Shaffy Moeel is a go-to attorney for persons in legal crisis and has succeeded in obtaining exceptional results for clients in the face of overwhelming odds.

A veteran of more than 30 federal jury trials, Shaffy is widely recognized for her expertise as a trial attorney. Shaffy specializes in complex criminal defense, representing both entities and individuals in federal courts across the country. She has litigated a variety of white-collar criminal cases including health care fraud, tax fraud, international arms trafficking, international economic sanction violations, securities fraud, money laundering, trade secrets, and economic espionage. Federal courts have appointed her to serve as lead counsel on six federal capital cases.

Shaffy is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

Anthony J. Natale, “Tony” was for five years lead capital counsel for the defense team representing Abdul Rahim Al Nashiri, the individual charge with masterminding the bombing of the USS Cole, the military commission tribunal being held in Guantanamo, Cuba. Prior to that he was a Supervising Assistant Federal Public Defender in Miami, Florida. In that position, he served as training coordinator for the Federal Defender Office and the CJA panel lawyers for the Southern District of Florida.

Prior to joining the Federal Defenders Office, he was in private practice for over twenty years concentrating on criminal defense and civil rights trials in both State and Federal courts. The cases he has taken to trial include capital murder, terrorism, complex fraud matters, large drug conspiracies, civil rights violations, and personal injury actions.

He has been a member of the National Criminal Defense College faculty since 1982, and lectures extensively throughout the United States on criminal defense topics such as voir dire, advanced cross-examination, cross-examination of experts and theory of the case. Tony has helped to organize and teach in criminal defense training programs in China, Zimbabwe, and Vietnam.

He is a member of the Florida and District of Colombia Bars and has been admitted pro hac vice in several jurisdictions throughout the country. He is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University and the Antioch School of Law.

Attorney Mindy Nolan leads Nolan Defense Alliance with a strong focus on trial work, client trust, and direct, honest advocacy. She has spent nearly a decade defending people across Wisconsin. Her work covers the full range of criminal defense—from traffic cases to complex homicide trials.

Attorney Nolan builds strong relationships by taking time to learn each client’s story. She believes that a good legal defense depends on real human connection. That’s why she gives every case her full attention and treats each client with respect and honesty. When she steps into court, she tells her client’s story clearly and powerfully. She doesn’t let the system ignore her clients or twist the truth.

Before founding Nolan Defense Alliance, Attorney Nolan served as a public defender for five years. During that time, she represented nearly 1,000 clients. She handled daily court appearances, pretrial motions, and trials. That experience shaped her into the focused, fearless litigator she is today.

Attorney Nolan understands the real-life stakes of criminal charges. She knows that court outcomes affect families, jobs, and futures. Her legal background also includes special training in how criminal convictions affect immigration status. She speaks both English and Spanish and has supported Wisconsin’s Spanish-speaking communities for more than ten years.

Attorney Nolan earned her law degree from Marquette University Law School and her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. While in law school, she sharpened her courtroom skills in litigation-based competitions. She now uses those same skills to challenge evidence, cross-examine witnesses, and push back when prosecutors overreach.

Courts across Wisconsin know her for strong arguments, clear thinking, and careful preparation. She holds multiple state and national awards, including:

• Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2022 and 2023
• WACDL Martin Hanson Memorial Prize Award (2023)
• WACDL Sensitive Crimes Award (2023)
• State Bar of Wisconsin Public Interest Law Student of the Year (2014)

Attorney Nolan also belongs to the Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Wisconsin State Bar.

Outside the courtroom, she teaches yoga and enjoys outdoor travel and spending time with her family.

David Patton is a partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink in New York City. From 2011 to 2023, he was the Executive Director of the Federal Defenders of New York, the federal public defender office for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. From 2002 to 2008, he worked at the Federal Defenders as a trial attorney in the Manhattan office.

David has served as lead or co-counsel in dozens of federal trials. He has achieved outright acquittals in more than half of the federal cases he has personally tried to a jury. Those cases span a wide range of charges, including drug trafficking, firearms, counterfeiting, fraud, insider trading, and terrorism. Between October 2022 and March 2023, he successfully represented a client in the first federal death penalty trial under the Biden Administration, which resulted in a life sentence.

David is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Law Institute. Among other publications, he is the author of The Structure of Federal Public Defense: A Call for Independence, 102 CORNELL L. REV. 101 (2017) and Federal Public Defense in an Age of Inquisition, 122 YALE L.J. 100 (2013). David currently teaches Professional Responsibility in Criminal Law as an Adjunct Professor of Law at N.Y.U. From 2008-2010, he was an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Alabama where he taught Criminal Law and directed the Criminal Defense Clinic. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Visiting Associate Professor at Stanford Law School and founded the school’s first trial-level criminal defense clinic. Since 2008, Mr. Patton has been a faculty member for Gideon’s Promise, a non-profit organization dedicated to training new public defenders and fostering a community of client-centered lawyers.

