Washington Defender Association

Washington Defender Association (WDA) is an organization dedicated to public defense reform, with a mission to provide support for high-quality legal representation by advocating for change, educating defenders, and collaborating with the community and justice system stakeholders to bring about just solutions. WDA provides legal resources by providing case assistance to incarcerated parents, family members, indigent defenders, and others; legal motions and briefs; expert referrals; and legal training to defenders, other court participants and community members; and they engage in collaborative policy efforts to keep parents in the community, ensure high quality, meaningful connections are maintained between children and their parents during incarceration, and to remove the stigma associated with parental incarceration. WDA focuses its work in three primary areas: training and publications, public defender case assistance, and policy advocacy.  They also support specific projects that provide training and resource assistance for misdemeanor and felony defenders, especially those in rural and small offices without supervisory support; defenders representing noncitizen clients through our WDA Immigration Project; incarcerated parents and their public defenders through our Incarcerated Parents Project; and defenders representing clients facing the death penalty through our Death Penalty Assistance Project.