Who We Are.

Jenny Andrews, (she/her). A child of counterculture, raised off the grid by back-to-the-land hippies on the Lost Coast in Northern California, Jenny Andrews is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School. She started her career as a public defender in Oakland, California in 1996, but left after seven years, after experiencing burnout and moral injury, and didn’t practice law for three years. She returned to public defense work in 2007, and continued working as a public defender in Sonoma County and Santa Barbara County until 2022, navigating challenges to sustainability in a wide variety of positions, including: Forensic Resource Counsel, Felony Team Leader, Director of Training and Senior Deputy. For 23 years, she worked on the front lines of criminal trial courts and has consistently litigated cases, including misdemeanor, felony, juvenile, civil commitment (mentally disordered offender and sexually violent predator), mental competency, homicide, and multi-jurisdiction (and multi-jury) trials. She has carried specialized caseloads of complex, forensic and capital litigation. In 2022, she became the Director of Training at the Indigent Defense Improvement Division of the Office of the State Public Defender, a new statewide effort to support and train indigent defenders in California. She teaches on the faculty of Gideon’s Promise, the National Association for Public Defense, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the National Criminal Defense College, the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School, and the California Public Defenders Association. She has taught in public defense training programs in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and in public defense offices throughout California.

Kathleen Casey-Gamez (she/her) is Corporate Counsel at Sweetwater.  As a Privacy Analyst, she helps design systems that protect customer information and honor their data rights. Before working in Privacy, she spent a decade in public service working first as a criminal defense attorney in Indianapolis, and after that, in policy work in both Indiana and Texas to improve the quality of public defense. She has lead a statewide Task Force with federal judges and state lawmakers, and has spoken at both state and national conferences as a subject matter expert. She serves on the ABA Committee Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense as a volunteer.

Wendy Dean, MD, (she/her) practiced as a psychiatrist for a decade, worked in medical product development for the Department of Defense, and then as an executive for a half-billion dollar non-profit. Moral Injury of Healthcare, a 501(c)3, was founded by Dean and Simon Talbot, MD, to address the distress that occurs when clinicians are repeatedly expected to make choices that transgress their deeply held commitment to healing. Moral injury locates the source of distress not in individual frailty, but in a conflict ridden healthcare system. They intend to realign the goals and incentives of healthcare stakeholders to create a better, sustainable environment of care. Dean’s book, If I Betray These Words, profiles clinicians across the country who are tough, resourceful, and resilient, but feel trapped between the patient-first values of their Hippocratic oath and the business imperatives of a broken healthcare system. An alum of Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Dean trained in surgery and psychiatry at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. After practicing for a decade, Dean worked for the US Army, where she managed regenerative medicine research funding and guided strategy for a $70M investment in the emerging field of hand and face transplants. In that position, and as a senior executive at a large nonprofit in Washington, D.C., she worked closely with both the civilian and military medical communities, and many government agencies–BARDA, NIH, WHOSTP, NASA, DARPA–to develop novel strategies to restore form, function and appearance to ill and injured service members.

Justin Heim (he/him) is the Director of Learning Innovation at the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA). Previously, he worked for 12 years at the Wisconsin State Public Defender as a Staff Development Program Specialist in their Training Division as well as a Mitigation Specialist in the WISPD’s Appellate Division. Before working in Public Defense, Justin held various positions in community mental health in Colorado. Justin received his BA in Psychology from Michigan State University, and his MA in Contemplative Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Justin’s career path has involved continual growth as an advocate, educator and ally. He brings his experience directly serving clients to building training programs for advocates in the civil and criminal legal systems that incorporate a holistic, client-centered approach while honoring the well-being and sustainability of the advocate.

John Lopez (he/him) is still learning. He supports people as a trauma informed boxing coach with ToolShed Boxing. John is also studying to complete his Masters in Social Work with the goal of providing support for people in the criminal legal system. He supports children charged as adults in his position as a staff attorney with the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project. John’s focus is the healing power of relationship. He’s trying to figure out how to care for his community and himself in tandem.