Norma Aguilar is the Training Director at Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc. She began working at Federal Defenders after graduating from Berkeley Law School in 2000. As the Training Director, Norma helps develop various substantive law and skills-based training programs. Norma has taught at national conferences on a variety of substantive federal law issues. In addition to serving faculty with the National Criminal Defense College, she also serves as faculty at the Trial Skills Academy program offered by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Norma is a fluent-Spanish speaker and has taught at various Spanish-language trial skills programs in the United States, Mexico and Argentina. Before becoming the Training Director, Norma was a Trial Team Leader. In that capacity, she helped guide and mentor newer attorneys while litigating her own cases. She has tried various types of federal offenses from immigration, drug, sex-trafficking, fraud and others. Norma has argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seven times.

A child of counterculture, raised off the grid by back-to-the-land hippies on the Lost Coast in Northern California, Jenny Andrews is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School. She started her career as a public defender in Oakland, California in 1996, but left after seven years, after experiencing burnout and moral injury, and didn’t practice law for three years. She returned to public defense work in 2007, and continued working as a public defender in Sonoma County and Santa Barbara County, in a wide variety of positions, including: Forensic Resource Counsel, Felony Team Leader, Director of Training, and Senior Deputy.

For 23 years, she consistently and aggressively litigated cases, including misdemeanor, felony, juvenile, civil commitment (mentally disordered offender and sexually violent predator), mental competency, homicide and multi-jurisdiction (and multi-jury) trials. She has carried specialized caseloads requiring complex, forensic and capital litigation. In 2022, she became California’s first Director of Training at the new Indigent Defense Improvement Division of the Office of the State Public Defender.

She teaches on the faculties of Gideon’s Promise, the National Association for Public Defense, the National Criminal Defense College, the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School, and the California Public Defenders Association. She has taught in public defense training programs in New York, New Jersey, Montana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Georgia, and in public defense offices throughout California. She has designed and presented training programming for public defenders working at all levels, from intern through capital litigation, and in specialized areas such as challenging forensic evidence, discovery litigation, mentorship, and sustaining well-being. She conceptualized and launched a Felony Team Unit, a Pre-Arraignment Unit, and Be Well Wednesday, a weekly wellness meet-up with experiential practices for public defenders. She created and teaches a series of online course for the NAPD Academy on Sustaining Well-Being in Public Defense, created BeSustained.org to support the well-being of defenders, and presents frequently on supporting and sustaining well-being.