FAQs - Categories

We are at 104 Marietta St. NW, Atlanta, GA 30303.

Driving directions:

From the East on I-20: Take the Windsor-Spring Exit. Turn right on Ted Turner Drive. Turn right on Marietta Street.
From the West on I-20: Take the Windsor-Spring Exit. Turn left on Ted Turner Drive. Turn right on Marietta Street.
From the South on 75-85: Take Andrew Young International Boulevard Exit. Turn left on Andrew Young International Boulevard. Turn left on Centennial Parkway. Turn left on Marietta Street.
From the North on 75-85: Take Williams Street Exit. Turn right on Andrew Young International Boulevard. Turn left on Centennial Parkway. Turn left at Marietta Street.
From Marta—Five Points Station: Exit the train station heading towards Peachtree Street. Turn left out of the station onto Peachtree Street. Follow Peachtree Street to Marietta Street. Turn left on Marietta Street. Follow Marietta Street for four blocks.

If you will be traveling by private cars instead of a bus, you should park in our parking deck, which is adjacent to our building and is located at the corner of Ted Turner Drive and Marietta Street; we will validate your parking, so please bring your parking ticket in with you. We can only validate parking for our garage, not for other parking garages in the area. Once you park, you should come to the sixth floor of the parking deck to the door marked “Entrance to Conference Center,” which will put you on the third floor of the building. Please present your parking ticket for validation to the security guard at the desk immediately to your right when you enter the building.

There is no official dress code, but our experience has been that students who “dress for court” generally seem to pay more attention and behave more appropriately.

The maximum number of students we can accommodate on a single day is 70, although the ideal group size is 25-40 students.

We welcome students in grades 4-12.

Yes.

It’s free!

There is no limit on the number of days a particular school may attend Journey Through Justice during the school year. For instance, if you want to bring more than our maximum of 70 students, you can schedule multiple dates in order to accommodate your entire group.

We generally select a mock trial for your students to perform based on the law lesson topic you select. Once you select a lesson, you will receive an email with a brief description of your trial and a list of speaking roles. We ask that you assign your speaking roles before you arrive at the Bar and that you select your best readers, as it makes the trial go more smoothly. Students not assigned roles will serve as jurors.

We use the lunch break to prepare students with speaking roles for the mock trial. We cannot supply the scripts in advance. The students use the scripts throughout the trial; no memorizing is necessary.

Journey Through Justice tours are booked on a first-come, first-served basis, and we begin accepting reservations five years in advance. Determine which dates are available by clicking the calendar and confirm that your preferred date does not conflict with your school calendar (e.g., holidays, early release dates, testing). You may book a tour by emailing your preferred dates to LRE@gabar.org.

Yes. Homeschool groups may attend Journey Through Justice on Mondays and Tuesdays. If your group wants to come on another day of the week, we will try to accommodate you, but we may not be able to provide free parking in our parking deck. Our program is designed for students in grades 4-12; no child younger than 4th grade will be allowed in the classroom or courtroom. Parents with younger children should make alternate arrangements for those children or arrange, in advance of your arrival at the Bar, for another group parent to take responsibility for the older child(ren). In the latter case, you must complete the form here before leaving the Bar.

