Lindsey Appiah is a highly analytical attorney and public service professional with a diverse background in administrative and strategic planning, implementation and oversight, operational process review, budget planning and execution, personnel management, contracting and procurement practices, policy formation, and advising and counseling all levels and aptitudes of system stakeholders.

Over the past two decades, Ms. Appiah has demonstrated her commitment to the public safety and justice (PSJ) space through a myriad of professional experiences that have honed and strengthened her ability to successfully navigate the uniquely complex D.C. PSJ ecosystem. She began her legal career working in private corporate legal practice in the District before transitioning to state service as an Assistant Attorney General in the Tennessee Office of the Attorney General, where she primarily represented the Department of Children’s Services as the agency worked to implement wholesale systemic change due to a consent decree. Upon her return to the District in 2012, she began her tenure at the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS). During her nine years at DYRS, Ms. Appiah served in numerous capacities including as the agency’s General Counsel and Interim Director during times of significant change. Of note, Ms. Appiah was primarily responsible for guiding the agency through the necessary operational improvements in all parts of agency practice and performance that led to the agency successfully exiting the 36-year-old Jerry M. litigation, the District’s oldest consent decree case at the time of its dismissal.

Ms. Appiah currently serves as the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice for the District of Columbia (DMPSJ). In this role, she advances the Mayor’s mission of ensuring that all District residents both are safe and feel safe by providing strategic direction, guidance, support, and coordination to the twelve PSJ agencies and by directly overseeing several interagency and cross-cluster public safety initiatives aimed at improving the safety, security, and quality of life for residents across the District. She joined the office in 2021 as Chief of Staff.

Ms. Appiah has a Bachelor of Arts in Community Health from Brown University and a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center.