Learning Lab

Salena Copeland 

Salena Copeland joined the Legal Aid Association of California in 2009 and became the Executive Director in 2013. She spends much of her time coordinating statewide legislative and administrative advocacy. Over the past several years, her efforts, in collaboration with others, have resulted in over $400 million in new funding for civil legal aid in California. She also works with legislators to make critical changes to improve the way that legal aid organizations can meet the needs of their clients.

Salena is a 2007 graduate of Stanford Law School and has received the 2016 Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award, the 2010 Bench Bar Coalition Legal Services Provider of the Year Award, and a 2024 Distinguished Hero award from the Self-Represented Litigation Network. Because of her family’s roots in rural Texas and Arkansas, Salena is committed to working towards geographic equity for Californians and is active in many statewide committees dedicated to improving access to justice.

Kenneth Days

Kenneth Days, III, is the current Director and Chief Public Defender for the City of Atlanta Office of the Public Defender. Prior to his tenure with the City of Atlanta, Days was a managing attorney for a large real estate firm, worked in private practice as counsel for small and emerging businesses, served as both plaintiff and defense counsel in civil actions, and as lead counsel in misdemeanor and felony criminal cases.

Since joining Atlanta’s Public Defender Office, Days has served as lead counsel and managing attorney for each of the city’s specialty courts. He has successfully secured employment, housing, education, mental health treatment, and substance dependency treatment for many of the clients he serves. As Chief Defender, Days has notably expanded the function of the Public Defender to provide social services and civil legal services to clients. 

Days serves on the American Council of Chief Defenders and is a member of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the National Association for Public Defense, and the American Bar Association.

Mr. Days is a graduate of Morehouse College and The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. 

Michael Mitchell

Mike Mitchell is a Lead Researcher on the State Fiscal Policy team. He worked at the Center for nearly eight years from 2013 to 2021 before leaving to serve as the Director of Policy and Research with the Groundwork Collaborative, an economic policy think tank. During his first stint with the Center, Mitchell worked as a Senior Policy Analyst with the State Fiscal Policy team, focusing on higher education, youth justice reform, and the linkages between state tax policy and white supremacy. He also served as the Program Director of the Center’s State Policy Fellowship and was the organization’s first Senior Director for Equity and Inclusion.

Mitchell graduated from the University of Connecticut with degrees in Economics and Political science and holds an MPA from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Lillian Patil

Lillian Patil is a Senior Analyst, State & Local Budgets at the Fines and Fees Justice Center (FFJC). As part of the policy and research team, she brings a budget and public finance lens to FFJC’s efforts at the national, state, and local levels, working with advocates, policy makers, researchers, and other stakeholders exploring the intersection between public budget processes and reform advocacy related to fines and fees.

Prior to joining FFJC, Lillian worked in government budget offices, including the San Francisco Mayor’s Budget Office and the Colorado Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting. In these roles she advanced a range of policy and fiscal initiatives, from fines and fees reform to affordable housing programs, through public budget development and management processes. Prior to that work, she spent five years teaching middle school Language Arts in Denver Public Schools. She is passionate about leveraging our public budgeting processes as vehicles for policies that further racial, social, and economic justice.

Lillian holds a Master’s Degree of Public Policy from University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. from Brown University. You can reach her at lpatil@finesandfeesjusticecenter.org.