By SUSANNE BRENT
Special to Arizona Journal

Educating children about state laws, promoting safety in schools and providing legal assistance to low-income people are several of the ways the Arizona Bar Foundation fulfills its mission to help communities.

Created 20 years ago as the charitable arm of the State Bar of Arizona, the foundation provides legal help for the needy and offers instructional, law-centered programs for youth. The foundation is active throughout the state, and its funding comes from several sources, including the Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA), private donations and governmental grants As part of its goal to educate youth about laws that ailed their lives, the foundation last year unveiled a Web page, www.lawforkids.org. The sites redesign, however, should be ready by the beginning of the school year, according Jeff Schrade, the foundation's technical education coordinator. He said, "Some of the areas on the site are hard to get to and we will improve navigation."

The foundation's director of law-related education, Lynda Rando, said the page is a unique Web site dedicated to kids. "Before, this kind of information sat in a state book. It was hard to get legal information out in a good way to parents and kids," she said.

Rando said that since the site began, it has had more than 50,000 visitors, with an average age between 14 and 16. She said there's no other Web site like it in the United States "We get people writing and asking us, 'Do we have this in New Jersey or Pennsylvania?"

LawForKids.org is funded by a grant from the Arizona Supreme Court's Juvenile Justice Division. The idea for the site came in response to the court's request fir help. The court wanted an effective method to inform juveniles about laws and the consequences of breaking them.

"Arizona one of the toughest states on juveniles. The laws are strict," Rando said. "This site is a tool to keep kids out of trouble, like threats against teachers or staff in the schools It's not a funny thing to do that. Kids need to know they can be expelled and held liable."

Features of the site include first-person narratives written in a conversational style with youthful jargon. These real-life accounts vary from a teen-age girl sharing her fears about being sent to prison for brandishing a gun in a public place to a boys regrets at joy riding. After each narrative the law pertaining to the crime is

"We want kids to know that these things are very real, they happen every day and they can happen to you," Rando said, "Kids think it will never happen to them. We also want kids to know if they hang out with the wrong kind of people it can have a negative impact on them."

In addition, the site includes an opportunity to submit questions, and answers are posted at a later date. Questions vary from inquiries on the penalty for shoplifting to the consequences of being arrested for possession of marijuana. Information of a non-criminal nature, such as the legal age to obtain a driver's license or smoke cigarettes, is included as well.

The one complaint Rando has heard about the site comes from kids who want their questions answered immediately. But the process isn't fast. "A Lawyer is assigned promptly. But the kids don't understand that it takes time for attorneys to answer, she said. Sometimes, the answers are too lengthy or too one sided about an issue, and we take the time to edit them." She added, "We'd love to have more attorneys volunteer."

The site offers links to various organizations of interest to youth as well as parents and teachers. Rando said law forkids.org is undergoing revamping and will offer "a lot more interaction and more information on issues that affect kids, including public policies."

In other youth-related matters, the Arizona Bar Foundation recently announced it has received $135,000 from the Arizona Department of Education for an anti-school violence program. Beginning in the spring, the foundation will train 180 juvenile probation and law- enforcement officers in a K-12 curriculum that focuses on keeping schools safe.

"The message against violence has to start young," said Matt Silverman, director of communications for the Bar Foundation. "Kids need to know there are consequences to breaking laws."

He said the foundation plans to hire a full-time person to train groups of officers. Once officers are trained, they will go into schools and teach a program that promotes in Silverman's words, "basic life skills, respect for authority, how to resolve problems and not turn to violence."