Jeffery Robinson is a deputy legal director and the director of the ACLU Trone Center for Justice and Equality, which houses the organization’s work on criminal justice, racial justice, and reform issues. Since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981, Jeff has three decades of experience working on these issues. For seven years, he represented indigent clients in state court at The Defender Association and then in federal court at the Federal Public Defender’s Office, both in Seattle. In 1988, Jeff began a 27-year private practice at the Seattle firm of Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender, where he represented a broad range of clients in local, state, and federal courts on charges ranging from shoplifting to securities fraud and first degree murder. He has tried over 200 criminal cases to verdict and has tried more than a dozen civil cases representing plaintiffs suing corporate and government entities. Jeff was one of the original members of the John Adams Project and worked on the behalf of one of five men held at Guantanamo Bay charged with carrying out the 9/11 attacks.

In addition to being a nationally recognized trial attorney, Jeff is also a respected teacher of trial advocacy. He is a faculty member of the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Georgia, and has lectured on trial skills all over the United States. He has also spoken nationally to diverse audiences on the role of race in the criminal justice system. He is past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a life member and past member of the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Jeff is also an elected fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Heather Rogers (she/her) has been a public defender for 20 years in the state and federal courts. Heather has handled cases at every stage of litigation, from arraignment through trial and appeal. She has represented clients accused of offenses from delinquency to homicide, defended detainees incarcerated at Guantánamo Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and argued cases in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Heather is honored to serve as the first Public Defender of Santa Cruz County, her birthplace and home. Before her appointment, Heather served as a public defender at Biggam, Christensen & Minsloff, the defense firm that previously provided public defense services for Santa Cruz County. Heather is a faculty member of the National Criminal Defense College, lecturer in Legal Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and frequent trainer at regional and national trial skills programs. Heather has also taught at California Western School of Law and Monterey College of Law. Heather clerked for the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before starting her career in public defense at Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc. Heather also served as a public defender in Monterey County and at the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of California before coming home to Santa Cruz. Heather has an A.B. in English Language & Literature from the University of Chicago and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. Heather lives in the Aptos mountains with her husband, children, and pets. In her free time, Heather enjoys traveling, hiking, and snowboarding.

After 33 years as a public defender, David has opened his own law office where he will practice criminal defense and advise attorneys on potential professional conduct issues.

David began his public defender career in 1989 as a trial attorney. He has served as a managing attorney, a major crimes/homicide attorney, and an attorney in the program’s appellate office. He has tried approximately forty cases to a jury, including a capital murder case, and has handled over 150 appeals. In his current position, David continues to handle a small number of trials and appeals and is involved year-round in planning and conducting trainings, including a month-long training for the program’s class of new lawyers, and trainings on case analysis and trial skills for new and experienced lawyers.

In addition to his appointment as NCDC faculty, David is a former adjunct professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, the (soon to be outgoing) chair of the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s Professional Conduct Committee, and a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He is a recipient of the New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Champion of Justice Award, and an award for service to the profession from the New Hampshire Bar Association.

PAUL RUDOF is the Director of Training and Litigation at Public Defender Services of Lane County. Before moving to Oregon in September of 2025, Paul practiced for twenty-five years as a criminal defense attorney in Massachusetts. For eighteen years, he worked as a public defender at the Committee for Public Counsel Services — first as a trial attorney, then as a staff attorney in the Public Defender Training Division, and then as the state-wide Public Defender Co-Counsel. Paul then entered private practice, continuing to specialize in criminal defense in both state and federal court. Paul has tried cases in almost every county in Massachusetts, from misdemeanors to murders. He has argued many appeals before the Massachusetts Appeals Court and Supreme Judicial Court, winning appellate victories in several landmark cases. Most recently, with his law partner Ryan Schiff, Paul litigated and won Commonwealth v. Mattis, the first decision in the country to conclude that a life without parole sentence is unconstitutional for anyone under age twenty-one. For this accomplishment, Paul received the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers President’s Award and was named a 2024 Lawyer of the Year by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Paul has also trained thousands of criminal defense lawyers throughout the country in trial skills, substantive law, and forensics, both as a faculty member at the National Criminal Defense College since 2006 and at conferences in almost half of the states. Prior to practicing law, Paul clerked for the Hon. Michael Murphy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, worked as a tenant organizer in Tucson, Arizona, and taught middle school in Washington D.C. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Utah College of Law.