Melissa Carter

Executive Director

Melissa Carter joined the Emory Law faculty in December 2010 as the executive director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center. She directs the instructional and policy activities of the Child Law and Policy Center and the Juvenile Defender Clinic; supervises Center faculty, staff and students; and teaches related courses.

Prior to joining the law faculty, Carter served as the appointed state Child Advocate, leading the staff of the Office of the Child Advocate in the fulfillment of the executive agency’s statutory mandates to provide independent oversight of the child welfare system and coordination of activities related to child injury and fatality review and prevention. She has extensive experience in public administration and policy, having also worked for the state’s Court Improvement Project, a federally-funded program focused on improving the processing of civil child abuse and neglect cases in juvenile courts. Carter formerly practiced with the law firm of Claiborne, Outman and Surmay, PC, representing clients in adoption, assisted reproductive technology, and juvenile court deprivation (abuse and neglect) cases and was previously affiliated with Emory Law as Barton’s 2002 postgraduate fellow (now the Robin Nash Fellow).

Carter has published several articles on child welfare topics including child representation and federal regulatory schemes, has been involved with the drafting and passage of multiple pieces of state legislation, and is a frequent presenter on juvenile law topics to child welfare and juvenile court professionals. She was selected as a 2009 Marshall Memorial Fellow. Carter received her undergraduate degree in psychology and her law degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Michele Papotto

Program Coordinator

Michele 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 and Policy Center in May 2002. She has served as a member of the Staff Concerns Subcommittee for the President's Commission on the Status of Women. She also served as the Administrator for the Lamar Inn of Court, the Emory chapter of the American Inns of Court from 1999-2008. Papotto serves on the Citizen Review Panel of Gwinnett County.

Papotto 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.

Papotto received her Bachelor of Music from Furman University and her Master of Arts in Music from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Stephen Reba

Director, Appeal for Youth Clinic

Steve Reba joined the Barton Center in 2009 as the Ford and Harrison LLP Equal Justice Works Fellow in the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic. Reba directs the Appeal for Youth Clinic, which provides legal services to youth in foster care who are being tracked into the "school-to-prison pipeline."

Before coming to Emory, Reba served as a staff attorney for the Supreme Court of Georgia Committee on Justice for Children, a federally funded project aimed at improving the process for civil child abuse and neglect cases.  At Justice for Children, he managed the implementation of a juvenile court process system and was part of a case review effort to learn best practices for areas targeted in Georgia’s Child and Family Services Review.

Reba is a former Emory Summer Child Advocacy Program participant and was placed with the Barton Center in summer 2007. His interest in child welfare policy arose during an internship in 2006 with the Dekalb Child Advocacy Center. Prior to law school, Reba played professional baseball.

Reba received his B.A. in Communications from Clemson University and his J.D. from John Marshall Law School.

Kosha Tucker

2011-2012 Robin Nash Fellow

Kosha Tucker is the Robin Nash Fellow for the 2011-2012 academic year. As a postgraduate fellow, Tucker advises law students in the Center’s Policy and Legislative clinics, assists faculty with teaching the Child Welfare Law and Policy course, and researches and develops articles on child welfare and juvenile justice issues. Tucker also assists the Juvenile Defender and Appeal for Youth faculty with their delinquency cases.

Tucker graduated from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar. At NYU, Tucker gained direct representation and child advocacy skills in the Children’s Rights and Juvenile Defender Clinics. Through these clinics, Tucker served as an advocate for special needs students with Advocates for Children of New York and represented children in delinquency proceedings in Brooklyn Family Court with Brooklyn Legal Aid Society. Tucker also participated in the Emory Summer Child Advocacy Program as a legal intern at the Barton Child Law and Policy Center. Because of her efforts in and out of the classroom at NYU, Tucker was awarded the Gary E. Moncrieffe Award for her work in the area of Racism and the Law and the Ann Petluck Poses Prize in recognition of her outstanding work in a clinical course requiring student practice.

Education: Tucker received her B.A. in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and her J.D. from New York University.

Randee Waldman

Director, Juvenile Defender Clinic

Randee 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.

Waldman began her legal career as a litigation associate at Debevoise and 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, 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.

Waldman received her BA from Haverford College and her JD from the University of Chicago Law School.

Kirsten Widner

Director, Policy and Advocacy

Kirsten 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, Widner attended law school to pursue a career in child advocacy. During law school 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. 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.

Widner came to the Barton Center as a postgraduate 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.

Widner received her BS from the University of San Francisco and her JD from the University of San Diego.

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse

Senior Advisor for Curriculum and Postgraduate Studies

Barbara 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. She served as Co-Director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center from 2009 to 2011 and as Acting Director in fall 2010. She continues to serve as the Center’s Senior Advisor for Curriculum and Postgraduate Studies. Her scholarship and teaching focus on child law, child welfare, comparative and international family law, and constitutional law.

From 1988-2001, Woodhouse was a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder and co-director of its Center for Children’s Policy Practice and Research. In 2001, Woodhouse became the first David H. Levin Chair in Family Law at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law (she is currently the David H. Levin Chair Emeritus). She was founder and director of Levin College of Law’s Center on Children and Families.

Before entering the academy, Woodhouse was a litigator at the New York firm of Debevoise and Plimpton. During her academic career, she has participated in numerous appellate cases raising issues of adoption, custody, and juvenile justice and has authored or co-authored influential amicus briefs in many appellate courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. She is a member of the Bar of the State of New York and of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.

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 the 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 a past president of the Association of American Law Schools Family and Juvenile Law Section and has served since 2000 as a member of the Executive Council of the International Society for Family Law.

Woodhouse received her JD from Columbia University Law School in 1983 where she served as notes and comments editor of the law review. Following law school, she 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. Woodhouse received her bachelor’s degree from the University of the State of New York and earned her Diploma Superiore from the Universita’ per Stranieri in Perugia, Italy.