Chayla C. Jackson, Esq.

Chayla C. Jackson, Esq.

National Juvenile Defender Center’s Juvenile Post-Disposition Reentry Legal Fellow, Maryland Office of Public Defender (Baltimore, Maryland)

Chayla C. Jackson, Esq. is an attorney, professional public speaker, teacher, and forth-coming author. She is passionate about empowering youth through advocacy and education, inspiring youth and adults to live their best life and achieve their dreams, and combating the cradle-to-prison pipeline.

Chayla graduated from Georgetown Law as a Public Interest Law Scholar. While at Georgetown Law, she was a street law teacher at two D.C. High Schools and the After-school kids (ASK) program for D.C. youth on probation. In her last year, she was a student attorney in the Juvenile Justice Clinic representing youth charged with a delinquent act in D.C. Superior Court. She has also clerked for the East Bay Community Law Center Juvenile Defender Clinic, Washington Lawyers’ Committee, Alexandria Public Defender, and the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia where she represented adults before the U.S. Parole Commission facing probation/parole revocation.

Currently, she is the Juvenile Reentry Legal Fellow at the Maryland Public Defender Office working to connect committed juveniles in the State of Maryland with education, housing, and record sealing services to support them in transitioning back into the community. Chayla also guest lectures at universities and speaks on panels on the criminal justice system, juvenile justice, education, and community empowerment.

Chayla is an alumni of the conference, was a guest speaker at the National Diversity Pre-Law Conference in 2014, and is the co-chair, along with Ashley Cloud, of the Alumni Network which furthers the mission of the Pre-Law conference to empower and support the conference alumni through the process of applying to law school, excelling in law school, mastering the bar exam, and navigating their legal career.

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