You will receive a checklist which you should complete and return to LRE@gabar.org within seven business days. Attached to the checklist will be the list of available law lessons and museum topics, and a copy of these FAQs, which must be initialed in the places indicated. Groups that fail to return the checklist and initialed FAQs within this time frame may have their requested date(s) released to our waiting list.
Once you have returned your checklist, you will receive the “Official Confirmation” email containing all of the details for your visit. Your reservation is not final until we send this email.
After the Official Confirmation email you will receive a “Mock Trial Speaking Roles” email, containing a list of your mock trial speaking roles for assignment to your strongest readers.
You will receive a “Looking Forward to Seeing You at Journey Through Justice!" six weeks before your scheduled tour date. If you are unable to keep your reserved date, you must notify us by reply email or phone within three business days of the date on which the six-week reminder was sent, so that a school on the waiting list will have sufficient time to reserve their bus and complete any other field trip paperwork requirements. If you cancel after this three-business-day window, you will not be allowed to take a Journey Through Justice during the following school year. If you subsequently decide that you still want to come to Journey Through Justice in the current school year, and your previously reserved date (or an alternate date) is available, you may do so; however, this will not affect your placement on the following year's exclusion list.
One week before your scheduled tour date, you will receive an “URGENT: Students Names for Journey Through Justice Tour” email if we have not received your list of the names of the attending students as requested in the Official Confirmation email.
Three days before your visit, you will receive an "Are You Ready?” email, summarizing our understanding of the details for your tour. You should contact us by email or phone immediately if this email does not match your understanding. If you will not be travelling with your students the day of your tour, please give a copy of the “Are You Ready?” email, these FAQs and the preassigned mock trial roles to the lead teacher who is travelling with the students.

If you do not receive an Official Confirmation or Are You Ready? email, please check your junk or spam folders first before contacting us by email at LRE@gabar.org or telephone at 404-527-8797. You should ensure that the Bar has the name and cell number of a teacher who is physically on the bus with your students, so that we have an accurate point of contact the day of your tour.

Journey Through Justice is four hours long. We ask that students arrive by 9:30 a.m. and stay until approximately 2 p.m. (to allow for bathroom breaks and time spent moving from one room to the next). If you cannot stay for the full four hours, please let us know in advance of your tour date so that we may plan accordingly. Please keep in mind, however, that parts of the tour will have to be shortened or eliminated if you cannot stay for the full four hours. Groups which arrive after 10 a.m. without prior arrangement will be asked to leave and reschedule. For groups arriving by bus, the door will open at 9:15 a.m. Groups traveling by other means may enter the building before 9:15 a.m. but should not expect the Law-Related Education staff to be available before that time. Groups which arrive more than 30 minutes after their scheduled arrival time as stated in the “Are You Ready?” email will be asked to leave and reschedule. We realize that traffic, accidents or other unanticipated delays may arise after your group is already en route; in that case, you must contact us by phone no later than your scheduled arrival time to request an exception to this policy.

The minimum number of students required for a Journey Through Justice is 20. Groups which arrive with fewer than 20 students will be asked to leave and reschedule. You should not leave school with fewer than 20 students unless you have spoken to a member of the Law-Related Eudcation staff and have received permission for a smaller group.

The Museum of Law contains walls on the civil rights movement, the need for an independent judiciary, the death penalty, and famous Georgia and U.S. cases. You may select one of these walls as the focus of your museum visit, or you may choose to have the LRE staff select the museum content to be covered. The list of available focus areas can be found HERE. Time permitting, the museum tour begins with a 12-minute film called "Reel Justice," a compilation of 75 clips from Hollywood movies dealing with the law and lawyers.

We do have alternatives available; please contact us at LRE@gabar.org or 404-527-8797 for details.

In addition, teachers, students and members of the public can access our Virtual Museum of Law at www.thelawmuseum.org. Visitors to the Virtual Museum will find informational animated videos about famous Georgia and U.S. trials, such as the Leo Frank case, as well as significant cases addressing civil rights, the importance of an independent judiciary, and cruel and unusual punishment. Students can take online quizzes to assess their understanding of individual cases, and teachers can access LiveBinders containing lesson plans, links to current events and other classroom resources. Instructions on how to view the LiveBinders can be found on each case's page.

If you are unable to keep your reserved date, you must notify us by reply email or phone within three business days of the date on which your “Looking Forward to Seeing You at Journey Through Justice!” email was sent, so that a school on the waiting list will have sufficient time to reserve their bus and complete any other field trip paperwork requirements. If you cancel after this three-business-day window, you will not be allowed to take a Journey Through Justice during the following school year. If you subsequently decide that you still want to come to Journey Through Justice in the current school year, and your previously reserved date (or an alternate date) is available, you may do so; however, this will not affect your placement on the following year’s exclusion list.

