Conference Agenda Conference Materials
Kendra Bradner is Director of the Probation and Parole Reform Project at the Justice Lab. In this role, she helps lead the Lab’s work to transform probation and parole supervision in the United States, which includes supporting and convening EXiT: Executives Transforming Probation and Parole. EXiT brings together a group of current and former community corrections executives to publicly call for transformation of the field to be smaller, less punitive, and more hopeful, equitable, and restorative. Through a combination of research, policy development, capacity building, technical assistance, and communications, the Lab leverages EXiT members to help states and localities nationwide reimagine their supervision systems.
Prior to coming to Columbia, Kendra was manager and facilitator of the Executive Session on Community Corrections with the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School. Kendra completed her Master in Public Policy (MPP) at Harvard Kennedy School, with a focus on social and urban policy and criminal justice. Kendra also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and International Studies from Boston College.
Premal Dharia is the executive director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration at Harvard Law School and coeditor in chief of the online publication Inquest. Previously, she spent nearly 15 years representing people charged with criminal offenses in three different places: the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Baltimore, Maryland, and the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She brought these years of experience to Civil Rights Corps, where she was the Director of Litigation. In 2019, she received a fellowship through the Reflective Democracy Campaign, which investigates the demographics of, and works to dismantle structural barriers around, political power. During that time, she started the Defender Impact Initiative, which focused on the role public defenders can play in the broad movement to end mass incarceration. The work and ideas of DII have been incorporated into the Institute to End Mass Incarceration. Ms. Dharia serves on the boards of the Second Look Project and the Law & Justice Journalism Project. She is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, is on the Fellows Advisory Council of the International Legal Foundation, and is on the Academic Advisory Board of the Family Justice Law Center. Ms. Dharia graduated from Brown University with a degree in History and African-American Studies, with a focus on comparative postcolonial studies, and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was recently a finalist for the 2025 Alumni Impact Award. In March 2025, she was awarded the Albert J. Krieger Champion of Liberty Award from the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association. She is an editor, along with Maria Hawilo and James Forman, Jr., of Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change, published in 2024.
Dennis Febo, M.A. is the Founder and CEO of Guazabara Insights, LLC and The Guazabara Foundation, Inc., organizations providing transformative justice, mentoring, and cultural education services throughout New Jersey’s justice system. A scholar and advocate with over a decade of experience working with justice-impacted populations, Dennis also serves as the National Lead Organizer for the Abolish Slavery National Network (ASNN), leading nationwide efforts to remove the slavery exception clause from state and territorial constitutions. His work bridges education, human rights, and systemic reform, centering cultural consciousness and decolonization as pathways to justice.
Jacqueline Goodman, a California State Bar-certified criminal law specialist, is renowned for her skillful defense in complex, high-impact cases. Her pro bono victories, including defending journalists in the Occupy LA protests, Chelsea Becker in a landmark murder case following a stillbirth, and the “Irvine 11” free speech case, have strengthened protections statewide and earned national coverage in The Guardian, The New York Times, and NPR. Barred in California and Massachusetts, and admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, she regularly contributes legal analysis in the media and articles to The Daily Journal and The Champion. She is a past president of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and served on the Board of Directors of NACDL. As founding chair of NACDL’s Decarceration Committee and chair of the Audit Committee, Goodman is deeply committed to advancing criminal justice reform and reimagining the criminal legal system.
Bonnie Hoffman serves as NACDL’s Director of Public Defense. She focuses on addressing the needs of both public defense systems and the attorneys who provide representation to those accused. Overseeing NACDL’s commitment to public defense, Bonnie assists full-time public defenders, private assigned counsel, and contract counsel by developing and delivering training programs and materials, as well as working with local, state and national leaders to address reforms in our nation’s public defense delivery systems.
Bonnie is a career public defender. For 21 years prior to joining NACDL, she served as a public defender in Loudoun County, Virginia. Representing adults and juveniles charged with misdemeanor and felony offenses from drunk driving on a farm tractor to murder; her practice included both trial and appellate cases.
