ABOUT

Lisa Newman-Polk started her advocacy career as a legal intern with the Federal Defenders of Montana and then as a law clerk for the Honorable William Leaphart of the Montana Supreme Court. In 2006, she joined the Public Defender Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Massachusetts as a staff attorney where she represented hundreds of individuals in district and superior courts on misdemeanor and felony charges.  

Dismayed by the overwhelming number of individuals prosecuted in the criminal legal system who suffer from traumatic childhoods and mental health disorders, such as substance use disorder, Lisa decided to pursue a career in clinical social work, earning a masters from Boston College. As a clinician, she worked as an outpatient therapist providing addiction treatment to people on probation and parole, and then as a mental health clinician at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, the men's maximum security prison in Massachusetts.  

In 2014, Lisa returned to the practice of law with the Committee for Public Counsel Services, working in the district courts and drug courts; in 2017, she left the public defender office to pursue several advocacy projects. She received national attention for her work in the case Commonwealth v. Eldred, in which she argued that it is unconstitutional for a court to punish a drug-addicted person on probation for drug relapse when relapse is a symptom of substance use disorder. Currently, her law practice primarily focuses on representing individuals at parole hearings who were convicted of murder as adolescents, special litigation in criminal cases involving drug addiction, and advocacy related to prison reform. 

Lisa is also actively engaged in efforts to improve prison conditions in Massachusetts. She is an outspoken advocate for carceral reform and ending the war on drugs, and is often a featured speaker at conferences about the criminal legal system. She is an active member of NASW-MA and MACDL, and was on the Board of Directors for Prisoners’ Legal Services from 2014 to 2021.

Lisa earned a B.A. from Columbia College at Columbia University, a J.D. from the University of Montana School of Law, and an M.S.W. from Boston College.