NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

As a former federal defender, Yasmin Cader has tried more than thirty criminal cases to resolution before juries and judges in state and federal courts in Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C. At the Offices of the Federal Public Defender in the Southern District of New York and Los Angeles, Yasmin represented witnesses and individuals facing a variety of federal criminal charges, including complex white-collar criminal and regulatory matters. Yasmin also served as the Chief of Training in Los Angeles, a position in which she developed and executed substantive legal and trial skills training programs for attorneys in Los Angeles and across the country. While representing individuals in Washington D.C. with the Public Defender Service, she defended juveniles and adults facing the most serious felony charges in Superior Court.
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Yasmin is also an experienced civil litigator. She began her career as an Honors Program Trial Lawyer with the Employment Litigation Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, where she litigated individual and class-action claims of sexual and racial harassment and discrimination. Prior to that, she served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith of the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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In private practice, Yasmin continues to teach trial skills to practicing lawyers and law students alike. She is a member of the faculty at Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop and the National Criminal Defense College. She has served as a guest lecturer at local and national bar associations across the country, as well as at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, New York University School of Law, UCLA School of Law and Loyola Law School. She currently serves on the Yale Law School Executive Committee and is also on the board of a national non-profit dedicated to effective messaging for social justice issues.

Jeff Chapdelaine, JD, LICSW is an Attorney, Forensic Social Worker, and Forensic Drama Therapist based in Boston Massachusetts.  He represents clients in both criminal and plaintiff’s civil cases. He consults nationally on plaintiff’s civil cases and on cases where people are accused of committing crime, working with lawyers and on trial strategy, jury selection and trauma informed client focused case preparation.  His consulting company trains both lawyers and mental health professionals on areas where legal systems and mental health systems intersect.

He serves on the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) Criminal Curriculum Advisory Committee and as faculty locally for MCLE and Committee for Public Counsel Service, and nationally for the National Criminal Defense College in Macon Georgia, the Trial Lawyers College in Dubois Wyoming, several state systems and at other training programs.

Byron L. Conway Jr. is a criminal defense attorney with a passion for advocating for the most marginalized in our society – those who are often unheard, disregarded, and disrespected by a system that every day fails to see their basic humanity. Byron’s passion for the work he does comes from the environment he grew up in. The clients who Byron works so hard to zealously advocate for are more than just “bodies” to him. In every client he has, Byron sees his family members, his friends…his community, and he knows that many times these individuals have never had anyone really fight for them and tell their story. The front line of the fight for justice and equality requires dedicated soldiers, and Byron is proud to count himself one among them. Byron was born and raised in the inner city of Detroit, Michigan. Byron graduated from Charles F. Kettering high school in Detroit and matriculated through the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on a full academic scholarship. Byron graduated U of M with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and African American studies, with a particular focus on African American political ideology.

After graduating from U of M in 2010, Byron attended Boston University School of Law. Byron graduated from Boston University School of Law with honors in 2013. After graduating law school, Byron joined the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) as a staff attorney in the trial division. Byron’s practice primarily focused on defending indigent individuals charged with serious felony offenses in the District of Columbia Superior Court. While at PDS Byron was one of the charter members of the organization’s Mental Health Practice group, which specialized in litigating at the intersection of mental health and criminal culpability.

After nearly six years of working with the most amazing people at PDS, Byron transitioned from his role in DC in May of 2019 to Atlanta, Georgia, where he is currently an assistant federal defender with the Federal Defender Program, Inc. In his current role, Byron defends indigent individuals charged with felony matters in the United States District Courts for the Northern District of Georgia and handles appeals before the United States11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. Byron also currently sits on the executive board of directors for the Black Public Defender Association.