Patricia Warth

Patricia Warth has been at the Office of Indigent Legal Services (ILS) since August 2015, originally serving as Chief Attorney for the Hurrell-Harring Settlement Implementation Unit. She transitioned to Counsel in July 2019, and in April 2021, was nominated by the ILS Board to replace Bill Leahy as Director, effective June 2, 2021.   

Patricia earned a B.S. from Notre Dame University in 1989, and J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1996, after which she had a one-year federal district court clerkship (District of Rhode Island). Since she devoted her career to criminal justice advocacy. Ms. Warth worked for the New York State Capital Defender Office from 1997 until its closure in 2005, after which she worked for two years as Managing Attorney of the Buffalo, NY office of Prisoner’s Legal Services of New York. In 2008, she joined the Center for Community Alternatives as Co-Director and eventually Director of Justice Strategies, where she worked until 2015 when she joined ILS.   

The experiences of the people with whom she works has informed her research and advocacy. She has conducted research about and delivered presentations on sentencing advocacy, mitigation investigation, NYS sentencing law, prison-based programs, sex offense registration, NYS drug law reform, and the life-long consequences of a criminal conviction to many audiences, including the New York State Bar Association, the New York State Defender Association, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, local bar associations, and other legal and non-legal organizations. Ms. Warth was one of the co-authors of CCA’s reports, “The Use of Criminal History Records in College Admissions Reconsidered,” and “Boxed Out: Criminal History Screening and College Application Attrition, and she co-authored the 2013 article, “Barred Forever: Seniors, Housing, and Sex Offense Registration,” published in the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy.