NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY
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Jeff Sherr
Training Director, National Association for Public Defense
Biography
Jeff Sherr is the Training Director for the National Association for Public Defense producing hundreds of webinars for public defense professionals across the nation. Prior to that he was the Manager of the Education and Strategic Planning Branch of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. Jeff started with the DPA since 1994, starting first as a law clerk, then working with the Juvenile Post Dispositional Unit, then in the trial division with the Stanford Field Office, and now in Frankfort with the education staff. Jeff graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1995. Jeff has been a faculty member for Gideon’s Promise, the National Criminal Defense College, Clarence Darrow Death Penalty College, Harvard Trial Advocacy Workshop, Bronx Defender Academy, and other state litigation institutes.
In addition to regularly training public defender litigators and trainers, Jeff trains public defender leaders nationally and for many individual defender states and offices. Jeff also has an extensive background in theatre having studied with the National Shakespeare Conservatory and the University of Kansas. Jeff performs regularly with Central Kentucky Improv in Lexington, Kentucky and at Improv Festivals across the country.
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Recent Teaching History
David Shircliff
Criminal Defense at Shircliff Law
Biography
David started his career as a Death Penalty mitigation specialist and post-conviction relief lawyer at the Indiana State Public Defender. He has represented thousands of clients in cases from misdemeanor to murder, and as lead counsel, has represented clients in more than 120 jury trials and hundreds of bench trials as a trial deputy at the Marion County Public Defender Agency in Indianapolis. IN 2015 he was hired to become the Chief Public Defender of Lawrence County in Bedford, Indiana where he transformed the way the County dealt with drug charges, shifting the primary focus to treatment. IN 2020, he opened his own law office; Shircliff Law, focused on criminal defense and trial coaching.
David has an MSW and is a nationally recognized trainer, teacher and coach in the areas of criminal defense, trial skills and dealing with secondary trauma. He is passionate about creating new, transformative, hands on workshops that empower defenders to create strong client relations, to hone their trial skills, and to have fulfilling lives outside of criminal defense, by recognizing and effectively combatting the personal, psychological and emotional toll caused by the trauma of doing this work.
He teaches Trial Practice at the I.U. Mckinney School of Law in Indianapolis. He has been a faculty member of the Trial Practice Institute in Indiana, and has been trained by Gerry Spence at the Trial Lawyers College in Dubois, Wyoming.
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Natasha Perdew Silas
Senior Litigation Attorney; Federal Defender Program, Inc.
Biography
Natasha Perdew Silas became the Dean of the National Criminal Defense College in August of 2017 along with new bestie Karen Smolar. Together they are the third Deans of NCDC. For the past two plus years, Karen and Tasha have worked tirelessly to honor the legacy of the College, to move it forward, and to help it in all ways fulfill its mission of pursuing justice by empowering defenders.
Tasha has twenty-five years of experience as a trial lawyer with the Federal Defender Program in the Northern District of Georgia, where she now serves as a Senior Litigation Attorney still representing clients before the district and circuit courts.
Tasha credits NCDC with helping her to find her voice and power in the courtroom and she has a passion for helping others in their quests to continually improve courtroom advocacy. Tasha has taught extensively in the State of Georgia, in various other states, and also internationally in the Republic of Georgia. She is a proud member of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She has received a number of awards for her work and advocacy including from the Southern Center for Human Rights and the Gate City Bar Association.
Tasha lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two children.
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Fredilyn Sison
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Federal Public Defender for the Western District of NC
Biography
Where hasn’t Fredi worked? She’s been an Assistant Federal Defender in Omaha, Nebraska; Boise, Idaho; Reno, Nevada and Asheville, North Carolina, with side stops in Washington, DC as visiting counsel at the Defender Training Branch and at the U.S. Sentencing Commission. She’s in such “high demand” that she recently received a recruiting email asking her if she would like to be a legal assistant in an up and coming workers’ comp firm. She wrote back thanking them but she was having too much fun being an advocate for poor people and had to decline their lovely offer. Then she killed her LinkedIn account.
An honors grad of Cornell University and New York University School of Law, Fredi has served on the faculty for numerous programs around the country. Her favorite tag line during her teaching sessions is, “You understand this is interactive, right?” To date, no one has successfully slunk down low enough for her to not make eye contact and ask for a volunteer.
Fredi co-authored Trial in Action: The Persuasive Power of Psychodrama and expects to be an answer to a trivia question one day because of it. She’s written article/chapters on various topics: child pornography, voir dire, cross examination and the effects of incarceration on families. Her two passions are psychodrama (where she’s certified as a practitioner, not to be confused with being certified period) and Improv. She will play improv games all day if allowed, and you’ll often hear her muttering, “Whoosh, Bang, Pow!”
