Day Two of the 2025 Annual Wisconsin Defender Conference covers a comprehensive, multi-track curriculum tailored for advanced legal practice. This course delivers specialized litigation strategies, technical evidence mastery, and client-centered advocacy across five critical areas covered:
- Forensic Science & Expert Cross-Examination: Advanced strategies for confronting state experts, challenging complex biological evidence like STRmix, and leveraging cross-examination to expose cognitive bias, systemic weaknesses, and government mistakes.
- Digital Evidence Defenses: Technical training on identifying, analyzing, and litigating digital footprints, including law enforcement vehicle tracking data, historical cell site analysis, and NCMEC cyber tips.
- Theory-Driven Impeachment: Frameworks for using foundational cross-examination skills to tell winning stories, expose witness exaggerations or lies, and systematically reveal witness bias and motive.
- Youth & Family Defense Litigation: Comprehensive guidance on raising competency in juvenile delinquency cases, utilizing creative dispositional options under Wisconsin law, and mastering voir dire in Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) proceedings.
- Ethics, Technology, & Appellate Advocacy: Vital updates on Wisconsin and U.S. Supreme Court case law, frameworks for litigating racial injustice on appeal, and critical ethics modules addressing the integration of Artificial Intelligence and navigating Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR) standards.
Presenters from the sessions are Dustin Haskell, Jennifer Friedman, Travis Strearns, Lei Young, Devon Lee, Heather Rodgers, Melanie Foote, Alex Glehar, Matt Giesfeldt, Eileen Fredericks, Elisabeth Vasquez, Mark Kozlowski, Garrett Discovery, Chris Sobic, Paul Rifelj, Byron Conway, Ryan Reid, Cassie Van Gompel, Kate Drury, and Cana Kohn.
Case Law Referenced:
- Dusky v. U.S., 362 U.S. 402
- In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967)
- J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011)
- Lindsay A.F., 2003 WI 63
- McKnight, 65 Wis. 2d 582 (1974)
- State v. Meeks, 263 Wis. 2d 794 (2003)
- In re Ellis H., 2004 WI App 123, 274 Wis. 2d 703
- In the Interest of B.S., 162 Wis. 2d 378, 469 N.W.2d 860 (Ct. App. 1991)
