Court Tour Volunteers
COURT TOURS: This guided court tour, provided by paralegals and attorneys, introduces your students to the Denver City and County Courthouse where they will learn about local government, law enforcement, jury civic responsibilities, and the local judicial system. The Denver City and County Building is located at 1437 Bannock Street, downtown Denver. Tours are usually in the mornings, but we can make other accommodations if necessary. Additionally, there is useful information, such as lesson plans, to use in preparation for your court tour, available at: http://www.courts.state.co.us/exec/pubed/edresources. Please note: Daily operation schedules change at a moment’s notice so modification of this tour may occur if court/governmental schedules change.
The primary purpose of the tour is:
1) to introduce the participants to the Judicial system, and other governmental systems;
2) to relate the importance of active participation by citizens in their judicial system;
3) to explain and demonstrate the role of attorneys in the legal system;
4) to answer questions relating to the legal system and the role of attorneys, judges, law enforcement and local government leadership.
WHAT HAPPENS DURING A COURT TOUR: Your court tour will include the following stops, unless specifically designed and arranged with the Denver Bar Association:
Ø Welcome – Chief Judge Bayless (or another judge) (15-20 minutes)
Ø An empty courtroom and/or a court that’s in session and/or a private meeting with another judge (15-20 minutes)
Ø Mayor’s Office (10 minutes)
Ø City Council’s Office (10 minutes)
Ø Jury Assembly Room (15 minutes)
Ø Sheriff’s Department (15 minutes)
NOTE: Because schedules are subject to change at a moment’s notice, any portion of this tour may be revised and/or cancelled before or during the tour.
COURT TOUR GUIDELINES: A maximum of 60 students are permitted per tour; students will be broken into groups of 10-15 students. If you have more than 60 students, we will need to break them up into two court tour dates. The school must provide 1-2 parent or teacher chaperones for each smaller tour group. Depending on the docket for the day of your tour, we may need to break into smaller groups to visit a courtroom that’s in session.
HOW DO I SCHEDULE A COURT TOUR? Because we are scheduling a tour that involves numerous busy courthouse offices and busy attorneys, tours must be scheduled a minimum of 4-6 weeks in advance of court tour date to plan and coordinate your court tour.
When scheduling your tour, we will need the following information: date, time, school name, contact information (teacher name, phone, address and email), number of students, grade level, and any specific requests for the tour.
Contact Carolyn Gravit at (303) 824-5340 to schedule your court tour date.
“It makes me realize that I hope the only time I have to come to this building again is for another tour or to be on jury duty. This field trip also helped me see how important it is that there are people who come to be jurors if they didn’t innocent people could lose their lives.”
“This was just like a once in a life time opportunity to see what is actually going on. I don’t think my parents or brothers got to do something [like] this. . . . . It will be a memory I will never forget.”
