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Public defender; indigent defense; movement lawyering; Black lawyers; intersectionality; organizing; justice
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Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour
Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour
Fordham Law Review
This colloquium asks us to consider how social change is influencing the legal profession and the legal profession’s response. This Essay applies these questions to organizing around criminal injustice and the response from public defenders. This Essay surfaces the work of four innovative indigent defense organizations that are engaged with and duty-bound to the communities they represent. I call this “community responsive public defense,” which is a distinct model of indigent defense whereby public defenders look to their clients and their clients’ communities to help shape advocacy, strategy, and representation.
Methodologically, this Essay relies primarily on qualitative interviews with leaders …