Public Defense

In collaboration with the Justice Programs Office at American University and in furtherance of the goals of the BJA-led Right to Counsel National Campaign, NACDL will help further the goals of the R2C initiative by creating at least one short video to highlight the importance of the right to counsel. The video was posted on social media.

In collaboration with the Justice Programs Office at American University and in furtherance of the goals of the BJA-led Right to Counsel National Campaign, NACDL will help further the goals of the R2C initiative by creating "memes", more accurately described as slides posted on social media emphasizing points of the rights of counsel.

Website where defenders can access videos and materials from BJA-funded training programs.

Report on the findings of NACDL's workload study for public defender offices in Tennessee.

Report on the findings of NACDL's workload study for the Rhode Island Public Defender.

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Georgia Public Defender Council are planning a two-day training program in Macon, Georgia, to target the underserved area of southwest Georgia. Public defense providers, including institutionally employed defenders and those who do public defense via court appointment, are welcome to attend. The program will have a dual track on the first day, with juvenile and adult topics, and the second day will be comprised of "crossover" topics for both adult and juvenile defenders.

NACDL will draft a pretrial release manual, tailored to the specific legal framework, defense bar needs and challenges of New Jersey. The manual will include a discussion of fundamental bail issues and case law, practice guidelines and checklists for effective bail advocacy, a catalog of New Jersey's laws and procedures, sample pleadings, applicable risk-assessment tools, and available resources within the jurisdiction.

Founded in 1911, NLADA is America’s oldest and largest nonprofit association devoted
to excellence in the delivery of legal services to those who cannot afford counsel. NLADA has a
long history of providing technical assistance, including seminal systems evaluations,
training, and toolkits to promote excellence in state and local public defense delivery systems.
NLADA team devoted to this project bring extensive technical assistance and evaluation
experience, as well as a wealth of field experience in public defense delivery. NLADA is a

On 5/15/2014 NCJA along with ATJ and NLADA hosted Reframing Public Defense, a webinar focused on helping the public defense community improve there competitiveness for state and federal grant funds. Speakers spoke about the need to change how PD speaks about what they do, in addition speakers focused on how PD can partner with other organizations with overlapping missions. This webinar built off of the 2013 Strengthening Public Defense: Understanding State and Federal Resources webinar. The webinar had 237 registrants and 117 attendees.