Bonnie is a graduate of the National Criminal Defense College. She earned her law degree George Mason University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia. She served as chair of NACDL’s Federal Indigent Defense Task Force. The Task Force’s report, Federal Indigent Defense 2015: the Independence Imperative, highlighted the systemic problems in our nation’s federal public defense system and identified Seven Fundamentals of a Robust Federal Indigent Defense System. She was the primary author of “Gideon’s Champions,” a series of articles published in The Champion highlighting issues and challenges facing public defenders through the profiles of individual state and federal defenders from across the country.
Over her career Bonnie has served on numerous committees and work groups associated with public defense, the criminal justice system, and special populations including the Virginia Supreme Court’s Special Committee on Discovery Rules, Virginia’s Model Jury Instruction Working Group on Eyewitness Identification, and Loudoun County’s Disability Response Team and Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Collaborative.
In 2013, Ms. Hoffman received the Robert C. Heeney Award, NACDL’s most prestigious honor. This award is given annually to a criminal defense attorney who best exemplifies the goals and values of the Association and the legal profession. Ms. Hoffman was the first active state public defender to receive this award.
Alana Jochum (she/ella) is an attorney and the State Policy Director for Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). Core to this role, Alana works with state advocates and policy partners to stop anti-transgender policies from advancing within state legislatures and agency processes. She also works with advocates to advance positive legislation and policies supporting the transgender community at the state and local level nationwide.
Prior to joining A4TE, Alana served as the Executive Director of Equality Ohio, Ohio's statewide education and advocacy organization on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) community. During her nearly 10 years at Equality Ohio, she advocated for policies benefiting the LGBTQ+ and specifically transgender community. She successfully helped to broaden Ohio’s protections for LGBTQ+ Ohioans, including in more than 20 municipalities, numerous Ohio agencies, and through the Executive Branch of Ohio government.
Alana is a prior Associate of Squire Patton Boggs, LLP and holds degrees from Baldwin Wallace University and CSU College of Law. She proudly served as the Cleveland State Law Review’s Editor-in-Chief in 2009-2010.
Lauren Krisai is the Executive Director of Justice Action Network, a national bipartisan 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to advancing smarter justice policies that improve public safety outcomes and create stronger communities nationwide. She oversees the organization’s vision and development, empowering and guiding the JAN team toward legislative success across the country. During her tenure, Justice Action Network successfully lobbied the passage of 160 justice reform laws in 21 states. Previously, Lauren served as the Deputy Director of JAN where she led the state policy department and directed its state level campaign and advocacy strategy.
Prior to Justice Action Network, Lauren served as the Director of Criminal Justice Reform at the libertarian Reason Foundation and has worked in the criminal justice reform policy space for more than a decade. She is the recipient of an ‘Advocate for Innocence’ award from the Innocence Project for her efforts in preventing wrongful conviction.
She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two young boys.
Marc A. Levin is the Chief Policy Counsel for the Council on Criminal Justice where he co-leads the Centering Justice Initiative and helped develop landmark bipartisan principles on criminal justice policy embraced by 14 leading organizations on the left and right. Levin began the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s criminal justice program in 2005. Building on this success, in 2010, Levin developed the concept for the Right on Crime initiative.
Levin has authored hundreds of publications and articles on criminal justice policy and testified on four occasions before Congress, as well as before legislatures in states including Texas, Nevada, Kansas, Wisconsin, and California. He also has met with leaders such as U.S. Presidents, Speakers of the House, and the Justice Committee of the United Kingdom Parliament to share his ideas on criminal justice reform. In 2007, he was honored in a resolution unanimously passed by the Texas House of Representatives that stated, “Mr. Levin’s intellect is unparalleled and his research is impeccable.” In 2023, he was invited by the U.S. State Department to visit Uruguay to present on criminal justice policy before the nation’s leaders, including its Vice President, and in 2025 he was invited to meet with numerous policymakers in Australia.
