In 1975, Alaska Supreme Court Justice Jay Rabinowitz wrote: "Our territory and now state has traditionally been the home of people who prize their individuality and who have chosen to settle or to continue living here in order to achieve a measure of control over their own lifestyles which is now virtually unattainable in many of our sister states." Ravin v. State, 537 P.2d 494, 504 (Alaska 1975).

The Alaska Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is an Alaska non-profit professional organization dedicated to the goal of fighting for fundamental rights of all of Alaska's Citizens.  We are an association of Criminal defense lawyers and other professionals working to uphold the ideals of the Alaskan legal system of which Justice Rabinowitz was so proud. These are our goals:

1. To promote study and research in the field of criminal defense law and procedure and constitutional law.
2. To disseminate by lecture, seminars, and publications such theories, technologies, and techniques that support or promote the field of criminal defense advocacy.
3. To sponsor periodic meetings of the criminal defense bar; to provide a forum for the exchange of information regarding the administration of criminal justice; and thereby to protect individual rights and improve the practice and procedures of criminal law.
4. To represent the association before the legislative, executive, and judicial bodies which determine policy for the state and federal governments in a manner that promotes the mission of the association and its objectives and purposes.
5. To preserve, protect, and defend the adversary system of justice and the Alaska and U.S. Constitutions.