Brooklyn Defender Services Reviews

I really just want to cosign the entire review left by an anonymous peer in 2019. BIPOC applicants - please reserve your talents, energy, labor, and love for your communities towards any other public defender office or similar org. Throughout my time here, I was devalued, tokenized, and reprimanded for speaking out about BIPOC staff treatment. Left this job with so much workplace trauma that I couldn't even write a review for a long time because my body would start having a visceral shut-down reaction when I began to remember my experiences here (yup- there was a lot to process). Expect most, if not all, attorneys in a supervisory position to be poor supervisors - attorneys are promoted frequently for their legal tact and brown-nosing abilities, so don't expect mentors or workplace problem-solvers. Expect racist, elitist, and classist remarks and insinuations from attorneys of all levels about their own clients. I feel my experience is still relevant as many of the attorneys/executive team that was at BDS during my tenure are still there in the same or promoted positions of power. Again, now you have read the reviews of TWO people who have experienced the same toxic workplace - turn around and don't look back. Copied below from an earlier review (with a heavy cosign): "Attorneys are near-explicitly given free reign by CEO and management reign to be as rude, micromanaging, overbearing, or unreasonable as they like towards any of the staff that they earn more than. Due to lack of oversight on attorneys or your work you will frequently be assigned more work than can be done, and forced to choose between unpaid overtime or admonishment. Attorneys who are incompetent, give inappropriate assignments, or even behave in a highly racist or hostile manner will -always- be defended by management. Rank is frequently and openly wielded as a blunt tool here and your experience as a non-attorney is likely to be demeaning and disheartening if you are not willing to brown-nose. Some attorneys are great and kind. However the bad ones can ruin the experience because no accountability exists for them re: their interactions with "support" staff. Speaking up from within this role is met with significant resistance, manipulation and even formal reprimand. Career advancement for non-attorneys in completely nonexistent if you cannot afford to leave for law school. Promotions are rare, secretive, make no sense, and involve nothing but a pay raise. Expect zero sympathy whatsoever if you come from an economic background where law school is not viable. Most of the attorneys come from significant privilege and simply will not understand if you talk to them about not being able to afford a decent apartment, professional clothes, healthcare bills, nice restaurants, an Ivy education, etc. This widespread white privilege among a firm that serves mostly black & brown clients ultimately leads to tokenizing of, many jokes at the expense of, and very major personal disconnects with the client base."

The administration is laden with nepotism and dysfunction. I was fired without warning for “dress code violations” and complaints about my attitude, but had never been notified nor given any negative feedback. I was vocally pro-unionization right from when I started, and I think it had something to do with that due to the rapidly approaching union vote. ALAA officials I conferred with determined it was a wrongful firing, although no charges could be made for lack of evidence. At the minimum, there is a toxic culture between management and staff, and a lack of desire for employees to succeed.