Shawna Mackey Geiger is the Director of Engagement for the Colorado Office of the Respondent Parents’ Counsel. Her focus is on supporting and improving family defenders in Colorado and around the country, as well as working to improve and abolish the family policing system. Before moving to ORPC she was the Director of Training for the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Denver and was previously the Training Director for the Colorado Office of Alternate Defense Counsel. Prior to her role as a trainer, Ms. Geiger represented clients as a public defender as well as in private practice where she focused on indigent criminal and juvenile defense.  Ms. Geiger teaches trial advocacy, storytelling, persuasion, leadership, trauma-informed practice, equity and diversity training, and client communication skills across the country. She also serves on the Board of Regents of the National Criminal Defense College. Shawna works with national defender organizations to ensure that family defenders advocate in an anti-racist manner and are consistently working to create equity for clients with disabilities and those of the LGBTQ and BIPOC communities.

LaRonda Renee Martin has more than twenty-five years’ experience working as a defense attorney. She is employed as an Assistant Federal Public Defender (AFPD) with the Federal Defenders Office, District of Nevada in Las Vegas. Ms. Martin’s prior defender experience includes the District of Puerto Rico, Middle District of Alabama, Western District of Tennessee, and the Atlanta Public Defender’s Office. Before moving to Atlanta, she managed, for seven years, her own private law practice and worked three years for the Missouri Public Defender System in St. Louis. Before succumbing to the criminal defense “kool aid,” LaRonda Martin served as a bond finance attorney in Manhattan, New York. She has taken more than 100 felony jury trials to a verdict. Best number so far, thirteen, consecutive, felony, not guilty verdicts.

LaRonda created and delivered to various forums, her Street Law presentation in the States of Missouri, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. She hopes to reach many more youth in the future. Her mantra: “The more we educate today – the less are incarcerated tomorrow.”

Frank believes that good trials are much like good movies: good stories, good acting, and damn good directing. He feels that a good trial lawyer should bring to the show every possible talent: singing, dancing, miming, etc. Whatever it takes to get the point across is important. But, he feels, as a faculty member, that imparting these qualities requires from his ‘students’ an ability to know and appreciate that we are in a constantly changing matrix. We are constantly evolving and our evolution as people can make or break our evolution as trial lawyers: if we remain close-minded, we shut ourselves off to learning and honing our talents. We must never stop learning. And, at the end of the day, Frank learns just as much from his ‘students’ as they do from him. And, for that, he is eternally grateful.