Get to Know DCDAO: Brenda Ford Harding

Get to Know DCDAO is an occasional series about the people who make up the Durham County District Attorney’s Office. This installment focuses on Deputy Chief for Legal and Community Affairs Brenda Ford Harding. (Scroll for video).

Brenda Ford Harding has been Deputy Chief for Legal and Community Affairs at the Durham DA’s Office since 2019. In that role, Ford Harding serves as a liaison to both the community and other entities within the courthouse.

Prior to joining the DA’s Office, Ms. Ford Harding worked as a staff attorney and managing attorney at East Carolina Legal Services; executive director of the Land Loss Prevention Project; acting director of the North Carolina Central University School of Law’s civil litigation clinic; chief deputy commissioner for the Employment Security Commission; and executive director of North State Legal Services. She previously served in Washington, D.C.-based organizations as deputy director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights; executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services and chair of the Transformative Justice Coalition. She earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Boston University and her law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.

This video, created by Durham DA’s Office intern Frances O’Grady, introduces Ford Harding, her career advancing civil rights, and her role in the DA’s Office.