2012 SOUTHERN JUVENILE DEFENDER CENTER
LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Neelum Arya
Neelum Arya is a lawyer with more than ten years of experience working on juvenile and
criminal justice issues. As Research & Policy Director, she is the lead author of many of the
publications developed at the Campaign, including the Race and Ethnicity policy brief
series examining racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system. In addition to providing
strategic legal and policy advice to the Campaign’s federal and state efforts to change
transfer laws, she is an expert in conditions of confinement for incarcerated children and
has been leading efforts to ensure the Prison Rape Elimination Act prevents the sexual
abuse of children in adult facilities. Neelum is a graduate of the Epstein Program in Public
Interest Law & Policy at UCLA School of Law and Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government. She is also currently an adjunct professor at Washington College of Law and
at American University in Washington DC.
Rey Banks
Rey Banks joined the National Juvenile Defender Center as Senior Policy and
Communications Associate full-time in February of 2008, after having previously
collaborated with NJDC on Virginia: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of
Representation in Delinquency. Banks has a lengthy legislative and policy background,
having worked both for a number of state and local government agencies, including the
Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, where she served as senior policy analyst.
Prior to her work for the State of Virginia, Banks spent 10 years working on behalf of
death-penalty issues, first as a mitigation specialist preparing clemency petitions on behalf
of death-row inmates and then as a key figure in the establishment of Virginia’s death
penalty resource center. Most recently she served as the national press secretary for the
United Negro College Fund. In addition to shaping the policy agenda for NJDC, her duties
include the coordination of the Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network grant and
managing current and upcoming assessments. Banks holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political
Science from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Whitney Fairbanks
Whitney Fairbanks is the Defender Educator for the School of Government at University of
North Carolina. She joined the School of Government in 2008. Prior to that, Fairbanks
worked for three years as an assistant public defender in Durham County where she
represented respondent parents in abuse and neglect, and termination of parental rights
proceedings; and juveniles in delinquency proceedings. She was in private practice in both
Raleigh and Greenville before joining the public defender's office. Fairbanks earned a
Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tennessee, and a JD with honors from Gonzaga
University in Spokane.
Barbara Fedders
Barbara Fedders joined the UNC School of Law faculty as a clinical assistant professor of
law in January 2008. Prior to that, she was a clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School
Criminal Justice Institute for four years. She worked for the Massachusetts Committee for
Public Counsel Services as a Soros Justice Fellow and staff attorney for five years, working
in both juvenile and adult criminal courts. She is a member of the advisory boards of the
Prison Policy Initiative and the Equity Project. She has published and lectured widely on
children's legal issues. Articles include Coming Out for Kids: Recognizing, Respecting, and
Representing LGBTQ Youth, 6 NEV. L. J. 774 (2006); The Defense Attorney's Perspective on
Youth Violence, in SECURING OUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE: NEW APPROACHES TO JUVENILE
JUSTICE AND YOUTH VIOLENCE (with R. Hertz & S. Weymouth, 2002).
Gerard F. Glynn
Gerry Glynn has represented children for nineteen years while teaching law students about
child advocacy in law school clinical programs. Mr. Glynn is an associate Professor and
Director of Clinical Programs at Barry University School of Law, formerly Director of
Clinical Programs at University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Clinical Instructor at Florida
State University School of Law Children’s Advocacy Center. Mr. Glynn took an eighteen
month leave of absence to be the founding Executive Director of Florida’s Children First, a
statewide child advocacy organization. He serves on numerous bar committees including
the Board of National Association of Council for Children, ABA Juvenile Justice Committee,
Florida Bar Standing Committee on the Legal Needs of Children, Florida Bar Juvenile Rules
Committee and the Executive Council of the Florida Bar Public Interest Law Section.
Professor Glynn received his undergraduate degree from St. Louis University and his law
degree from American University, Washington College of Law. Mr. Glynn received his
Masters in Justice also from American University, and in 1993 he received his LLM, Masters
in Legal Advocacy, from Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Glynn is admitted to
practice law in Florida, District of Columbia, Maryland and Arkansas. He loves representing
children as a lawyer. Like his three children at home, his clients teach him something new
every day.
