Alaina Bloodworth is the Executive Director of the Black Public Defender Association (BPDA), appointed in January 2024 after serving as Interim Executive Director and Deputy Director. A former teacher, a mother, and a public defender, she has dedicated her career to building bridges between public defenders and the communities they represent. Alaina is working to shift the culture and practice of public defense toward anti-racism and authentic relationships with the people, families, and communities defenders serve, so that public defenders can support community-led movements to end mass incarceration and dismantle racist carceral systems.

A graduate of Southern University A&M College, Alaina began her career as a public defender in Baton Rouge, later supervising attorneys and expanding the office’s student programs. Her work built an HBCU pipeline that helped increase attorney diversity from 33% to over 60%, and as Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, she helped drive community reforms that led to the dismissal of 700 cases tied to police corruption.

At BPDA, Alaina has built a pipeline of Black defender leadership, funding and supporting more than 120 Fellows, and has introduced community-oriented defense and anti-racist litigation practices in over 25 jurisdictions nationwide. She has led 15 nationwide community engagement projects advancing support for Black defenders and low-income communities, and has shared BPDA’s model with audiences including the Aspen Institute, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Yale Law School, Gideon’s Promise, and Loyola University.
Under her leadership, BPDA has grown into a home not just for trial attorneys, but for organizers, client advocates, social workers, investigators, mitigation and reentry specialists, and paralegals — all working together toward a shared vision of dismantling racist carceral systems.

Her leadership has been recognized by the Louisiana Governor’s Women’s Incarceration Taskforce, YWCA Greater Baton Rouge, NAACP, Louisiana Bar Association, and Gideon’s Promise.