Legal aid is available to help underserved populations, such as poor people, hire a lawyer. In Maine, Pine Tree Legal Services has identified another group that it believes could use their assistance: teenagers. The organization has launched a new pilot program to make legal services more accessible to young adults.

In the John Grisham thriller The Client, adapted for film, a young boy in trouble with the law pleads for help from a lawyer.

Lawyer: Now, why is it you think you want a lawyer?
Boy: "I don't want a lawyer. I hate lawyers. Every lawyer that I ever had just shafted me and my mom. I said I need a lawyer."

In the film, the boy ultimately gets his representation. But in real life, many teens are shy about seeking legal help against, for example..abusers... boyfriends, parents, or classmates.

"It's just such an unknown to them," says Chris Northrup, a professor at the University of Maine law school who defends juveniles in the courts.

"When they think of lawyers, they think of money and they don't have that," Northrup says. "They don't know who to go to. They're really nervous and uncomfortable trying to reach out."

So Northrup and others in the legal community are welcoming the new pilot program from Pine Tree Legal. A small legal team offers counsel to young people who need it in Cumberland and Sagadahoc counties.

"Protect Your Space is a new project developed to provide legal services to victims of dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking," says Courtney Beer, an attorney hired for the project."We're providing consultations to victims and professionals who work with them, we're also doing a lot of outreach to teen shelters in these two counties, hospitals and schools."

Beer says that she can help young victims of abuse weigh their options. If they're in abusive dating situations, they could get protection orders from abuse or harassment.

Beer says she also works with older children -- 16 to 18, who because of their age have not been taken from their homes, even though they are experiencing abuse.

"We've had clients abused by parents but no other recourse except to run away, become homeless," Beer says. "We've been able to advise them about emancipation, what that means and how to go about that process."

Beer says the goal is to use the law to keep young people safe, so they don't feel like they have to drop out of school or run away from home.

"If these legal protections weren't available to them or they didn't seek them out, it's more likely they would not succeed in school and they would be economically disadvantaged in the long-term," Beer says.

The project just has enough grant funding for a year, but those who work with teen victims of violence hope it can be extended.

"Attorneys, they tend to get more attention than we would normally get," says Karen Wentworth who works at Family Crisis Services.

The group works in the schools to raise awareness about dating abuse. She says that lawyers from Protect Your Space will be a valuable resource as schools deal with a rising caseload of "sexting" -- the practice of sending sexually-explicit photos and messages via cell phone.

Child-porn laws prohibit the creation and distribution of sexually explicit pictures of minors, even if the minors photographed themselves. It gets even more complicated when teens are coerced into taking the pictures by a dating partner, as Wentworth says is often the case.

"The young women have sexted topless pictures of themselves, been suspended from school," Wentworth says. "But the young man who passed the pictures on had no consequences. It does have legal ramifications."

Law professor Chris Northrup says the "Protect Your Space" program fills a major void in the legal system, and brings earlier intervention through the civil courts, thus helping to keep the cases from advancing into the criminal courts system.

"There is a huge long-term cost if it has reached that level," Northrup says. "The kids are often pretty damaged and we're going to see them in the system one way or another. And we try to avoid that. But the earlier the intervention the less long-term damage that is going on in a family."

Protect Your Space has opened 30 cases since the program began in September. Clients, which include males and females, couldn't talk about their cases because they are pending. But staff attorney Courtney Beer says she's helped clients get protection from abuse orders and advocated for them in the school system.