NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

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.

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!”

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.

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.

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.

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/.

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.