NHACDL usually holds a 6-hour CLE each fall. This year, the fall CLE is offered in two parts: Part 1 on Race and Representation will be held October 16, 2020 from 1-4:15 p.m. and Part 2 will be held November 20, 2020 (page down for details). The November 20 session will also include the Annual Meeting and awarding of this year's Champion of Justice. Both sessions will be via Zoom. The cost for members is $50 to attend one session, or attend both for $80. Click HERE to register.
1-2 p.m. Christian Williams discussing tips for building relationships with Black clients and other people of color and recognizing how race affects your client’s case from arrest to sentencing.
Christian Williams is a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School, Criminal Justice Institute. Prior to that Chris was a public defender with the Committee for Public Counsel Services (2010-2020). Chris defended people facing serious felonies in Bristol County, Norfolk County, and people wrongfully convicted in the Hinton drug lab scandal. Before joining CPCS, Chris was an attorney with the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center defending people sentenced to death in state and federal habeas proceedings. He is a board member of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Prior to law school, Chris was a software developer and instructor for fourteen years focused on relational databases and internet application servers. He is a graduate of Cornell Law School (J.D., 2009); the University of Rhode Island (B.A., 1991); and the National Criminal Defense College - Trial Practice Institute (Certificate, 2015).
A long-time resident of Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, he has been an activist and organizer on issues of war, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ rights, racial justice and Palestinian self-determination. Chris is a member of the National Lawyers Guild. During the Occupy Boston movement he was part of its legal defense and support team, which provided nearly 24-hour support to the participants.
2-3 p.m. Race Data: Where to find it and how to use it. A panel with Gilles Bissonnette, Joshua Raisler Cohn and Radha Natarajan discussing the use of data in litigation. How to gather useful information using 91-A and other strategies to make an impact in court.
Radha Natarajan is the Executive Director for the New England Innocence Project (NEIP). Prior to joining NEIP as its Staff Attorney in 2015, Radha spent twelve years as a public defender, most recently at the Roxbury Defenders, handling serious felony cases in the Massachusetts trial courts. She has used her expertise in eyewitness identification to conduct trainings across the country, including at the National Forensic College, in a systemic effort to reduce wrongful convictions. For her work, she has been presented with the 2020 Carol Donovan Award for Exceptional Advocacy by the Committee for Public Counsel Services, 2020 Excellence in the Law Award from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, the 2018 President’s Award from the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the 2013 Top Women of Law Award from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, and the 2011 Access to Justice Award from the Massachusetts Bar Association.
She is a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Eyewitness Evidence, an advisory committee tasked with updating the Court on new research, developing education and training for the bench and bar, and making scientifically-based recommendations for reform, including considering and developing jury instructions addressing memory, perception, credibility, and implicit bias. She is a 2000 graduate of Stanford University, where she majored in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, focusing on the role of race in the legal system. She is a 2003 graduate of New York University School of Law, where she was the Managing Editor of the New York University Law Review. She is the author of Racialized Memory and Reliability: Due Process Applied to Cross-Racial Eyewitness Identifications, 78 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1821 (2003). She teaches a course on Wrongful Convictions at Boston University School of Law. She has served on the Executive Board of the National Innocence Network.
Josh Raisler Cohn is a public defender at the Roxbury Defenders Unit of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, where he represents poor people charged with serious felonies. While representing individual clients, Josh’s litigation strategy looks to attack structures in the law (and in society) that perpetuate systemic oppression. Josh is also the co-chair of the Racial Justice Litigation sub-committee of the National Association of Public Defenders. Josh has been involved in legal work within social movements for decades, using the tools of the legal system to support organizing for justice, liberation and self-determination . He is a long time Board member of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, where he works to ensure zealous representation for activists and organizers who end up entangled with the law.
Gilles Bissonnette is the Legal Director at the ACLU of New Hampshire, where he leads a team of three civil rights lawyers. He has litigated cases on the criminalization of poverty, voting, police and government accountability, public records, the First Amendment, immigrants’ rights, and criminal justice issues. Gilles has testified before the New Hampshire legislature on over one hundred bills impacting civil liberties.
Prior to joining the ACLU in 2013, Gilles was a civil litigator in Boston at the law firms of Choate Hall & Stewart LLP, Todd & Weld LLP, and Cooley LLP. Gilles clerked for Judge Thomas M. Golden of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Gilles received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law where he was the Chief Comments Editor of the UCLA Law Review. He received his B.A. and M.A. in history from Washington University in St. Louis. Gilles is admitted to practice law in the state and federal courts in New Hampshire, the federal courts in Massachusetts, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. Gilles has taught multiple Continuing Legal Education courses on the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions. He is a member of the Hearings Committee of the Attorney Discipline System (term Jan. 1, 2020-Dec. 31, 2022), as well as a trustee of the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society.
3:15-4 :15 p.m. Gina Pruski on the existence of racial problems in the criminal justice system and how to approach them with humility. Gina Pruski is the Director of Training and Development for the State Public Defender’s Office (SPD) in Wisconsin. After obtaining both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she began her career with the SPD in 1992 serving first as a staff attorney in the Trial Division and then as Deputy Legal Counsel and Legislative Liaison for the agency. Gina was the 2016-17 Chair of the National Alliance of Indigent Defense Educators (NAIDE), the trainers’ section of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) and is currently an executive officer of NAIDE. She is a member of the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD) and serves on NAPD’s Education Committee. She frequently conducts training for public defender trainers around the country.