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FACULTY INFORMATION
RICHARD PITTMAN
Richard Pittman is Director of Juvenile Defender Services for the Louisiana Public Defender Board. He is also co-chair of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center Advisory Committee and a certified JTIP trainer. Mr. Pittman has presented extensively on issues relevant to public defense, juvenile defense, and parent defense at national and in-state events since 2013. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama School of Law and holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana State University. Prior to work with the Louisiana Public Defender Board, Mr. Pittman practiced law in Woodstock, AL in private practice.
ERIC ZOGRY
Eric Zogry was born and raised in Raleigh and received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Religious Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1992. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center in 1996 and was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar in 1997. After working for the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission and the Research Division of the Administrative Office of the Courts, Eric joined the staff of the Public Defender’s Office in Greensboro in February 1999, practicing exclusively in juvenile delinquency and involuntary commitment court.
Eric was appointed state Juvenile Defender by the Indigent Defense Services Commission in November 2004 and has served since then. Eric also served as Director of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center from 2010 to 2014, providing resources and support for juvenile defenders in seven southeastern states. In 2013 Eric was among the first class board certified by the North Carolina State Bar as a specialist in criminal law- juvenile delinquency. Eric received the Robert E. Shepard Award for Excellence in Juvenile Defense from the National Juvenile Defender Center in October 2013. He was recognized as a Defender of Justice by the North Carolina Justice Center in 2018 and the North Carolina Bar Association Juvenile Justice Section Children’s Champion in 2019.
SHERIKA SHNIDER
Sherika Shnider is a staff attorney at NJDC where she works on legal and policy initiatives related to juvenile defense, including reducing and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile legal system. She is also a certified Juvenile Training Immersion Program (JTIP) trainer. During law school, she was a student attorney in the Youth, Education and Justice Clinic, earning the Clinical Legal Education Association Outstanding Team Award for her representation of youth who were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and students in school disciplinary proceedings. She also served as Managing Editor of the Journal of Race, Religion, Gender, and Class.
Prior to law school, Sherika worked at a national nonprofit where she managed a network of grassroots organizers focused on ensuring youth in underserved communities have access to safe places to play. She also worked in donor development at a D.C. based non-profit and served as a rape crisis counselor.
Sherika graduated with a B.A. from George Washington University in 2012 and received her J.D. from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law where she was the recipient of the William P. Cunningham Award for exceptional achievement and service to the law school.
WHITNEY UNTIEDT
Whitney Untiedt has more than 15 years of legal experience in a wide range of areas, including complex civil litigation and appellate practice. At Freidin Brown, Whitney leads the firm’s national Whistleblower and Qui Tam practice, while also representing victims of defective consumer products and complex injuries throughout the state of Florida. Prior to joining the firm, Whitney served as national pro bono partner at an AmLaw100 firm, a managing attorney at a Florida public defender’s office, and an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and Warrington College of Business.
Whitney has received numerous accolades during the course of her career, including being named to the 2018 National Law Journal Pro Bono Hot List for her LGBT rights work and as the Daily Business Review’s 2016 Attorney of the Year for her leadership in developing statewide protocols and training for attorneys representing imprisoned juvenile offenders in the wake of Miller v. Alabama and Graham v. Florida. She has authored multiple articles and is a frequent speaker on topics of juvenile and criminal justice, pro bono representation, trial advocacy and professionalism, and the False Claims Act.
Whitney is demonstrably committed to serving her community and profession. She is a Trustee for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, a member of the Lawyers Network Commission for the Center for Reproductive Rights, and serves on the Advisory Council for the Southern Juvenile Defender Center. Whitney is deeply involved in The Florida Bar, currently chairing the Council of Sections and serving on the Executive Council of the Trial Lawyers Section. She is Immediate Past President of the UF Law Alumni Council and an avid Florida Gator.
RANDEE J. WALDMAN
Randee J. Waldman serves as the Director of the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic at Emory University School of Law. In this role, she supervises law students in holistic representation of young people charged with delinquent offenses. In addition to representing these clients in their juvenile court cases, she and her students also represent them in special education proceedings, school suspension proceedings, and other forums according to the clients’ needs. Professor Waldman also engages in policy work related to juvenile justice and education issues and teaches courses in juvenile justice, criminal procedure and education law.
Professor Waldman is a widely respected trainer, speaker and writer. She is a NITA certified trial skills trainer and is a certified trainer for the National Juvenile Defender Center’s Juvenile Training Immersion Program. She has presented on trial skills, delinquency representation and education advocacy at numerous local, regional and national conferences. Professor Waldman is the co-director of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center and Chair of the Juvenile Justice Committee of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. She also serves as Treasurer for the Executive Committee of the Child Protection and Advocacy Section of the State Bar of Georgia and on the Advisory Board for PARTNERS for Equity in Child and Adolescent Health.
Professor Waldman received her BA from Haverford College and her JD from the University of Chicago Law School. She was admitted to practice in New York in 1998, in New Jersey in 1999 and in Georgia in 2006.
MICHELLE DUPREY
Michelle Duprey has been a staff attorney at Council for Children’s Rights since 2018, becoming Director of Children’s Defense in 2019. Before joining the Council, Michelle was an appellate attorney at the Legal Aid Society of New York City in the juvenile rights practice, with a focus on Juvenile Defense. Prior to that she was a trial attorney for juvenile defense at the Legal Aid Society for five years, working in the Queens office.
JAY ELLIOTT
Jay Elliott is an attorney in Columbia, South Carolina. He has represented children and young people in the courts of South Carolina for over 40 years. He has received two national awards for his legal work in the public interest – the American Bar Association Pro Bono Publico award for his work in advancing the legal rights of children, and the ABA John Minor Wisdom award for his work on death penalty appeals and other significant criminal litigation. He is a former chair of the South Carolina Commission on Appellate Defense and has served on the state Commission on Indigent Defense. He is also a founding member of the advisory board of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center.
BURCU HENSLEY
Burcu Hensley grew up in Cary, North Carolina and received a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from North Carolina State University in 2007. Before deciding to attend law school, she worked in preschool settings for nearly seven years, working with children with a wide range of abilities. This experience prompted her to enroll in law school where she took as many classes as possible that focused on juvenile and disability laws. She received her Juris Doctor degree from the Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law in 2012 and was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar the same year. After moving to the mountains of western North Carolina, Burcu started her general practice, Hensley Law Firm, PLLC, in the small town of Marshall, NC. She quickly narrowed the scope of her practice to solely criminal defense work, starting with the representation of adult clients, and joining the state Juvenile Defender’s office as a contract attorney in 2016. She enjoys being a frontline defender in the courtroom setting, advocating for youth and making sure that having a short stature does not diminish their opportunity to have their voices heard loud.
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