Becca Bollich of the ’26 cohort volunteered with the Houston Teen Municipal Court for three years, where she worked to represent and prosecute juveniles with minor offenses.

She answered a few questions about her experience: 

How did you become involved with the Houston Teen Municipal Court? What made you want to participate?
I became involved with the Houston Teen Municipal Court by signing up for a volunteer program they run, Teen Court. I wanted to participate in this program because of the opportunity for hands on experience in a court room, and to learn more about courtroom conduct and trial proceedings. Becoming a lawyer is a career I am strongly considering, so this program posed a great opportunity for me to see if this would be something I could really see myself doing, and a great chance to do so at an age typically too young to get internships or other ways to experience law in this position. In addition to this, social justice and the criminal justice system are passions of mine and areas about which I enjoy educating myself. This gave me a chance to experience the things I had only had conversations, watched documentaries, and read articles about.

What were your duties?
The objective of Teen Court is to give participants a chance to experience the jobs of lawyers. The program does this by taking cases where juvenile defendants in the Houston court system have plead guilty or no contest and choose to have their cases adjudicated to the program. Each session, we would walk into a courtroom and be assigned a case and position in the trial without any notice. We are then given around ten minutes to create a case, which looked different every time depending on if I was assigned defense or prosecution. Typically, all I would build a case off of was reading whatever was given to me in the case file or from a short conversation with my client. Then, the real case begins in the courtroom we had been assigned and with a Houston court judge. After going through standard trial procedures, the client is given a sentence determined by the jury and approved by the judge.

What have you learned from your experience?
I gained a lot from this experience. I ended up memorizing all of the different types of objections, began naturally assuming courtroom procedures and manners when I entered the building, and learned how to have efficient and effective conversations with judges and clients. Beyond this, I got to experience the pressure of civil and criminal cases. We were frequently reminded by the judges that our attention to detail and efforts were important to not only the court but the lives of our clients. This pressure made me stronger, and winning cases built my confidence as a lawyer in this program, but also as a person. I am considering going into law with more certainty because of this program, and because of this, this program has been invaluable in helping me find what path I am meant to be on.