whom speak primary languages other than English. At LSC the child is the client, and because each of them has experienced some form of trauma—often chronic, pervasive, and aggravated by extreme poverty and racism—the time they spend working with LSC is designed to be therapeutic. The clients we serve are undocumented immigrant youth, youth in foster care, youth who are being pushed out of school via broken school discipline systems, and youth in need of legal guardianships. With an attorney-social worker team model, LSC works to build their strengths, network of supports, and resiliency, so they can address the trauma, begin to heal, and continue their development on healthy, functional paths to adulthood.