Senior Counsel, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
By Olivia Miller
While working on her bachelor’s degree in social work at West Virginia University (WVU), Tianna Mays would often suggest solutions to social issues directly impacting low-income and marginalized groups of people that required a lawyer. Mays, now senior counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C., became that lawyer and is bringing solutions once discussed among classmates to fruition.
A native of Institute, WV, Mays learned the importance of education from her mother and grandparents. After graduating from the WVU College of Law in 2011, her first job was as a staff attorney with the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services in the Children and Family Law Division. It was this position that helped her find her voice to passionately advocate for her clients and creatively use the law to develop case strategies. Later in her career, as managing attorney for the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault’s Sexual Assault Legal Institute, she filed and litigated the first rape survivor case in Maryland that allowed rape survivors to petition to terminate the parental right of their assailants.
“My academic and career trajectory led me to give a voice to the voiceless and fight against injustice,” she says. “I feel I am making a difference because I am bringing impact litigation cases to address criminalization of poverty in states across the south. By litigating these issues, I am highlighting unconstitutional practices while also calling for reform.”
Mays has made several significant impacts on the legal industry during her career. In Massachusetts, she successfully challenged the practice of denying services to youth aging out of the foster care system, which resulted in local reform. In Maryland, she was a member of a committee that helped secure funding for the testing of the state’s backlogged rape kits and implemented regulations for rape kit retention.
Today, her practice focuses on addressing issues in the criminal justice system through a racial justice lens. At the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, she investigates and litigates issues regarding the criminalization of poverty by bringing class action cases regarding the imposition of fines and fees, police misconduct, bail reform, the right to counsel and the conditions of confinement.
“The work is important to me because everyone deserves competent counsel, zealous advocacy and someone who will fight to help them in a system that often benefits those with power and money,” says Mays.
Despite the weight of the difficult subject matter of her cases, Mays’ tenacity and compassion for helping others has led to a successful career, and she has learned to channel the empathy for her clients and use it to convey to the court the impact of trauma on their lives.
“When you are helping people, often at their darkest hour, it takes an emotional toll on you,” she says. “I do not give up. I will continue to fight for poverty-stricken communities. It may be in the courtroom, in an op-ed or through legislation, but I will never stop fighting.”
