David Udell is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Access to Justice, the national nonprofit at Fordham Law School that is working to bring rigorous, principled research and analysis to the task of creating a fair civil and criminal legal system and a just society. David guides NCAJ's Justice Index with its data-intensive rankings of states on their policies for increasing access to justice, including in the newly established Consumer Debt Litigation Index and in the Fines & Fees Index. David also guides NCAJ's Legal Empowerment Project with its initiative to modernize the laws and practices that prevent people from obtaining legal advice from social workers and other trained social services professionals working in local communities. David is a member of the Steering Committee of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, the Justice Center of the New York County Lawyers' Association, and the Leadership Council of Frontline Justice. He is a former member of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Responsibility for which he chaired a process that authored Narrowing the Justice Gap: New Roles for Non-lawyer Practitioners, and of the Chief Judge of New York's Committee on Nonlawyers and the Justice Gap for which he chaired a committee on regulatory reform. David is the author of With People Struggling and the Law Failing, What Are the Solutions to the Access to Justice Crisis in America?, co-author of New Roles for Non-Lawyers to Increase Access to Justice, and co-author of What's Wrong with Getting a Little Free Legal Advice? He is a co-teacher of the Access to Justice Seminar at Fordham Law School, where he also serves as a co-director of the school's Access to Justice Initiative. David was the Founder and Executive Director of the Justice Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, following earlier roles as a Senior Attorney at Legal Services for the Elderly (NYC) and a Managing Attorney at Mobilization for Justice (NYC). He is a graduate of NYU Law School.