Public defender hires diversity and inclusion officer

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Attorney Danielle Ponder has joined the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office in the newly created position of Special Assistant Public Defender – Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

As part of the executive leadership team, Ponder will guide the office’s efforts to expand the diversity of the staff, and help build an inclusive organization. She also will review office policies and procedures to ensure that they promote diversity and cultural awareness, and reduce any cultural barriers faced by clients being represented by the office.

Ponder also will play an essential role in increasing office visibility and community engagement.

Ponder, a popular singer in the Rochester area and beyond, has been a full-time musician for the past two years. Before that, she was an assistant public defender from February 2013 until May 2018.

Prior to her legal career, Ponder worked in the Monroe County Office of Mental Health as a cultural broker, bridging the gap between mental health providers and their clients.

Beyond her professional positions, Ponder has worked within the activist community on criminal justice reform, education funding and racial justice.

Ponder has a juris doctorate from Northeastern University, where she was a Public Interest Law Scholar, and a bachelor of science in psychology from the State University of New York at Oswego.

Ponder said the new position was created because only about 10 percent of the 76 attorneys in the Public Defender’s Office are attorneys of color while the office serves “a large community of people of color.”

“So the people we represent do not necessarily reflect the attorneys in the office,” she said.

“We all realize that diversity is important. It will make our office a better office, bringing in people with different experiences and with different backgrounds, and I think it will help us to better serve our clients as well,” she said.

Ponder will conduct training in the office and travel nationwide to recruit attorneys.

“I really was enjoying my musician life, but this was something I’m really passionate about so I just felt like it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down,” she said.

When Ponder first started working in the Public Defender’s Office in 2013 she was the only Black attorney on the staff.

“I know what that feels like. I know the isolation one can feel being the only Black attorney in an office,” she said.

In addition to attracting lawyers of color, Ponder hopes to create an “inclusive office” to help retain those attorneys.

“We’ve developed a racial justice committee at our office and that committee will be looking at policies in our office through a racial justice lens because we want to make sure our policies are equitable, our policies are fair, and our policies really encourage leadership by attorneys of color as well as create an inclusive office,” she said.

Ponder will be training all new attorneys on culture competence and racial justice. And she will help in an effort to have the office engage more with the community, “especially with those who are on the front lines of the fight for criminal justice reform,” she said.

“As public defenders we have some insight, and we have some first-hand knowledge of how our system is failing in many ways. So we really hope to support the community in the fight for reform,” she said.

Monroe County Public Defender Tim Donaher said the newly created position is funded with a state grant.

“Like a lot of other large law offices in the country or even in the city of Rochester, we are recognizing that we want a more diverse legal staff and that we were facing challenges in identifying and recruiting persons of color to the Public Defender’s Office,” Donaher said.

“In the past, although we made it a priority, without having somebody overseeing those efforts in a full-time capacity, we realized that we weren’t reaching our goal of expanding the diversity in the Public Defender’s Office,” he said.

“If you’re going to make concerted efforts to examine your office, its policies, its cultures, to remove any instances or vestiges of implicit bias or systemic racism I think you need somebody (with that as) their primary job responsibility,” Donaher said.

“And we couldn’t have found anybody better than Danielle, given her years of experience as a public defender. She understands the office. She is very knowledgeable on issues of cultural awareness, implicit bias and systemic racism,” he said.

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