Diane Smith Howard

Diane Smith Howard
Portrait of Diane Smith Howard. Diane is a white woman with light blonde hair and blue eyes. She is black shirt with white dots on it. She's standing on a balcony, with a DC street in the background and high rise buildings. The background is blurred.
Diane Smith Howard
Portrait of Diane Smith Howard. Diane is a white woman with light blonde hair and blue eyes. She is black shirt with white dots on it. She's standing on a balcony, with a DC street in the background and high rise buildings. The background is blurred.

Managing Attorney for Institutions and Community Integration

Legal Services

Diane Smith Howard manages the NDRN team that works on community integration for people living in institutions, such as, prisons, hospitals, residential treatment centers, migrant shelters. Her individual work focuses on conditions for children and youth with disabilities in institutional systems, with a concentration on those who are members of multiple protected classes. Diane also provides training and technical assistance to the P&As, and advocates on these issues within the Administration, on the Hill, and in the courts, through NDRN’s work on amicus briefs.

Diane holds a B.A. with honors from Colby College, and a J. D. from Wayne State University Law School. She has represented individual clients and handled systemic cases at the P&As in Maine and Michigan and presently serves on the adjunct faculty at the University of Maine School of Law. Diane’s passion for this work is rooted in a family connection to LGBTQI issues and to children and youth in state custody.