Levin serves on the American Legislative Exchange Council Judiciary Task Force, the Aspen Institute Criminal Justice Initiative Advisory Board, the Urban Rural Action Board of Directors, the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group, Corrections News Editorial Advisory Board, the University of Texas LBJ School’s Prison and Jail Innovation Lab Advisory Board, The Marshall Project Advisory Board, and on the Caruth Police Institute Advisory Board. In 1999, Marc graduated with honors from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Government. In 2002, Marc received his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law. He served as a law clerk to Judge Will Garwood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Staff Attorney at the Texas Supreme Court.
Deborah Lolai is a Clinical Instructor in the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic and Lecturer on Law, bringing nearly two decades of experience in community organizing, policy-making, direct legal services, and teaching. With expertise spanning the criminal legal system and gender and sexuality, Deborah is recognized nationally as a leading authority on the representation of LGBTQ+ individuals in criminal cases and on advancing reforms to improve conditions of confinement for TGNCNBI (Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Non-Binary, and Intersex) populations.
Prior to their current role at Harvard Law School, Deborah served for nearly a decade as a public defender at The Bronx Defenders, representing thousands of clients. As the Founding Director of the LGBTQ Defense Project—the first initiative of its kind within a public defense organization nationwide—Deborah led efforts in direct legal advocacy for LGBTQ+ clients, advanced policy reforms addressing the criminalization of LGBTQ+ communities, and provided training and technical assistance to both institutions and legal professionals. In 2019, Deborah was appointed to the NYC Board of Correction Task Force on Issues Faced by TGNCNBI People in Custody, contributing to the development of the Task Force’s First Report, published in August 2022. This report has since informed legislative and policy reforms aimed at improving custodial conditions for TGNCNBI individuals.
Since 2019, Deborah has taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, teaching courses such as Advocacy, Contemporary Social Issues, and LGBTQ+ Communities. At HLS, in addition to teaching in the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, Deborah teaches the course LGBTQ Criminalization and Mass Incarceration.
Deborah’s professional contributions have been recognized through multiple honors, such as the 40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers under 40 Award from the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association (2025), the Community Excellence Award from the LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York (2021), the New York State Bar Association’s Award for Outstanding Achievements in Promoting Standards of Excellence in Mandated Representation (2020), and the New York Law Journal’s Trailblazers Award (2019).
Jumana Musa is a human rights attorney and racial justice activist. She is currently the Director of the Fourth Amendment Center at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. As director, Ms. Musa oversees NACDL's initiative to build a new, more durable Fourth Amendment legal doctrine for the digital age. The Fourth Amendment Center educates the defense bar on privacy challenges in the digital age, provides a dynamic toolkit of resources to help lawyers identify opportunities to challenge government surveillance, and establishes a tactical litigation support network to assist in key cases. Ms. Musa previously served as NACDL's Sr. Privacy and National Security Counsel.
Prior to joining NACDL, Ms. Musa served as a policy consultant for the Southern Border Communities Coalition, a coalition of over 60 groups across the southwest that address militarization and brutality by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in border communities. Previously, she served as Deputy Director for the Rights Working Group, a national coalition of civil rights, civil liberties, human rights, and immigrant rights advocates where she coordinated the “Face the Truth” campaign against racial profiling. She was also the Advocacy Director for Domestic Human Rights and International Justice at Amnesty International USA, where she addressed the domestic and international impact of U.S. counterterrorism efforts on human rights. She was one of the first human rights attorneys allowed to travel to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and served as Amnesty International's legal observer at military commission proceedings on the base.
Ms. Musa has also worked as a policy attorney for the National Network to End Domestic Violence and handled international relations and immigration issues as a fellow in the office of Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. As an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, she taught the course "Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa." In 2016, Ms. Musa received the Ralph Johns Civil Rights Award from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee in recognition of her work. Ms. Musa holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.
