Director Announced for New Legal Clinic on Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation

The University of Georgia School of Law has established the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic dedicated to helping the victims of child sexual abuse. The university says the law clinic is the first of its kind in the nation.

Emma M. Hetherington was named as the inaugural director of the new clinic. She had been in private practice representing clients in child welfare dependency proceedings and sexual exploitation cases. Earlier she was the managing attorney for the Georgia Law Center for the Homeless and the senior child advocate attorney for the DeKalb County Child Advocacy Center.

“I have dedicated my legal career to the defense of abused and neglected children and am honored to have been given this incredible opportunity to continue those efforts while helping to train a new generation of attorneys,” Hetherington said. “I greatly sympathize with how helpless victims often feel and am encouraged that we will be able to provide them hope that their perpetrators will not continue to go unpunished.”

Hetherington is a graduate of Emory University and the University of Georgia School of Law.