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James Smith , III
James Smith Attorney at Law
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Recent Teaching History
Karen Smolar
Training Director, Committee for Public Counsel Services
Biography
Karen Smolar is the Legal Training Director of the Criminal Practice at the Committee
for Public Counsel Services in Massachusetts, where she develops and conducts
innovative trial training programs for every public defender and court-appointed attorney
representing the indigent accused statewide. At CPCS, Karen also lends her expertise
to other practice areas in the Training Department to help conceptualize curriculum
across the agency. In addition, Karen is a member of the agency’s Anti-Racism Team,
and she serves as lead on its DEI Recruitment Sub-Committee.
Karen spent her three previous decades representing the indigent accused in New York
City, including twenty years of dedicated work at The Bronx Defenders. Karen spent a
decade their Trial Chief, deservedly earning the informal title of Persuasion Guru.
Karen’s time at The Bronx Defenders was marked by formal and informal brainstorming
of a countless number of cases, as she mentored, trained, and supervised dozens and
dozens of younger public defenders representing clients charged with nearly every
crime imaginable.
Karen’s trial training legacy lives on at The Bronx Defenders, embodied in the
Defenders' Academy, the annual, intensive five-day program that Karen created from
scratch in 2007. The Academy was the first training program in the country to focus on
the intersection between trial skills and performance work, and it continues to attract
and welcome interested attorneys in criminal, family, and civil practices from across the
United States. Many Academy graduates from over the years would acknowledge the
debt they owe to Karen when they speak of having been “Smolarized” in their approach
to trial work.
Since 2017, Karen has also been the co-Dean at the National Criminal Defense
College, America’s preeminent trial training school for criminal defense practitioners.
Prior to her appointment as Dean, Karen had served for a decade on the College’s
faculty as a presenter, lecturer, and small-group leader. Her work at the College allows
her to develop and implement creative programming and pedagogy to train lawyers
from around the country and beyond. Since her Deanship began, Karen has been
especially proud of both the College’s successful efforts to diversify its faculty, staff, and
participants as well as the College curriculum’s new emphasis on racial and social
justice.
Karen is herself a renowned lecturer and guest trainer on everything from storytelling to
closing argument, cross-examining expert witnesses to voir dire, having presented at
trainings for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the New York State
Defenders Association, and many other state-wide public defender offices around the
country. Karen also has more than a decade of experience teaching in law school
classrooms. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Roger Williams University
School of Law in Rhode Island, where she is a sought-after Trial Advocacy Instructor
and where she coaches the school’s Trial Team. Before moving to Rhode Island, Karen
served in similar positions at St. John’s School of Law in New York and at Seton Hall
Law School in New Jersey.
Callie Steele
Deputy Trial Chief, Santa Barbara County Office of the Public Defender
Biography
Callie Glanton Steele has devoted her career to the defense of indigent clients for the past 31 years. Since July 25, 2022, she has been the Deputy Trial Chief for the South County at the Santa Barbara County Public Defender’s Office. Prior that that position, for 30 years, she worked at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California. She was the Senior Litigator from September of 2015 to the present, primarily handling complex cases. Also, she was a Supervising Deputy Federal Public Defender (2002 to September of 2015) and a Deputy Federal Public Defender in the trial unit (1992 to 2002). In 2000 and 2001, she was on a temporary duty assignment in Washington, D.C., where she was Special Counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission (November of 2000 to May of 2001), and a Visiting Defender at Defender Services Division with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (May to November of 2001), working in the Legal and Policy Division. She graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1991, and served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Terry J. Hatter, Jr., United States District Judge in the fall of 1990.
Ms. Steele represents clients in complex cases and has written and argued multiple appeals before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition, she teaches Trial Advocacy at Loyola Law School.
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Michael Stout
Attorney, Law Offices of Michael L. Stout
Biography
Michael L. Stout is a trial attorney specializing in Criminal Law. He received a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law and is a Recognized Specialist in Criminal Law. He often teaches other lawyers throughout the nation through workshops and seminars, especially in the area of jury selection.
Michael has been on the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College for 36 years. He was the first chair of the New Mexico Public Defense Commission and remains a member of the Commission. Michael also serves as the acting President of New Mexico Justice, a Criminal Justice PAC. He is an AV rated attorney and has been named in every issue of the Best Lawyers of America, SuperLawyers, and most recently on America’s Top 100 Criminal Defense Attorneys.
