Joanna K. Darcus is the Economic Justice Staff Attorney at Virginia Poverty Law Center. Joanna joined VPLC in 2024 following three years of public service as Senior Counsel in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the General Counsel. Joanna previously worked at the National Consumer Law Center where she focused on consumer financial protection litigation and advanced a higher education policy agenda to address issues facing people with low-incomes and communities of color. Prior to that, Joanna was a supervising attorney at Community Legal Services, Inc. of Philadelphia where her team performed in-person intakes for folks who were applying for free legal services. She also represented hundreds of consumers sued by debt collectors or struggling with student loans, having built up that practice after launching her career as an Independence Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow. Before law school, Joanna was a case manager/paralegal at Juvenile Law Center, working with attorneys and social workers to provide holistic representation to young people who were aging out of the child welfare system and advocating for system reform. She is a graduate of Albemarle High School, Williams College, and Duke University School of Law.