Introduce yourself and briefly explain what you do in “kid-terms” and using the most relevant things for the students at this age level. Explain that a lot of people think about criminal law when they think about a judge and courtroom and that is one part of your job – like when someone is arrested for a crime, the first court they come to is your court. You listen to the evidence the police have and then you decide if there is enough good evidence to send the case to trial. There is no jury at this level – you are the one who makes the decision – and you do not decide if the person is guilty, you just decide if the police have enough evidence for a trial. If you decide the police have good reason to charge the person with the crime, the person then either goes back to jail or stays out on bail until the trial. If the police did not have enough evidence, the charges are dropped and that is the end. But you also hear other kinds of cases, like traffic cases when someone gets a ticket for speeding or running a red light, landlord and tenant cases when people have disagreements over paying rent or damages to the house or apartment they live in, (etc… you do not have to cover everything you do, just help them understand that you do more than criminal cases and that you use the law to help fairly settle disputes, conflicts or disagreements between citizens when they can’t work things out themselves.)
So instead of me just telling you what I do, we are all going to see what it’s like to make decisions when two people disagree over a rule. But instead of being a judge, we are going to be another leader and decision maker - who is the leader of your school? (principal - and get their name) Does Mrs. Y sometimes make rules that everyone in the school has to follow? OK - who is your librarian, Mrs. X, So we are going to imagine we are the principal and the librarian Mrs. X comes to us with a problem. Animals have been running crazy in the library - ask them to imagine that and what kinds of problems that may create. (they can get a little silly - it is a funny thing to think about) So to help Mrs. X we decided to make a new rule. No Animals in the Library. (write it on the board for later reference) Seems simple. Pretty clear. Does everyone know what that means? Can you understand the rule? Etc.(Refer to the lesson and go through the various scenarios and use different students to make the decision on what they would do as the principal. It's a good way to remind them they are the decision maker. They have to decide - people are counting on them to decide. They begin to see that things aren't always as simple as they seem. Ask them what would be the consequence to the violation or what would be the consequence if they decided to ignore the law/rule for that one situation. How do they justify their decision? If you have time, see if they have ideas on how the rule could be improved or made clearer. Wrap up explaining that this is what you do everyday. You listen to people, you look at the law and you make decisions. Then let them ask you a few questions about your job.