The Roots of OCA's Work

Our CEO and co-Founder, Penelope Spain, recently appeared on the Public Defenseless podcast with Hunter Parnell. They had a broad-ranging discussion about the founding of Open City Advocates, the state of poverty law instruction in contemporary law schools, and the disparity between those who are assigned public defenders from DC’s Public Defender Service and those who are represented by other attorneys. It was a lively discussion, and Penelope sounded the call against complacency:

I think as leaders in public defense, as individuals who are really looking at creating the best defense system for our local population, and then across the entire United States, it is our social responsibility to always be asking: “What more can be done?”

How can this be better? How can people spend less time in jail pretrial? How can we ensure people keep their lives on track? How do we ensure that they get the mental health support that they need? And if we're not asking those questions and we become complacent with our systems or our lawyer selves and pat ourselves on the back for being amazing defenders, then we're not pushing hard enough.