8th Annual Shaping Justice Conference To Feature Nonprofit Founder

Alec Karakatsanis, founder of Civil Rights Corps, will deliver the keynote address at the eighth annual Shaping Justice conference at the University of Virginia School of Law.

The conference, “(De)Criminalizing Poverty,” sponsored by the Program in Law and Public Service, will take place Feb. 2. The event is open to the Law School community only with advanced registration, and doors open at 12:15 p.m. (Full Schedule | Register)

Aimed at inspiring students and lawyers to promote justice through public service, the conference will kick off with a lunch and awards ceremony to honor alumni working in public interest roles. Jonathan Lowy ’88, founder and president of the nonprofit Global Action on Gun Violence, will receive the Shaping Justice Award for Extraordinary Achievement, and Emily Ponder Williams ’14, managing attorney of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem’s Civil Defense Practice, will receive the Shaping Justice Rising Star Award. Panels of experts will discuss the right to housing and the criminalization of poverty.

Karakatsanis will speak on “The Punishment Bureaucracy and the Failure of ‘Criminal Justice Reform’” at 3:30 p.m. in Caplin Pavilion, and a reception will follow.

Karakatsanis founded the nonprofit Civil Rights Corps to “challeng[e] systemic injustice” in the U.S. legal system, according to the organization’s website. Before founding Civil Rights Corps, Karakatsanis was a civil rights lawyer and public defender with the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. He was also a federal public defender in Alabama and co-founder of the nonprofit Equal Justice Under Law. Karakatsanis was the recipient of the 2023 John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award.