Veteran Georgia Litigation Attorney to Donate Lifesaving DVD to High School Students
Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) July 18, 2014 -- After more than a year of editing and planning, trial lawyer William C. Head of Atlanta is finalizing his 90 minute teen survival DVD in time for the start of the new academic school year. As stated in a press conference on Monday, Head’s goal is to save teen lives and to help these young adults make better decisions about driving, and the risks of underage alcohol consumption or drug use.
This streaming DVD, which retails for $19.95 on Vimeo, will be offered to young adults in high schools at no cost, so long as the student’s high school requires all students to watch the video and then submit an essay about some aspect of the many safety tips and legal lessons that are covered in this video. The video is the product of Head’s thirty-eight years of trial experience and dealing with criminal and civil litigation, including representing over 1000 young adult clients.
Head plans to disseminate the DVD to schools by having local prosecutors assist him in recommending the DVD to their county’s school administrators. To obtain user feedback, Head will offer to sponsor pilot writing competitions between high schools in four metropolitan Atlanta counties. His law firm is offering $5,000 per county in scholarship money to the top three essays submitted in each of the pilot program counties, with $2500 going to the first place winner, $1500 to the second place winner and $1000 to the third place winner in each of the four counties. Cobb County and Gwinnett County will round out the four pilot program counties.
Head stated that these scholarship competitions are the incentive to school administrators to mandate that each student watch the safety video. “It does me no good to have put this invaluable information out there, if the ‘at risk’ group never gets the message,” said the DVD producer. The video has cost Head over $50,000 in editing and production costs, so far.
Melanie Ellwanger, a former prosecutor, who is presently in a runoff on July 22nd for Chief Judge the Municipal Court of Roswell, Georgia, has agreed to spearhead the distribution effort in Georgia’s largest county, Fulton County. One of the major tenets of Ellwanger’s judicial campaign in Roswell has been that she will devote her full time to the position, and go to the local schools to educate students on the dangers of drugs, careless and distracted driving and the perils of binge drinking. “We can help save lives and protect future career opportunities by having all Fulton County students watch the DVD,” says Ellwanger.
Donna S. Gopaul is Solicitor-General of Forsyth County State Court, in a county located 35 miles north of downtown Atlanta. She heartily embraces the concept of placing this unique DVD into the hands of young people in her County, stating, “If we can educate rather than prosecute, that is my goal.” Gopaul will be assisting Mr. Head in getting local high schools in the Cumming, GA area to require student essays to be written about some vital legal issue or life lesson covered by the video. Gopaul, who is the incumbent, is also up for re-election to her seat next Tuesday in Forsyth County’s runoff election.
“My law firm is happy to sponsor these scholarships to spread the word about young adults’ legal rights and to warn these maturing adults about the primary causes of death and serious injury for this high-risk age group,” commented Head. As part of the emotional impact that he sought to achieve in creating this video, Head obtained personal video stories from some of his former clients. These stories poignantly recount what it feels like to have been driving when your best friend is killed in a car crash.
Head expects some parts of this DVD to be very disturbing, but knows that this is the only way to make the message “real” to young people. This pilot program in Georgia is important to offering the free video to all high school students in America. “My law firm cannot sponsor writing competitions across America, but it is my plan to seek corporate sponsors to contribute the scholarship money for the state competitions, and to thereby encourage all high schools in the United States to make this DVD part of their school curriculum,” said Head.
William Head, TEAMDUI.com, +1 (404) 567-4010, [email protected]
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