Criminal justice reformer Lisa Daugaard, the executive director of the Public Defender Association (PDA), is a 2019 MacArthur “genius” Fellowship recipient.
Yet her path to being a crusading advocate for restorative justice committed to dismantling the prison-industrial complex had some twists and turns.
While attending graduate school at Cornell University, she planned to write her dissertation on the criminalization of poverty.
However, she wasn’t making any progress.
Instead, she became heavily involved in on-campus anti-apartheid activism. She recalled hundreds and thousands of students and campus employees engaging in protests, many of whom were arrested or expelled.
“I was working very hard on defending people in order to ensure that they could remain engaged in this mass movement,” said Daugaard.
When she chose to pursue a career in law, Daugaard ruled out a career in criminal law because a family member was “poorly represented” by a series of public defenders. At the time, she saw it as a “mechanical and oppressive system.”
