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Courageous Leader Award

The Courageous Leaders Awards recognize trailblazers who model the commitment and courage it takes to advance meaningful and lasting racial equity efforts. These emerging leaders are doing notable and impactful DEI work within their organizations and modeling the way for others. We seek to highlight sustained commitment, vision, and creativity through internal engagement, pro bono practice, and/or community engagement.

 

The 2023 Courageous Leaders Awards will be presented during NLADA’s 2023 Annual Conference in Oakland, CA during the Awards Luncheon on Friday, November 10th. The NLADA Racial Equity Initiative is pleased to announce the 2023 Courageous Leader Award recipient, NLADA Mutual Insurance Co., a Risk Retention Group.

NLADA Mutual Insurance Co., a Risk Retention Group (“NLADA Mutual”), is America’s equal justice insurance and risk management firm.  We are the only provider exclusively dedicated to equipping the equal justice community of advocates with the coverage they need to courageously and confidently advance justice for all. We seek to empower the equal justice community with the courage, confidence, and peace of mind that comes with knowing you have the coverages you need while serving on the frontlines of advancing justice and expanding equity and opportunity for all. NLADA Mutual is an evolved version of the NLADA Insurance Program, which has been serving this community for decades. Now as NLADA Mutual, we have more control and flexibility. We execute underwriting at the intersection of your unique needs.  This is about much more than a liability policy. NLADA Mutual is owned by its policyholders and is also a fierce advocate that is taking the fight for equitable access and coverage to the insurance industry as a whole. We serve the equal justice community. This includes advocates in public defense, civil legal aid organizations, equal-justice focused law firms, law school legal clinics, pro bono organizations, corporate legal departments/pro bono practices and public interest organizations.

Watch the Conversation on Courageous Leadership: With Jim Chosy, Jo-Ann Wallace, Rhodia Thomas, and Jon Asher held at the 2023 NLADA Annual Conference. 

 

Past Courageous Leaders Award Recipients

2022 Courageous Leaders Awards Recipients

Leander Dolphin, Shipman & Goodwin is the Managing Partner of the firm and a partner in the firm’s School Law Practice Group. Leander has dedicated her career to advising educational institutions and organizations that foster the development of children, youth, and young adults. An effective litigator and counselor, she draws on her dispute-resolution experience to help clients identify shared goals and find common ground with staff, parents, students, and community stakeholders.
Leander advises universities, colleges, public school districts, independent schools, and other public- and private-sector clients on the full range of education and employment matters. A 1999 graduate of Wesleyan University with majors in English, African American Studies, and Women’s Studies, Leander worked at the Criminal Justice Institute before entering Howard University Law School in 2001 and graduating in 2004. Joining Shipman & Goodwin as an associate, she was a general and employment litigator until 2007, when she became Vice President and General Counsel at Girls Scouts of Connecticut. Returning to Shipman in 2009, Leander built a dynamic education and employment practice, becoming a partner in 2015. In January 2022, she was elected Managing Partner of the approximately 140-member firm. Leander has previously led Shipman & Goodwin’s Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; has been an adjunct professor at Quinnipiac School of Law; served on the Board of the Governor’s Prevention Partnership, and the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity’s Advisory Committee.  She was previously the Secretary and Board member for the George W. Crawford Black Bar Association, is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a James W. Cooper Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation.
 
Dr. Marvin D. Carr is a Director at the Walmart.org Center for Racial Equity where he leads the center’s philanthropic efforts focused on creating systems change in the nation’s criminal justice system. Before joining Walmart, he worked to advance federal funding and policy-making efforts in educational research, community development, workforce development, and diversity and inclusion. He previously served as a Policy Advisor for STEM Education, Innovation, and Diversity in the White House during the Obama administration, leading efforts to expand access to high-quality education and job opportunities in science and technology. Most recently, Marvin led federal efforts through the nation’s public libraries and museums to support formal and informal education and community development research and grantmaking. Marvin earned a Bachelor of Science and a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Morgan State University and a Master of Science degree in systems engineering from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is a Bill and Melinda Gates Fellow, a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., and a Fellow of The Funders Network’s PLACES for Philanthropy Fellowship program.

2021 Courageous Leaders Awards Recipients

Danette Gerald Howard, Ph.D. is chief policy officer and senior vice president at Lumina Foundation, the nation’s largest private foundation focused solely on increasing student access and success in postsecondary education. Howard oversees several of Lumina’s key strategies to increase Americans’ attainment of high-quality postsecondary degrees and credentials, including strategic work in both state and federal policy and efforts to leverage states as the drivers of credential attainment. She also leads the Foundation’s Equity First efforts to embed racial equity and justice in all aspects of Lumina’s strategic work and operations.
Howard currently serves as a member of the Howard University Board of Trustees, and as a trustee of the Ascension St. Vincent Foundation.
Malcolm Jenkins is a pillar in the Philadelphia Eagles locker room and in the communities in which he has lived, worked and played, including his home state of New Jersey, Louisiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Law Firm Antiracism Alliance

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We are America’s oldest and largest nonprofit association devoted to excellence in the delivery of legal services to those who cannot afford counsel. There is no other legal organization that touches on all the access points of poverty as does NLADA.

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National Legal Aid & Defender Association

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