Founder and longtime head of Brooklyn Defender Services to step down
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Brooklyn Defender Services Executive Director Lisa Schreibersdorf announced she will be retiring on Jan. 1, 2027. Photo via Brooklyn Defender Services
By Noah Powelson
The founder and longtime executive director of Brooklyn Defender Services, the city’s second-largest public defense firm, will retire at the end of the year.
Lisa Schreibersdorf announced late Monday afternoon that she will be stepping down as the leader of BDS at the close of 2026, ending a 30-year career atop Brooklyn Defender Services, which last year inherited a large portion of Queens Defenders after the Queens organization’s executive director was arrested on fraud charges. No other executive director of a major legal services nonprofit in New York City has served longer than the BDS boss.
Though Schreibersdorf did not give a reason for her impending retirement, her departure comes amid ongoing tensions between the BDS attorneys’ union and the organization’s leadership. Attorneys accused Schreibersdorf last year of making a number of policy changes without first consulting the union, and also of attempting to break up the union by encouraging an attorney to start a rival group. Schreibersdorf’s announcement also comes as the union and nonprofit negotiate a new contract agreement ahead of a July 1 deadline.
BDS’ board of directors said it has already begun the process of finding a replacement, and that it expects a new executive director to be named by the time Schreibersdorf steps down on Jan. 1, 2027.
In a statement released on Monday, Schreibersdorf said she felt grateful for the three decades she spent as BDS’ leader. She said she was particularly proud of the organization’s history of representing low-income communities of color and of her advocacy for the state and city to up their investment in legal aid organizations.
“As I think back on the creation and the growth of Brooklyn Defenders over the past 30 years, I feel extremely gratified and proud of the high quality of the legal work we have been able to provide as well as the resource that we have become for people, families and communities in Brooklyn and Queens,” Schreibersdorf said in her retirement announcement. “I know that BDS’ strong foundation will keep the organization continuing to meet the needs of New York City residents for another 30 years and beyond.”
“I am extremely grateful that I have accomplished more than I could ever have imagined,” Schreibersdorf added.
Schreibersdorf founded BDS in 1996 after attorneys at the Legal Aid Society went on strike and threatened to bring the city’s courts to a standstill.
In response to the threat, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani cut the city’s contract with LAS and offered the funds to represent low-income New Yorkers to non-unionized organizations. Several law firms popped up to take on the new city contracts, including BDS and Queens Defenders, the latter of which was founded by Lori Zeno, who, at the time, was an attorney with the Legal Aid Society.
Schreibersdorf, who served as a public defender for many years prior, started BDS with 25 employees.
BDS now employs over 750 staff members, according to the nonprofit, including around 120 employees it received after it absorbed Queens Defenders’ criminal defense contract in June 2025 following Zeno’s ouster from the company. Zeno was forced out by the Queens Defenders board after she faced federal charges for allegedly defrauding the nonprofit of hundreds of thousands of dollars, accusations she has since pleaded guilty to.
With Queens Defenders absorbed into the fold, Schreibersdorf spent the last year leading the second-largest public defender organization in the city, representing over 40,000 residents of Brooklyn and Queens.
As one of the city’s major public defender leaders, Schreibersdorf has regularly appeared before the city and state legislature, advocating for more legal aid funding. At a City Council meeting in March 2026, Schreibersdorf testified alongside the New York County Defender Services and the Bronx Defenders that public defender organizations need an additional $100 million to $150 million to pay their staff.
“We are profoundly grateful for her extraordinary service and the enduring foundation she leaves behind,” Jason Starr, chair of the board at BDS, said in a statement. “While her retirement marks the close of a remarkable chapter, it also highlights the strength, resilience, and mission-driven culture that she has cultivated and has become a hallmark of BDS. We remain steadfast in our commitment to standing alongside the people we represent, advancing equity, and strengthening our communities.”
But Schreibersdorf’s retirement announcement comes as BDS is embroiled in an escalating labor fight over the public defender group’s collective bargaining agreement. BDS’s contract with its union is set to expire on July 1, and the bargaining progress has reportedly stalled as late budgets from the city and state have left funding for the nonprofit up in the air.
The two sides have reportedly exchanged offers and counter-offers since late March, with both claiming the other has refused to budge on key demands. There are over 570 members in BDS’ bargaining unit, over 120 of which are former Queens Defenders employees, according to the union.
But this year’s bargaining season has turned noticeably antagonistic, as Schreibersdorf’s relationship with the union became openly more hostile as she faced several accusations this past year of violating BDS’ labor contract and allegedly attempting to bust the union.
Following BDS’ absorption of Queens Defenders, BDS management ended its work from home policy in August 2025, and required staff to come into the office five days a week, as well as install an application that used geo-location data to verify where they were when clocking in and out of work.
Union delegates accused BDS management, and Schreibersdorf specifically, of violating their labor agreement by implementing the policy without discussing the change first. BDS and Schreibersdorf denied any wrongdoing, arguing they were well within their rights to implement the policy change.
Weeks of protests outside BDS’ office followed, but tensions came to a boiling point after a union delegate accused Schreibersdorf of attempting to recruit them as part of an illegal union-busting scheme. The whistleblower, an elected union representative who requested anonymity, claimed Schreibersdorf offered them a lower caseload and better pay as long as they succeeded in decertifying the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys-backed union and replacing it with a new, company-backed union.
Protests continued, with BDS members calling on Schreibersdorf to resign. Their calls were joined by Queens Assemblymember Claire Valdez and New York City Councilmember Alexa Avilés. Soon after, 21 City Council members signed a letter to the BDS board, requesting they investigate the allegations against Schreibersdorf.
The BDS union voted to formally call on Schreibersdorf to resign in September 2025.
The union also filed unfair labor practice charges against BDS and Schreibersdorf regarding the alleged union busting effort with the National Labor Relations Board in September.
But Schreibersdorf’s retirement in six months may only complicate negotiations, as union representatives called on the board to include them in the selection process for Schreibersdorf’s replacement on Tuesday.
“We call on BDS’s board of directors to ensure that union representatives are given a voice and a vote at each stage of the executive director search process, from job posting to final selection,” a BDS union spokesperson told the Eagle in a statement. “This critical decision about our organization’s future should not be made without extensive input from the rank-and-file staff who make BDS a world-class public defense office.”
“In the meantime, we remain focused on securing a fair deal as we continue bargaining ahead of the June 30 expiration of our contract,” the spokesperson added.
