Yazmin Cader Frazier: ACLU Career, Kevin Frazier, and Legal Work
Yazmin Cader Frazier is a name used for civil rights lawyer Yasmin Cader, a senior ACLU leader who is married to television host Kevin Frazier. In July 2026, the ACLU named Cader Deputy Executive Director for Program, Strategy, and Culture after more than three decades in civil rights law, public defense, teaching, and legal leadership.
Her career reaches far beyond a well-known family connection. She studied at Howard University and Yale Law School, clerked for a federal appeals judge, worked in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, spent many years as a public defender, helped start a Los Angeles trial firm, and later moved into national ACLU leadership.
Her Professional Name Is Yasmin Cader
The subject often appears as Yazmin Cader Frazier in entertainment coverage. Major professional institutions use the spelling Yasmin Cader.
The American Civil Liberties Union uses that name for her current leadership role and legal biography. Yale Law School does the same. She has also used Yasmin Cader throughout her public legal work.
That distinction helps keep her professional record clear. Yazmin Cader Frazier is connected to a familiar television name through her husband, but her own career was built in courts, public defender offices, law schools, private practice, and civil rights organizations.
Howard University and Yale Law School Shaped Her Early Path
Cader graduated from Howard University before attending Yale Law School. Yale identifies her as a member of its Class of 1992.
She has said both schools gave her many chances to learn leadership. In a Yale Law School alumni profile, she described the value of student groups, journals, and direct engagement with school leaders.
After law school, she clerked for Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The role gave her an early view of federal appeals and the legal questions that reach a higher court.
She then entered the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division through the Honors Program. Her work there included claims involving racial and sexual harassment and discrimination. Those first jobs placed civil rights and public service at the center of her career.
Public Defense Became the Core of Her Legal Career
Much of Yasmin Cader’s professional life was spent as a public defender. The ACLU says she worked for about two decades in state and federal courts, representing both children and adults facing serious criminal charges.
Her cases included capital matters and cases involving allegations of domestic and international terrorism. She worked in Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, giving her experience across several major court systems.
Her years in Washington came during the height of the war on drugs and a period of severe youth violence. In New York, she worked during the stop-and-frisk era and the years after the September 11 attacks, when federal enforcement and terrorism cases changed sharply.
Later, she worked in the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Los Angeles and became Chief of Training. That position added another part to her work. She was not only handling cases but also helping other lawyers improve their trial skills and legal practice.
For Yazmin Cader Frazier, these years form the strongest base of her biography. Her reputation came from courtroom work and public service rather than entertainment coverage.
Teaching Extended Her Work Beyond Her Own Cases
Cader also became active in legal education. The ACLU says she has taught at NYU School of Law, UCLA School of Law, and Wayne State University Law School.
She has trained advocates through organizations such as Gideon’s Promise and the National Criminal Defense College. Her professional biography also notes work with Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop.
The link to her public defender career is direct. Trial lawyers need sound knowledge of the law, but they also need clear communication, strong case planning, careful questioning, and trust with clients. Teaching gave her a way to pass those skills to other lawyers.
Yale has also highlighted her focus on empathy, direct communication, and collaboration. Those ideas fit both courtroom practice and the leadership roles she later took on.
A Los Angeles Trial Firm Opened a New Chapter
In 2019, Cader and attorney Christine Adams co-founded Cader Adams Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles.
Yale Law School describes the practice as a women-owned litigation boutique. The firm handled civil and criminal matters and advised organizations working through questions involving workplace culture, racial justice, and institutional change.
Private practice gave her a new setting for skills developed during years of government and public defense work. She could bring trial experience to complex disputes while also advising institutions on broader legal and workplace concerns.
Her Los Angeles work also included public service. The ACLU says she served on a Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners advisory group focused on trust and equity. She also served on a Los Angeles Unified School District task force that examined school safety.
Those roles connected courtroom experience with local questions about policing, public schools, and community trust.
The ACLU Put Her Work on a National Stage
Cader joined the American Civil Liberties Union in 2021. She became a Deputy Legal Director and led the Trone Center for Justice and Equality.
The center’s work covers criminal justice and racial justice, areas that closely match her background. Under her leadership, teams worked on policing, cash bail, prison conditions, the death penalty, education, housing, employment, and economic opportunity.
The ACLU also credits her with helping launch its Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. She helped oversee work tied to racial equity, diversity programs, public safety, and criminal legal reform.
The work also included major national projects that required both legal skill and long-term planning. The ACLU says her teams challenged unconstitutional policing, worked to reduce the use of cash bail, defended the rights of people in prison, and brought systemic challenges to the death penalty. She also helped guide work on racial justice in education, housing, employment, and economic opportunity.
In the years after the Dobbs ruling, Cader helped launch a program designed to provide legal defense for people who faced prosecution tied to abortion care. The ACLU also credits her with work that supported federal death-row commutations issued by President Joe Biden. These projects show why Yazmin Cader Frazier moved into broader leadership: her role had grown from trial work to managing legal strategy across issues that reached courts, communities, and public policy nationwide.
