Arthur Ago is a civil rights attorney and former public defender with over twenty-six years of litigation and leadership experience. He recently joined the Southern Poverty Law Center as Director of Strategic Litigation and Advocacy, where he guides innovative impact litigation to achieve racial justice in the South and beyond. Arthur oversees SPLC’s practice teams covering criminal legal system reform, voting, and education and youth. He also collaborates with SPLC’s economic justice, and inclusion and anti-extremism practice teams. Beyond his litigation supervision responsibilities, Arthur serves on SPLC’s leadership team, helping to develop and execute SPLC’s strategic plan.

Before joining SPLC, Arthur was at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for four and a half years, where he was the Director of the Criminal Justice Project and managed the Byrd Center to Stop Hate. In this role, Arthur led his team’s efforts to confront the ways in which racism and racial bias infect the criminal legal system, and to support communities and individuals targeted by hate. Arthur supervised a team of lawyers and support staff on cases and investigations that fought police misconduct and brutality, the criminalization of poverty, violations of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and white supremacy in state and federal courts around the country. At the Lawyers’ Committee, Arthur also worked closely with the policy team on issues related to criminal justice and white supremacy and testified twice before the U.S. House of Representatives.

Prior to the Lawyers’ Committee, Arthur spent close to 20 years at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, ultimately serving as the Chief of the Trial Division. As a public defender, Arthur represented hundreds of clients and was counsel in dozens of jury trials involving allegations of murder, attempted murder, sexual assault, and armed robbery. In his capacity as Trial Chief, Arthur supervised over 50 lawyers handling juvenile delinquency, misdemeanor, and felony caseloads.

Arthur is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia; the U.S. District Court for D.C.; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the D.C., Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits; and the Supreme Court of the United States. Arthur received his Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College, his Master of Arts in Asian American Studies from U.C.L.A., and his Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School.

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