NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

Laurie Shanks has been a criminal defense attorney for almost 40 years. In addition, she is an Emerita Clinical Professor of Law at Albany Law School, where she taught Client Interviewing and Counseling, Fact Investigation, Negotiations and Trial Practice and Advocacy courses. She served on the New York Task Force on the Future of Indigent Defense and the Task Force on Wrongful Convictions. She attended NCDC as a participant in 1981 and has been a faculty member since 1988. She is a frequent lecturer at conferences and seminars throughout the country on the topics of cross-examination in cases of child sexual abuse, opening statements and closing arguments, voir dire, client interviewing and counseling, trial preparation and client-centered representation.

Laurie has substantial and wide-ranging experience in criminal justice systems in the United States and abroad. She was invited to Tula Russia to assist judges and attorneys in the implementation of a jury system in criminal trials. She taught a comparative Trial Practice class in Paris, France and was invited to be one of the plenary speakers at the Pacific Judicial Council in Pohnpei, Micronesia. Additionally, she has provided extensive training to the attorneys and investigators at the Guam Public Defenders Office and taught at the University of Chile in Santiago as a Fulbright Specialist in October 2018.”