The Bronx Defenders is thrilled to announce our newest innovative venture—the creation and implementation of The Center for Holistic Defense. With funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and in collaboration with The Center for Court Innovation and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Center will help fill a…
n recognition of his efforts to ensure equal justice for all people regardless of ability to pay, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) announced today that McGregor Smyth, the Managing Attorney of the Civil Action Practice, is this year’s winner of the Kutak-Dodds Prize, alongside Alan Alop, Deputy Director for Intake Offices, Legal…
The Center for Holistic Defense released its Request for Proposals to public defender offices and systems nationwide interested in technical assistance and support in integrating Holistic Defense into their practice. For more information about this opportunity, download the RFP here. Attachment
Shoshana Brown was a speaker at The Prisoner Justice Conference, a gathering of over 57 organizations statewide that are doing prisoner justice work. The conference was a day long in Albany and close to 200 people attended. Shoshana spoke about the political necessity of this conference and shared her own personal story of how mass…
Robin Steinberg spoke to the Criminal Law Committee of the Bar of the City of New York about Holistic Defense and the work of the lawyers and advocates at The Bronx Defenders.
Robin Steinberg and The Bronx Defenders Social Worker Ariane Eigler spoke at the 29th annual Edward V. Sparer Symposium at the University of Pennsylvania Law School titled “Now More Than Ever: Expanding Access to Justice in Times of Crisis.” The symposium is an annual event inviting legal experts and practitioners to speak on poverty law…
Robin Steinberg was featured on a panel moderated by Professor Paul Butler called “The Evolving Role of the Public Defender” at the 2010 Indigent Defense Symposium in Washington, D.C. The three day event, entitled “Looking Back, Looking Forward” was hosted by the Attorney General’s office. The symposium was created to provide an environment for public…
Robin Steinberg passionately believes that effective legal defense for the poor includes a good dose of social work. Never say something is impossible to achieve around Robin Steinberg ’82; it will only motivate her to prove you wrong. The 51-yearold founder of the Bronx Defenders, a unique non-profit public defense group in the Bronx, always…
Rebecca Engel testified in front of the City Council about proposed gang laws that would negatively affect the clients of The Bronx Defenders. She highlighted the drastic civil consequences young people charged with misdemeanors can potentially face, as well as the ways that this legislation would exacerbate the racial bias and over-policing problems we already…
The Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association invited Robin Steinberg to speak at their Sunny Climate Annual Conference in Hawaii. Robin spoke about Holistic Defense and its benefits for clients and advocates alike.
Robin Steinberg traveled this fall to Israel, where she met with Criminal justice leaders, judges, and public defenders at the US Embassy. She advocated with government officials for the integration of social workers into the public defender office and gave a talk at the Annual Public Defender Conference in Israel about the benefits and dangers…
Ann Mathews was the keynote speaker at the Southfield, Michigan library for an interfaith roundtable forum on public defense sponsored by the Michigan Campaign for Justice. The Campaign is a broad-based group of organizations and individuals from across the political spectrum fighting for a fair and effective public defense system in Michigan. She spoke about…
By McGregor Smyth. Collateral sanctions. Invisible punishments. Internal exile. From the moment of arrest, people are in danger of losing jobs, housing, basic public benefits, and even the right to live in this country. For many, these hardships are far more severe than the criminal charges confronting them. In New York, a plea to disorderly…
Robin Steinberg traveled to Eastern Europe with the Justice Initiatives Program at OSI where she conducted skills training for young public defenders and worked with their idealistic advocates on making Holistic Defense a reality in Moldova.
When Robert E. Chambers Jr. was arrested on Oct. 22 on charges of selling cocaine out of an Upper East Side apartment, many people saw it as the denouement of a morality tale, the final fall of “the preppy killer” who pleaded guilty to strangling Jennifer Levin during rough sex in Central Park two decades…
By McGregor Smyth. Investment in an infrastructure for cross-sector collaboration is key to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and crime. The criminal justice system is the institution with the single most pervasive impact on communities of poverty and of color. In those communities interaction with the police and courts, as well as incarceration, has…
By McGregor Smyth. Individuals who are released from prison or jail and who need financial assistance until they are able to get on their feet are likely to apply for aid both from Safety Net Assistance (“SNA”), the New York State public assistance program for adults who do not share a household with children, and…
By Robin Steinberg. Lisa looked older than she was–her face and body aged too quickly by a childhood marked by abandonment, sexual abuse, and betrayal. Her teenage years spent as a prostitute; her adulthood ruled by an uncontrollable heroin addiction. I met Lisa when I was a young public defender in New York City in…
By McGregor Smyth. The legal disabilities and social exclusion resulting from any adverse encounter with the criminal justice system erect nearly insurmountable barriers for criminal defendants, people with criminal records, those returning to their communities after incarceration, and their families. Recent scholarship has highlighted the draconian effects of these invisible punishments and has argued that…
By Robin Steinberg. HIV/AIDS is reaching epidemic proportions in U.S. prisons and in prison populations worldwide. The United States trails Canada, Australia, and much of Europe in responding to the crisis. What is more disturbing is that the United States does not respond to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in prisons because policy makers refuse to…
By McGregor Smyth. Vicky G. received a Section 8 Existing Housing Voucher for ten years. The prosecutor and local public housing authority now allege that over a six-year period she failed to report that her boyfriend was living in the apartment and that she underreported her income. She is charged with grand larceny and filing…
By Robin Steinberg and David Feige. Public defenders everywhere are beginning to reassess the most fundamental questions of what it means to provide effective representation for clients. Frustrated by the limitations traditionally imposed by government funders who seek to satisfy minimal constitutional requirements, public defenders are asking themselves if there is more they can do…