The high school students learn what the law is. They also learn to examine underlying policies to assess what the law should be. Street Law publications explain that when students examine a specific problem, they apply the appropriate law and determine available legal remedies. They discuss the often-competing policy concerns, societal interests and underlying values on which these policies are based. In addition to studying specific constitutional rights, for example, students examine whether such goals as fairness, due process and justice are attained.
Students also study how the U.S. legal system balances competing values that come into conflict.
The Street Law High Schools program culminates with a mock trial competition at D.C. Superior Court where high school students play the roles of lawyers and litigants. The mock trials are presided over by D.C. judges. Bernbaum s study provides a history of the Street Law program. The program had its origins in a Public Interest Law Seminar taught in the early 1970s by Jason Newman at Georgetown University s Law Center. Newman and a couple of the law students taking this seminar decided to launch a pilot effort in two D.C. public high schools designed to bring law to the community level, and specifically to high school kids.