Deja Vishny is a criminal defense lawyer, consultant and trainer based in Milwaukee Wisconsin. 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 Macon Georgia in 1998 and lectures at criminal defense and public defender seminars throughout the United States. She taught trial advocacy at Marquette University Law School for, has taught trial skills in India, and was a guest lecturer at a Harvard Law School class, “The American Prosecutor”. She also worked as Public Defense Resource Counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) in 2023-24.

She consults on criminal cases around the U.S; her areas of expertise are defending confession cases, homicides, and ineffective assistance of counsel in post-conviction proceedings where she also has testified as an expert witness.

Ms. Vishny served several terms on the Board of Directors of NACDL, 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. In 2023 she was presented with a Champion of Justice Award by NACDL. She is a five time recipient of the Wisconsin Criminal Defense Association’s Hansen award, given to those who obtain acquittals in homicide cases, as well as WACDL’s two lifetime achievement awards given to those who’ve made contributions to indigent defense and criminal defense in general in Wisconsin. Her book, Suppressing Criminal Evidence, is in its fourth edition and is available from James Publishing Company at http://jamespublishing.com/shop/suppressing-criminal-evidence/.