Winning from the ground up

Kevin De Liban (kdeliban@techtonicjustice.org) worked for 12 years at Legal Aid of Arkansas—most recently as its Director of Advocacy—where he used multi-dimensional strategies to improve the lives of low-income Arkansas in civil legal matters involving health, workers' rights, public benefits, housing, consumer rights, and domestic violence. Representing over 1,800 people, Kevin partnered with clients to transform their experiences of injustice into successful systemic campaigns tackling cutting-edge issues of modern anti-poverty advocacy: ending the state’s use of algorithms that cut the in-home care of elderly and disabled people, stopping Medicaid work reporting requirements that had stripped health insurance from 18,000 people in five months, and overcoming qualified immunity to hold state officials personally liable for violating constitutional rights.

In 2022, he co-founded the Benefits Tech Advocacy Hub with colleagues from Upturn and the National Health Law Program. This collaboration between public interest lawyers and technologists fights the harmful use of tech in public benefits. Kevin regularly presents about imposing accountability on artificial intelligence and algorithms and consults with advocates and policymakers in the U.S. and abroad. His work has appeared on or in the PBS Newshour, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, the Economist, the Verge, Bloomberg Businessweek, and many other outlets.

In 2024, Kevin left Legal Aid to launch TechTonic Justice, a new undertaking to fight the ground-level harms that AI inflicts on low-income people nationwide.

When not do-gooding, Kevin is exploring, playing, or napping with his wife and baby, reading, watching sci-fi or fantasy, or rapping.