Rondell Jordan Promoted To Community Defender
Open City Advocates is excited to announce the promotion of Rondell Jordan to a new role in our organization: Community Defender. Rondell began at OCA last year as a Staff Attorney, working directly with young people committed to DYRS. Throughout his legal career, Rondell has advocated for vulnerable people: workers, tenants and OCA’s clients committed to DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services. Community-oriented defense is both a specific approach to legal representation and a general model for advocacy in the community that emphasizes the importance of systemic change, collaboration, and education.
“Rondell has already been doing this work and with this promotion we want to recognize his stellar contributions,” said Penelope Spain, Open City Advocates’ CEO. “DC's community is fractured - not only geographically, but throughout the public and private sector. Government agencies and service providers operate in isolation or silos, not collaboratively; organizations ‘stay in their lane’ instead of figuring out how to build an ecosystem where all DC residents can thrive. Rondell doesn’t let folks stay in their lane.”
Rondell himself is excited for the challenge: “I see this role as moving upstream from the current flood of harms our clients face, to catch people before they need an attorney at all. I’m looking to build partnerships with people who will do the work in our government, in our schools, and in our community to catch people before they fall, and to help get them back on their feet afterwards.”
Rondell has worked closely on client representation under the supervision of Chief Operating Officer Whitney Louchheim, who said: “Rondell's passion and commitment to our community is one of his strongest traits. He is a tireless advocate for our clients, while always keeping his eye on the bigger picture of systemic change. I'm excited to watch him change this city for the better in his new role!”
Fellow Staff Attorney Raymond Ngu reminisced about his time with Rondell: “This is a perfect fit. We talk a lot about how we want to model holistic advocacy. He has put clients first since I met him. He really cares about our kids and our community. Rondell sees the best in people, even those he disagrees with, and they end up being better as a result.”
We’ll be sharing more about what community-oriented defense means to OCA in the coming weeks.