One Teen Court volunteer writes:

I heard about Teen Court a while ago, maybe around 1999 or earlier, I don’t remember. There was an advertisement in the newspaper, my mommy told me about it. I was like “eww no, why would I want to do that.” She explained how there were teen attorneys and teen jurors and even teen defendants with a real judge. I still was like “eww.” So that topic quickly died down. The beginning of April 2002, I got into a fight with a girl and due to the seriousness of what happened and previous encounters of getting into trouble, I was kicked out of school and sent to Teen Court. I went through the whole process of being a defendant, being sentenced, and doing community service. It was a tough process, but I got through it. After I did my jury duties, I saw how the teen attorneys went about doing things. I then later realized that since I wanted to be a lawyer when I grow up that I could try doing this. So I signed up to go to a 2-day training, which shows you how to question defendants and the basic procedure of the court. The training is really fun. You get to interact with other teens and the instructors are real cool too especially Jenna (you’ll love her, but that is another story!). As soon as the training was over, I got to do my very first case. But don’t get too happy because you are just a shadow. After I shadowed my first case I got to pick between being a prosecutor or a defense attorney. Me personally, I like being a defense attorney. Now I am on my 14th teen court case since I got into trouble. Teen Court has helped me stay out of MAJOR trouble, I mean with me there is going to be minor trouble, but it has helped me get out of a lot of trouble. Teen Court is not just a place where you try people. The instructors are there to actually help you, when I got suspended from this year (2003) I talked to a former instructor about it and she told me how to ignore conflicts. Teen Court is also a place where you meet new people and a place where you experience new things. So after you finish reading this, I hope that you will decide to go to the training and become a teen attorney too. See you there!
-Britney