The Cost of Liberty: Bail in Juvenile Court

Mary Ann has been at NJDC since 2000 and has worked on juvenile indigent defense issues for over 15 years. As executive director, she oversees the delivery of juvenile defense training, facilitates and writes state assessments of juvenile indigent defense services, coordinates and participates in numerous cross-disciplinary reform efforts, and manages a variety of projects with NJDC staff. 

Prior to working at NJDC, Mary Ann was a social worker and an attorney in the juvenile division of the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore, Maryland. After completing her undergraduate degree at the College of the Holy Cross, she spent two years teaching at a boys’ high school in Pohnpei, Micronesia. Mary Ann also worked for a year at the Jesuit Refugee Service in Rome, Italy, and spent a year teaching Baltimore City boys at the Baraka School in Nanyuki, Kenya. 

Mary Ann earned her J.D. and M.S.W. from Loyola University Chicago where she was a Civitas ChildLaw Scholar and co-founder of the Public Interest Law Reporter.

Aneesa is the 2017-2019 Gault Fellow at NJDC, where she works on legal and policy initiatives related to juvenile defense, including reducing and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile legal system. Aneesa is currently leading NJDC’s Juvenile Cash Bail Reform efforts. During law school, Aneesa focused on indigent defense. She represented adults in District Court at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender through the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Criminal Practice Clinic, as well as in habeas and bail review hearings in Circuit Court through the Pretrial Justice Clinic. Additionally, she helped represent criminal defendants at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and capital defendants at the Northern Virginia Capital Defender Office.

Aneesa served as Volunteer Coordinator for the Homeless Persons Representation Project, assisting at criminal expungement clinics in Baltimore and Silver Spring, MD,  and was the 2016 recipient of their Outstanding Student Volunteer Award. Aneesa also served as President of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the National Lawyers Guild student chapters, and was the 2017 recipient of the Guild’s C.B. King Award, named after a prominent civil rights activist, due to her community lawyering experience. Prior to law school, Aneesa worked as a paralegal in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division where she assisted on police misconduct cases.

Aneesa graduated from American University, and received her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she received a Dean’s Citation for Outstanding Service.

Meghan Guevara is an Executive Partner with the Pretrial Justice Institute, where she serves as a member of the leadership team and oversees PJI’s learning communities and technical assistance efforts. She has spent 20 years providing training and technical assistance to criminal justice and human services professionals engaged in systemic justice system reform.

At PJI, she works with elected officials, advocates, policymakers and practitioners in pursuit of safe, fair, and equitable pretrial systems. Meghan began her career as a health educator working with young people in the youth justice and child welfare systems. She received a Master of Public Health degree in social and behavioral sciences from Boston University.