This year, eight client members received scholarship funding to attend #NLADA25. Engaging client members in our programming ensures an inclusive learning experience for everyone.
Please donate to help client members like Soummer participate in our programs: https://bit.pulse.ly/12qh7yjtmu
Congratulations to Miriam Harmatz on receiving the @nlada.bsky.social 2025 Reginald Heber Smith Award! Miriam is Founder & Of Counsel @flhealthjustice.bsky.social.
She co-counseled Medicaid cases with LASP Executive Director Shawn Boeheringer. They're alumni @AppalReD & LS Greater Miami.
#NLADA25
Last week, hundreds of legal aid lawyers, public defenders, and client advocates came together in DC for one goal: promoting #equaljustice. We are so grateful for all our speakers, attendees, partners, and sponsors for their presence and support in making #NLADA25 a success!
That wraps up our main programming for the 2025 NLADA Annual Conference! We look forward to hosting partner meetings tomorrow morning. Happy Halloween! #NLADA25
Thank you for joining us at #NLADA25!
From left: Debby Freedman, Executive Director of Community Legal Services of Philadelphia; Lori Molloy, Executive Director of North Penn Legal Services (NPLS); Meredith Rapkin, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, Inc.; and Shawn Boeheringer, Executive Director of Legal Aid of Southeastern PA (LASP).
Shawn Boehringer; Carolyn Johnson, LASP Chief Counsel; Laurel Anderson, LASP Community Engagement Unit Supervising Attorney; and Richard A.J. Prebil, LASP Veterans Advocacy Project Supervising Attorney.
Kesha James, Executive Director of the Management Information Exchange (MIE), with Shawn Boehringer. Kesha is also a member of LASP's Board of Directors and a LASP alumna.
Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc. staff and alum.
NLADA conference Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 2025 has focused on emerging issues in civil legal aid, public defense & public interest law, & on strengthening strategies to meet legal needs of low-income individuals & families.
#NLADA25
@nlada.bsky.social @clsphila.bsky.social @palegalaidnetwork.bsky.social
Feinah notes that in his EOs and the amorphous crime bill in development, the President is trying to set the groundwork for deploying National Guard troops.
Reichlin-Melnick notes that Congress is considering measures to make immigration violations more criminal in nature. #NLADA25
A client member asks the panel about advocates like her being labeled as domestic terrorists.
Bhattacharya notes that the EO designating Antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization" - not a legal term of art - is words with no meaning or basis in law. These EOs don't create new crimes. #NLADA25
And thank you for coming to #NLADA25!
Photo of Sam Feinah speaking at the conference
Feinah continues:
To combat tough-on-crime narratives, we've seen people like Brandon Johnson and Zohran Mamdani have success with serious-about-safety messaging that is community-based and community-led. #NLADA25
Photo of Sam Feinah speaking at the conference
Feinah describes the importance of narrative and not falling into narrative traps on crime:
When you define what safety is and give voters an opportunity, you get people choosing overwhelmingly to support communities and get away from tough-on-crime narratives. #NLADA25
Bhattacharya: The Administrative Procedures Act also allows courts to stay an administrative action pending litigation or to vacate an administrative action for being arbitrary and capricious. #NLADA25
Bhattacharya continues:
SCOTUS identified class actions as a way to get injunctive relief, but class actions are only available to a smaller segment of plaintiffs and attorneys. #NLADA25
Photo of Rupa Bhattacharya speaking at the conference
Bhattacharya discusses avenues for relief:
In the CASA case, SCOTUS severely limited but didn't completely ban nationwide injunctions. We have to think about how to challenge government actions other than getting the courts to stop them. #NLADA25
Trivedi: Justice Kavanaugh said any stop would be brief and then people would be released. Sec'y Noem told us that no U.S. citizens have been detained. Are you saying that's not the case?
Reichlin-Melnick: That's right.