Brianna Nuhfer is the Chief Operating Officer for Americans for Public Safety. Her work focuses on strategy development and execution to advance partnerships, policies, and public dialogue that improve public safety, respect human dignity, and offer redemption. She is also the founder and principal consultant at Illumination Strategies LLC and facilitates solutions-oriented workshops with diverse participants including academics, practitioners, and policy experts all over the country. Previously, Brianna led the strategy and multi-million-dollar grant portfolio as vice president of criminal justice at Stand Together, a national philanthropy founded by Charles Koch. Prior to that, Brianna co-founded a non-profit which identifies local needs and equips men and women to take action to serve in their communities. Brianna received her B.A. in Political Economy from Hillsdale College, graduating summa cum laude. She is an alumna of the Koch Associate Program and currently resides with her husband, two sons, and cat in Bunker Hill, West Virginia.
Max Parthas (N. Saha) is a multi-published, multi-recorded, Spoken Word Artist, Slavery Abolitionist, and Social justice Activist. Mentored by poetic activist legends Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets, and the leader of the Black Arts movement Amiri Baraka, Max comes from a proud lineage of artistic social changemakers. In addition to being named national Poet of The Year twice, he is the recipient of the Missouri CURE Marc Taylor Activism Award, the Will Bell Humanitarian Award, and the “In The Spirit of Malcolm X” award from MX Media for his abolitionist activism.
His decades long volunteer work includes being the current Acting Director for the Paul Cuffee Abolitionist Center in Sumter, SC. And National Campaign Coordinator for the Abolish Slavery National Network.
Max Parthas was instrumental in organizing two of the largest prison slavery work strikes and national marches in US history. (2017/2018) where he also served as a keynote speaker alongside Robert King and Mumia Abu-Jamal who communicated Via phone from prison.
Max directly organized and assisted in campaigns removing slavery exception clauses from the state constitutions of Colorado (2018), Utah, and Nebraska (2020). Vermont, Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee (2022), and Nevada in 2024. Bringing the total to 9 free states with 18 others presently organized to do the same in 2025 and beyond.
On June 19th 2021 (Juneteenth) Max played an important role in the introduction of the “abolition Amendment” which, if adopted, will counter the slavery exception clause found in the 13th amendment. Ending constitutional slavery under a federal joint resolution.
Max has taught classes at all grade levels including universities. Presented seminars on Abolition both past and present at Harvard, SUNY, SCU, and Berea College. He has testified for constitutional abolition amendments as a directly impacted expert before state congresses across America. He has also been a Plenary and keynote speaker at multiple Human Rights conferences.
In 2025, Max Parthas was nominated as an expert by the Center for Constitutional Rights, to represent Modern US Slavery Abolition before the United Nation's “Special Communications Complaint for Evidence Pertaining to Practices of Slavery, Involuntary Servitude, and Other Forms of Forced Labor of Incarcerated Persons in the Southern Region of the United States.”
Some of his work on Slavery Abolition is featured in the documentaries;
- Slave State: Evidence of Apartheid in America
- No Address: Columbia, SC | Social Issues Documentary
Max Parthas currently resides in Sumter, SC with Wife of 39 years Tribal Raine. An iconic Spoken Word Artist and powerful activist in her own right. Together they are known as Maximum Impact Poetry.
Nathan Pysno is Director of Economic Crime & Procedural Justice at NACDL. He leads NACDL’s policy work on a wide variety of issues including, the trial penalty, plea bargaining, discovery, white collar crime, overcriminalization, and mens rea. He is a frequent writer, speaker, and lobbyist on criminal legal system reform issues. He was a member of the task force that published The New York State Trial Penalty: The Constitutional Right to Trial Under Attack, a groundbreaking research report on the trial penalty in New York State; and was co-author of Without Intent Revisited: Assessing the Intent Requirement in Federal Criminal Law 10 Years Later, a study of mens rea requirements in federal criminal legislation (with Zack Smith).
Prior to joining NACDL, he was a white collar criminal defense lawyer and litigator at a law firm in Washington, D.C., and served as a law clerk to Judge Jane R. Roth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is a graduate of Carleton College and Vanderbilt Law School, where he was Senior Managing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He is an award-winning author.
