| Learning to speak truth BY MELISSA LAUBERUMCONNECTION STAFF  Michael Johnson doesnt exist, but this summer he had some of the best young lawyers in the nation.
Johnson, a fictional character who allegedly shoplifted a shirt and claimed to be illegally detained by an equally fictitious clothing store, was the obsession of 32 youth who met each weekday morning for a month at Mount Vernon Place UMC in Washington, D.C. The youth were divided into four law firms as a part of the Justice Harry Blackman Summer Law College for Teens, sponsored by the Baltimore-Washington Conference Washington Lawyers Guild. Two firms worked for the defense, two were prosecutors in trials that were held July 28 and 29 in a very real courtroom in front of a judge.  While the courtroom experience was the highlight of the law college, the day-to-day learning that enabled the teen-agers to think like lawyers is what gave the experience value, said attorney Niiesha Butler, who led the program.
The lawyers ranged in age from 14 to 18, Butler said, but after four weeks, most of them sound like first year law students. Its an intense experience. Butlers daily lessons about such legal intricacies as how to proffer evidence or cross-examine a witness, were supplemented by presentations from several area lawyers and Bishop Felton Edwin May, who served as positive role models.  In addition to legal skills and advocacy, we taught them about professionalism, and about how to keep God at the head of their lives and about giving back to the community, Butler said.
At the beginning and end of each session, the young lawyers participated in devotions and prayer, said George Henderson, a Lawyers' Guild member who works at the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service. The Lawyers Guild is a ministry of attorneys who view their vocations as a way of serving God. It is important that the youth experience how their faith life can manifest itself in their work lives and when they are at work can be manifested in their relationship with God, Henderson said. Its all connected. To help students take the experience seriously, they were each given a $600 stipend. Kenneth Adams, 15, claims to be getting much more than money from the experience. I dont know if Ill be an attorney, but this makes me look at people and things differently. Ill definitely use this, he said. During a break from reviewing affidavits, Victor Moffitt and Victoria Eagles, who will both be attending college in the fall; Vikas Mouli, a junior at McDonogh School in Baltimore; and Britni Stinson, a United Methodist junior from Atlanta, continued to argue the merits of Michael Johnsons case. They all agree they could probably argue either side with equal conviction and said they have learned that not everything is as black and white as it seems. The world is a progression of gray areas, said Mouli. Were learning the law here, Stinson said. Were also learning to speak the truth. The law college is in its seventh year. In 2000, it was renamed after the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, a United Methodist who was a lay reader at Metropolitan Memorial UMC in Washington, D.C. Blackmun, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 24 years, is remembered as the son of a grocer who attended Harvard on a scholarship and drove a Volkswagon bug to work. At the law college that bears his name, many of the students have big dreams that now include the law. Who knows where theyll go after this, Butler said. Theyre all exceptional. | 
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