Bryan Independent School District's use of school resource officers to issue criminal sanctions for a range of minor student misbehavior unlawfully impacts African-American students, who are "cited" at a rate four times that of other students, according to a complaint filed by attorneys with Texas Appleseed, NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the National Center for Youth Law.

This lawsuit charges Nevada and Clark County officials with failing to protect the health and safety of children in foster care. The suit seeks money damages for 13 children named in the lawsuit, as well as system improvements for several classes of children that represent more than half of the 3,600 children in foster care in Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas.

This case challenged California's policy of denying cash assistance to relative caregivers when the children they care for get in trouble with the law and are returned home on probation.

NCYL won a major case in California, securing fair and equal treatment of foster youth who play high school sports. This victory could potentially affect thousands of foster youth in the state.

TR et al. v. Dreyfus is a class action lawsuit seeking to end the cycle of juveniles winding up in state mental institutions by ensuring poor children have access to adequate mental health care in their homes and communities. The complaint was filed November 24, 2009. 

NCYL is co-counsel in this child welfare reform class action against the California Department of Health Services, Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services, and the California Department of Social Services, seeking the establishment and implementation of a community-based mental health service delivery system for California’s children in state foster care or at imminent risk of out-of-home placement.

This case challenged the validity of Proposition 8, a ballot proposition passed in November 2008 which overturned the California Supreme Court’s ruling from earlier in 2008 extending to same-sex couples the right to marry. 

NCYL was one of sixteen organizations signing on to an amicus brief filed in this case supporting Savana Redding, a 13-year old student, who was strip-searched at school. 

The National Center for Youth Law join twelve other Amici organizations in this case to urge the United States Supreme Court to grant certiorari to review a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence without the possibility of parole imposed on a 12-year-old child in the State of South Carolina.  The Amici Brief analyzes why such a lengthy mandatory sentence that does not take into consideration the age of the child at the time of the offense violates the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the United States Constitution. 

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes. In doing so, the Court recognized that significant differences in brain development exist between adolescents and adults and that these differences diminish the level of culpability of juveniles, a position advocated by the amici groups, including NCYL.