We feel sadness because Kimberly’s contributions to EJS and to the cause of social and racial justice have been immense. We are grateful because her presence here for the past four years has been a true pleasure. We will miss her.

Those of you who have been lucky enough to work with Kimberly fully understand the depth and breadth of the loss we have suffered. Our EJS board member, Professor Eric Yamamoto, put it best when he said after hearing the sad news: “You bring such deep intelligence, people insight, dedication and heart to all you do.” We second that emotion.

During her time with us she has worked closely with the California Teachers Association on the issue of unconscious bias in the classroom. She also was the key moving force in three meetings of folks who litigate in the United States Supreme Court.

Her combination of scholarly understanding of equal protection jurisprudence coupled with a preacher’s kid’s comfort with making arrangements for large groups of people contributed to the success of these events that took place twice at Duke University and once at UC Irvine.

Kimberly supervised countless law clerks and younger attorneys. She always took the time to help them develop their skills as they also contributed to the legal work here at EJS. There were countless things that Kimberly worked on while she was here. She did them all with style, depth, intelligence and grace.

We were also continually astonished at the work Kimberly and her family does in the community. Her father is the pastor of a church in Richmond, Calif. The church makes sure that people in the community were fed and clothed and loved.

We joked about the fact that Kimberly and her family routinely cooked Thanksgiving meals for hundreds of people. We wanted her to cater our events but she drew the line there.

As you can readily see, Kimberly is an amazing woman.

Kimberly will continue working with us here at EJS on race and gender conscious contracting issues so she will not be leaving us completely, but her official last day in the office is June 25. She can be reached via email after that date at kdtrapp@comcast.net.

We wish her the best and know that we will be hearing about her next successes as she moves on to the next challenge.

Thanks so much Kimberly. We will miss you a lot.

On behalf of your friends and colleagues at EJS,

EVA PATERSON

The Justice Summit was a public education event initiated by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, Bar Association of San Francisco, California Public Defenders Association and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice to highlight the importance of protecting the right to counsel, particularly for people of color and modest incomes, during any economic downturn.

Kimberly spoke about the role of the public defender in fighting institutional racism in the criminal justice system. Others on the panel included Barbara Babcock, professor at Stanford Law School, Richard Goemann, director of defender legal services for National Legal Aid and Defender Association, Michael Judge, chief public defender for Los Angeles County, Cookie Ridolfi, director of Northern California Innocence Project, Barry Krisberg, director of National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Michael Hersek, State Public Defender, and Christine Voss, supervising public defender for Riverside County.

For more information on the Summit, visit http://sfpublicdefender.org/2009-justice-summit/

And a nice mention of Kimberly on this blog.