Tag: public defense
Diary of a Civil Public Defender: Critical Lessons for Achieving Transformative Change on Behalf of Communities
“As civil public defenders, we venture into courts, struggles and conflicts where no constitutional right to a lawyer, and very few other protections exist to ensure fairness in process and justice on behalf of the people we represent. We fight for the basic necessities that are destabilized or deprived once an individual is criminally or […]
City Limits: Low Pay for Public Defenders and Prosecutors Seen as Threat to Justice
“Pay disparity in public defense disproportionately affects aspiring defenders from the communities that we serve…As we are all aware, low-income Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people are overwhelmingly overrepresented in the court systems as defendants, and incredibly underrepresented as defenders. ” Our Shannon Cumberbatch, Director of Hiring and Diversity, testified before the New York City Council on […]