Liyah K. Brown leads TCRP’s quest to relieve Texas communities of hazardous policing, prosecution, judicial, prison, monitoring, and surveillance practices that ensnare masses of people in incessant webs of injustice. As Director of Criminal Injustice Reform she manages the team executing this mission inside and outside of federal and local Texas courtrooms. A former public defender and international criminal legal aid provider, Liyah serves as internal and external strategic thought-partner on a broad range of substantive criminal and civil legal topics as well as on community and movement lawyering, grassroots organizing, litigation and trial advocacy tactics.

Liyah is a Brooklyn, N.Y. native and first-generation college graduate. She attended Georgetown University and New York University School of Law where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern scholar. Her path to TCRP includes employment with the Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union, and Public Defender Service for D.C., fellowships with the International Legal Foundation, and a clerkship with Hon. Sterling Johnson, Jr. of the Eastern District of New York.