Supervising Attorney Anthony Posada of our Community Justice Unit (CJU) passionately works within New York’s neighborhoods to fight gun violence and provide legal access and support.

Growing up with his father incarcerated, Anthony Posada has a unique perspective on the role our justice system plays in communities. He spends his days coordinating efforts to encourage positive interactions between local community members and our city’s justice system.

The CJU was founded to provide essential legal services to members of “Cure Violence” Programs, New York City’s approach to curbing gun violence by viewing it as a public safety issue. Anthony leads the CJU in providing Know Your Rights events for immigrants, educating youth groups on the school-to-prison pipeline, advocating against NYPD’s secretive gang database, and more. Looking back on his life, he sees that you can’t just serve individual clients, but that “the community needs to be serviced.” As Anthony puts it, “at the end of the day, each case is a person who is going to return to their family and their community.”

At the end of the day, each case is a person who is going to return to their family and their community.

Anthony Posada, Community Justice Unit (Supervising Attorney)

Anthony—along with the rest of the CJU team—impact the lives of New Yorkers across our city. In just one day, the variety of neighborhoods and clients they work with is breathtaking: helping clients get fingerprinted so they can seal their criminal records; working with the family of Saheed Vassell, a mentally ill black man who was killed by NYPD officers; coordinating workshops to help grassroots community organizations incorporate themselves as non-profits; planning community engagement training sessions for attorneys at some of the city’s most prestigious law firms; and much more.