Chief Attorney, Civil Practice
The Legal Aid Society
Adriene Holder (she/her) is Chief Attorney of the Civil Practice of The Legal Aid Society, where she has devoted her career to advancing equity, challenging poverty, and confronting racial injustice through legal advocacy.
As the executive leader of the Civil Practice of the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit legal services and defender organization, she oversees a citywide network of neighborhood offices and specialized units serving all five boroughs of New York City. She leads a workforce of more than 600 attorneys, advocates, social workers, and support professionals who handle over 60,000 cases annually, delivering critical legal services in housing, homelessness prevention, public benefits, family and domestic violence, immigration, employment, disability rights, health, elder law, education, foreclosure prevention, consumer protection, tax, and community development.
Under her leadership and in partnership with advocates and community organizations, Adriene has helped drive landmark initiatives that have reshaped access to justice. She played a key strategic role in establishing New York City’s Right-to-Counsel law in housing court – the first of its kind in the nation and now a national model for eviction prevention – and in building and sustaining the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), the country’s first public defender program for detained immigrants.
Adriene began her career at The Legal Aid Society as a housing attorney in Harlem and went on to serve as a staff attorney in the Civil Practice Law Reform Unit and as Attorney-in-Charge of the Harlem Neighborhood Office before her appointment as Chief Attorney.
She is a member of the New York State Permanent Commission on Access to Justice and the New York State Bar Association President’s Committee on Access to Justice. She also serves on the executive board of Housing Court Answers and previously served as a Tenant Representative on the New York City Rent Guidelines Board. Adriene has taught as an adjunct professor at The New School and as a volunteer instructor at Columbia Law School.
Adriene holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Spelman College and a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School.