NPAP’s New Authorized Head To Take On Regulation Enforcement Reform
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| Lauren Bonds |
National Police Accountability Project, a nationwide advocacy team supporting legislation aimed at curtailing law enforcement violence, has tapped the ACLU of Kansas’ major lawyer as the first authorized director in its record.
Lauren Bonds, a lawyer with extensive employment and civil rights litigation experience, will lead NPAP by means of its formidable initiatives at reforming the method of accountability of regulation enforcement across the nation, the business introduced Jan. 5.
In an interview with Law360, Bond mentioned she is enthusiastic about the opportunity to function with NPAP.
The lack of accountability for law enforcement officers, significantly when it comes to their encounters with folks of shade, has been the driving drive guiding her authorized career, she stated.
“I do not consider that there is a extra vital or remarkable spot you could be doing work as a civil legal rights lawyer ideal now,” Bonds reported.
In her position, she will be directing the lawful arm of an firm that counts about 500 members deployed all more than the United States. Her 1st precedence will be to give individuals customers the aid they will need to combat the very good combat, she mentioned.
“I want to make positive that, whatsoever we are performing, it is really going to be beneficial to the attorneys out there who are in the streets, who are in the trenches bringing these instances,” Bonds stated.
NPAP has existed considering that 1999, where by it began as an offshoot of the National Legal professionals Guild, which was established in 1937 as the to start with racially integrated bar affiliation in the county.
Nonetheless, the organization’s profile failed to rise until eventually very last summer months, said Rachel Pickens, the nonprofit’s govt director, when the loss of life of George Floyd at the palms of a Minneapolis police officer sparked outrage that reverberated across the nation, prompting calls for police reform from across the political spectrum.
“I know there is certainly no likely again to before the summer of 2020,” Pickens reported. “Obtaining Lauren encouraging other activists, organizers and lawyers in numerous parts of the state to guide the hard work to build adjust will be a monumental action for us.”
Pickens said Bonds is the correct person to lead NPAP in its position of advocating for victims of law enforcement brutality when informing new laws.
“Lauren is likely to be a great asset at NPAP. She has the encounter we need. I experience that she has the ability set, both of those professionally and personally, that we can really get the job done with our several associates and coalitions and communities to drive for real reform, and struggle for reform,” Pickens stated.
The alter in administration and the change of electric power in the Senate, she hopes, will develop options for reforming the lawful landscape about police accountability. Bonds comes in at the ideal time, Pickens reported, and her history positions her well for the position. Bonds will grow NPAP’s do the job though trying to keep the grassroots connections she made in her profession as a civil legal rights legal professional, and bringing them to fruition, Pickens explained.
Bonds will function on drafting legislation and position papers, and immediate NPAP in its advisory job in lawmaking, meeting with legislators and supplying testimony ahead of community, state, and federal legislatures, the corporation said.
Bonds outlined the doctrine of capable immunity as a authorized area in dire have to have of reform. She reported she hopes to construct on the momentum spurred by Floyd’s loss of life to bring about necessary transform. At the federal amount, she mentioned, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is paving the way for a lot more accountability of police: reduce expectations for prison prosecution of police officers who engage in misconduct, the establishment of a national registry of law enforcement misconduct, boundaries to experienced immunity, and subpoena electricity to the U.S. Section of Justice in investigations of law enforcement departments with a sample of discrimination.
Bonds will also target on point out laws, she stated.
“I think that there is an amazing chance for legislative modifications the two at the federal stage and state stage,” Bonds reported.
A Duke College alumna, Bonds racked up litigation expertise symbolizing minimal-earnings staff in employment and civil rights lawsuits, including voting rights situations in Alabama and North Carolina, according to her profile site on the ACLU’s website. She also served as assistant standard counsel of the Services Personnel Global Union, advising the union on mass steps, and litigating civil conditions in federal courts and prior to federal businesses.
As a authorized director at the ACLU of Kansas, Bonds seasoned firsthand the challenges of symbolizing the underprivileged, usually minorities, “folks who are form of at the margins of society,” Davids in a earth of Goliaths, she stated. For the duration of her tenure at the ACLU, she litigated civil rights circumstances involving felony justice, voting legal rights and First Modification concerns, although yielding her authorized expertise to civil legal rights activists.
“Owning had the opportunity to do this function in which it truly is challenging to do this perform, and where by we have hostile courts and at situations hostile community perception, I assume that was a pretty developing expertise that will support me in my new place,” she explained.


–Enhancing by Katherine Rautenberg.
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