Jhody Polk

Jhody Polk is Lead Organizer and Founder of the Legal Empowerment and Advocacy Hub (LEAH), the first Participatory Defense Hub in Florida. LEAH is a community organizing model designed to combat mass incarceration, humanize defendants, impact the outcomes of cases, and transform the landscape of power in the court system. A formerly incarcerated law clerk, Polk received a Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship in 2018, when she founded the Jailhouse Lawyer’s Initiative, a network dedicated to the legal empowerment of jailhouse lawyers and enhancing the law clerk training program and law libraries in prisons throughout the United States. Polk is also the current director of the Alachua County Reentry Coalition, the executive director and founder of the Florida Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, and the director of community justice at the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding. She served as the central Florida organizer on the successful campaign to restore voting rights to over 1.5 million Florida residents with felony convictions. She is a dedicated member of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, the League of Women Voters, the National Lawyers Guild, and Fight Toxic Prisons.