Jack Harrison
Jack Harrison began serving as the Juvenile Justice Compliance Officer in November 2011.
Prior to joining the staff of the Louisiana Public Defender Board, Mr. Harrison worked for a
number of years as a public defender in the Juvenile Court of East Baton Rouge Parish.
Along with his work representing indigent juveniles, Mr. Harrison served as an instructor
in the Juvenile Defense Clinic of LSU's Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Additionally, he has been
actively involved in the provision of continuing legal education for Louisiana's juvenile law
practitioners. Mr. Harrison's legal experience also includes work as a staff attorney for the
Louisiana Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Jason Langberg
Jason Langberg is an Equal Justice Works Fellow/Attorney at Advocates for Children's
Services (ACS), a statewide project of Legal Aid of North Carolina. He joined ACS in 2009 as
a Clifton W. Everett, Sr. Community Lawyer Fellow. His work at ACS focuses on dismantling
the school-to-prison pipeline in Wake County. During fall 2011, he was also an Adjunct
Professor in the North Carolina Central University School of Law, Juvenile Law Clinic.
Langberg earned his J.D., Magna Cum Laude, from Boston College Law School. Prior to law
school, Langberg worked as a Development Associate at Advocates for Children and Youth
in Baltimore, MD and as a Program Specialist at Ramapo for Children, a camp for youth
with behavioral, emotional, and learning disabilities in Rhinebeck, NY. He also interned at
the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, DC and volunteered with youth in low-wealth
communities as a tutor, guardian ad litem, and mentor. Langberg earned his B.A. in
Political Science, Phi Beta Kappa, with a minor in Social and Economic Justice, from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds a certificate in Nonprofit
Management from Duke University. Langberg serves on the Board of Directors of North
Carolinians Against Gun Violence and the Leadership Council of the North Carolina Bar
Association, Juvenile Justice and Children's Rights Section.
Carrie Lee
Carrie joined the Juvenile Justice Center in January of 2008. Carrie’s interest in criminal
law began when she became field investigator for the Polk County Public Defender’s office
at the age of eighteen. Upon graduation, Carrie started her career at the Ninth Judicial
Circuit Public Defender’s Office working in Osceola and Orange Counties. While at the
Public Defender’s office, Carrie performed in all aspects of criminal defense including
felony, misdemeanor and appeals. Prior to her joining the Juvenile Justice Center, her great
love had come from working for 5 years with children in delinquency court as a lead
attorney with the Juvenile Division of the Orange and Osceola County Public Defender’s
office. She also spent a year as an attorney for the Department of Children and Families.
Carrie is an Advisory Board member of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center. She is also
a member of the Florida Bar Juvenile Rules Committee, the American Bar Association
Juvenile Justice Committee, the Central Florida Criminal Defender Lawyer’s Association, the
Central Florida Women’s Lawyer Association and the Florida Bar Public Interest Section.
As the Director for the JJC, Carrie loves being able to assist the juvenile defenders in the
trenches to improve their advocacy and justice for the children.
