Deborah Levi has been a public defender since she began her career in 2006 and is currently the Director of Special Litigation for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore City. In this role, her team worked with NACDL’s Full Disclosure Project to build one of the strongest police and prosecutor misconduct databases in the country, which she now oversees. In addition to her work as a trial attorney, she frequently trains other lawyers in pretrial practice and contributes to policy development. She has testified in front of the Maryland state legislature on behalf the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and serves on the executive committee of the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative, a unique partnership aimed at eliminating mass incarceration in Maryland.
She was awarded the American Bar Association's Charles H. Dorsey Award in 2018, which recognizes exceptional work by a public defender or legal aid attorney. And in 2016, Ms. Levi was also the recipient of the Baltimore City Paper's Best Lawyer award for her successful litigation regarding internal affairs records and secret surveillance of cell phones. Ms. Levi is a 2024 inductee into the National Freedom of Information Coalition's Hall of Fame.
She was Co-Chair and a presenter at NACDL’s 2024 Race Matters Seminar and has participated in NACDL’s Strengthening the Sixth Program as a faculty instructor in Bismark, North Dakota in 2022 and in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2024. She is an active member of NACDL’s Diversity Committee and Task Force on Police Accountability. Levi received her B.A. from University of Maryland, College Park and her J.D. from S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah.
