Sidore Lecture: Lori James-Townes

The Civil Rights Fighters of Our Time

For every client’s criminal charge, there are other problems that call for repair. The client has a circle of loved ones – partners and children and parents and employers who enter into the equation, too.  Public defender professionals are in the lion’s den with their clients witnessing and pushing back on a broad systemic issue that oppresses their communities, that are riddled with the perpetuation of bias.   Bishop Tutu says, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

That’s where we are now. In this session, the speaker will address: how the premise of the right to counsel is much more than sheer representation; examine whether American society structured in such a way that pushes people into the river; why is it that the poorest communities (in every sense) are predominantly inhabited by people of color; and why social justice is about addressing not only the structural disadvantages that exist but also, who benefits from this configuration and how might we get people to care.

Lori James-Townes is the Executive Director of the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD). At NAPD, she led the creation and planning of NAPD’s Women’s Conference, which recently hosted an 800-person virtual event headlined by Stacey Abrams. In 2021, she co-led NAPD’s first-ever National Virtual Conference for Gideon Week – bringing more than 6,500 attendees together for the largest public defense training in history. She is the principal owner of Expand-NOW, a consulting firm specializing in speaker, coaching, and teaching. Through Expand-Now, LLC, she is able to fulfill her lifelong passion for adding value to others.

Lori has also held teaching positions at Morgan State University, the University of Maryland School of Social Work, and most recently Towson University. In 2015, The Daily Record Newspaper named her as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women.