April Frazier Camara is the President and CEO of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), America’s oldest and largest nonprofit association devoted to excellence in the delivery of legal services to those who cannot afford counsel. Founded in 1911, NLADA provides advocacy, training, and technical assistance to public defenders and civil legal aid attorneys across the country, supporting the people who ensure that justice is not reserved only for those who can pay for it.
April’s path to this role was forged in both the courtroom and in the community. She spent her career as a community-oriented public defender working in both Washington, D.C. and Memphis, TN.. She represented individuals in cases that carried severe collateral consequences, and later defended children navigating the legal system. “I was at work 12 to 18 hours a day,” she recalls. “Eat, breathe, work. And I loved it!” As April transitioned from being a public defender to working at NLADA and becoming a part of the “sandwich generation,” caring for young children and aging parents while also leading an organization, she realized that working this way was no longer sustainable or healthy.
When April became President and CEO of NLADA in 2021, one of her goals was clear: to lead and be well. She poured time, energy, and intentionality into that commitment. She took a sabbatical in her fourth year as CEO, which she describes as being the first real break she had taken in her entire adult life.
Elevating the Voices of Those Most Impacted
One of the throughlines of April’s tenure at NLADA has been her commitment to ensuring that the voices of the people most directly impacted by the legal system are not just heard, but centered in leadership and decision-making. “I want to elevate the voices of the client in the fight for equal justice.” she shares. “These are real human lives.”
When faced with challenges from funding gaps to questions about the future of AI and data in legal work, April doesn’t make decisions alone. She works in close partnership with the client advisory council to ensure that client voices are not treated as an afterthought, but as essential expertise. Under April’s leadership, NLADA also launched a Client Fellowship Program to place clients in legal offices, creating pathways for people who have been through the system to now shape it.
Leading Through Grief, Growing Through Loss
April’s leadership journey has been shaped by more than strategy and ambition. It has been shaped by grief. “I had to lead while grieving and experiencing unimaginable loss,” she shares. That grief clarified what kind of leader she wanted to be.
“I want my legacy to be that I was an authentic leader who shared all that it means to lead and also experience life,” April says. “Sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed when you are experiencing grief, and that’s something we need to be honest about as leaders.” She is deliberate about creating space within NLADA for that honesty. “We do good work, but we take care of each other,” she emphasizes. She has worked to discuss the importance of wellness as leaders and discuss how to build processes within NLADA community to help staff and members transmute the trauma they witness walking into a jail, seeing the system fail people over and over again, and working in a field where there are more problems than resources. NLADA now holds wellness community forums and leadership events, creating space to ask: What does it mean to do this work and be well? How do we navigate compassion fatigue when the need never stops?
April has also noticed something generational. Younger advocates, she says, are coming to wellness not in midlife, but now. “Organizations have to reckon with this,” she says. The days of grinding until you break are being rejected, and rightfully so. April is grateful to be leading during this shift, and committed to modeling what it looks like to center care alongside justice.
Know Thyself
April’s advice to young women who want to make a difference is simple: Know thyself.
“There are so many pitfalls you can avoid. So much joy you can experience,” she says. But too often, especially in professional spaces, people are so focused on checking the boxes that they don’t slow down to ask whether the path they’re on is actually the one they want. “Some people don’t want to be a manager,” April points out. “You want to be at the front desk talking to people all day. You don’t have to take a path that isn’t who you are.”
She credits her own journey to the mentors who never told her what to do, but instead asked questions. “I hope that everyone is blessed to have those people in their lives,” she says. April’s self-awareness has allowed her to build a career that aligns with her values, even when the road was hard. She leads with authenticity, vulnerability, and a deep belief that justice work and self-care are not in opposition. They are inseparable.