NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

Connor Barusch (“Barusch”) (he/they) joined CPCS, the Massachusetts Public Defender, in 2011, working as a trial attorney in several different neighborhoods in Boston at the District Court and Superior Court levels. In 2018, he rotated into the Training Department. During law school, Barusch co-founded and worked at a free legal clinic called Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates. Before joining CPCS, they worked as a law clerk at the Massachusetts Appeals Court and as an associate at Kauffman Crozier LLP, an LGBT family law firm. Barusch loves trying cases, cooking, running and playing board games.

Barusch became interested in public defender work after witnessing and beginning to understand the impact of mass incarceration on queer people, especially queer people of color. As a white person, Barusch believes that white public defenders should take on a special role in combating racism against our clients as well as standing in solidarity with our public defender colleagues of color. He is constantly on a journey of learning to hold himself and other white public defenders accountable for the mistakes we make in our jobs and in our lives related to racism and would love to have conversations with the NCDC community about what accountability and solidarity should look like.

With experience in more than 100 jury trials, David Beller specializes in criminal defense litigation, attorney and judicial discipline, and the collateral consequences that accompany a criminal allegation. He represents individuals and organizations involved as targets, subjects, or witnesses in state and federal criminal investigations and related grand jury and pretrial proceedings.

David brings a depth of experience in managing crisis level regulatory and criminal matters, as well as in advising clients on how to structure compliance programs so as to help avoid such problems. David’s experience includes the most thorough and sophisticated representation in all state level misdemeanor and felony allegations from DUIs to homicide.

He has defended actions throughout Colorado and worked opposite both municipal and state prosecutors, Colorado Attorney General, Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, Department of Human & Health Services (TRAILS), Office of Attorney Regulation, Judicial discipline, university disciplinary boards, SEC, Department of Justice, and United States Attorney’s Offices for the Districts of Colorado and the Eastern District of California. His litigation skills have also been called on to assist in the representation and support of firm clients in complex civil and regulatory actions.

Prior to joining Recht Kornfeld, P.C., David was a Colorado State Public Defender. He is a Colorado native and attended school in Fort Collins, earning a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science in 1999, and his Juris Doctor in Ohio in 2004. In 2007 David joined Recht Kornfeld, PC and was made a Partner in 2012.

David served as President of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, proudly serving 1000 criminal defense lawyers, paralegals and investigators. He is a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Denver College of Law and at Metropolitan State University. He is a faculty member of Colorado Alternate Defense Counsel, teaching trial skills to Colorado criminal defense lawyers. He serves by appointment of the Denver Presiding Judge as a Commissioner of the Office of Municipal Public Defender and was appointed by the Colorado Supreme Court to serve on the Committee for Character and Fitness. As a legal analyst, David has been consulted and quoted by The New York Times, CNN, Fox News, The Boston Globe, The Denver Post and local news affiliates, amongst others. David is also a published author, coauthoring 2015’s Colorado DUI Defense Manual, published by Circuit Media.

Since starting his legal career, David has consistently been recognized as one of Denver’s premier attorneys. In 2007, he was named by Law Week Magazine as one of Denver’s Top 20 Up and Coming Lawyers. He has been named one of Denver’s best criminal defense lawyers in each of the 2009-2020 editions of Super Lawyers Magazine and 5280 Magazine named him a Denver Top Lawyer every year since 2017. David has been named by The National Trial Lawyers as one of Colorado’s top 40 trial lawyers under the age of 40. In 2014, they named him as one of the 100 best trial lawyers in the nation. In March 2015, the Denver Business Journal named David amongst Denver’s Top 40 business leaders under the age of 40.

Cathleen L. Bennett recently moved to Anchorage, Alaska from Boston, Massachusetts where she was a public defender with the Committee for Public Counsel Services (the Massachusetts Statewide Public Defender) for 30 years. She was the Criminal Defense Training Director at CPCS for 17 years. As a trial lawyer in the CPCS Public Defender Division, she defended clients charged with murder and other serious felonies. She now works as a training consultant for the National Association for Public Defense and for Gideon’s Promise, and she intends to accept appointments to represent criminally accused people in the Alaska Courts soon.