Hector Linares
Professor Linares began teaching and supervising student attorneys in the Juvenile Defense
Clinic in Fall 2009. He also served as Project Coordinator for a Models for Change grant
awarded to the Law Center by the MacArthur Foundation to develop a model juvenile
defense clinic. Linares received his B.A. in International Relations and Latin American
Studies in 2000 from Tulane University and his J.D. in 2003 from New York University
School of Law, where he was an editor on the Review of Law and Social Change. His
academic interests include juvenile and criminal law. Professor Linares has published an
article entitled An Open Door to the Criminal Courts: Analyzing the Evolution of Louisiana’s
System for Juvenile Waiver, 71 La. L. Rev. 191 (2010), and is an editor of The Louisiana
Juvenile Defender Trial Practice Manual. Before joining the faculty at LSU, Linares was a
staff attorney at Juvenile Regional Services, the juvenile public defender’s office for Orleans
Parish. He also practiced disability rights law as a supervising attorney at Protection &
Advocacy, Inc. in Los Angeles, California. Linares began his career as the Southern Poverty
Law Center Special Education Fellow at the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, where his
advocacy on behalf of disabled students was nationally recognized through the Council of
Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) Award for Distinguished Advocacy for the
Educational Rights of Children with Disabilities. Linares serves on the Board of Directors of
Juvenile Regional Services and the Innocence Project New Orleans. He is also a member of
the Southern Juvenile Defender Center Advisory Committee and has served as team leader
for the Louisiana Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network.
Danielle Lipow
Danielle Lipow is an attorney and a national expert on juvenile justice systems reform,
currently serving as an independent consultant to the Annie E. Casey Foundation and other
non-profits specializing in systemic reform. She is the Casey Foundation’s “Team Leader”
and chief technical assistance provider for juvenile detention reform efforts in Florida,
Alabama, and Nebraska through the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. She also
provides technical assistance and strategic guidance to juvenile justice agencies and other
stakeholders on reforms impacting the deep-end of the system. After graduating from the
New York University School of Law and clerking for U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Kelly, Danielle
joined the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and spent nine years as an attorney in
SPLC’s Montgomery office. Her work at SPLC consisted initially of impact litigation across a
wide range of topics, including civil liberties, the right to counsel, and conditions of
confinement for incarcerated youth, eventually shifting to juvenile justice policy work.
Robert W. Mason
Rob Mason is the Director of Juvenile Court for the Fourth Judicial Circuit Public Defender
Office, Jacksonville, Florida. Rob has been an Assistant Public Defender since 1990. During
his tenure with the Public Defender Office in the Fourth Circuit, he has primarily practiced
in juvenile court and represented juveniles charged as adults. Among other services Rob is
an active member of the Florida Bar Committee for the Legal Needs of Children, Chair of the
Juvenile Court Rules Committee and a member of the team representing Florida in the
Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network (JIDAN), which is establishing a model of best
practices for implementation of Florida’s new “meaningful opportunity to confer” rule. He
also helped pass a rule opposing indiscriminate shackling of juveniles for court
appearances. He drafted the court filings and response to comments for the rule, presented
the rule to the Florida Bar Board of Governors for approval, and successfully argued it in
front of the Florida Supreme Court.
Julia Neighbors
Julia Neighbors is the Project Manager for JUSTGeorgia, a statewide juvenile justice
coalition. For the past five years, JUSTGeorgia has been leading the effort to completely
revise Georgia’s juvenile code. Julia’s previous experience includes serving as a Senior
Attorney at Fulton County’s Child Attorney Office, representing abused and neglected
children and as the Executive Director of Fulton County Court Appointed Special Advocates
(CASA), Inc. and the Program Development Director for Georgia CASA. She currently
serves on the Executive Committee of the National Juvenile Justice Network and is a
graduate of the University of Michigan and Emory School of Law.
Tobie J. Smith
Tobie Smith is a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Birmingham, serving as a de
facto public defender for juveniles in Jefferson County, Alabama, since 2002. He received a
B.S. from Birmingham-Southern College in 1997 and a J.D. from Cumberland School of Law
in 2002. He has served as a member of the Alabama Juvenile Code Legislative
Subcommittee; the Southern Juvenile Defender Center Advisory Committee; the Alabama
Youth Justice Coalition; the Birmingham Bar Association’s Family, Domestic Relations, and
Juvenile Courts Procedures Committee; and Jefferson County Juvenile Detention
Alternatives Initiative Executive Committee. He previously was a professor at Birmingham
School of Law, where he taught Fundamentals of Legal Writing. His work for the Legal Aid
Society also includes frequent appellate practice, with published decisions in cases
including A.C. v. State, 888 So. 2d 518 (Ala. Civ. App. 2004); H.J. v. State, 888 So. 2d 524 (Ala.
