Education
Bachelor of Arts, Political Science – Wichita State University
Juris Doctorate – University of Kansas School of Law
Biography
Erin T. Nisly serves as KIPCOR’s Director of Education and Training. In this role, she provides primary leadership of KIPCOR’s education and training services for Bethel College students and professionals. Additionally, Erin is responsible for creating skills-based training relating to conflict for organizations and entities.
Erin began her career in Texas at Agape Development, a community development non-profit. There she focused on providing quality, after-school programming and education to children and young adults in Houston’s OST-South Union neighborhood. Her passion for education and youth empowerment led her to return home to Kansas to work in special education classrooms as a paraprofessional for the Reno County Education Cooperative in South Hutchinson, Kansas.
In 2019, Erin left the education sector to begin her legal training at University of Kansas School of Law where she graduated in 2022. During law school, Erin helped create Kansas Holistic Defenders in Lawrence, Kansas and began working there during her second year of law school. Erin focused much of her legal education in the areas of criminal defense, therapeutic jurisprudence, holistic defense, and restorative justice. She also worked for Sedgwick County Public Defenders in Kansas and for Restoring Justice, a holistic defense non-profit in Texas. In 2022, Erin moved to New York City and began her legal-externship at New York County Defender Services (NYCDS) in lower Manhattan. While there, she worked with the NYCDS mental health, legal, and policy teams on initiatives like Treatment Not Jails, Rikers Island detention facility closure, and creating educational materials on New York’s mental hygiene law.
Erin’s passion to provide legal representation, social support, and solidarity to vulnerable communities led her to become a public defender in Reno County, Kansas where she zealously defended people accused of crimes who were unable to pay for legal services. Erin continues to be an advocate for change to the current legal system in the areas of access to mental health support, minimizing non-medical response to crisis situations, and increasing individuals’ understanding and awareness of their constitutional rights. In addition to her position at KIPCOR, Erin serves as a board member of Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty (KCADP) and is an active member of the Hutchinson NAACP Unit and its legal redress team.
