NEW YORK, NY – Today, Neighborhood Defender Service (NDS) launched a new website at www.NeighborhoodDefender.org, that will allow it to better serve clients and advocate for justice beyond the courtroom. The site debuts alongside a new logo that emphasizes “the power of public defense” to secure justice for our clients and communities.
“As NDS approaches thirty years of service to the northern Manhattan community and begins to provide the same unparalleled representation in Detroit, this new website will help clients find our services as soon as they need them and ultimately secure the best possible outcomes,” said NDS Executive Director Rick Jones.
The website reflects NDS’ innovative holistic model, in which cross-cutting practices coordinate to meet all clients’ legal needs. The model addresses the systematic discrimination that poor people face when they are accused of crimes and restores the balance of power to the accused. By fighting alongside clients in criminal, housing, family and immigration proceedings, NDS seeks to disentangle our neighbors from the legal system once and for all. The new site makes it easier for clients to get services as soon as they need them, and locate an attorney from any of our practice areas.
The website debuts alongside a refreshed logo that reflects NDS’ belief in public defense as both a fundamental right of individuals and a tool to protect communities. Our neighborhoods face not only an unjust criminal legal system but also economic and racial discrimination. “The Power of Public Defense” captures the ability of indigent defense to fight both individual and collective battles.
Together, the website and logo will allow NDS to more effectively leverage our decades of experience to fight for urgent policy changes on a local, state and national level.
“The conversation around criminal legal reform is changing. The injustices we have fought for decades are now the subject of presidential debates and the target of action of elected officials from Wayne County to New York County to Washington, D.C. But we still remain a long way from achieving equal justice under the law,” Jones said. “With these new tools, NDS is renewing and refreshing our commitment to advocacy at all levels of government on behalf of the communities we serve.”
To learn more about the services NDS provides, please visit NeighborhoodDefender.org
Contact:
Sam McCann, Communications Specialist, NDS
Phone: (212) 316-7399
Email: smccann@ndsny.org