R. Daniel Okonkwo, Executive Director
Eduardo Ferrer, Chief Operating Officer 

R. Daniel Okonkwo is the Executive Director of DC Lawyers for Youth and runs DCLY’s Youth Justice Project. He also sits on the board of directors for the D.C. Alliance of Youth Advocates and is a community advisory panel member of the Washington, D.C. Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative.

Daniel also serves as a Senior Analyst in the Regulatory Practice Group at the EOP Group, Inc., a Washington, D.C. business and political consulting firm, where he represents green technology producers and manufacturers, investor-owned utilities, nuclear power generators, and oil/gas/chemical corporations. He has authored and edited the EOP Group publication Understanding the United States Government's Regulatory Policy and co-authored Understanding the Budget of the United States Government. Prior to joining the EOP Group, Daniel was employed at the Office of the Public Defender in Miami, FL where he represented clients in the County Court Division and Felony Drug Court.

Daniel received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.  Daniel has had extensive experience with youth in Washington D.C.  While at Georgetown University Law Center, he was a student attorney in the Juvenile Justice Clinic and the head basketball coach, and tutor at the Maya Angelou Public Charter School. Daniel's experience with the law and youth dates back to his undergraduate days at Yale University, where he graduated with a B.A in African-American Studies. At Yale, he was the head of the Black Undergraduate Law Association and was heavily involved as a tutor at the Connecticut Youth Detention Center in New Haven.

Eduardo "Eddie" Ferrer is DCLY's Chief Operating Officer. Eddie received his B.S. in Business Administration from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in 2002 and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2005.   During his college and law school years, Eddie worked as a tutor, coach, abuse/neglect compliance intern, special education advocate, and a juvenile defender.  Upon graduating law school, Eddie joined private practice at Howrey LLP where he worked on a variety of matters, involving juvenile justice policy, immigration law, constitutional law, civil rights law, writs of habeas corpus, white-collar criminal defense, and antitrust law. In addition to serving as DCLY's Chief Operating Officer, Eddie also serves as the Chair of the Board of the Campaign for Youth Justice and the Chair of the Board of Trustees of The Next Step Charter School in Columbia Heights. Eddie formerly served as the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for Single Member District 1B10 from 2009-2010.  Eddie can be contacted at eferrer@dcly.org.