NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE
FACULTY DIRECTORY
For a list of NCDC faculty who have taught in prior years, please click here.
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Michael Kennedy
Partner
Biography
Mr. Kennedy has worked almost exclusively in federal courts in the west (Nevada, California and Washington state) since 1992 defending individuals accused of a variety of federal crimes (guns, drugs, murders, rape, white collar offenses, RICO, VICAR, artifacts and anthrax to name a few) in some high profile, more low profile and often no profile cases. In March of 2016, he left the Office of the Federal Defender in Nevada and opened his own law practice. Mr. Kennedy teaches trial skills each year at the National Criminal Defense College, the Federal CJA Trial Skills Academy and/or other similar programs.
Mr. Kennedy has successfully defended numerous individuals accused by the government of committing crimes. In 1998, he successfully defended Larry Wayne Harris (identified in an 1997 US. News & World Report article asthe “Next Unabomber”) in Las Vegas and Columbus, Ohio against charges identifying Harris as a domestic terrorist in an alleged plot to use anthrax as a weapon. In 2006, he obtained a complete victory for Sohn Regas in both the 14 defendant state – and 44 defendant federal – Hells Angels prosecutions in Las Vegas arising from an incident in Harrah’s Laughlin casino between the Mongols and Hells Angels which left 3 dead. In 2008, he obtained acquittals in Reno in two attempt murder prosecutions, one of which arose from a shoot-out inside his client’s (David Lantry) home where two law enforcement officers were shot. In 2014, he obtained an acquittal on all four federal murder charges in a DOJ, Civil Rights Division, double homicide prosecution against an alleged former skinhead leader.
In March of 2016, he and his co-counsel obtained an acquittal in a federal mortgage fraud conspiracy and wire fraud prosecution in Las Vegas. Most recently, on February 24, 2020, following 7 trial months, he obtained an acquittal for Ernesto Gonzalez on all counts (two federal murder counts and a 12 year plus RICO conspiracy charge) arising from the Department of Justices’s failed attempt to prove that the Vagos Motorcycle Club is a criminal RICO enterprise engaged in racketeering activity.
Mr. Kennedy has been selected for inclusion in the Nevada Super Lawyers, and recognized nationally by the National Academy of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Trial Lawyers Association, for the practice of criminal defense. He began his career in 1988 as an associate with Holland & Hart in Denver, Colorado after graduating from the University of Minnesota Law School cum laude and is an active member of the Colorado, California and Nevada state bars.
A.J. Kramer
Federal Public Defender
Biography
A. J. KRAMER has been the Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia since 1990. He was the Chief Assistant Federal Public Defender in Sacramento, California, from 1987-1990, and an Assistant Federal Public Defender in San Francisco, California, from 1980-1987. He was a Law Clerk for the Honorable Procter Hug, Jr., United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Reno, Nevada, from 1979-1980.
Mr. Kramer received a B.A. from Stanford University in 1975, and a J.D. from the School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley in 1979. He taught Legal Research and Writing at Hastings Law School from 1983-1988.
He is a permanent faculty member of the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia; and, was a permanent faculty member of the Western Trial Advocacy Institute in Laramie, Wyoming.
He is Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is a member of the Department of Defense Advisory Committee on the Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault Cases in the Military; and, the ABA Criminal Justice Section Council. He was a member of the United States Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules, 2012-18; and, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Scientific Approaches to Understanding and Maximizing the Validity and Reliability of Eyewitness Identification in Law Enforcement and the Court, 2013-14. In December 2013, he received the Annice M. Wagner Pioneer Award from The Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
Notes
Recent Teaching History
Bridget Krause
Wisconsin Deputy State Public Defender
Biography
Bridget Krause graduated from Marquette Law School in May 2000 and began working at the Milwaukee Public Defender’s Office, Trial Division, after graduation. Bridget briefly left the Public Defender’s Office for two years to work in private criminal defense. After two years, she rejoined the Milwaukee Public Defender’s Office as a Local Attorney Manager. In 2018 she was promoted to Deputy Regional Attorney Manager in the Milwaukee Trial Office. As a Deputy Regional Manager, Bridget worked with younger attorneys to increase the litigation in the Milwaukee Trial Office and brainstorm motion and trial issues. She also set up training in the Milwaukee Trials Office for new attorneys and experienced attorneys. Bridget was recently promoted to Trial Division Director in the WI Public Defender’s Office.
Bridget has been an Adjunct Professor at Marquette University Law School since 2009. She has taught Trial Advocacy 1 and the Public Defender Workshop. Bridget is faculty on the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Trial Skills Academy, New Jersey Public Defender’s Program, and the National Criminal Defense College. She also presents on topics dealing with criminal defense work at the WI Public Defender Conference, Florida Public Defender Conference, Oregon Public Defender Conference and numerous NACDL programs.
Notes
Recent Teaching History
La Kyle-Griffiths
Training Division Director
Biography
La Mer Kyle-Griffiths is the Training Director with the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. Prior to this role, she was the Assistant Public Defender of the Santa Barbara Public Defender’s Office. Before that she was the Director of Training and Complex Litigation with Still She Rises in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
She has been a lifelong public defender amplifying the voice of the poor in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Washington and now California.
In Seattle, she was responsible for designing, organizing, and facilitating trainings for the over 400 team members of the Department of Public Defense. There she gained an appreciation for the need for defense teams to actively engage with their own implicit bias. She became certified with King County to teach and facilitate on issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Before that she practiced for over 17 years as a public defender in both Kentucky and Boston. In Kentucky, she was part of the Capital Defense Unit and litigated several death penalty cases.
She has sat on many case reviews on death penalty cases and continues to teach nationally and at various state programs on capital litigation, voir dire, and mitigation. She has taught investigators, attorneys, mitigation specialists, and law students across the country in the areas of capital litigation, litigation with a racial and gender lens, investigation, sentencing, trial skills, and forensics. She has litigated juvenile, capital, felony, and misdemeanor cases as well as arguing two cases to the Kentucky Supreme Court. She has been an adjunct professor at the Seattle University College of Law, the Iowa University of Law, Boston College and currently teaches at the Darrow Baldus Death Penalty College, the National Criminal Defense College, Gideon’s Promise, and Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop. She has taught in various organizations in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as well as leadership and supervision with an inclusive lens.
A graduate of the University of Dayton School of Law she has been a lifelong advocate and is looking forward to her continuing adventure with Tom, her Chucks-wearing, crusading, capital defender husband and three young women who all learned to crow “Acquittal” early!
Notes
2025 TPI Fairfax(July Session)
2025 Forensics Cross Miami(January)
2024 TPI Fairfax(July Session)