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Defense Clinic. The mixer provided an informal opportunity for people to interact and discussmutual interests.March 18-20, 2013, the Section co-sponsored the Georgia Association of Counsel forChildren’s Georgia Youth Law Conference which was held in Atlanta. One of the Section’sExecutive Committee members received the annual Children’s Defense Lawyer Award.The Georgia Legislative Session began January 14, 2013. Both prior to and during thesession the Section was involved in legislative activities. Several of the Section’s leadershipattended a formal two-hour Legislative Forum held as a part of the State Bar Mid-Year meeting.This forum provided an opportunity to both learn and advocate for the legislative agendaapproved by the Bar regarding to the Juvenile Code Re-write and other related legislation.During the session, many members of the section were actively and regularly involved incommittee hearings, both listening and testifying. Regular updates were posted on the SectionWeb Page, as well as through emails to the membership.The Section was privileged to be invited to be involved in pre-session legislative activityinitiated by the Military and Veterans Section regarding its proposal for support from the StateBar for passage of what may become a Uniform Act regarding emergency custody mattersinvolving parents about to be deployed abroad in the Armed Services. Several sections weighedin on the matter prior to the State Bar’s approval of supporting the legislation.The Legislative Issues Committee was regularly contacted by the State Bar lobbyists forcomments on legislation as it was introduced throughout the session. Through the ease ofemails, the Section was able to respond promptly to inquiries. Because of the diversity of themembership, we were not always able to reach consensus on matters, but were able to providewhat we understand was valuable information for the lobbyists to consider and to raise as issuesof concern.In February, the Section co-sponsored with Voices for Georgia’s Children’s a LegislativeForum, which honored the members of the Special Council for Criminal Justice Reform. Manymembers of the section attended the Legislative Forum and were able to have meaningfulconversations with the attendees who were, in addition to the Special Council members and theGovernor, other legislators, child-serving agency representatives, lobbyists, policy-makers, andother members of the community who deal with children and children’s issues.The legislative session was highlighted by passage of the Juvenile Code Re-write bill, HR242, which passed both the House and the Senate by a unanimous vote. Many of the members ofthe Section had been working on this project for six years and are continuing to work on theissues with respect to implementation and training. Many Section members attended theGovernor’s signing of the bill at the Dalton Youth Development Center on May 2, 2013.204