Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer
Julian Adler (he/him/his) is the Center for Justice Innovation’s Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer and a member of the Executive Team. Julian guides the development of the Center’s policy priorities and new ventures, advancing leading-edge ideas and practices across the organization. An attorney and licensed clinical social worker, he directly oversees the Center’s New York Legal Policy team and is building a new centralized Clinical Practice team to support the organization’s more than 500 practitioners.
Julian joined the Center in 2008 as the Clinical Director at the Red Hook Community Justice Center, leading broader organizational efforts to incorporate trauma-informed care and evidence-generating practices. As the Deputy Project Director in Red Hook, Julian served as a member of the small planning team for Newark Community Solutions, the first community court in New Jersey. Next, as the Project Director in Red Hook, Julian served as the principal planner for Brooklyn Justice Initiatives, which included the Center’s first foray into pretrial justice.
Pivoting to a national portfolio, Julian led the Center’s work with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on the planning and launch of the Safety and Justice Challenge, an ambitious initiative to reduce the use of jails and to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal legal system. He also led the Center’s work with the Arnold Ventures philanthropy on a broad range of national projects, including the planning and launch of Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research. Additionally, Julian spearheaded national portfolios on fees and fines reform and right-to-counsel. As the Director of Policy and Research, Julian shepherded the expansion of both the Research-Practice Strategies and the Data Analytics and Applied Research teams.
Julian is the co-author of Start Here: A Road Map to Reducing Mass Incarceration (The New Press), along with a range of book chapters and articles examining the intersections of the criminal legal system, social science, and mental health, and is a producer of the Center’s “New Thinking” podcast. He serves on multiple steering and advisory committees and is a co-chair of the advisory board for Wesleyan University’s Center for Prison Education.
