Ziedah Diata is an attorney, former Chief Administrative Law Judge and advocate whose work, over the course of two decades, has been guided by core values that are both professional and personal: compassion and self-determination. As Director of the New York State Department of State's Office of Administrative Hearings, she led a statewide tribunal overseeing adjudication across more than 30 licensed occupations — and launched the agency's first Access to Justice Initiative, making it easier for ordinary people to understand the process, find legal help, and participate meaningfully in hearings that affected their livelihoods. She supervised and mentored judges and staff, steered the tribunal through the pandemic, and shifted paradigms that have left a lasting impact.

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Since leaving state government, Ziedah has worked as a facilitator and educator at the intersection of justice and trauma-informed leadership--helping servant-leaders and justice-sector institutions to create the conditions for values and mission-aligned leadership that does not unintentionally harm or re-traumatize the leaders or communities being served. Inspired by the recurring themes in testimony (harm, repair, empathy, transformation) and her personal journey, Ziedah has chosen to work through a trauma-informed lens not as a detour but as an expansion of her justice advocacy. Her blended approach includes, but is not limited to, restorative practices, somatic (body-based) tools, nervous-system literacy and participatory art.

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Ziedah has conducted continuing legal education trainings for the New York County Bar Association and the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary. Her perspective and commentary have been featured in the Fordham Urban Law Journal's article "In Right Relationship: Practice and Teaching Trauma-Informed Restorative Advocacy" by Amy Dallas (Vol. LIII, 2025), where she explains how practitioners' own nervous systems influence their interactions with their clients, creating an ethical obligation for practitioners to understand and care for their nervous systems as part of serving their clients' best interests. 

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Ziedah holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. She is licensed to practice law in New York and holds a certificate in trauma-informed clinical practice from NYU Silver School of Social Work. She serves as an advisor to the National Center for Access to Justice at Fordham Law and is on the Equal Justice Committee of the New York Association of Administrative Law Judiciary. Ziedah is also an artist certified in nervous system-based facilitation. She specializes in social, participatory art and collective care experiences that explore what it means to be in "right relationship" with the self, others and the planet. She has been awarded several residencies and fellowships.

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