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Full Agenda Available
Our program is complete. Click here for the full agenda for the week.
One More Session Just Added to COD!
Wednesday, June 16, 2:50-4:20 p.m. (Eastern)
Making the Case for Holistic Defense
Holistic defense is growing across defender organizations, but there are still some naysayers. And a recent “no effects” finding by CrimeSolutions at the National Institute of Justice has highlighted the critical need to understand what the impact of holistic defense actually is. Please join Dr. Paul Heaton and Justine Olderman for an important conversation about the 2019 study conducted by Dr. Heaton of the holistic defense model at the Bronx Public Defenders. Dr. Heaton conducted the study on outcomes in the Bronx Defensers' office, and they will help us understand the methodology of the study and the actual findings that do show positive effects of holistic strategies. Your voice is needed in making the case for holistic defense, and you will leave this session understanding how to explain it and how to guard against any confusion from policymakers.
Dr. Paul Heaton, Senior Fellow & Academic Director, Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, Philadelphia PA
Justine Olderman, Executive Director, The Bronx Public Defenders, Bronx NY
Wellness, Social, and Fun!
We know the conference schedule is packed with sessions that are going to exercise your mind and sap some of your energy. Be sure to take advantage of some of the wellness, social, and just plain fun programming that we have planned for you. Before the conference days begin, get yourself moving with Zumba or yoga, or take a short museum tour, or just stop into the lounge to visit with friends. When the days end, socialize in the lounge and then enjoy some live music from some of the premier jazz musicians in Washington, D.C., with the Reginald Cyntje Trio.
Click here to see the full flyer.
BPDA Training Tracks
♦ Skills ♦ Professional Development ♦ Law Students ♦ Reform
Session Titles:
• Black Men in Leadership
• Building Trusting Relationships with Clients
• Closing Juvenile Facilities: The Case for Abolition
• Decarceration Mechanisms
• A Discussion of Strategies for Dismantling Racist Structures Within and Outside of Your Office
• Disrupting Carceral Systems: State and Local Disruptions to Homelessness, Education, and Immigration
• Ending the Family Death Penalty: Repeal ASFA
• Expanding Early Access to Counsel: The Why and the How
• Police Accountability
• Policing as Trauma: Litigating Race in a Criminal Case
• The Power of the Jury Box
• Practicing While Brown or "Other": A Strengths-Based Approach
• Race and the 4th Amendment
• Reimagining Better Representation: Divesting from White Supremacy within Public Defence
• Social Science Recognizes Racial Trauma: Getting the Legal System to Do the Same
• Social Workers Have Trial Skills Too
• Treating a Lawyer's Grief: The Root of Recovery & Inclusion
• Warrior Motion Practice: Innovative Written Advocacy
COD Sessions
• Criminal Defense & Medical-Legal Partnerships: A New Paradigm
• The D.C. Reentry Navigator: A Nationwide Blueprint for Empowering Clients with Tools for Successful Reentry & Reintegration
• Debunking the Resource Desert: NLADA and AmeriCorps VISTA
• Early Advocacy: Extending Gideon's Promise
• The Excessive Fines Clause: A Tool to Protect Clients Living in Poverty
• Making the Case for Holistic Defense
• Public Defender Coalition for Immigrant Justice
• Rising Tide: Small Changes for Big Holistic Impact
• Rising to the Challenges of Race & Gender: Truth-Telling with an "Abolitionist-in-Training"
• The Voices of Lived Experience
• Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way! Building Social Work and Holistic Defense Capacity in Your Office
• White Savior: Pass the Mic
NASAMS Track at COD
We have a full track planned for sentencing advocates and mitigation specialists.
This track is sponsored by the National Alliance of Sentencing Advocates & Mitigation Specialists (NASAMS), a membership section of NLADA.
• (Accurately) Predicting the Future is Hard: Cognitive Bias and Risk Assessment
• After the Conviction: The Harm of Collateral Consequences
• Mitigation Assessment: Community Violence and Its Impact on Neurological Development
• Realities for Vulnerable Clients: Prisoner Advocacy at Sentencing
Click here to see the Final Agenda.
Registration Featured Speakers Conference Overview