In the 1980's, owing to the demand for services beyond the North Shore and the dearth of programs providing legal assistance to children, the agency took on some statewide functions and changed its name to the Children's Law Center of Massachusetts (CLCM). The focus of the CLCM remained on direct legal services in education, child welfare and juvenile justice. 

In 1999 the Law Center underwent a major transformation: New management and staff were hired. Within a year thereafter, the Law Center, in collaboration with the then Youth Advocacy Project (YAP) of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, expanded its services to Boston by developing an education advocacy initiative, EdLaw. EdLaw remained a collaborative endeavor of the CLCM through 2018.

In addition, the agency began to supplement its direct services—still centered on education, child welfare and juvenile justice—with a policy/systems reform component that significantly expanded the Law Center's ability to ensure the equitable and effective treatment of children by state agencies. From 2008-2013, the CLCM also developed and ran an education advocacy initiative in Lawrence called the Greater Lawrence Education Project, which provided legal aid to Lawrence public school students in a range of education disputes. Due to funding cuts related to the Great Recession, the project had to close down after five years.

In 2009 the CLCM became aware of an emerging trend in which immigrant children, most unaccompanied minors from Central America, began to settle in Lynn and surrounding communities. These youth, victims of serious trauma, sought the assistance of the CLCM to prevent their removal from the US. They also required help in a number of related legal challenges, including education and family law/custody matters. The CLCM began to reallocate and devote resources to this emergency.

Thereafter, the numbers of immigrant children requiring assistance increased exponentially. New funding and new staff were secured to contend with the challenge. Eventually, the CLCM created the Immigrant Children’s Justice Project to centralize its holistic advocacy for this child population. It remains a critical component of the agency. The work on behalf of these clients continues to be one of two top priorities at CLCM.

In 2015, the CLCM, with the assistance of an Equal Justice Works fellowship, created a new collaborative education initiative, a medical-legal partnership (MLP) with the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH; now Massachusetts General Brigham)-Chelsea Community Health Center. It provides legal aid to children and youth in special education disputes, school discipline matters, enrollment, homelessness, and related issues. That two-year fellowship ended in 2017 but the MLP has managed to continue through a series of private funding endeavors.

In 2017, the CLCM hired its first advocate dedicated to serving child victims of crime. Funding for this effort derives from a grant from the Massachusetts Office of Victim Assistance, administered by the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation. The project, entitled Civil Legal Aid to Victims of Crime (CLAVC), provides assistance to children who have suffered various forms of violence, intimidation, threats or similar offensive action. In 2020, the CLAVC project added a second attorney and a paralegal.

The Lawrence education project was resurrected in 2017-18 as a result of a two-year Bart Gordon Fellowship (from Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation) and targeted fundraising from Lawrence individuals. The project, agan, was dedicated to minimizing educational inequities among children of color in the Mill City, one of the state’s poorest communities. Though the fellowship ended in 2019, the CLCM has continued its efforts to provide education advocacy in the city. COVID-19 has affected the delivery of such services, but the CLCM remains committred to this advocacy initiative.

2020 also brought other exciting changes to the CLCM. New, talented staff has set standards of quality at the agency. A new website is in process. And the agency has signed a lease for new, professional office space in Lynn that will set the stage for a return to the office following the debacle of the COVID-19 crisis.

That crisis has posed several new challenges to CLCM staff. Since March 2020, CLCM attorneys have not only continued their high-quality legal assistance to its hundreds of child clients under some difficult—mostly remote—circumstances, but have modified their advocacy to include efforts to assist clients and families secure financial assistance to offset rents, secure food, and obtain clothing and related staples. The CLCM’s COVID advocacy continues at this writing and will continue throughout the pendency of the crisis.

2020 also underscored the value of the vision of the CLCM’s original founders and succeeding staff and managers. The blend of direct and systemic legal advocacy long used to serve indigent and disabled child populations remains the most valuable form of legal aid to needy and traumatized children. It will no doubt serve as the CLCM’s advocacy model for years to come.

None of the above endeavors and legal assistance would have been possible without the gracious, general, and critical financial assistance of several funding entities over the years, including Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC), Cummings Foundation, Massachusetts and Boston Bar Foundations, United Way, Bank of America, Clowes Fund, Cabot Family Trust, Shaw Foundation, Eastern Bank, AW Dorr Foundation, Spinney-Mudge, and others. To date, thousands of private corporate and individual donors also have played key roles in advancing the mission and work of the CLCM.