BLUEPRINT FOR JUSTICE: Designing a New Paradigm for Impact

Overview

NLADA's Annual Conference is the leading national training event of the year for civil legal aid, indigent defense and public interest law communities. The conference offers advocates the latest substantive information and professional skills they need to creatively and effectively meet the legal needs of low-income people and provides unparalleled opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with colleagues from across the country while fulfilling continuing legal education requirements.

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Conference Tracks

Board Track: Community Impact – A Blueprint for Board Members

Successful nonprofits are recognized as indispensible to their community’s health and well-being. They have credibility in the community and can clearly articulate their values and the value they provide. The board members of these successful nonprofits act with transparency; support and clarify the organization’s vision; and use their influence and expertise to help staff achieve greater impact in the community in alignment with the mission. Diverse and inclusive, these boards evaluate their effectiveness as the governing body as well as the effectiveness of organizational strategy. This year’s board track will focus on the knowledge, vision, leadership skills and evaluative tools to necessary for board members to champion community impact.

Civil Track – The War on Poverty

The War on Poverty was launched 50 years ago to attack the root causes of the pernicious poverty that has always been a part of American society, making the promise of democracy fleeting for millions of people. Not only did the OEO initiatives include a massive step forward in federal funding for legal services, it also focused on "law reform" as a major goal of the mission of OEO legal services. That mission has served both to define the legal aid movement in the United States for a half-century, but also as a political lightning rod for groups and individuals who oppose the concept on ideological grounds.

Many things have changed over the last fifty years, but poverty in America remains an intractable problem, as ever more people live below the poverty line. The civil track of this year's Annual Conference will explore where the civil legal aid community stands today - Does the 60's mission still define a broad conceptual underpinning for our work? How does that vision fit in with the many delivery innovations aimed at providing much broader access to some level of legal assistance? What strategies and forums work best in today's legal, political and social environment to make the biggest impact on improving the lives of the millions of people who qualify for civil legal aid? How do we talk about this mission in the broad public arena? Can we sustain such a vision in light of the strong contrary views that affect our work?

The civil track will include a broad array of sessions aimed at exploring these, and other, questions central to the future of civil legal aid in the United States.

Client Track: The Power of Advocacy – A Blueprint for Clients

Advocacy is a powerful tool and it is not just for lawyers. Lay advocates help people in their communities address problems. From helping someone navigate a maze of public benefits to providing support during an administrative hearing, client leaders with lay advocacy skills make valuable contributions to individuals in need, communities facing challenges, and under-resourced legal services programs. This year’s client track will explore the skills involved in effective lay advocacy and the role of the lay advocate.

Defender Track – Public Defense 2.0: Harnessing Innovation

As we look toward a century beyond Gideon, indigent defense champions are poised to lead the criminal justice system into a new era by engaging data driven advocacy, incorporating evidence based methodologies, and accessing new technology. Defending liberty and ensuring justice are enduring challenges that demand evolving solutions. To explore and share new tactics, tools, and technology, the 2014 Defender Legal Services conference sessions will focus on innovation in the field of criminal justice and indigent defense to build a "Public Defense 2.0".

Fundraising Track

This inaugural series of workshops will provide new and experienced development staff with the fundamental tools to create, cultivate and sustain their fundraising programs. The series of sessions will range from the nuts and bolts of development work, relationships building, to the best social media platforms to reach their donors. In the difficult and competitive arena of fundraising, development staff must ensure they have gathered all "low-hanging fruit!"

Joint Track: Blocking the School to Prison Pipeline – Creating New Pathways for All our Children

Every neighborhood served by a legal services or public defender organization is home to children whose misbehavior is treated as crime in school. Evidence-based strategies for creating positive, healthy learning environments and minimizing contact with the criminal justice system are available. It is time to use them. This January, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued guidance on the administration of school discipline without illegal discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. In the Dear Colleague Letter: Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline (the Letter), DOJ and DOE “recognize that disparities in student discipline rates in a school or district may be caused by a range of factors.

However, research suggests that the substantial racial disparities of the kind reflected in the [Civil Rights Data Collection] data are not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior by students of color…. In short, racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem.

The Letter provides detailed legal analysis, clear frameworks, remedies, and recommendations to local OCR offices and school administrators – a blueprint for avoiding discrimination and creating safe and welcoming environments for all students to grow and learn. Other resources, like the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange Resource Hub, provide extensive analysis and examples of administrative, legislative and litigation strategies to shift away from arrest and incarceration to evidence based disciplinary practices and restorative justice models. This year’s joint track will focus on what civil legal aid, public defenders, juvenile defenders and client leaders can do to block the school to prison pipeline.

Joint sessions are intended to facilitate, highlight and promote collaboration across disciplines. Please aim to include speakers from a variety of backgrounds that will speak to a range of audiences.

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Tentative Sessions and Schedule*

The following is a partial list of workshop sessions planned for the NLADA Annual Conference. Additional sessions are being developed in all training tracks. Please click here to download a copy of the tentative sessions schedule. Titles listed here may change.

The Opening ceremony will be held on Wednesday, November 12^th,2014 at 5:30pm. Featured speaker include Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Mary McClymont, President of the Public Welfare Foundation and Esther Lardent, President & CEO, Pro Bono Institute. At the ceremony Senator Harkin will become the first-ever recipient of the NLADA Champion of Justice through Public Service Award, and Mary McClymont will be accepting the NLADA Award for Justice through Philanthropy.

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