Vikrant P. Reddy is a Senior Fellow at the Stand Together Trust. He serves on the boards of the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law School and the Policing Project at the NYU School of Law. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. He is a member of the Council on Criminal Justice and a Salzburg Global Fellow. He has previously worked as a researcher at the Cato Institute, a judicial clerk, and an attorney in private practice. In 2010, Reddy managed the launch of the Right on Crime initiative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and the Southern Methodist University School of Law in Dallas.
Kevin Ring directs the state and federal advocacy portfolio for criminal justice reform at Arnold Ventures. In this role, Kevin works with the Criminal Justice team and all of Arnold Ventures to develop and implement the most effective advocacy strategies to achieve meaningful, lasting reforms.
Before joining Arnold Ventures, Kevin served as president of FAMM (formerly Families Against Mandatory Minimums). In that capacity, he testified before Congress and state legislatures across the country regarding sentencing and prison reform. He has been profiled in various national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, National Journal, Bloomberg News, and The Hill. He has appeared as a justice reform expert on FOX News, CBS News, MSNBC, Headline News, National Public Radio, Al Jazeera, and many other television and radio outlets. He has spoken at major conferences and events, including TribFest, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Conference, Conservative Political Action Conference, and the Variety/Rolling Stone Criminal Justice Summit. His writings have been published in numerous outlets, including USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Hill, and the Washington Examiner.
Kevin began his career in Washington, D.C., as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill. During his tenure, he served as counsel to the Senate Judiciary’s Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights Subcommittee under the leadership of future U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. He also served as executive director for the Republican Study Committee, the largest member organization in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 2004, Kevin’s first book, Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court’s Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice, was published by Regnery. In 2016, Kevin updated and revised the book, which was published as Scalia’s Court: A Legacy of Landmark Opinions and Dissents.
Kevin is a graduate of Syracuse University and the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Ebony Ruhland received her Ph.D. from the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on how criminal justice policies and practices impact individuals, families, and communities. Dr. Ruhland works on research projects that examine factors that lead to probation revocations, including the use of probation conditions, specifically supervision fees. Through her research, Dr. Ruhland hopes to find ways to improve criminal justice and corrections policies to reduce mass incarceration, racial disparities, and collateral consequences while at the same time maintaining public safety.
Ian Thompson serves as a Senior Legislative Advocate in the National Political Advocacy Department of the ACLU. For the past two decades, Ian has worked to protect and advance civil rights and liberties at the federal and state level. Ian currently serves as the ACLU's lead federal lobbyist on issues impacting the LGBTQ community. Ian previously served as a Senior Legislative Assistant for the ACLU where he worked on numerous efforts to reform the criminal legal system, including elimination of the racially discriminatory sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Ian has also worked with ACLU state affiliates on housing justice, including a successful effort in Delaware to create a statewide right to legal representation for those facing eviction. Prior to joining the ACLU in 2006, Ian served as a congressional intern for then-Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and is a 2005 graduate of Penn State University.
Devren Washington (he/they) is an organizer and strategist working at the New intersection of technology and liberation. As Organizing Director of the Peoples Tech Project, he convenes the Philly Tech Justice collective, uniting local groups to build a powerful, shared strategy for tech justice. Devren is also a Core Organizer with the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund and serves on the Advisory Council of National BailOut.
Whit Washington (they/them) is the Eileen A. Ryan Senior Attorney for the Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project at Lambda Legal. Their legal and legislative advocacy targets policies that criminalize trans and nonbinary people, with a focus on those at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, and works to enforce the human rights of those impacted by the criminal legal system. Outside of Lambda Legal, Whit lectures on the socio-legal, historical, and economic purposes of prison in the United States. Whit is based in Brooklyn and they look forward to the cooling weather.
Sign up for mobile advocacy alerts!
​Text "NACDL" to 50457 and follow the link to register for text alerts about urgent legislative actions in your state.
Messaging & data rates may apply. Message frequency varies. Reply HELP for help and STOP to unsubscribe.
Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy