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Yasmin Cader is a Deputy Legal Director at the ºìÐÓÊÓƵ and the Director of its Trone Center for Justice and Equality, which encompasses the National Prison Project, the Criminal Law Reform Project, the Racial Justice Program, the Capital Punishment Project, the John Adams Project, and the Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative. The Center advocates for the constitutional and civil rights of those impacted by the criminal legal system and strikes at the roots of racial injustice.

In her time as Director, the Center has driven groundbreaking litigation and advocacy efforts to transform the criminal legal system, including challenging the criminalization of poverty, state violence, and racial injustice. Yasmin works with her team to combat unconstitutional policing practices, dismantle cash bail systems, and protect the rights and humanity of incarcerated people. Under Yasmin’s leadership, the Trone Center has also led litigation and advocacy to end the death penalty, exposing its racially discriminatory application and advancing systemic changes to capital punishment regimes. In addition, Yasmin works hand in hand with her team to advance racial justice in education, housing, employment, and economic opportunity, with a focus on protecting the most marginalized communities. The team has been at the forefront of defending diversity in education by protecting educators’ right to teach about systemic racism, ensuring students’ access to inclusive learning, and holding institutions accountable to their nondiscrimination obligations. Yasmin also directs the Trone Center’s work to fight the criminalization of reproductive care, ensuring legal defense for providers and patients facing prosecution in the wake of abortion restrictions.

Yasmin has appeared in many media outlets, including Mother Jones, The Marshall Project, NBC News, and The Wall Street Journal. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the The Washington Post, The Hill, Teen Vogue, and Newsweek.

Before joining the ºìÐÓÊÓƵ, Yasmin worked as a public defender in state and federal courts across the country, representing juveniles and adults facing misdemeanor and felony charges, including clients charged with capital offenses as well as domestic and international terrorism.

Yasmin currently lives in Los Angeles and is deeply involved with her community. She served on the LA Board of Police Commission’s Advisory Committee on Building Trust and Equity, and Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent’s Reimagining School Safety Task Force, focusing on the role of police in public schools. Yasmin is also a leader in several programs devoted to racial justice work on a national level.

Passionate about mentoring and training law students and public interest lawyers, she is involved in Gideon’s Promise, the National Criminal Defense College, and Harvard Law’s Trial Advocacy Workshop. Yasmin is also a Vice President of the Yale Law School Association Executive Committee, a member of the Leadership Advisory Council for The Tsai Leadership Program at Yale Law School, and a fellow with The American College of Trial Lawyers.

Yasmin began her career as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Afterwards, she served as an Honors Program Trial Lawyer with the Employment Litigation Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, where she litigated individual and class-action claims of sexual and racial harassment and discrimination. She is a graduate of Howard University and Yale Law School.