Dear Readers,
Thank you for your interest in The Criminal Law Practitioner! I am excited to address you for the first time as the brief’s new Editor-in-Chief. On behalf of our Editorial Board and Staff, I am proud to share Volume XIV, Issue II with you. This issue continues our mission of producing informative and timely criminal law content. Authors Fareed Hayat and Alisa Smith provide their insight on important issues for criminal law practitioners, specifically improving the work-life balance and effectiveness of public defenders and bettering the experiences of minority and first-generation students in law school.
In “Centering the People’s Voice in Teaching and Learning First-Year Criminal Law,” Hayat provides his perspective as a law school professor and discusses how he works to make his criminal law class inclusive of minority student experiences. Hayat specifically discusses his use of rap lyrics in the classroom as a means to center the experiences of first-generation students of color and create an academic environment supportive and conducive to the lives of all students.
Smith uses an original data set in “Moving Beyond Yoga: An Exploratory, Qualitative Study of Public Defenders’ Solutions for Improving Work-Life and Effective Assistance of Counsel” to discuss solutions and causes of the growing rates of burnout among public defenders. The study analyzes public defenders’ responses to open-ended questions concerning their lived experiences, motivations, and challenges, and their proposed solutions for improving their work-life balance and the criminal legal system. Smith specifically found two emerging themes from her data: a need for organizational improvements and systemic changes in public defense work.
We would like to thank the authors for the time and effort they committed to producing their articles. I would also like to acknowledge the hard work of the Editorial Board and Staff in spading and editing these articles. I especially want to thank our previous Editor-in-Chief, Jacquelyn Solomon, as well as the incoming and outgoing Executive Editor, Equity & Inclusion Editors, Managing Publications Editors, Managing Design Editor, and Articles Editors for their dedication, efficiency, and care in preparing these articles for publication.
Finally, I would like to encourage you to visit our website, CrimLawPractitioner.org, to read our latest blog posts, criminal law practitioner profiles, and previous publications. If you are interested in publishing with The Criminal Law Practitioner or if you would like to be featured in our practitioner profiles, please contact us at clp@wcl.american.edu.
Happy reading!
Sincerely,
Siena Roberts
Editor-in-Chief
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