NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE FACULTY

Sam Dennis is the owner and founder of Sam D. Dennis, P.C. in Valdosta, Georgia, a law firm representing injured people and citizens under attack by their government.

Sam is a lifetime resident of Valdosta, attending St. John Catholic School and Lowndes County High School. Sam graduated from Valdosta State University with a BS in Criminal Justice and a Masters in Public Administration. He also studied at the world-renowned Magdalene College in Oxford, England. He received his JD from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Sam began practicing law in 1995 and founded his law practice in 2001. He has won hundreds of cases for his clients, earning a reputation as one of Georgia’s top lawyers. He is passionately committed to justice and public safety.

Sam served as the President of  the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (GACDL) for two consecutive years 2014 and 2015. He has served as the Vice President of the GACDL off and on for many years and he is a Life Member of the association. Sam is also a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and Georgia Trial Lawyers Association (GTLA). Sam has served as former Chairman of the Judicial Council of Georgia, Board of Court Reporting. He is a board member of the Board of Directors for the Community Defender Organization for the Eleventh Circuit District Court.

In addition to teaching with the Bill Daniel Program since its creation, Sam has been a member of the National Criminal Defense College faculty since 1998 and has lectured and taught nationally and internationally on the topics of Cross Examination, Impeachment, Voir Dire, Opening Statements, Scientific Evidence,  Expert Testimony, and all aspects of trial advocacy.

Sam lives in Valdosta with his wife and four children. He is an avid hunter, angler, gun collector, and model airplane enthusiast. He is an active member at St. John’s Catholic Church.

Drew Findling’s practice, The Findling Law Firm, P.C., focuses exclusively on federal and state criminal defense and he tries cases ranging from matters involving complex white- collar crimes to serious violent felonies. Mr. Findling spent the first three years of his career as a Fulton County, GA public defender. Over more than 30 years, he has represented clients in state and federal courts across the country, as well as in international matters.

As a public defender, he was a leader in developing the battered woman syndrome defense. Nationally, Mr. Findling was the first attorney to successfully employ that defense based exclusively on verbal abuse. For his efforts, the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (GACDL) awarded him their Indigent Defense Award. In recent years, he has successfully represented a string of well-known clients including: Dennis Rodman, Shaquille O’Neal, Grammy Award Winner Cardi B, Grammy Award Nominee Faith Evans, Emmy Award Winner actor/comedian Katt Williams, actor/comedian Mike Epps, Hip Hop superstars, Gucci Mane, Waka Flocka Flame, Offset, Quavo, and Takeoff from the Grammy-nominated group Migos, Boosie, Trippi Red, Lil Baby, Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Jim Jones and Da Baby. Mr. Findling has also represented Morris Brown College President Dolores Cross, Fulton County Sheriff Jackie Barrett, and, in the highly publicized public corruption jury

trial of Clayton County, GA Sheriff Victor Hill, Mr. Findling won an acquittal of all charges in the 37-count indictment. For his effort on behalf of Sheriff Hill, Mr. Findling received the NAACP’s Civil and Human Rights Award and a commendation by the Legislative Black Caucus of Georgia. He also secured a non-prosecution agreement for the long-serving District Attorney of Douglas County, GA, David McDade.

Mr. Findling is a member of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the American Bar Association. Findling also serves on the Board of Advisors for the prestigious National Clearing House on Science and Technology of Law. Due to Mr. Findling’s success in jury trials, appeals, and post-conviction work, he has been named as one of Georgia’s Legal Elite in Georgia Trend Magazine, Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Top Lawyers in Georgia, and as a Georgia “Super Lawyer” by Atlanta Magazine and one of the Best Lawyers in America© in the area of criminal defense.

Mr. Findling is a Past President and a Life Member of The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (“NACDL”). Mr. Findling joined the Association in 1988 and has served multiple terms on the Board of Directors. His commitment includes service as chair of multiple committees related to forensic science, chair of the Membership Committee, and as co-chair of the Discovery Reform Committee. He also served as a member of NACDL’s Nominating Committee and National Forensics Litigation College Advisory Board. Mr. Findling was the 2018 recipient of the prestigious Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award which is given to one criminal defense attorney in the country each year by NACDL.

In his more than 30 years of practice, Mr. Findling has published numerous articles and become a highly sought-after speaker, speaking in more than 40 states across the country. He has spoken extensively on topics as race in the criminal justice system, combatting collateral consequences of convictions, defending battered woman syndrome cases, jury selection in high profile cases, forensic preparation for a criminal trial, effective opening statements and closing arguments, professionalism, and advanced cross-examination. He has lectured at Emory Law School, Georgia State University College of Law, and the University of Georgia Law School. He has been on the faculty of the National Criminal

Defense College since 1989 and also teaches at NACDL’s White Collar Criminal Defense College at Stetson and Tulane University Law School’s Pre-Trial Criminal Litigation Boot Camp. Mr. Findling is also regularly invited to serve as a legal analyst on various respected national television news networks. Mr. Findling was recently profiled in a New York Times piece, “Atlanta’s #BillionDollarLawyer Is Looking Out for Your Favorite Rappers,” and he was a guest speaker at the 2018 Aspen Ideas Festival on “Hip-Hop Collision: Music Race and the Law.” In 2018 Mr. Findling was featured in a documentary by Mic.Com and a 2019 documentary on CNN’s “Great Big Story.” Mr. Findling was also recently named an R&B/Hip-Hop Power Player by Billboard Magazine and a Top-20 Hollywood Troubleshooter by the Hollywood Reporter

Christina L. Hunt is the Executive Director for the Federal Defenders of the Middle District of Georgia, Inc. She has been with that office since 2010, and before joining that office, was Senior Litigator with the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho where she had worked for 14 years. This year, she also began teaching again at Mercer Law School where she teaches the Public Defender Extern Clinic.

A graduate of Furman University and Mercer University Law School, since 1985 Tina has devoted her career to representing indigent people accused of crimes and training those who represent them. She began her practice in Macon, GA as a private practitioner who specialized in criminal defense after she did one, just one, divorce case. She learned she far preferred the stories of those accused of crimes. After eleven years in Macon, she picked up everything and moved to the Eastern District of Washington to become a career federal defender. Before moving to Washington, Tina taught Trial Practice and Georgia Criminal Practice and Procedure at Mercer Law School and was the Associate Dean of the National Criminal Defense College. She served as a member of the National Criminal Defense College Board of Regents and Faculty, is on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Federal Defenders and is a member of the Training Expert Panel for the Federal Defender Offices. She has a wealth of training experience and has taught at the Western Trial Advocacy Institute, the Institute for Criminal Defense Advocacy, the Georgia Institute of Trial Advocacy, the Federal Trial Skills Academy, the Colorado Alternate Defense Counsel Trial Skills program the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy Litigation Persuasion Institute, fondly known as Faubush, as well as at the New York State Defender’s Association. She taught trial advocacy at Gonzaga Law School in Spokane, WA and has spoken at numerous seminars around the country on trial skills, persuasive sentencing stories and storytelling.

Beyond learning from other lawyers, which is the real reason she agrees to speak at seminars, her true passions are her new husband, Steve, their blended family of two dogs, Winston and MaddieDog, who were both clients in their former lives. (Those who have met them agree). She and her husband also have a well-behaved cat, MaddieCat, who was obviously a public defender in a former life as she has managed to put up with two dogs who think she may be an appetizer.

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.

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).