The scope was much wider than one courtroom or one client. Her job now involved national strategy, teams of lawyers and advocates, and issues that could affect large groups of people.
That move built on her earlier experience. Years of direct defense work had shown her how broad rules and public systems shape individual lives.
The 2026 Promotion Marked a Major Career Step
On July 1, 2026, the ACLU announced that Yasmin Cader would become Deputy Executive Director for Program, Strategy, and Culture.
The role places her close to the organization’s senior leadership. According to the ACLU, she helps guide strategic direction, strengthen organizational culture, and align nationwide work to protect civil rights and civil liberties.
The promotion is an important update for any current profile of Yazmin Cader Frazier. Older biographies may still describe her only as a Deputy Legal Director or head of the Trone Center, but those titles now reflect an earlier stage of her career.
Her new position draws on more than 30 years of work across government, public defense, teaching, private practice, and civil rights advocacy.
Kevin Frazier and Their Family
Kevin Frazier built his career in sports and entertainment television and became a familiar face on Entertainment Tonight. His wife followed a very different professional path.
A TV Guide interview with Kevin Frazier identified Yasmin Cader as his wife and described her as a Yale-educated public defender. In that interview, he spoke with clear respect for the seriousness of her work.
The same interview identified Shane and Reece as the couple’s sons. Kevin also spoke about his older son, Tony, from an earlier relationship.
Yazmin Cader Frazier has not built her professional identity around family publicity. Her public work remains centered on law, civil rights, trial practice, and leadership.
Two Careers in Very Different Public Worlds
The couple’s careers operate in very different settings. Kevin’s work puts him on television, red carpets, and entertainment interviews. His wife spent much of her career in courts, defender offices, classrooms, and civil rights organizations.
That contrast explains why some people first know her through a television host and then discover a much deeper professional record.
Yazmin Cader Frazier is not simply a spouse who appears beside a public figure. Her own work spans decades and includes major roles in federal law, criminal defense, legal education, private practice, and national civil rights leadership.
Her Career Connects Individual Cases With Larger Systems
There is a clear line from her public defender years to her later ACLU work.
A public defender represents one client in one case, but the job also reveals larger patterns. Bail rules, police conduct, prison conditions, charging choices, and access to legal help can shape thousands of lives.
Her work at the ACLU moved many of those concerns to a broader level. Instead of focusing only on a single defense case, she helped lead efforts involving criminal justice policy, constitutional rights, racial justice, and public institutions.
The earlier courtroom years remained important because they gave her firsthand experience with the people most affected by those systems. That experience can shape how a national organization chooses cases, sets priorities, and trains teams.
The Current Role Shows the Scale of Her Work
The 2026 ACLU promotion is more than a title change. As Deputy Executive Director for Program, Strategy, and Culture, Cader now helps connect legal work with the wider goals of the organization.
Her responsibilities reach beyond one center or one area of law. She works with senior leaders on strategy, staff culture, and the way national programs fit together.
Her senior post also requires coordination across legal, policy, communications, and advocacy teams. That kind of institutional leadership depends on translating constitutional goals into practical national strategy while keeping litigation, public education, and organizational priorities aligned.
For a lawyer whose career began with a federal clerkship and civil rights litigation, the role marks a major change in scale. She moved from direct case work to helping guide one of the country’s best-known civil liberties organizations.
It also gives the clearest current picture of Yazmin Cader Frazier. Her professional life today is defined by senior national leadership backed by decades of courtroom and public-service experience.
A Legal Career That Stands on Its Own
Yazmin Cader Frazier has a clear public connection to Kevin Frazier, but her own record is the larger part of her biography.
She studied at Howard and Yale, clerked for a federal judge, worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, spent many years in public defense, taught law, trained trial lawyers, helped start a women-owned firm, and served on civic groups in Los Angeles.
She joined the ACLU in 2021 and moved into one of its senior leadership positions in 2026. Across those roles, a common theme runs through the work: civil rights, criminal defense, fair treatment, and the effect public institutions have on people’s lives.
A Clear View of Yazmin Cader Frazier
Yazmin Cader Frazier, professionally known as Yasmin Cader, is a civil rights lawyer and senior ACLU executive. She is a Howard University graduate and a Yale Law School alumna whose career includes federal court work, the Justice Department, public defense, teaching, private practice, and national civil rights leadership.
She joined the ACLU in 2021. In July 2026, the organization named her Deputy Executive Director for Program, Strategy, and Culture.
She is also married to television host Kevin Frazier, and public reporting identifies Shane and Reece as their sons. The family connection explains part of her public visibility, but her professional record is substantial on its own.
For another profile of a professional woman whose career reaches well beyond a famous marriage, read our Courtenay Chatman story on LakewoodScoop.co.uk.