35 years ago, Children's Law Center, Inc. (CLC) opened its doors in Newport, KY. Our founder, Kim Tandy, created this unique organization to protect the rights of vulnerable youth – and with tremendous perseverance, knowledge, and vision, Kim led the organization for more than 28 years.
The initial concept behind CLC grew while Kim was still in law school. She was drawn to the idea of integrating her background in social work into her legal career. “By my last year [of law school] I started thinking, wouldn’t it be great to be able to still deal with children’s advocacy work, but do it through a legal service-type center?” Kim founded CLC when she graduated from Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1989.
Kim set out to serve children, teenagers, and young adults across the child welfare, education, juvenile justice, and criminal justice systems. Since its founding, CLC has served kids in each of these systems through direct legal representation, community education, and policy research and development.
Creating Impact at the Systems-Level
Kim feels that some of CLC’s best work has been around systemic issues. CLC identifies the places where systems break down by working directly with impacted youth. That’s part of what makes CLC unique. While there are many lawyers who represent youth (e.g., juvenile public defenders and for-hire private attorneys), few other organizations prioritize a specialized, multi-tiered approach to youth law that addresses the individual and the larger picture through policy and systems-level work. CLC has the infrastructure and ability to address systemic reforms—and, Kim says, that’s necessary to create sustainable improvements to better protect young people.
When asked about CLC’s role today, Kim believes the organization’s advocacy for improvements in child-facing systems remains imperative. “Every reform has setbacks, and there are still a lot of needs related to areas where we’ve previously litigated, such as within Ohio’s juvenile prison system,” Kim shares. “There’s a whole new wave of issues to deal with post-COVID with schools and the justice system. We’re still riding the coattails of that.” The recent investigative report about the condition of Ohio’s juvenile prisons and detention facilities only further emphasizes the continued need for systemic reform. (If you missed it, read CLC’s response to the report here.)
Empowering the Next Generation of Youth Advocates
Another highlight for Kim is the Northern Kentucky University Children’s Law Center Clinic, established in 2012 to improve CLC's services in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The Clinic, which is housed on the third floor of CLC’s headquarters in Covington, teaches law students to be strong advocates for children.
When Kim started CLC, children’s litigation “was often limited to mandatory court appointed counsel, and it wasn’t a specialized area.” The experiential opportunities offered to law students through the clinic were foundational in creating a generation of attorneys who had experience with and passion for advocating on behalf of kids. “I can’t tell you how many students—who I really do still keep up with—that have gone on to have wonderful careers as judges, attorneys who practices as public defenders, and attorneys who practice in juvenile settings.”
Then and Now: CLC 35 Years Later
From the beginning, CLC’s key focus was ensuring the rights of young people. “I still feel like the Law Center is the best place to do that through litigation, through advocacy, and by working to support grassroots efforts involving young people,” Kim says.
While child-facing systems have changed, the need for CLC’s services has not diminished since 1989. In fact, in many ways, the need has only grown.
As CLC begins its 35th year, we want to share our gratitude with Kim—not just for making the decision 35 years ago that set us on the path to helping thousands of young people in Kentucky, Ohio, and beyond—but for continuing to be an advocate for CLC to this day.
Kim Tandy has more than 3 decades’ experience as a lawyer defending the civil rights of children, youth, and adults in the justice system. She was the founder and Executive Director of the Children’s Law Center, Inc. in Covington, Kentucky for 28 years where she successfully litigated numerous class action civil rights cases on behalf of confined youth, or youth otherwise denied their constitutional rights. She has directed communications and policy initiatives around removing youth from adult court and adult facilities, ending solitary confinement practices, and stopping the “school to prison pipeline.” As the coordinator for the Central Juvenile Defender Center for nearly twenty years, she served as primary investigator and author of state juvenile defense assessments in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and Michigan, and has participated in twelve other state assessment teams for The Gault Center.
Kim has lectured across the country on numerous issues including conditions of confinement, improving juvenile defense, ethical considerations in representing child clients, ending the school to prison pipeline, access to the court issues, and other civil rights matters. She has received awards from the Gault Center, the American Bar Association, the IMPACT fund, and various state and local honors. She now serves as a consultant on a number of criminal and juvenile justice issues through Justice by Design LLC, and was appointed as a federal monitor by the United States District Court in Puerto Rico to monitor conditions in juvenile prisons there.
Kim Tandy is a graduate of Northern Kentucky University (NKU), where she received her B.S. in Social Work in 1978, and her J.D. from the NKU Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1989.