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Dean Strang
Distinguished Professor in Residence
Biography
Dean A. Strang is a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and a criminal defense lawyer. He is known for his work in a trial documented in Netflix’s Making A Murderer and for his books of legal history, Keep the Wretches in Order: America’s Biggest Mass Trial, the Rise of the Justice Department, and the Fall of the IWW; and Worse Than the Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror. He also has written several law review articles. Mr. Strang’s past work includes five years as Wisconsin’s first Federal Defender. He has argued in the United States Supreme Court and five federal Courts of Appeal. Mr. Strang is a co-founder of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences and a member of the American Law Institute since 2004. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
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University of Virginia, 1995
Dr. SunWolf
Biography
Dr. SunWolf was Training Director for Colorado’s Public Defender Office when she left to get her Master’s and Ph.D. at the University of California, studying juries and persuasion. Two decades of trial work as a criminal defense attorney included a three-year stint in the appellate division. Now a professor studying social behavior, her research has won numerous national awards, including her book, “Practical Jury Dynamics2: From One Juror’s Trial Perception to the Group’s Decision-Making Processes,” translating academic concepts into practical trial tools. She published a new theory (Decisional Regret Theory), which explains how deliberating jurors use counterfactual thinking to avoid anxiety about unwanted verdict outcomes. Her newest book is: “God-Thinking: Every Juror’s Moral Brain” (LexisNexis). As a trial attorney, she survived angry judges, misguided prosecutors, strange juries, and the most creative of clients.
Ryan Swingle
Attorney, Ryan J. Swingle, Attorney at Law, LLC
Biography
Ryan is a criminal defense attorney based in Athens, Georgia who practices in both federal and state courts. Ryan is a former state public defender and state capital defender. Ryan began his legal career in 2001 as an Athens public defender. For 12 years, Ryan dedicated himself to defending indigent defendants in Athens on cases ranging from disorderly conduct to murder. During his five years as lead attorney for the Northeast Georgia Capital Defender Office, none of the office’s clients were sentenced to death. Ryan’s current private practice focuses 100% on criminal defense. Ryan is an experienced trial lawyer having tried all manner of misdemeanor and felony cases. Ryan is also a faculty member of the National Criminal Defense College Trial Practice Institute.
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Mary Ann Tally
Judge
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TPI Graduate
Richard Tegtmeier
Attorney
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TPI Graduate
Colette Tvedt
The Law Firm of Colette Tvedt LLC
Biography
COLETTE TVEDT is the founder and owner of Tvedt Law, where she represents individuals charged with complex felony cases in state and federal court. Prior to starting her law firm in Denver, she served as the Director of Public Defense Training and Reform for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). In that capacity, she focused on developing and delivering premier training programs for public defense provider’s nationwide focusing on racism in the criminal justice system, police misconduct, pretrial detention, challenging forensic evidence, and trial skills. Colette has devoted her career over the past 25 years to representing poor people accused of crimes.
Prior to moving to Denver, she was a public defender in Massachusetts and Washington State and in private practice as partner with the Seattle law firm, Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender. She has organized training programs for thousands of defense lawyers and served as a Clinical Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington School of Law and at Seattle University Law School. She is a faculty member and board member of the National Criminal Defense College (NCDC). Colette Tvedt is an honor graduate of Rutgers University, where she also attended law school. She is a certified yoga instructor.
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Ronald Tyler
Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic
Biography
Ron Tyler is a Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School. The Clinic represents clients in the Superior Courts of California. Prof. Tyler’s scholarly agenda focuses on self-care skills for lawyers and criminal practice and procedure. His article: The First Thing We Do, Let’s Heal All the Law Students: Incorporating Self-Care Into A Criminal Defense Clinic, 21 Berkeley J. Crim. L. 1 (2016) is available at: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjcl/vol21/iss2/1
Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty, Professor Tyler was an Assistant Federal Public Defender for 22 years in the Northern District of California. A dedicated defense attorney and nationally recognized expert, he has litigated at trial and appellate courts covering the full gamut of federal criminal cases. He teaches regularly at seminars for criminal defense attorneys, investigators and paralegals. He is also active in several nonprofits, serving on the Executive Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Board of Regents of the National Criminal Defense College and the Guiding Rage Into Power Institute (providing mindfulness based programs to prisoners).
Professor Tyler received his BS in computer science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981 and had a brief career in high tech before changing his focus to public interest advocacy. He began law school as a Tony Patiño Fellow at Hastings College of the Law and earned his JD from UC Berkeley School of Law in 1989, where he served as notes and comments editor on the Ecology Law Quarterly. After law school, he clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel.
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Deja Vishny
Attorney
Biography
Deja Vishny is an attorney who is a consultant and trainer based in Milwaukee Wisconsin. She specializes in the defense of homicide and false confession cases and has a national reputation as one of the top lawyers in those areas.