Trivedi: That's weird for such important people to get that wrong. 🤔 #NLADA25
Photo of Aaron Reichlin-Melnick speaking at the conference
Reichlin-Melnick describes people being swiftly stripped of legal status:
People with legal status who are fixtures of communities have been told they can't work legally and have to leave. They're being forced into the shadows even though they had been told they would be protected. #NLADA25
Photo of Aaron Reichlin-Melnick speaking at the conference
Reichlin-Melnick discusses the chilling effect of immigration enforcement and intimidation:
Although the chances of arrest by ICE are very low, a single ICE arrest in a community can make people stay home and not go to school or work. #NLADA25
Photo of a projected slide with panelists' names and affiliations
Our closing plenary panel discussion is "How Defending Democracy Is Integral to the Fight for Access to Equal Justice" with Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@immcouncil.org), Rupa Bhattacharya (@icapgeorgetown.bsky.social), Sam Feinah (@vera.org), and Somil Trivedi (@democracyforward.org). #NLADA25
That wraps our Awards Luncheon! We have one more set of breakout sessions before our Closing Plenary Panel on democracy and access to justice. #NLADA25
Photo of Chris Buerger introducing a tribute video to Alan Houseman
Photo of Don Saunders giving a video tribute to Alan Houseman
Photo of Jo-Ann Wallace giving a video tribute to Alan Houseman
We remember the life and legacy of Alan Houseman, whose work impacted the legal aid community across a variety of roles and organizations including LSC, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), the National Equal Justice Library, and NLADA. #NLADA25
Photo of NLADA President & CEO April Frazier Camara presenting the Courageous Leader Award to Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman's family
Photo of a colleague of Melissa Hortman speaking on her behalf to accept the Courageous Leader Award
The Courageous Leader Award is presented to the late Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Horton, who was a legal aid lawyer before she took her support for families and low-income communities to the state legislature. #NLADA25
Photo of Miriam Harmatz speaking after accepting the Reginald Heber Smith Award
The Reginald Heber Smith Award is presented to Miriam Harmatz, Founder of @flhealthjustice.bsky.social. Her career took her from the EPA to legal services in Saipan and Miami before founding FHJP. She notes the legal aid community's support: "My personal superpower is asking for help." #NLADA25
Finally, our Courageous Leader Award honors a trailblazer who models the commitment it takes to advance meaningful and lasting racial justice. We’re honored to give this award to Minnesota Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman’s family, who is with us at #NLADA25 today.
Photo of a colleague of Katelyn Nicole Rowe speaking while presenting the New Leaders in Advocacy Award
Photo of video remarks by Katelyn Rowe accepting the New Leaders in Advocacy Award
The New Leaders in Advocacy Award goes to Katelyn Nicole Rowe, Senior Atty at @clasocal.bsky.social. She has represented DV survivors, fought for low-income litigants deprived of verbatim court records, and successfully challenged Huntington Beach's unlawful censorship in public libraries. #NLADA25
Photo of Ginny Parham speaking after receiving the Mary Ellen Hamilton Award
The Mary Ellen Hamilton Award, for an outstanding client/community advocate, is presented to Ginny Parham, Founder and Letter Writing Campaign Manager at Families Shoulder to Shoulder. She got her son's 96-year sentence reduced by >60 years and has helped hundreds of people since then. #NLADA25
Photo of Marilyn Harp speaking after receiving the Charles Dorsey Award
The Charles Dorsey Award is presented to Marilyn Harp, Exec. Dir. (ret.) of Kansas Legal Services. She speaks about her efforts in sealing and expunging records:
My expungement clients' hard work redeems them from their past. #NLADA25
Photo of Emily Galvin-Almanza speaking after receiving the Clara Shortridge Foltz Award
Galvin-Almanza describes @partnersforjustice.bsky.social's impact:
PFJ has served 30,000 people in 7 years, eliminating 9,000 years of incarceration (1,000 in L.A. County alone). Every year of incarceration cuts 2 years off a person's life. Being incarcerated cuts lifetime income in half. #NLADA25
Photo of Ricardo Garcia delivering video remarks
The Clara Shortridge Foltz Award is presented to Emily Galvin-Almanza and Rebecca Solow, co-founders of @partnersforjustice.bsky.social. Ricardo Garcia, Chief Defender of Los Angeles County, presents the award to PFJ, which grew out of the L.A. County PDO. #NLADA25
Frye describes the work ahead:
This is not a moment to lean back, but to lean in. We have to double down on our values. We have a role to play in ensuring that the promise of democracy can be realized by all. #NLADA25
Frye calls on the equal justice community to speak up and be seen:
When people are under siege, the instinct to hunker down and lie low doesn't work. When one group is targeted, it's not the end, it's the beginning: soon they'll come for you. We have to defend those who are being attacked. #NLADA25
