Blind Spots: Seeing the Bias that Hurts our Clients

This dynamic and client-centered webinar explores how implicit bias shapes the daily practice of criminal defense. From jury selection to client communication, attorneys make high-stakes decisions influenced by unconscious assumptions. Using research, real-life examples, humor, and strategy, this presentation gives lawyers and nonlawyers practical tools to recognize and interrupt bias-without shame or defensiveness. Teaching Goals . . . To define implicit bias and explain how it differs from racism and prejudice To identify ways bias can affect clients, jurors, and witnesses during representation To apply practical strategies to reduce bias in courtroom decision making and advocacy.

Kenneth Hardin
Kenneth is the founding Executive Director of Harris County’s first Managed Assigned Counsel (MAC) Office in Houston, Texas. As the former MAC Director, Kenneth led an office that managed the appointment process and provided holistic services for attorneys qualified to accept misdemeanor appointments in the third largest county in the nation. Prior to his appointment, Kenneth practiced at both the Harris County Public Defender’s Office in Houston, TX and his “home” office of the Orleans Public Defender’s Office in New Orleans, LA. Being born and raised Louisiana, he received his undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University (LSU) before graduating law school from Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston, Texas.  Kenneth has handled and tried several cases over his career including but not limited to drug, burglary, robbery, murder, and rape cases. Kenneth is also very active on increasing community awareness regarding the negative implications of mass incarceration. Kenneth was featured on BET’s “the DA versus Black America” in 2016 as well “60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper” in 2017 discussing the impact of underfunded public defender offices.  In 2018, Kenneth co-hosted a full day seminar for the NFL and New Orleans Saints on oppression in the criminal justice system and the challenges that public defenders have in changing the narrative.  Kenneth is licensed to practice law in Texas, Louisiana, and in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Additionally, Kenneth is recurring faculty for the Harvard Trial Advocacy Program (in Cambridge, Massachusetts), a graduate and recurring faculty at Gideon’s Promise (in Atlanta, Georgia), a former board member for Gideon’s Promise, a graduate of National Criminal Defense College, a graduate of the Louisiana Defender Training Institute, and a member of Kappa Alpha Psi. In 2019, Kenneth was the recipient of the Stephen B. Bright Public Defender Award—a national award given annually in recognition to attorneys on their contribution to improving the quality of indigent defense.