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Wednesday, April 9, 2008 New York Law School On Wednesday, April 9, 2008, the Justice Action Center presented the last Justice Speaks Lunch of the 2007–2008 academic year, The Bronx Defenders: A Holistic Approach to Defense. The lunch was free and open to the public. About the Presentation and Speaker This lunch presentation focused on the Bronx Defenders and their innovative approach to client representation. The Bronx Defenders' holistic approach views clients not as "cases," but as whole people: caring parents, hard workers, recent immigrants, native New Yorkers, and students with hope for the future. Their staff of attorneys, social workers, investigators, administrative support, and community organizers works with clients, their families, and their communities to go beyond individualized criminal cases to address the critical issues that circumscribe clients' lives. Our speaker was Robin Steinberg, Executive Director of the Bronx Defenders. Professor Mariana Hogan, Director of New York Law School's Externship Program, moderated.
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Robin Steinberg has been honored by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association for her “exceptional vision, devotion and service in the quest for equal justice,” by the New York Bar Association for her “outstanding contribution to the delivery of defense services,” and awarded Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Fellowship in recognition of her “outstanding contributions and dedication to public interest law.” Steinberg is a leader and a pioneer in the field of indigent defense. A 1982 graduate of New York University School of Law, Steinberg has been a public defender her entire career. Starting as a criminal trial lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, continuing her career as a founding member and deputy director of The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, and ultimately creating The Bronx Defenders in 1997, Steinberg has extensive experience in every aspect of public defense – from representing individual clients to creating a non-profit organization. From 1999 through 2001, she was a participant in the Executive Session on Public Defense, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance and Harvard University. Today, Steinberg advocates nationally and internationally for holistic representation and the community defender movement, delivering papers, conducting trainings, and hosting visitors from around the world. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors for the New York State Defender Associations, Roger Williams Law School, and the Journal of Court Innovation, as well as on the New York City Alternative to Incarceration Board and the Center for Court Innovation Internal Review Board. She is a frequent teacher of trial skills to law students and professionals and a panelist and speaker about public defense management and holistic lawyering across the country and around the world. Steinberg is also the author of two articles: "Unprotected: HIV Prison Policy and the Deadly Politics of Denial" (Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy, 2005) and "Beyond Lawyering: How Holistic Lawyering Makes for Good Public Policy, Better Lawyers, and More Satisfied Clients" (NYU Journal of Law and Social Change, 2006).
Professor Mariana Hogan’s practical experience with the Criminal Law started in clinical programs in law school and intensified after graduation, when she worked for four years as a staff attorney in the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Defense Division in the South Bronx on a caseload that included everything but homicide. She continued as a staff attorney in Legal Aid's Federal Defender Services Unit in Brooklyn. She applies this early experience to her work at New York Law School, where she heads up the law school’s Externship Program. She has also maintained strong ties to the social justice community, including past work as cochair of the New York County Lawyers’ Association Task Force on the Representation of the Indigent, and as cosponsor of the Annual Federal Criminal Practice Institute.