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The Bronx Defenders
The Bronx Defenders is a public defender office located in the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City. At the Bronx Defenders, criminal defense lawyers work together with civil lawyers, family defense lawyers, immigration lawyers, non-attorney advocates, social workers, and investigators to help their clients address the full range of legal and social issues that can result from criminal charges. The Bronx Defenders are a contracted public defender for New York City, along with the Legal Aid Society, ''New York County Defender Services'' in Manhattan, ''Brooklyn Defender Services'' in Brooklyn, ''Queens Law Associates'' in Queens, and the ''Neighborhood Defender Service'' in northern Manhattan. History Founded in 1997 by a team of eight advocates, including its former executive director Robin Steinberg, David Feige and criminal defense attorney Daniel Arshack, the Bronx Defenders is responsible for developing holistic defense, an interdisciplinary model of criminal defe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Feige
David Feige is an American lawyer, legal commentator, and author. He is the author of the memoir, ''Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice'', and co-creator of the TNT legal drama '' Raising the Bar'', both of which center on the life of the public defender. He is also the co-founder (along with his wife Robin Steinberg) and board chair of The Bronx Freedom Fund, a charitable bail organization in New York State. In 2016 he won the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award for "Untouchable" a documentary feature he wrote, produced and directed. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Background Feige was raised in Madison, Wisconsin. His mother was a social worker and his father was an economics professor. Feige pursued his undergraduate studies at University of Chicago. After law school, Feige declined an offer to work as an associate at Dewey Ballantine and accepted an offer to work as a public defender in New York City. He is Jew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Council
The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The council serves as a check against the mayor in a mayor-council government model, the performance of city agencies land use decisions, and legislating on a variety of other issues. It also has sole responsibility for approving the city budget. Members elected in or after 2010 are limited to two consecutive four-year terms in office but may run again after a four-year respite; however, members elected before 2010 may seek third successive terms. The head of the city council is called the speaker. The current speaker is Adrienne Adams, a Democrat from the 28th district in Queens. The speaker sets the agenda and presides at city council meetings, and all proposed legislation is submitted through the Speaker's Office. Majority Leader Keith Powers leads the chamber's Democratic majority. Minority Leader Joe Borelli leads the six Republican c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Defense Institutions
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkeit'' or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science, psychology, marketing, and advertising. In public relations and communication science, it is one of the more ambiguous concepts in the field. Although it has definitions in the theory of the field that have been formulated from the early 20th century onwards, and suffered more recent years from being blurred, as a result of conflation of the idea of a public with the notions of audience, market segment, community, constituency, and stakeholder. Etymology and definitions The name "public" originates with the Latin '' publicus'' (also '' poplicus''), from '' populus'', to the English word 'populace', and in general denotes some mass population ("the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legal Advocacy Organizations In The United States
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by a group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals may create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that adopt alternative ways of resolving disputes to standard court litigation. The creation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people. Legal systems vary between jurisdictions, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-profit Organizations Based In The Bronx
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in contrast with an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a Profit (accounting), profit for its owners. A nonprofit is subject to the non-distribution constraint: any revenues that exceed expenses must be committed to the organization's purpose, not taken by private parties. An array of organizations are nonprofit, including some political organizations, schools, business associations, churches, social clubs, and consumer cooperatives. Nonprofit entities may seek approval from governments to be Tax exemption, tax-exempt, and some may also qualify to receive tax-deductible contributions, but an entity may incorporate as a nonprofit entity without securing tax-exempt status. Key aspects of nonprofits are accountability, trustworth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Defense Organizations
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Cane and Conoghan (editors), ''The New Oxford Companion to Law'', Oxford University Press, 2008 (), p. 263Google Books). though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence (or criminal offence) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state ("a public wrong"). Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law. The notion that acts such as murder, rape, and theft are to be prohibited exists worldwide. What precisely is a criminal offence is defined by the criminal law of eac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Justice Reform In The United States
'' Criminal justice reform addresses structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. Reforms can take place at any point where the criminal justice system intervenes in citizens’ lives, including lawmaking, policing, sentencing and incarceration. Criminal justice reform can also address the collateral consequences of conviction, including disenfranchisement or lack of access to housing or employment, that may restrict the rights of individuals with criminal records. There are many organizations that advocate to reform the criminal justice system such as: ACLU, Penal Reform International, Sentencing Project, Brennan Center for Justice, Cut 50 and the Innocence Project. These organizations use legal disputes, impact litigation and advocacy as well as educational events to make the public aware of problems with the criminal justice system and push state and federal governments towar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Criminal Court
The Criminal Court of the City of New York is a court of the State Unified Court System in New York City that handles misdemeanors (generally, crimes punishable by fine or imprisonment of up to one year) and lesser offenses, and also conducts arraignments (initial court appearances following arrest) and preliminary hearings in felony cases (generally, more serious offenses punishable by imprisonment of more than one year). It is a single citywide court. The Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for the New York City Courts is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the NYC trial-level courts, and works with the Administrative Judge of the Criminal Court in order to allocate and assign judicial and nonjudicial personnel resources. One hundred seven judges may be appointed by the Mayor to ten-year terms, but most of those appointed have been transferred to other courts by the Office of Court Administration. Criminal procedure Most people who are arrested and prosecut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Legal Aid Society
The Legal Aid Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit legal aid provider based in New York City. Founded in 1876, it is the oldest and largest provider of legal aid in the United States. Its attorneys provide representation on criminal and civil matters in both individual cases and class action lawsuits. The organization is funded through a combination of public grants and private donations. It is the largest recipient of funding among regional legal aid providers from the New York City government and is the city's primary legal services provider. History and leadership The Legal Aid Society was founded in 1876 in New York to defend the individual rights of German immigrants who could not afford to hire a lawyer. A large donation from the Rockefeller Family in 1890 enabled the organization to expand its services and include individuals from every background. It was renamed the New York Legal Aid Society in 1890. The society is governed by a board of directors. On December 2, 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Legal Aid & Defender Association
The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoted to advocating equal justice for all Americans and was established in 1911. History The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and its Equal Protection Clause provides equal justice under law. Beginning in the late 1800s and throughout the early years of the 20th century, the American legal profession expressed its commitment to the concept of free legal assistance for poor people in the form of legal aid societies and bar association legal aid committees. The first legal aid society, The German Society of New York, was founded in 1876 to protect German immigrants from exploitation. Subsequently, the agency's protection was extended to others and in 1890 it became the Legal Aid Society of New York. In 1888, the Ethical Culture Society of Chicago established by the Bureau of Justice was the first agency to offer legal assista ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bronx Freedom Fund
The Bronx Freedom Fund is a nonprofit bail fund located in the South Bronx. The first charitable bail organization in New York State, it provides bail assistance to indigent defendants facing pretrial detention for low-level and misdemeanor charges. It was founded by David Feige, a producer, writer, and law professor, and Robin Steinberg, the founder and chief executive of The Bronx Defenders. Its first grant came from the CEO of Lava Records, Jason Flom, and the Flom Family Foundation. Details The Bronx Freedom Fund bailed out nearly 200 people from 2007 to 2009. It closed in 2009 after Judge Ralph Fabrizio ruled that it was an uninsured bail-bond business. Its co-founders, along with state senator Gustavo Rivera and then-assemblymen Phil Boyle, drafted a set of amendments allowing for a charitable exemption to the bail and insurance laws. The bill, sponsored by Senator Rivera, passed unanimously through both chambers of the state legislature in 2011. It was vetoed by Govern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Steinberg
Robin Steinberg is an American lawyer and social justice advocate who is currently the chief executive officer of the Bail Project, an organization modeled after The Bronx Freedom Fund, which she founded with her husband David Feige in 2007. Steinberg is the founder and former executive director of The Bronx Defenders, a community-based public defense office serving low-income New Yorkers in the Bronx since 1997, and the director of Still She Rises, Tulsa, "the first public defender office in the nation dedicated exclusively to the representation of mothers in the criminal justice system". At The Bronx Defenders, Steinberg created The Center for Holistic Defense, a program that trains public defender offices across the country to replicate The Bronx Defenders’ model of holistic defense. Steinberg has spoken at TED, and taught at Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law and UCLA School of Law The UCLA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