We realize that sometimes you must cancel a Journey Through Justice with less than six weeks’ notice due to circumstances beyond your control. Should that happen, we will be happy to discuss the situation with you before placing you on the exclusion list for the following year. Please note, however, that the following are among the circumstances which will not be considered beyond your control: failure to obtain or schedule transportation; failure to obtain necessary approval from your school or district administration; testing dates; other school activities; poor behavior by your students; and lack of interest among your students.

We offer Homeschool Week during the first week of January. The dates for the 2025 Homeschool Week will be Jan. 8-9, 2025. Homeschool Week registrations will be based on your child’s grade level: We will hold 4th and 5th grades on Wednesday, and middle school will be held on Thursday, with a maximum of 50 students per day. If your children cross these grade divisions, you may register older children on a younger day to avoid making multiple trips to the Bar; younger children may not register for older days. High school students are welcome to attend on Jan. 8-9; however, the law lessons and mock trials will be at elementary and middle school levels. As in past years, families must register individually for Homeschool Week; group registrations from homeschool community leaders are not accepted. To register for Homeschool Week, download the Homeschool Week Registration Form here. Email your completed registration form to us at lre@gabar.org. Registration for Homeschool Week opens Aug. 7, 2024.

The students will first have a law lesson taught by an experienced attorney or teacher. At the end of the law lesson, the students are given a “bar exam,” which may be either oral or written; of course, everyone passes and receives an Honorary Attorney for the Day certificate, personalized with their name.

The students break for lunch. During lunch, the students selected for speaking roles in the mock trial are given their scripts to review.

After lunch, the students go to our fully functioning courtroom, where they put on a scripted mock trial. Students who do not have speaking roles serve as jurors.

The students then tour our Museum of Law and watch a 12-minute film called “Reel Justice.”

If your group cannot stay for the entire four-hour program, the Law-Related Education staff will decide which portion(s) of the tour to shorten or eliminate.

We offer a variety of law lessons correlated to the Georgia Standards of Excellence; among the topics we can cover are torts, contracts, juvenile delinquency and unruliness, and business crimes. When you book a tour, you'll receive the full list of law lesson selections to choose from. The list of available law lessons can also be found on the State Bar of Georgia website here .

Yes. Students and teachers should bring a sack lunch; we provide soft drinks. There will not be an opportunity to leave the tour to purchase lunch. Do not order lunch as we cannot accommodate deliveries. Additionally, we do not have a refrigerator, microwave or vending machine.

Yes, unless you have arranged, in advance of your arrival at the Bar, for another parent to take full responsibility for your child(ren) and have completed and returned your Parent Drop Off Form here.

Yes. Every student receives a free personalized Honorary Attorney for the Day certificate. In addition, students and teachers may purchase a Journey Through Justice patch. Patches are $1/each (tax is included). We do not have change available. We ask that you collect patch money from students in advance of the tour and deliver it to a Law-Related Education staff member during the lunch break.

Do not unload the bus in front of the building. Your bus driver should continue past our building to the traffic light at Fairlie Street. Turn right on Fairlie Street, and then take the first right-hand turn into the alley behind our building. Look on the right-hand side of the alley for the sign which says “Unloading/Loading Here for Journey Through Justice.” Once the students have exited the bus, the bus should park on the right-hand side of the alley, between the base of the stairs and Loading Bay #3. The bus should remain there until the end of the tour, as we reload students there rather than on the street to avoid blocking traffic in the afternoon.

In the event of rain or other inclement weather, students should exit the bus into Loading Bay #3 itself, where we will be waiting, so that they can stay as dry as possible. The bus should follow the parking directions above.

Category: Journey Through Justice