Freestyle and Freshfields lawyers are partnering to support adolescents facing criminal charges and/or in precarious life situations.
Berlin-based association for youth welfare Freestyle specialises in intensive educational care for children and young people in difficult situations like homelessness, prostitution or crime. Freestyle has around 160 social workers looking after about 400 young people and offers 190 places in communal individual flats.
Changing young lives
Freshfields lawyers represent young people under Freestyle’s care in criminal investigations and court proceedings as defence lawyers. We also support vulnerable witnesses, and provide legal and practical training to Freestyle staff to help them deal with the police and courts.
Our lawyers handle cases ranging from petty crime and fraud to serious violent offenses, both in and out of court. We also get involved early, including in preliminary arrests and searches. In sensitive cases, our lawyers have been court witnesses to support young victims of crime.
To prevent crisis situations, we have been developing materials and conducting workshops with educational professionals on topics like investigations, juvenile criminal proceedings and police searches in the context of residential youth care.
A proactive approach
Rather than address needs reactively, the programme aims to proactively close the gap between support from social workers (who often face legal uncertainty and cannot refuse to give evidence in Germany, even against their own clients) and legal advice from lawyers.
‘We are using existing resources in social work, adding the legal component to jointly work on de-marginalisation of young offenders and a holistic approach to preventing violence and crime,’ explains Freestyle’s Rebecca-Paulina Prausner, who conceptualised the pedagogical approach of the project and built Freestyle’s infrastructure.
Young offenders supported by Freestyle often have precarious living conditions, including homelessness and drug addictions, and encounters with the police and the justice system tend to be fraught. Delinquency and violence are symptoms of a lack of emotional support and feeling overwhelmed.
Bringing in a professional lawyer before trial (in a young offender’s interactions with the police, for example) helps structure support. Working with traumatised young people requires pedagogical skills so Freestyle workshops prepare Freshfields lawyers for these clients’ needs.
Building a relationship over several months means Freshfields lawyers gain a more complete understanding of clients’ circumstances. A constant flow of information between the state authorities, clients and social workers helps juvenile justice measures serve the social-emotional development and reintegration of young people.
Positive outcomes
Feedback has been very positive. Judges and prosecutors value our role as a single point of contact, and City of Berlin authorities have asked Freshfields to widen the project to include other youth welfare services. Freestyle staff find our help allows them to allocate more resources to social work, addressing the causes of delinquency.
Successes for clients have included minimising the impact of criminal proceedings for vulnerable witnesses, and helping a defendant understand how his crime affected the victim (thus avoiding a criminal record). In one instance we filed a brief that protected a client from the potentially retraumatising obligation to give evidence.
Evaluation of completed proceedings suggests that, where Freshfields is involved, sentences are less severe and more geared towards young people’s need for help. Young people get a second chance and find that the system does not have to be against them.
‘It’s great to see Freshfields’ engagement mirrors our own determination of not giving up on young people,’ says one of Freestyle’s social workers.
Berlin-based Principal Associate Marcel Michaelis says being part of the Freestyle project team provides a great opportunity to create positive impact, as well as grow as a lawyer. ‘We strengthen our skills in and out of court, and broaden our horizons as criminal defence attorneys. For young colleagues, the project is a chance for experience in court hearings. Most importantly, the project is helping our clients and fulfilling the firm’s social responsibility.’
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