Cathy is on the faculty and the Board of Trustees of the National Criminal Defense College. She is a Core Faculty member of Gideon’s Promise (formerly the Southern Public Defender Training Center), which was the subject of the award winning HBO documentary “Gideon’s Army,” and she has taught for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers  and criminal defense training programs across the country.

She received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the Committee for Public Counsel Services in 2007, the Scholar-Mentor Award from Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc. (MCLE) in 2008, the Outstanding Faculty Award in 2011 and the Stephen B. Bright Award in 2018 from Gideon’s Promise, and the Gideon Award from the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 2017.

For over twenty-six years, Tamar R. Birckhead has represented individuals charged with criminal offenses in the state and federal court systems at both the trial and appellate levels.  Licensed to practice in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina, Tamar has defended clients in a wide variety of criminal cases—from serious felonies in state court to alleged acts of terrorism in federal court.  Among her clients was Richard Reid, the attempted “Shoe Bomber” prosecuted in the District of Massachusetts under the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

In her Connecticut practice, Tamar regularly defends clients facing serious criminal charges in Connecticut’s Superior Courts (both GA and Part A) located in Bridgeport, Manchester, Meriden, Middletown, Milford, New Britain, New Haven, New London, Norwalk, and Waterbury, although she has handled cases throughout the state.  She also defends the rights of clients prosecuted in federal court in the Districts of Connecticut and Massachusetts.  Tamar offers an aggressive criminal defense strategy and devotes substantial resources analyzing the government’s evidence against you, often working with leading experts, such as former law enforcement officers, toxicologists, forensic computer analysts, forensic psychologists, and forensic accountants.

For many years Tamar has also handled school discipline defense and appeals.  She frequently represents college as well as high school students accused of violating their school’s code of conduct, which can result in suspension or expulsion as well as the initiation of criminal prosecution that arises from the same conduct.  Code of conduct violations may include academic dishonesty, including plagiarizing and cheating; alcohol-related offenses; campus sexual assault and rape cases; fraternity, sorority, and athletic team hazing; and the possession, sale, or distribution of illegal drugs as well as the illegal use of prescription drugs.  Tamar has represented students facing disciplinary charges at colleges throughout Connecticut, including the University of Connecticut, the University of New Haven, Quinnipiac University, Wesleyan University, and Yale University.  She also represents high school students in the state’s public, private and boarding schools on matters ranging from assault and possession of a weapon to threats and bullying.

Tamar graduated cum laude from Yale University and Harvard Law School.  After a decade as a public defender in Massachusetts, she taught criminal and juvenile defense as a tenured law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law where she also served as Director of Clinical Programs.  Tamar is the author of more than a dozen law review articles on topics related to criminal defense as well as an editor and contributor to several juvenile justice-related books. She has written opinion pieces for major publications, including The Nation, New York Daily News, and Los Angeles Times and has provided legal commentary on the challenges of defending high-profile criminal suspects for CNN, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal, among many other television, radio, print, and web-based media outlets.

Tamar is a member of the Connecticut Bar Association, Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, Federal Bar Association, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and New Haven County Bar Association.  She regularly volunteers in the New Haven County Bar Association’s Ask-a-Lawyer Legal Consultation Clinics and serves on the Board of Directors and as a volunteer judge for Project Youth Court, a diversionary program for adolescents in New Haven.

Tamar prides herself on the close, collaborative working relationships she has with her clients.  She is available for a free consultation and often meets, speaks or texts with clients on evenings and weekends.  Tamar understands that facing criminal charges can be a frightening experience, and she spends as much time patiently counseling her clients as she does rigorously advocating for them in the courtroom.

Tamar lives with her husband and their two teenage daughters in Guilford.

MELODY BRANNON is the Federal Public Defender for the District of Kansas. She has been with the federal defender office for 23 years. She began her career as a public defender in the Oklahoma County Public Defender in 1990, and worked in death penalty defense at both trial and habeas levels in Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. As Federal Defender, she has developed a holistic defense paradigm for federal cases and created an extensive CLE, mentoring, and internship program.