I am an attorney, born and raised in Kalamazoo.   I spent half of my professional life in Washington, DC, before moving back to Kalamazoo to engage in direct services to the most in need.   I founded Kalamazoo Defender in 2018-2019.

Kalamazoo Defender is a 3.5 year old non-profit that handles all indigent criminal cases in Kalamazoo County (about 5,000 cases each year).  Our office receives county and state money to fund attorneys and paralegals, and also operates on over $1million of privately raised money to employ social workers and administrators to run a service hub inside our public defender office (the service hub is over 14,000 square feet of offices and meeting rooms and includes help from over two dozen local service providers).