How to Lose: Strategies for Long-Term Change as a Public Interest Lawyer

While “the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice,” the journey there is rarely easy, and there are many losses along the way. Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Michele Hall, a former public defender and an attorney at Brown, Goldstein & Levy working primarily in criminal defense and appellate practice, on how to confront losing in public interest practice. Michele will reflect on her experiences taking losses in the Supreme Court of Maryland and turning them into legislative change, reframing individual case losses and understanding how they can be systemic wins, and how to maintain hope and sustain career longevity despite the obstacles public interest lawyers face.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below! Open to the HLS community.

Michele D. Hall is a criminal defense and civil rights attorney at Brown, Goldstein & Levy. Michele’s civil rights practice at BGL is broad, and includes disability rights, employment discrimination, and prisoners’ rights. Michele also supports BGL’s work obtaining compensation for wrongfully convicted folks primarily in Maryland. Michele’s criminal defense practice builds upon her prior work as a public defender at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, where she worked as a trial and appellate attorney. As a trial attorney, Michele represented children in Prince George’s County charged in juvenile court and children charged as adults. As an appellate attorney, Michele worked on general criminal appeals and led statewide juvenile appellate strategy.

Michele also engages in legislative advocacy in the Maryland General Assembly. At OPD she supported several juvenile policy initiatives including the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, ending the practice of automatically charging children as adults, and the fight to remove police from schools. During the 2023 legislative session, Michele worked closely with legislators in the Maryland General Assembly to pass House Bill 1071, which prohibits law enforcement from relying on the odor of cannabis to conduct a stop or search of a person or vehicle. At BGL Michele has continued her legislative advocacy, supporting House Bill 1086 which expanded the relief available to exonerees under the Walter Lomax Wrongful Conviction Act. HB 1086 passed on its first attempt in the 2024 legislative session.

Michele graduated from Harvard Law School in 2017. While at HLS, Michele was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and the Harvard Black Law Student Association. After graduating law school, Michele clerked for the Honorable Catharine F. Easterly on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

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.