Partner
Partner
This past week our law firm welcomed over 400 students and parents for our 5th annual “Get Ready for High School (and college) Boot Camp”. I was proud to participate as one of the speakers along with my partner (and co-founder of the Boot Camp) Lara Baker, as well as our colleagues Mikhail Laskin and Mallory Revel. We have educated more than 1500 people at our annual Boot Camp on issues ranging from drugs/alcohol to school discipline, social media awareness to consensual physical contact. While this 2-hour seminar is neither intended to be legal advice, nor a magic bullet to instantly solve all issues associated with our kids, it is designed to open a dialogue between parent and child so that the “Wall of Silence” can come down and families can work together to discuss important issues. Our philosophy is simple: we want to imbue our students and parents with enough real information that they will think twice before making some bad decisions that can have life-long consequences.
Lara has been traveling the state for many years giving a similar seminar directly to parents and students at their community organizations, high schools, athletic teams and various other venues. She will continue to do this outreach to help parents and students understand the serious consequences associated with their actions. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is the perfect theme for our seminar. Our teenagers are facing the pressures of social issues, temptations and increased legal scrutiny far more intense than previous generations. We can stick our heads in the sand and cross our fingers hoping everything turns out OK, or we can take a more active approach. Don’t fear if you missed this year’s Boot Camp, it doesn’t take our Boot Camp to address these issues. Sit down with your teen and have a direct discussion about drugs/alcohol, sex and social media. Teens these days are bright, extremely savvy and will, in most cases, welcome the discussion. As long as it is done in a non-patronizing, non-judgmental way. If your teenager fears that this discussion could lead to punishment then they won’t be honest with you. Our Boot Camp rule is TOTAL IMMUNITY when discussing these topics. You must be willing to do this at home if you expect teenager participation.
Due to the demand for this seminar, we devote 4 nights to this important event and invest a lot of lawyer and staff time. We could not pull off such a monumental feat without the support and encouragement of the entire Foster, Graham, Milstein & Calisher, LLP law firm. We do this free of charge because we want to help our community and give back for all of the good things we have been provided. We will continue to do these seminars for the foreseeable future and we want to ensure everyone can participate. The best way to learn about future seminars is to sign up for our quarterly newsletter here (which I assume you already have since you are reading this) or “Like” us on Facebook.
We wish you a wonderful spring and look forward to many more years of service to you, your families, your businesses and our community.