She was formerly the Deputy Training Director and head of the statewide homicide practice group at the Wisconsin State Public Defender. She joined the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College in 1998, and lectures at criminal defense and public defender seminars throughout the United States. She is an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School where she teaches trial advocacy. She has also taught trial skills in India, and was a guest lecturer at a Harvard Law School class, “The American Prosecutor”. Ms. Vishny attended the Reid School on Interrogation and published articles in The Champion and The Wisconsin Defender on cross examining police interrogators. She cochaired the false confession program at the inaugural session of the National Forensic College at Cardozo Law School in June 2014 and has taught at that program for several years.
Ms. Vishny served several terms on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the board of the State Bar of Wisconsin Criminal Law Section and is currently on the Board of Regents of the National Criminal Defense College. She is a of numerous awards from the Wisconsin Criminal Defense Association’s for her acquittals in homicide cases, her contributions to indigent defense in Wisconsin and in 2022 received the William Coffee award for her lifetime of service to the Wisconsin Criminal Defense Bar. Her book, Suppressing Criminal Evidence, is in its fourth edition and is available from James Publishing Company at http://jamespublishing.com/shop/suppressingcriminal-evidence/.
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William Ward
State Public Defender
Biography
William M. Ward is the State Public Defender for Minnesota. Previously, Bill served as Chief Public Defender for the Fourth District – Hennepin County, Minnesota (April 2009-June 2014) and as Chief Public Defender, Tenth Judicial District, Minnesota (January 2001- April 2009). Prior to moving to Minnesota, Bill worked in the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, Cook County, Illinois (1987 – 2001). While there, he practiced in Chicago as well as the 6th Municipal District as a Felony Trial Assistant and Trial Supervisor. Bill has served as an adjunct at Hamline University Law School, William Mitchell College of Law (now Mitchell Hamline School of Law) and DePaul University College of Law, instructing on trial advocacy. Bill is on faculty at the National Criminal Defense College, Illinois Extended Trial Advocacy Program, Wisconsin Trial Skills Academy, the Minnesota Public Defender Trial Advocacy Institute and has presented or coached on many topics in numerous jurisdictions. Bill previously served as Chair of the Systems Builders Committee for the National Association for Public Defense. Bill received his J.D. from DePaul University College of Law and his B.A. from the University of Illinois. Admitted to practice in Minnesota and Illinois.
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DePaul University College of Law
Lisa Wayne
Attorney at Law
Biography
Lisa Monet Wayne is an attorney in private practice in both state and federal courts around the country. She is also “Of Counsel” to Gerash and Steiner P.C.. She represents individuals and corporations in both the investigation phase and criminally accused capacity. Previously, Wayne was a Colorado State Public Defender for 13 years where she served as office head, training director, and senior trial attorney. She lectures nationally with NACDL, National Criminal Defense College, National Institute of Trial Advocates, Numerous Public Defender Organizations, American Bar Association, and many other legal organizations. Wayne is currently an adjunct law professor at the University of Colorado where she teaches trial advocacy, and she serves on faculty at the Trial Practice Institute at Harvard Law School, The National Criminal Defense College, and Cardoza Law School.
Ms. Wayne is an advocate in all venues of the media addressing important issues confronting the criminally accused. She is a legal analyst for numerous media outlets including, ABC, CBS, CNN, Al Jazeera, World Radio and Fox regarding high profile cases around the country. She is frequently quoted in print media such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, and the AP wire. Ms. Wayne testified before the United States Sentencing Commission in 2012 against the implementation of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines as mandatory. In 2005, Wayne was honored with the Robert J. Heeney Award, NACDL’s most prestigious recognition. Wayne is the Past President of NACDL, President of the Foundation of Criminal Justice, and serves on numerous committees’ around criminal justice issues.
Wayne is a law graduate of Pepperdine University Law School in Malibu, CA, and an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado.
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Mario White
Judge, Dane County Circuit Court
Biography
Judge Mario White was appointed to the Dane County Circuit Court bench in 2020 by Governor Tony Evers He handles both criminal and civil cases. Prior to being appointed to the bench, Mario was a Dane County Circuit Commissioner. In that role, he presided over an array of cases, including small claims, family law and criminal law. Before that, Mario was as an Assistant State Public Defender. As a trial lawyer, White was recognized for his abilities when the Wisconsin Law Journal named him a 2017 Leader in the Law. White has been on the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College in Bristol, Rhode Island and teaches at the Wisconsin Public Defender Trial Skills Academy. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2008, Judge White became an adjunct professor coaching mock trial. A 2005 graduate of Oklahoma State University, Judge White was named a 2018 OSU Outstanding Alum by the Oklahoma State University College of Arts and Sciences.
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