YLD Event - Clubs & Cocktails

The Sandra Day O’Connor Award is given in honor of the retired Justice of the US Supreme Court, and first female Justice in history, who in retirement has made her mission highlighting the importance of legal civics education. Justice O’Connor was instrumental in establishing the award-winning website icivics.com which has been invaluable to educators teaching this critical subject matter. The award will go to the person or persons who have significantly advanced the teaching of legal civics in Oklahoma schools. This year’s award goes to the 2022 TCBA Street Law Committee.

TCBA President Kara Vincent gathered some YLD attorneys and the chairs of multiple TCBA committees to discuss how we can expose more middle school and high school students to the profession of law. Two young attorneys mentioned the Street Law program and their positive experiences with the program through other connections we found a group of students to start a pilot program.

The Street Law program and content was designed using current research and best practices in the fields of civic education, youth development, teacher professional development, and democracy education. Since its inception in 1972, Street Law has been providing legal community partnership program to teach practical law to young people and adults who are most vulnerable to injustice. This program ensures that participants know their rights and build key life skills to help them advocate for themselves and their communities.

By utilizing the Street Law Legal Life Skills Program this committee has spent this Spring providing students from the Zone Academy “opportunities to develop the legal knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to live as informed, empowered, and civically- engaged community members”. Committee members include Rachel Baker,

and Tami Williams.