NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY
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Brett Willis
Owner, Brett Willis Law LLC
Biography
Brett Willis has defending people since birth. His entire legal career has been dedicated to defending people who are accused of committing crimes. From 2005 to 2022 he worked as a Georgia Public Defender in Hall County. In 2022, he opened his own law firm.
He is a member of the inaugural class of Gideon’s Promise. At present, Brett serves as an instructor for: the Harvard Law School, the Georgia Public Defender Council, and GACDL’s Bill Daniel Program.
He is the author of Georgia’s only practice guide on defending against the charge of failure to register as a sexual offender. In 2008, Brett successfully challenged the constitutionality of the sex offender registration law as applied to homeless persons in Santos v. State, 284 Ga. 514 (2008).
In 2010, Brett was selected as one of ten Georgia lawyers under forty “On the Rise” in a review by The Fulton County Daily Report. In 2011, he was recognized for securing a dismissal for a woman accused of poisoning her husband with arsenic; the case had been slated to appear on TruTV. In 2013, he was featured in the HBO documentary Gideon’s Army. Also in 2013, he was awarded the prestigious Foot Soldier award by Gideon’s Promise. In 2014 Brett was named the Georgia Public Defender of the Year. He earned his J.D. from the University of Georgia (2003) and his Master of Laws from New York University (2004).
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Recent Teaching History
Katie Wozencroft
Bronx Public Defender
Biography
Kathryn (Katie) Wozencroft is currently the Deputy Managing Director of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Bronx Defenders. She was previously the first ever Training Director of the office where she was responsible for developing and implementing substantive and skills trainings for over one hundred practicing attorneys. She is also a member of the homicide practice group and forensic practice group at the Bronx Defenders. Katie is currently the Director of Defenders’ Academy Trial College, an annual trial skills program held at CUNY Law School that teaches innovative litigation techniques to over 100 practicing criminal, family and immigration public defenders from across the country. She has guest lectured and taught at the Holistic Defense Clinic at Columbia Law School, the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, the National Criminal Defense College and the New Jersey Public Defender. Prior to her work as a public defender, she clerked for the Hon. Eldon Fallon in Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2009.
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Boyd Young
Chief Attorney, SCCID- Capital Trial Division
Biography
Boyd Young is the Director of the Capital Trial Division of the South Carolina Commission of Indigent Defense where he has practiced since 2008. He and his office, have successfully resolved over 50 capital cases through plea and trial. Based on his devotion to his clients and his efforts in starting and leading statewide training, he was selected as the inaugural “Andrew David Grimes Public Defender of the Year” for 2015.
From 2005-2008, Boyd was a trial attorney with the Georgia Capital Defender Office in Atlanta, Ga. where he defended people accused of capital murder throughout the State of Georgia. While at the Georgia Capital Defender Office he was featured in a series of articles published by the McClatchy Newspapers written by Steven Henderson. This series was later turned into a PBS documentary titled “Death is Different.”
Prior to joining the Georgia Capital Defender Office, Boyd was a public defender in Charleston, SC.
Boyd got his law degree in 1999 from South Carolina and his undergraduate degree from The Citadel in Charleston, SC.
Notes
Recent Teaching History
2018 Trial Practice Institute (July Session)
2017 Trial Practice Institute (July Session)
2016 Trial Practice Institute (July Session)
2015 Trial Practice Institute (July Session)
Lorinda Youngcourt
Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho
Biography
Lorinda Youngcourt represented Indiana and Illinois capital and non-capital clients in trial, direct appeal, state post-conviction, and federal habeas corpus as a public defender and in private practice. She was the first Lawrence County Indiana Public Defender from 2010-2014, creating an agency to replace a contract public defender system overseen by the judiciary. She served on the Board of Directors for the Indiana Public Defender Council from 2001-2014. Lorinda was the first King County (Seattle, WA) Public Defender from 2015-2018 overseeing the unification of four non-profit agencies into a single county department. In late 2018, Lorinda returned to her roots as a trial lawyer and now works for the Federal Defenders Office of Eastern Washington and Idaho in Spokane, Washington. She is Chair of the Education Committee for the National Association for Public Defense and she serves as faculty at various programs around the country.
Notes
Recent Teaching History
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