Washington: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Juvenile Offender Matters (2003)

The primary goal of this study is to evaluate the quality of counsel defending children in Washington’s juvenile courts. Stakeholders from across the state were invited to participate in defining the objectives of WJJAP, including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, bar association leaders, university professors, social scientists, child welfare providers, civil legal service attorneys and others with experience in juvenile court.

Approximately 40 people attended the initial stakeholders meeting and discussed the goals of the project. Others provided input via email and telephone calls. The ABA set basic guidelines for the collection of data, and the stakeholders helped define the collection parameters. The decision was made to collect data in both face-to-face interviews and written surveys. With a goal of ensuring a representative mix of data, a variety of factors, including population size, income levels, racial statistics, geographic factors and diversity of types of public defense systems, were used to select six counties for site visits.