Leadership and Impact in Child Advocacy
Karen J. Freedman is the founder and president of Lawyers For Children. A leading champion for children’s rights for more than forty years, Ms. Freedman has dedicated her career to ensuring that vulnerable children have a voice in the proceedings that directly impact their lives.
Since 1984, Lawyers For Children has made a difference in the lives of over 100,000 children and pioneered the advocacy model in which an attorney and social worker team represent every client. Under Ms. Freedman’s leadership, Lawyers For Children expanded free legal representation to all New York State children in foster care, and has achieved significant reforms in partnership with leading pro bono firms, including a successful civil rights class action lawsuit filed on behalf of every child in New York City’s foster care system, which set a national standard in child welfare litigation. The organization has won several other significant victories including ending the practice of separating children from parents who are victims of domestic violence; stopping the discharge of youth in foster care to homelessness; and curtailing the improper handcuffing of children in court. Ms. Freedman has also created innovative projects that have advanced the rights and visibility of LGBTQ youth, victims of sex trafficking, and immigrant youth.
Before establishing Lawyers For Children, Ms. Freedman was a law clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then served as a staff attorney with the Juvenile Rights Division of The Legal Aid Society. Ms. Freedman received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Wesleyan University and her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root Tilden Scholar and a Hays Civil Liberties Fellow.