Practicing Collaborative Public Defense: A Partners for Justice Training for Future Public Defenders

Heading to a public defender’s office this summer or post-grad? Don’t miss this practical training offered by Tori Anderson ‘16, Senior Program Manager at Partners For Justice, who will give incoming public defenders a framework for understanding, implementing, and receiving support for their personal collaborative defense practice.

Tori will walk through what it means to practice public defense collaboratively. She will talk about the Collaborative Defense framework — which is a framework for client-led representation that confronts the underlying causes and prevents many of the most dire consequences of criminal legal involvement. She will teach future public defenders what collaborative defense means in practice, talk about PFJ’s work and how it impacts offices we currently partner with, discuss how a public defender can implement collaborative defense practices in offices we do not currently partner with, and offer PFJ resources to help support them going forward. The resources offered at the end will include access to PFJ’s resource guides (jurisdiction specific list of local service providers), support in building their own resource guides, and a public defense and cohort networking of collaborative public defenders.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP.

Audience: This program is for 1Ls and 2Ls interning at Public Defender Offices this summer and for 3Ls working post-graduate positions at Public Defender Offices. 

Tori Anderson grew up in Oakland, California, seeing first-hand the devastating impact that overpolicing and arbitrary criminalization had on marginalized communities. She attended Harvard Law School where she dedicated her time to building the skills to be a zealous public defender including becoming president of Harvard Defenders, a member of the Prison Legal Assistance Project, and by spending summers clerking at public defenders’ offices in San Francisco, Portland, and New Orleans.

After law school, Tori became a public defender at the Metropolitan Public Defender in Portland, OR, working with clients facing misdemeanor and, later, felony charges. She moved to Washington, DC, and joined the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Democratic Staff under late-Rep. Elijah Cummings eventually serving as Deputy Chief Oversight Counsel running the Committee’s justice and equity portfolio working to combat systemic racism. Prior to joining Partners for Justice, she worked for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice in their Policy and Strategy Section.