MOVEMENT LAWYERING
About Movement Lawyering Practice
Richael is a licensed attorney in Washington DC and Virginia and has been practicing for 13 years.
Although they are no longer in full-time practice, they do not consider themselves a recovering lawyer. Rather believes they’re a person who intentionally entered law as a political strategy through which they continue to leverage their knowledge, access, and credentials in service to movement.
Richael practices as a movement lawyer by supporting other liberation workers’ basic legal needs, by providing direct action legal support, by engaging in political work with other movement lawyers, and as a part of their conflict and repair work.
Movement Lawyering Portfolio
Current Legal Roles
Member, Lawyers 4 Black Lives (2022 - Present).
Legal Experience
Advancement Project, Equal Justice Works Fellow/Staff Attorney, Virginia Rights Restoration Project (2011-2014).
Executive Editor, National Lawyers’ Guild Review (April 2011 – 2015).
Volunteer Attorney, Name and Gender Clinic, Transgender Legal Advocates of Washington, April 2012 – 2014.
Law Presentations
Creating Meaningful Intergenerational Relationships in Law & Struggle, National Lawyers’ Guild 76th Annual Law for the People Convention (October 2013).
“On Community Lawyering,” Guest Lecturer, University of Virginia School of Law (March 2013).
Intersectional Lawyering: Whole People, Whole Experiences & Whole Systems Lawyering, Critical Race Theory Conference, Yale University School of Law (February 2013).
“Black History Month Voting Rights Briefing,” Congressional Black Caucus, co-hosted by Reps. Marcia Fudge, John Conyers, and John Lewis (February 2012).
Law-Breaking Gender: Talking about Trans-Justice, American University GLBT Studies Colloquium (November 2010).
(Law) Breaking Gender: How Legalized Gender Oppression Guides Advocates Toward Transformative Law, New Developments in Sexuality & Gender panel, Lat. Crit. XIV Conference (October 2009).
Legal Publications
“The Future Is Here: First Nations & Black Sovereignties in a New Era of Land Justice,” Land Justice: Re-Imagining Land, Food, and Commons (2017).
#BlackLivesMatter Kitchen Talk, 71 Nat’l Law. Guild Review 246 (2014).
The New Jim Crow Book Review Response Essay, 70 Nat’l Lawyers’ Guild Rev. 2 (2013).
Toward The Heart of Justice, 69 Nat’l Lawyers’ Guild Rev. 4 (2012).
An Idea of American Indian Land Justice: Examining Native Land Liberation in a New Progressive Era, 67 Nat’l Lawyers’ Guild Rev. 4 (2011).
Religious Exemption or Exceptionalism? Exploring the Tension of First Amendment Religion Protections and Civil Rights Progress, Employment Discrimination Act, 3 Am. U. Legis. & Pol’y Brief 1 (2011).
Law-Breaking Gender: In Search of Transformative Gender Law, 18 Am. U. J. Gender, Soc. Pol’y & L. 3 (2010).
Book Interview: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 6 The Modern Am. 2 (2010).
Seeking Protection from the Law? Exploring Changing Arguments for U.S. Domestic Violence Asylum Claims and Gendered Resistance by Courts, 6 The Modern Am. 3 (2009). D.C. Women’s Bar Association and The Modern American Annual Essay Contest Winning Entry.
Transitioning Our Prisons Toward Affirmative Law: Examining the Impact of Gender Classification Policies on U.S. Transgender Prisoners, 5 The Modern Am. 2 (2008).
