Penelope Spain is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Open City Advocates.  She has committed her career to ensuring that young people have legal representation and access to individualized services at every phase of our juvenile and criminal justice systems. Penelope grew up in northern California where, at a young age, she saw the challenges her city’s immigrant community faced and developed a passion for confronting injustice. After earning a bachelor’s degree with honors in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago, she lived and worked in a remote jungle community in Venezuela. Returning to the United States, Penelope worked as an immigration paralegal before attending American University Washington College of Law, graduating in 2005.  In her final year of law school, Penelope and fellow student Whitney Louchheim established Open City Advocates to address the grave racial disparities in DC’s juvenile justice system, where 100% of incarcerated youth are Black and Latino. In her position at Open City Advocates, Penelope was defense counsel in a long-fought case in which she, working with her co-founder Whitney Louchheim and pro bono counsel Sidley Austin LLP, argued that children in the custody of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services were entitled to legal counsel.

She contended that representation was critical to protecting the rights of incarcerated youth, given the almost unfettered discretion accorded to DYRS staff to determine when a youth could be released. In 2020, the D.C. Court of Appeals agreed and issued its landmark decision holding that incarcerated youth have a right to a lawyer. Because of this case and her innovative work over the last 17 years, Penelope is a nationally-respected juvenile justice expert, nonprofit executive, lawyer, and racial justice advocate. She serves on the D.C. Juvenile Justice Advisory Group and the Council for Court Excellence’s Youth Justice Committee. She is also on the Board of Directors for Juvenile Justice Advocates International, which works to improve juvenile justice systems and facilities throughout Mexico and Latin America. When she is not advocating for the rights of other children, Penelope strives to keep up with her own two youngsters and enjoys outdoor adventures with them and her husband.