Highlight of past projects

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 2024 report, "Justice for None: How Marsy's Law Undermines the Criminal Legal System," is the final product of a collaboration between Monica Reid, former NACDL Senior Dir. of Advocacy, and report authors, Rachel Powers, Associate Professor, Univ. of Cincinnati, and Jacqueline Burckley, doctoral student, Dept. of Criminology, Univ. of Florida. The report sheds light on the impact of Marsy's Law, as many provisions conflict with the constitutional due process rights of defendants. 

Under former Senior Dir. of Advococy Monica Reid's leadership, NACDL collaborated with partners to successfully advance major criminal discovery reforms in Virginia. On September 5th, 2018, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued amended criminal discovery rules set to take effect July 1, 2019, marking the first such overhaul in decades. Since 2015, Monica worked with the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (VACDL), other groups and individuals seeking discovery reform in Virginia, including Justice Forward Virginia, the Charles Koch Institute, the Innocence Project, the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, New Virginia Majority, legislators on both sides of the aisle, and numerous attorneys across the Commonwealth of Virginia. These efforts included public education and community events, legislative lobbying, and grassroots campaigns.

Up until 2024, Monica led NACDL's involvement in the Virginia Pretrial Justice Coalition, in support of legislation that would have guaranteed that all individuals detained pretrial have a lawyer at their first court appearance. The campaign in support of counsel at first appearance included extensive coalition building, public education, government relations strategy, grassroots advocacy, and communications strategy. 

From 2017 to 2024, former NACDL Senior Dir. of Advocacy Monica Reid organized and led the association's initiatives in recognition of April as Second Chance Month, which has served as a time to raise awareness about the obstacles faced by between 70 million and 100 million Americans with a criminal record. Activities in honor of Second Chance Month included social media campaigns, webinars, expungement clinics, legislative advocacy opportunities, and more!

For 7 years Monica served as the Convener of the Northern Virginia Coalition (NOVA) for Civic Engagement is a coalition of over 30 nonprofit organizations, led by the Northern Virginia Urban League, to educate the community on voter restoration and promote civic engagement.  As Convener, she facilitated partnerships with statewide and local organizations and managed the Coalition’s voter empowerment efforts. During her tenure, the NOVA Coalition was awarded the Corporate Leadership Award by the Fairfax Chapter of the NAACP, as well as the Social Justice and Human Concerns Award presented by Russell Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church of Alexandria, VA.  

Up until 2024, she spearheaded NACDL's criminalization of voting rights initiative, which organized, trained, and mobilized the criminal defense bar around the issue of voting rights criminalization. 

From 2020 to 2023, Monica organized the annual State Criminal Justice Reform Network Conference which brought together advocates from around the country, offering participants the opportunity to hear from experts on various issues pertaining to state criminal justice reform. Additionally, she organized dozens of webinars including a Race and Criminal Legal System Discussion Series that highlighted how race intersects with various issues in the criminal legal system, navigating these racial disparities, and ways to advocate for change, as well as webinar topics that touch on various issues impacting the criminal legal system, including voting rights, jury reform, second look sentencing reform, and more!