Bob Schwartz, the charismatic and renowned figure in youth justice reform who co-founded the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center and served as its executive director for 33 years, has died at the age of 75 after a prolonged bout with cancer.
Schwartz started the center, one of the nation’s first public interest law firms focused on children, with Marsha Levick, Judy Chomsky and Phil Margolis in 1975. It was just a year after passage of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the nation’s first federal law setting standards for the treatment of youth involved with the juvenile or criminal justice systems.
Originally a walk-in legal clinic for youth, where Schwartz was among the attorneys who would represent or assist them, the organization grew to become a national player in advocacy for both juvenile justice and child welfare reform. In its home state of Pennsylvania, the organization exposed the questionable juvenile court practices of Luzerne County judges involved in the now-infamous Kids for Cash scandal, long before the financial motives for some their behavior was unearthed.
Schwartz served as the organization’s executive director from 1982 to 2015, always aided by fellow co-founder Levick, who remains the center’s chief legal officer. Schwartz served as chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Youth at Risk from 2011 to 2013, and chaired the Juvenile Justice Committee for the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section on two different occasions.
After battling cancer for more than a year, Schwartz made the decision with family this September to enter hospice care.
“The good news is that my Philadelphia baseball team turned a corner a few weeks ago and is playing better baseball,” he noted in an email to friends and colleagues. “The bad news is that there’s no correlation between their success and my health.”
In a message posted to the Juvenile Law Center’s website, Levick shared an emotional farewell to Schwartz, referencing his penchant for pun-laced humor, the Philadelphia Phillies and Diet Coke.
“There is no joy in Mudville tonight,” she wrote. “But not because our hero has struck out, but because our hero has played his last game. The lights in the ballpark will flicker and dim, as they blink away the tears.”
