Barton Center Staff Profiles
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Karen Worthington
Director, Barton Child Law & Policy CenterKaren Worthington joined the Emory Law faculty in March 2000 as director of the newly created Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic (now the Barton Center). She directs the activities of the Barton Center, supervises instructors, staff and students, and teaches child advocacy classes at the law school and other units of Emory.
During her ten-year tenure as Center Director, Ms. Worthington has also served as a senior fellow with the Center for Study of Law and Religion at Emory Law (2003-present), an affiliated faculty member of “Vulnerability and the Human Condition: An Interdisciplinary Initiative,” completed Emory University's first Academic Leadership Program class (2008-2009), and directed the Southern Juvenile Defender Center, a regional support center for attorneys and other professionals defending children accused of breaking the law (2001-2005). Ms. Worthington has authored and edited several publications about court-involved children, including the book What is Right for Children? The Competing Paradigms of Religion and Human Rights, co-edited with Martha Albertson Fineman. Ms Worthington has worked on children's issues at the local, state, national, and international level, and serves on several non-profit boards and collaborative advisory groups. She received the National Association of Counsel for Children Outstanding Legal Advocacy Award in 2009.
Ms. Worthington received her BA from Eckerd College and her JD from Emory University School of Law.
[Emory Law School Faculty Page] -
Barbara Bennett Woodhouse
L.Q.C. Lamar Professor of Law and Co-Director, Barton Child Law & Policy Center
Children's Rights, Family Law, Constitutional LawBarbara Bennett Woodhouse is among the nation's foremost experts on children's rights. She joined the Emory Law faculty in 2009 as the L.Q.C. Lamar Chair in Law and co-director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center. Her scholarship and teaching focus on child law, child welfare, comparative and international family law and constitutional law.
Professor Woodhouse has served as a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. At both schools she founded and directed multidisciplinary children's law centers. Prior to teaching, Professor Woodhouse was a litigator at the New York firm of Debevoise and Plimpton. Following law school, Professor Woodhouse clerked for the Honorable Abraham D. Sofaer of the Southern District of New York and, in OT '84, was law clerk to Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Woodhouse has published more than 60 articles and book chapters and her recent book from Princeton University Press, Hidden in Plain Sight: the Tragedy of Children's Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate, won the American Political Science Association's 2009 award for best book on Human Rights. She was named a Human Rights Hero by the ABA Journal on Human Rights in 2005. In 2008, she gave the David C. Baum Lecture on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights at University of Illinois. She was awarded a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in 2007-2008. Woodhouse is an editor of the Family Court Review and she was recently re-elected to a fourth term as a member of the Executive Council of the International Society for Family Law.
Professor Woodhouse received her BA from the University of the State of New York, earned her Diploma Superiore from the Universita' per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy, and received her JD from Columbia University Law School, where she served as notes and comments editor of the law review.
[Emory Law School Faculty Page] -
Randee J. Waldman
Director, Barton Juvenile Defender ClinicRandee Waldman came to Emory in 2006 as the Managing Attorney for the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic. She supervises law and social work students in their representation of young people charged with delinquent and status offenses, engages in policy work related to juvenile justice issues, and teaches a course in juvenile justice.
Ms. Waldman began her legal career as a litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. She then spent over five years as a Senior Attorney at Advocates for Children, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring quality and equal public education services for New York City's most vulnerable students. While at AFC, Ms. Waldman represented parents and students at all levels of administrative proceedings to obtain appropriate special education services for students with disabilities, represented students in student discipline cases, served as co-counsel in several impact litigation cases in federal court, and directed the pro bono and law student intern programs.
Ms. Waldman received her BA from Haverford College and her JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
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Kirsten Widner
Director of Policy and Advocacy, Barton Child Law & Policy CenterKirsten Widner directs the legislative and policy work of the Center, supervises students, and represents the Center in collaborative initiatives on the local, state, and national level.
After a successful career in business, Ms. Widner attended law school to pursue a career in child advocacy. During law school Ms. Widner represented both children and the child welfare agency through several internships in San Diego and Los Angeles. She gained policy insight and advocacy experience through her work in the University of San Diego's Center for Public Interest Law and Child Advocacy Institute. She was an editor of the San Diego Law Review, and her student Comment on a child welfare-related issue was published by the journal. Ms. Widner was also a member of her law school's national moot court team, winning a number of national honors, including Best Oralist in Capital University's 2007 Adoption and Child Advocacy Competition. She graduated from law school with honors, was awarded the Dean's Distinguished Service Award and the D'Angelo Outstanding Child Advocate Award, and was elected to the Order of the Barristers.
Ms. Widner came to the Barton Center as a post-graduate fellow in law in 2007. In January 2010 she was appointed Director of Policy and Advocacy. She is co-chair of the State Bar of Georgia Young Lawyers Division Juvenile Law Committee and is a recipient of the 2010 Award of Achievement for Outstanding Service to the Georgia YLD.
Ms. Widner received her BS from the University of San Francisco and her JD from the University of San Diego.
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Michele Papotto
Project Coordinator, Barton Child Law & Policy CenterMichele Papotto came to Emory University in 1998, where she was an administrative assistant at Emory College. She began working at the Emory University School of Law in 1999, as the executive assistant to the dean before joining the Barton Child Law & Policy Center in May, 2002. She is a member of the Staff Concerns Subcommittee for the President's Commission on the Status of Women. She also serves as the Administrator for the Lamar Inn of Court, the Emory chapter of the American Inns of Court.
Michele spent ten years as a public school music educator teaching kindergarten through sixth grade. She taught in New York for eight years before relocating to Georgia where she taught for two years in LaGrange, Georgia.
Ms. Papotto received her Bachelor of Music from Furman University and her Master of Arts in Music from Teachers College, Columbia University.
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Andrew Barclay
Founder & Advisory Board Chair, Barton Child Law & Policy Center
Volunteer Technical ConsultantAndy and his wife Michelle Barclay, in partnership with Emory's School of Law, founded and endowed the Barton Center to advocate for research-based policy and to encourage students from all disciplines into public-interest career paths.
Andy works as a full-time volunteer technical consultant, providing technological and statistical support to Georgia non-profit and governmental agencies. He has worked in computing for over twenty-five years, in both the for-profit and the public sectors. He has expertise in hardware and software engineering, high performance computing, digital signal processing, database design, data analysis, statistics, and public health. Andy retired from for-profit work in information technology in the late 1990s, and now spends nearly all of his time as a volunteer. He also serves on advisory groups and steering committees for non-profits and government agencies. Andy served for four years as the Chief Justice's appointee to the board of the Georgia Technology Authority. He currently serves on the board of Georgia's Governor's Office for Children and Families at the appointment of Governor Sonny Perdue.
Mr. Barclay holds masters degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from Stanford University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also completing a PhD in Biostatistics at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health.
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