About Us

Partnering with young people for justice, equity, and opportunity

Youth Represent stands alongside young people navigating the legal system and works with them to advance dignity, fairness, and real opportunity.

Our Mission

Building Power with Youth of Color

We use legal defense, policy advocacy and organizing, and community education to build power and expand opportunity for Black, Latiné, Indigenous, and other youth of color disproportionately and intentionally impacted by systems of oppression.

Our mission is simple: build power with young people most impacted by criminalization and remove the barriers that stand in their way.

Our Vision

A World Where Youth
Live Their Full Lives

We envision a world where the criminal legal system no longer limits young people’s futures and where Black, Latiné, Indigenous, and other youth of color have the freedom and power to thrive.

Our Values

What Guides Our WorK

We use legal defense, policy advocacy and organizing, and community education to build power and expand opportunity for Black, Latiné, Indigenous, and other youth of color disproportionately and intentionally impacted by systems of oppression.

Youth Driven

Creative

Courageous

Authentic

Our History

20 Years of Impact

Youth Represent began in 2006 with a simple but urgent truth: young people deserve full legal advocacy, not partial solutions.

As we represented youth facing employment discrimination, it became clear that job barriers were only one piece of a broader system limiting opportunity. We built Youth Represent to meet the full scope of those challenges.

From one attorney working at a borrowed desk to a citywide organization serving more than one thousand young people annually, working to pass ground-breaking legislation, and filing cases to hold power to account, our growth reflects both the need and our commitment to meet it.

 

Need Help?

Get Free Legal Support

If you’re a young person dealing with the criminal legal system, you don’t have to do it alone.

Support Our Work

Help Us Fight For Justice

From one borrowed desk is now a citywide movement building power for young people. Your support makes that possible.