Whitney Untiedt's 'Big Idea': Leadership Academy graduate organizes statewide juvenile defense effort.

"The Big Idea" was the intriguing subject line of an email that arrived in Whitney Untiedt's inbox.

And that "big idea" would wind up leading to a huge pro bono effort with national impact, thanks to the persistence of Untiedt, (pronounced un-teed), a member of The Florida Bar's first Leadership Academy and chair-elect designate of the Public Interest Law Section.

It was only Untiedt's second day at her new job as Akerman's director of pro bono initiatives, and the email was sent by a juvenile justice colleague at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Florida Supreme Court had recently released decisions on March 19, 2015, in four cases dealing with two landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions on sentencing juveniles, Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama.

The justices unanimously agreed that juveniles tried as adults for nonhomicide crimes cannot be sentenced with no chance of release to "nonlife" prison terms that will likely exceed their natural lifespans. Applying retroactively in Florida was the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller holding that juveniles convicted of murder cannot be sentenced to life without any "meaningful" sentence review.

The overarching theme of those cases is that kids are different and the state cannot treat them like adults with extreme sentences.

Now these 300 Miller and Graham defendants in prison would need lawyers for their resentencing hearings to afford them a chance to tell a judge about the science of undeveloped teenaged brains and other unique mitigating details of their lives.

And "the big idea" was a call to action for Florida's child advocates to collaborate on a solid plan.

The first thing Untiedt did was call former Florida Bar President Hank Coxe and Buddy Schultz, part of a "Dream Team" of pro bono lawyers who worked out a manslaughter plea with juvenile sanctions for Cristian Fernandez, charged as an adult for first-degree murder at age 12.

For a roundtable discussion, they gathered together other lawyers, including retired First DCA Judge Bill Van Nortwick, now at Akerman; those who represented Shimeek Gridine, a 15-year-old sentenced to 70 years for attempted murder, one of the kids named in the Supreme Court decisions; as well as other assistant public defenders and juvenile lawyers in the Jacksonville area.

"We wanted to be coordinated and proactive," Untiedt said. "We didn't want to just sit back and wait. We wanted to be on top of it and ensure that every juvenile offender eligible for...