David is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as an editor of the Virginia Law Review. He clerked for the Honorable Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Prior to joining the Federal Defenders in 2002, he was an associate at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.

Martin Pinales has been successfully defending individuals and companies in federal and state courts throughout the United States for over 50 years. In addition to his impressive trial and appellate experience, he also has extensive experience representing clients who are involved in criminal investigations and who have been called to testify before a grand jury.

Martin is a frequent lecturer throughout the United States to various bar associations on a wide array of subjects, including trial techniques and ethics. He also teaches at the National Criminal Defense College, part of Mercer Law School, in Macon, Georgia, as well as the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York City. Martin had the privilege of teaching trial skills at Legal Aid of China and lecturing for the doctor of laws program at the prestigious Peking Law School. He has also published articles in legal periodicals and books.

After the Federal Sentencing Guidelines were enacted, Martin was appointed by the United States Sentencing Commission to train other defense attorneys on the Guidelines. In addition, he served on the Practitioner’s Advisory Group to the Sentencing Commission, which acts as a liaison between defense attorneys and the Sentencing Commission. He was also appointed by former Chief Justice Rehnquist to serve on the United States Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services.

He has earned the Martindale-Hubbell AV® Preeminent Peer Review rating, which is the highest rating attorneys can achieve in both legal ability and ethical standards.

In 2005, Archana started her career as a public defender at The Bronx Defenders. She moved to the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem in 2008 where she worked for over a decade. While at NDS, she started as a Staff Attorney became a Supervisor and moved onto the Management Team. She ended her time at NDS as a Senior Staff Attorney, representing clients charged with homicides and other serious felonies. In January 2019, Archana went back to the Bronx to help create the Homicide Unit at the Bronx Defenders. She has tried cases ranging from homicides to violations and represented thousands of clients in New York City.

She is on the faculty at the National Criminal Defense College and the NYSDA Basic Trials Skills Program. She teaches at various other public defenders trainings and spent three months in Palestine through the International Legal Foundation, training and mentoring public defenders. Prior to becoming a public defender, she spent two years litigating civil claims related to wrongful convictions. After graduating from law school, she clerked for the Honorable Myron H. Thompson in the Middle District of Alabama. She is a graduate of Columbia Law School and Cornell University.

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.

During the Obama administration, Ms. Roseberry served as project manager of the historic Clemency Project 2014.  Often referred to as the nation’s largest law firm of nearly 4,000 lawyers, it provided pro bono support to more than 36,000 applicants for presidential clemency.

Ms. Roseberry also served on the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections, a nine-member, bipartisan, Congressional blue-ribbon panel charged with examining the federal corrections system, including overcrowding, prison violence, public safety measures, prison rehabilitation and employment programs, and re-entry programs and policies to reduce recidivism.  The task force released its groundbreaking report Transforming Prisons, Restoring Lives: Final Recommendations of the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections in January of 2016.

Previously, Ms. Roseberry was the executive director of the Federal Defenders of the Middle District of Georgia, Inc. She has taught advanced criminal procedure and co-taught in the death penalty clinic at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, where she also founded the misdemeanor clinic. For more than 10 years prior to teaching, she practiced federal and state criminal defense in Georgia.

A founding board member of the Georgia Innocence Project, she was the first African-American female president of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She received the 2016 COS Humanitarian Award, the 2017 annual service award from the Alpha Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated and the 2017 Champion of Justice Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Ms. Roseberry earned her Bachelor of Science from Wilberforce University in Ohio, where she initiated into Zeta Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. She earned her Juris Doctor from Georgia State University College of Law.

A national and international speaker, Ms. Roseberry has presented in nearly every U.S. state in Europe and the former Soviet Union. Her TEDx talk, My Father, My Hero, delivered from inside a prison, has been critically acclaimed. See her TEDx talk at http://bit.ly/myfather-myhero.

AMY RUBIN first joined the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho in 2000 as a fellowship attorney and then returned in 2003 after a two-year federal clerkship in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2013, she became the managing attorney in the office. Amy graduated from the University of Colorado in 1995, received her law degree from the University of Montana in 2000 and has taught practical trial skills at trial advocacy programs including Emory University and the University of Idaho, at the Alternative Defense Counsel program in Colorado, and is on the faculty of NCDC.

She has lectured at the Andrea Taylor Sentencing Workshop as well as before the Washington State Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.  She is also a faculty member at the Orientation Program for new Federal Defenders in Santa Fe.