Civ. App. 2004); R.W. v. State, 913 So. 2d 505 (Ala. Crim. App. 2005); C.H. v. State, 945 So. 2d
463 (Ala. Civ. App. 2005); B.M.J. v. State, 952 So. 2d 1174 (Ala. Crim. App. 2006); and B.J.C. v.
State, 992 So. 2d 90 (Ala. Crim. App. 2008).
Whitney Untiedt
Whitney Untiedt is a 2005 honors graduate of the University of Florida College of Law,
where she received a Center for Governmental Responsibility Public Service Fellowship,
worked as a Graduate Fellow with the Center on Children and Families, and served as
President of the Trial Team and the Association for Public Interest Law. After completing a
year as an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow, Whitney has been an Assistant
Public Defender in the Eighth Circuit for three years, where she previously represented
juvenile clients and she is now currently the County Court Supervisor. She coaches UF
Law’s intercollegiate Trial Team and has travelled nationwide to teach the “NITA Trial
Skills Method” at workshops for Equal Justice Works Fellows and public service attorneys.
Whitney serves on the Florida Bar’s Juvenile Rules Committee as the Vice Chair, and she is a
member of the Advisory Board for UF Law’s Center on Children and Families.
David Utter
David Utter has spent his legal career representing indigent individuals in civil rights cases
throughout the South. He is the former director and co-founder of the Juvenile Justice
Project of Louisiana. He has worked as an attorney with the Southern Center for Human
Rights in Atlanta, where he represented indigent prisoners in Alabama and Louisiana who
challenged illegal treatment and conditions. He also co-founded the Louisiana Crisis
Assistance Center to address inequities in the defense of indigent persons facing the death
penalty. In 2003, the Louisiana Bar Foundation named Utter its Distinguished Attorney of
the Year for his work on juvenile justice reform. He is also the recipient of the Ford
Foundation and Advocacy Institute’s Leadership for a Changing World Award for 2005. He
is a graduate of Emory University and the University of Florida Levin College of Law.
Randee J. Waldman
Randee Waldman joined Emory in the fall of 2006. As director of the Barton Juvenile
Defender Clinic she supervises law students in their representation of young people
charged with delinquent and status offenses, engages in policy work related to juvenile
justice issues and teaches a course in juvenile justice. Randee began her legal career as a
litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. She then spent over five years as
a senior attorney at Advocates for Children, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring
quality and equal public education services for New York City’s most vulnerable students.
While at AFC, Randee represented parents and students at all levels of administrative
proceedings to obtain appropriate special education services for students with disabilities,
represented students in student discipline cases, served as co-counsel in several impact
litigation cases in federal court and directed the pro bono and law student intern programs.
Randee serves as President of the Georgia Association of Counsel for Children and sits on
the Advisory Board of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center. She regularly speaks on
issues relating to the intersection of education and juvenile justice. She received her BA
from Haverford College and her JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Eric J. Zogry
Eric Zogry is the Juvenile Defender for North Carolina. After starting his career with 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. As an assistant public defender, Eric practiced exclusively
in juvenile delinquency court and involuntary commitment court. Eric was appointed
Juvenile Defender by the Indigent Defense Services Commission in November 2004 and
was reappointed in 2008. The mission of the Office of the Juvenile Defender can be
described in four parts: to provide services and support to defense attorneys, to evaluate
the current system of representation and make recommendations as needed, to elevate the
stature of juvenile delinquency representation, and to work with other juvenile justice
actors to promote positive change in the juvenile justice system. In September 2010 Eric
was also named Director of the Southern Regional Defender Center, providing resources
and support for juvenile defenders in seven southeastern states. He received a Bachelor of
Arts degree with honors in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina in
Chapel Hill in 1992 and his Juris Doctor degree from the Louisiana State University Paul M.
Hebert Law Center in 1996.