Through a grant from the Joyce Foundation, BPDA had the opportunity to work with Black public defenders and Black community organizers in Chicago to reimagine and redefine safety from the Black community perspective. Black communities have endured the trauma and violence of policing but are rarely given a platform to express what they would need to feel safe and thrive. Black public defenders and grassroots organizers partnered to ask directly-impacted Black communities, "What does safety mean to you?". In this session, we will present the data collected from more than 100 interviews as Chicago's Black community answered this critical question. We also will discuss strategies to partner with grassroot organizations to redefine safety with impacted communities.

This session will focus on being your most authentic self in front of the jury. We will also discuss strategies to litigate challenges for cause. We also will explore strategies to litigate Batson challenges and best practices to empower members of your jury.

Participants will learn how to define non-capital mitigation, identify common mitigating themes for non-capital cases, learn commonly-used resources and utilize this information to present for better client outcomes

In this presentation, we offer a critique to the current understanding of holistic defense. The concept of holistic defense was created with the idea that a client is multifaceted, a whole human being and has multiple systems interplaying with their lives. However, it was not conceptualized by centering the legal implications parents face during child removal. Family defense has often been seen as a collateral consequence to a criminal case and as such most public defender and legal aid offices do not engage with parent representation in a meaningful way. From our experiences defending the mothers of north Tulsa, Oklahoma, parent defense is critical to the concept of true client centered representation. The original holistic defense model places an emphasis on a client's ability to obtain social services, resources in order to "fix themselves" rather than on zealous legal advocacy against a corrupt system. In this presentation, we will discuss how incorporating goal driven client advocacy and fact investigation helps better inform legal defense strategy and positively affect case outcomes.

This presentation will explore paths for supporting, hiring, and promoting Black defenders in the legal system. We will cover the history of Black defenders and the role racism and inequality have played in creating the challenges for Black defenders in accessing education and employment. We will discuss recruiting and hiring best practices and growth and retention strategies for offices to attract, engage, and uplift Black defenders. Additionally, we will discuss ways to foster equitable work environments and relationships that value diversity and inclusion. Finally, we will explore the benefits gained from working with Black defenders and the importance of cultivating a culture of respect and appreciation for their contributions.

Black attorneys make up just 2% of the legal space. Of that 2%, an even smaller percentage end up pursuing careers in public defense. Black men however, make up a disproportionate percentage of those who come into contact with and end up criminalized through the Injustice System. Panel members discuss the importance of Black men in the public defense space, the hurdles to having more Black men in the public defense space, and what we can do to increase Black male representation in this space.

In this workshop participants will examine the role of defense attorneys in the pretrial process, and explore the opportunities to leverage their expertise, relationships and power to advance system transformation. This skill-building workshop will share tools that public defenders can use to critically assess the way their local pretrial process currently functions, identify priority areas for improvement, and create next steps for collective action. The Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI) focuses on directly supporting local jurisdictions to transform their pretrial practices through hands-on implementation support using our framework titled Local Antiracist Pretrial Justice (LAPJ). LAPJ is a holistic framework that encompasses point of contact with law enforcement through disposition of a case. The vision for LAPJ is the creation of a pretrial process that honors the constitutional rights of impacted people, with the vast majority remaining in the community with very limited restrictions and access to community-based services. We believe change must occur at the local level, where relationships can be forged, unique solutions can be co-created, and pressure can be applied both inside and outside of the system. Part of the realization of this vision includes tools that support system stakeholders and community members in partnership for system transformation.

Participants will gain practical tips on how to confront racism in the workplace, will workshop how to urge their offices to commit to a culture of antiracism, and will understand the racist history of the delinquency system and the importance of actively tearing down the status quo.

This session will explore and discuss how legal defense teams for both criminal and family defense can better serve clients by taking a multi-disciplinary approach that includes team members with lived experience in the legal court system. The partnering of an attorney with a peer advocate can be a powerful method of providing more trauma-informed and client-centered advocacy whether a client is facing the loss of their children or their liberty. Modeling the teamwork of attorney and peer advocate, this attorney and parent advocate duo will share the challenges and changes made to the practice of family defense in Colorado. They will discuss opportunities to support clients in criminal cases as well, citing missed opportunities experienced when Ms. Doxtater was incarcerated, facing lengthy prison time as well as the loss of her parental rights.

This session will discuss the concept of Racial Battle Fatigue (RBF), the ways it can show up for Black public defenders, and strategies for dealing with it. Participants will get an opportunity to share their unique experiences and learn from others about how Black defenders can protect their physical, emotional, and psychological well-being while still providing high quality advocacy for their clients.