Annual Summit on Indigent Defense Improvement
A National Forum for Bar & Indigent Defense Leaders
About the Summit
Since 2005, the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (SCLAID) has been sponsoring the Annual Summit on Indigent Defense Improvement. The Summit provides an opportunity for leaders of state bar and defender programs, as well as others interested in indigent defense reform, to learn from experts about recent developments from around the country and to engage in a dialogue with their peers from other states.
More than 40 years after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright indigent defense services in the U.S. are still mired in a state of crisis. Yet, there have been important reforms in certain states and bar leaders especially have sometimes used their influence either to initiate or assist improvements in critical ways. ABA SCLAID sponsors this annual national forum because it recognizes the importance of leadership from the organized bar in addressing injustices faced by indigent defendants. This program is held in conjunction with the ABA Midyear Meeting, held annually in February.
2009 Summit - Boston, Massachusetts
- Agenda
- Table of Contents
- A Crisis of Funding
- Misdemeanors
- Death Penalty
- Litigation
- Faculty Biographies
PROGRAM MATERIALS
2008 Summit - Los Angeles - Beverly Hills, California
- Agenda
- Highlignts from the 2008 Summit on Indigent Defense Improvement: A National Forum for Bar Leaders & Indigent Defense Leaders - Held February 8, 2008 - Los Angeles, CA
This year’s Summit was the most successful Summit yet, with over 100 people in attendance including, bar association leaders, heads of defender offices, leaders of national criminal justice organizations, members of the judiciary and many others dedicated to reforming indigent defense systems.
Pictured left are panelists from the plenary session Wrongful Convictions: Engaging in Critical Systemic Reform. Panelists included: Senator Rodney Ellis, Texas State Senator; Peter Neufeld, Co-director of the Innocence Project; John Terzano, President, The Justice Project; Gerald F. Uelmen, Executive Director, California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice; Herman Atkins, West Coast Coordinator, Innocence Project; and Adele Bernhard, Professor and Supervisor of Criminal Justice Clinics at Pace University Law.
This session began with Herman Atkins’ story. Mr. Atkins was wrongly convicted of a rape and exonerated after serving 11.5 years. Panelists focused on systemic issues that impact the ability of defenders (institutional and private) to provide competent representation and that, as a result, contribute to wrongful convictions, including: caseload pressures, lack of training, lack of investigators, experts and other resources, low fees, flat fee contracts, and absence of meaningful eligibility standards for appointment to assigned counsel panels, lack of parity with the prosecutorial agencies; absence of supervision, and inadequate access to information through pre-trial discovery.
2007 Summit - Miami, Florida
- Agenda & Brochure
- Program Materials: Table of Contents
Download & watch the 2007 Summit Video - (Real Player)(Windows Media)
- 2007 Event Photographs - View the Gallery
2006 Summit - Chicago, Illinois
2005 Summit - Salt Lake City, Utah
