Discovering What Fuels Your Fire & Chasing After It

Come listen to Wasserstein Fellow Chiquisha (Keisha) Robinson’s journey from a young Black girl, raised in Boston’s Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods, to becoming a top public defender in Public Defender Service’s trial, parole, and community divisions, as well as a community leader, and a nationally recognized criminal justice expert. Discover how she identified her passions, strengths, and talents and leverages them for transformational change on behalf of her clients and community. She will reveal the keys to unlocking your greatest potential and balancing it all: identity – self care – family – motherhood – and career ambition.

Lunch provided. RSVP below.

Chiquisha (“Keisha”) Robinson is career public defender, with over 17 years of experience as a top attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS). As the Deputy Chief for the Prisoner & Reentry Legal Services program in the Community Defender Division, Keisha manages a team of attorneys in supporting and advancing the rights of incarcerated adults and those living with a criminal record. In her role, Keisha authored The D.C. Reentry Navigator: Empowering You to Succeed with a D.C. Criminal Record, a 900-page, first-of-its-kind guide for people affected by the D.C. criminal legal system. Prior to her current leadership role, Keisha was a senior attorney in PDS’s Trial Division in the Felony One practice and served on the nationally recognized Forensic Practice Group.

A trailblazer in holistic defense and vocal spokesperson on issues of racial justice and criminal legal system reform, Keisha serves as the Co-chair of the D.C. Reentry Action Network, a coalition of reentry direct service providers, and the ABA’s Committee on Reentry and Collateral Consequences. She is also the Director of Social Policy & Advocacy for the Black Public Defender Association and recently joined the Council on Criminal Justice and Leadership Greater Washington. She currently teaches Criminal Law at George Washington University.

Keisha received her J.D. from Boston College Law School, where she was recently recognized with the Hon. David S. Nelson Public Interest Law Award, and earned her B.A. from Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts.

If you or an event participant requires disability-related accommodations, please contact HLS Accessibility Services at accessibility@law.harvard.edu two weeks in advance of the event.