WASHINGTON, DC, October 26, 2005 — The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is pleased to announce that Stephanie Robinson of the Jamestown Project at Yale will be this year’s keynote speaker at the NLADA Annual Conference, November 16 – 19, in Orlando, FL. Robinson is the founding president and CEO of the Jamestown Project at Yale, a nonprofit, nonpartisan institute dedicated to presenting diverse new voices, innovative scholarship, novel policy approaches, and using cutting-edge communications techniques and political and legislative action to increase the quantity and quality of democratic participation. “NLADA is honored to have Stephanie Robinson as this year’s keynote speaker. She has a long list of accomplishments in engaging diverse groups of people in the democratic process. She has brought new voices and novel policy approaches to the challenge of building participation in public causes,” said Jo-Ann Wallace, NLADA president and CEO. “Stephanie Robinson’s participation in this year’s annual conference, Defining the Future: The Fundamental Value of Justice for All, promises to challenge us to leverage all of our allies and assets and make the conference a platform from which to launch groundbreaking work on issues of poverty and justice.”

In addition to her role as president and CEO of the Jamestown Project, Robinson is also the principal of the Robinson Sullivan Group, LLC (RSG), a consulting firm that provides comprehensive political and policy strategy. Previously, Robinson was chief counsel and national director for public policy at the Center for Community Change (CCC), one of the nation’s leading organizational voices for traditionally disenfranchised communities. In this role, Robinson provided immediate and long-term political and policy strategy on domestic issues ranging from tax and economic justice to parenting & family issues, housing, transportation, workforce development, and other anti-poverty initiatives. Robinson served as the spokesperson for CCC’s policy priorities and political strategies, and furthered these initiatives through critical partnerships at the national, state, and local levels. Prior to joining CCC, Robinson served as majority chief counsel for Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and worked as an associate in the litigation department at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, L.L.P. In 1994, Robinson spent a year in Nairobi, Kenya as a visiting attorney to the Law Society of Kenya. During this time, she served as a member of the Committee for Constitutional reform and assisted in drafting and editing Kenya’s Model Constitution.

Robinson graduated magna cum laude from the University of Maryland, where she earned her B.A. in Political Science. She went on to receive her J.D. from the Harvard Law School. Robinson is a frequent speaker at professional conferences, meetings, and student lectures. Her views have been expressed in countless media outlets including the Associated Press, National Journal, National Public Radio, and Fox News. She was featured as one of the 30 Young Leaders of the Future in the December 1997 issue of Ebony Magazine, and was profiled in the book As I Am: Young African American Women in a Critical Age, by Julian Okwu. For more information on NLADA awards, visit www.nlada.org.

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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), founded in 1911, is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all Americans. NLADA champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members.