About the Fund
The Repro Legal Defense Fund covers bail and funds strong defenses for people unjustly targeted by police or prosecutors for their pregnancy outcomes. This can mean abortion, pregnancy loss, or substance abuse allegations.
Criminalization creates a domino effect on someone’s life, even if charges are dropped. Fighting cases costs money. Just getting arrested can cost people their jobs. People can lose their housing, children, and immigration status. We are a fund that wants to get you home as soon as possible, and want to keep the financial and emotional cost of criminalization as low as possible.
The RLDF is a program of If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice as part of our strategy to prevent, defend against, and put a permanent stop to the criminalization of people’s bodies. Until everyone can access the care they need to decide if, when, and how to create, sustain, and define their families, the RLDF will get people out of jail and fund strong defenses against an intrusive and punitive carceral state.
Please fight back with us by donating to the RLDF. You can also help by spreading the word about us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
About Our Staff
Rafa Kidvai, J.D. is the Legal Defense Fund Director at If/When/How. Prior to joining If/When/How, Rafa was a public defender at the Legal Aid Society’s Brooklyn Criminal Defense Practice, Legal Fellow at Court Watch NYC, and Director of Immigrant Justice/ Paul Rappaport Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Rafa’s work and activism has focused on queer and trans liberation, supporting survivors of intimate partner violence, economic justice, family defense, immigrant justice, and prison abolition. Rafa attended CUNY School of Law and Hampshire College.
Rafa Kidvai, Esq.
DIRECTOR
Mirna Haidar (they/she) is a Queer Muslim Refugee from Lebanon. Most recently, Mirna worked as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society’s Parole Revocation Defense Unit (representing people accused of parole violations at Rikers Island). They also serve as the steering committee Member of MASGD: Muslim Alliance for Sexual & Gender Diversity (amongst a ton of other organizing in queer Muslim spaces). Mirna attended CUNY Law where she was part of the Defender Clinic and CLEAR (a CUNY clinic offering free legal representation and support to primarily Muslim communities that are targeted by the government under the guise of national security & counterterrorism). They are a proud mama to twins Rumi and Noah.
Mirna Haidar, Esq.
Counsel
Dipona Bandy (she/her) is RLDF Counsel at If/When/How’s Repro Legal Defense Fund. Prior to joining If/When/How, Dipona began her legal career as a public defender at Brooklyn Defender Services’ Family Defense Practice. There, she represented parents charged with abuse and neglect who face family separation and the removal of their children to the foster system. In law school, she was a Hays Civil Liberties Fellow, student advocate in the Family Defense Clinic and Reproductive Justice Clinic, and editor of the Review of Law and Social Change. Dipona is a former Fulbright-Nehru English Teaching Assistant with the U.S. Fulbright Program in Kolkata, India.
A proud native Texan, Dipona graduated from New York University School of Law and Harvard College. She is admitted to practice in New York.
Dipona Bandy, Esq.
COUNSEL
Prior to joining If/When/How and the Repro Legal Defense Fund, Em worked at Beyond Legal Aid and Metropolitan Family Services to support survivors of interpersonal violence. Em’s background is working as a public defender in New York for at The Legal Aid Society and Brooklyn Defender Services where they proudly represented parents in abuse and neglect proceedings and parolees accused of violating parole. Born and raised in Chicago, Em is a graduate of CUNY School of Law in 2014, where they were a Hayward Burns Graduate Fellow in Human Rights and Civil Rights. Em loves her kids, cooking, and working towards a world where everyone gets to make and live in whatever family they want without state intervention.