Louisiana’s State Director of Juvenile Defender Services Takes Office June 16, 2008

Clay Walker – Director of Juvenile Defender Services

On June 16, 2008, Clay Walker will take office as the LAPDB Director of Juvenile Defender Services. Mr. Walker was born in New Orleans, LA and moved to Shreveport, LA in high school. He received a B.S in Psychology and English from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR in 1993. Mr. Walker received his J.D. from Northeastern School of Law (Boston, MA) in 1998 and was admitted to the Louisiana Bar in 1998.

Since beginning his practice in Louisiana, Mr. Walker has worked as an Associate Attorney at Walker & Lyons, LLP, specializing in cases of constitutional law, civil rights, criminal appeals and juvenile delinquency representation, handling a number of juvenile cases pro bono. In 2006, Mr. Walker began instruction on juvenile delinquency as an adjunct professor at Centenary College in Shreveport.

Mr. Walker has also been involved in a number of initiatives to improve the quality of juvenile defense in Caddo Parish. In 2006, he became a contract attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center Caddo Parish Special Education Juvenile Justice Initiative, spearheading litigation to interrupt the school-to-jail pipeline crisis for kids in Caddo Public Schools. He has also been integrally involved in the work of the MacArthur Foundation at their Caddo Parish site to support the evaluation and treatment of court-involved youth with mental health and substance abuse issues. Mr. Walker also represents one of the Jena 6 defendants from Jena, LA.

Mr. Walker is active on many boards and community committees. He is a member of the Louisiana Legislative Task Force on Legal Representation in Child Protection Cases, Louisiana State Bar Association Right to Counsel Committee, Office of Community Services, and Community Stakeholder Committee. Mr. Walker serves as an officer on the board of the Northwest Louisiana Criminal Defense Bar Association and co-chairs the Juvenile Justice Committee of the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

In 2006 he was awarded the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Pro Bono Publico Award and was named a Volunteers for Youth Justice (Shreveport) “Shining Star” in 2007.