Name: Chiquisha Robinson

Job Title: Deputy Chief

Company Name: Prisoner and Reentry Legal Services, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia

Bio: Robinson is a transformational leader who serves as the Deputy Chief for the Prisoner & Reentry Legal Services program in the D.C. Public Defender Services Community Defender Division. The division provides legal advice, social services, and community education and outreach to adults and children who are in the post-adjudication stage of a criminal or juvenile delinquency case arising out of the D.C. Superior Court. Robinson manages a team of attorneys who respond to the legal and social services needs of newly released individuals and others with D.C. criminal records, assisting them in making a successful transition back into the community.

Bio 2: Robinson also serves as the Public Defender Service’s liaison to individuals convicted of District of Columbia Code offenses who are serving sentences in the D.C. Department of Corrections, Central Treatment Facility, and federal Bureau of Prisons. She provides these individuals with legal information, monitors their conditions of confinement, and provides legal representation in parole, compassionate release, early termination of supervision, and other sentence reduction legal matters. Previously, Robinson was a senior attorney in the Public Defender Services Trial Division, handling only the most serious felonies. In this role, she was also a member of the nationally recognized Forensic Practice Group, which trains lawyers around the country on forensic and scientific matters.

Bio 3: Robinson is also Co-Chair of the D.C. Reentry Action Network, a coalition of reentry direct service providers; Co-Chair of the ABA’s Committee on Reentry and Collateral Consequences; and Director of Social Policy and Advocacy for the Black Public Defender Association.

Bio 4: Robinson is the author of The D.C. Reentry Navigator: Empowering You to Succeed with a D.C. Criminal Record. She is especially passionate about mentoring the next generation of advocates and does so by teaching criminal law as an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University. She received her law degree from Boston College Law School and her undergraduate degree (magna cum laude) from the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Ms. Robinson has an enduring commitment to the District of Columbia where she has passionately served people with criminal records in both the pre- and post-adjudication phases of the criminal justice system for many years.