Zealous Advocacy in Sexual Assault & Child Victims Cases (2025)
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Program Summary: Sexual assault cases are often built on layered assumptions—credibility, science, and bias—and winning requires dismantling each of those layers methodically. NACDL’s 16th Annual Defending Sex Cases Seminar is a comprehensive, defense-focused roadmap for handling some of the most difficult and high-stakes cases and equips defense attorneys to challenge the prosecution at every stage: from pretrial litigation and motions in limine to voir dire, expert cross-examination, and closing themes.
This seminar is a masterful integration of science, strategy, and persuasion. You’ll learn how to confront forensic medical testimony (including SANE evidence), understand pediatric anatomy and injury interpretation, and expose the limits of digital and psychological evidence. Sessions on interrogation science and false confessions provide critical tools to suppress or undermine statements, while training on forensic psychological evaluations helps you reframe your client through credible expert narratives. At the same time, the program delivers practical, courtroom-ready techniques for voir dire in emotionally charged cases, identifying juror bias, and answering the prosecution’s most dangerous question—“why would they lie?”—with persuasive, evidence-based explanations.
This program teaches defense lawyers how to win cases by controlling the narrative and credibility battle. You’ll leave with concrete strategies to exclude damaging evidence, weaken the prosecution’s expert witnesses, and present your client in a way that jurors can understand and accept. By combining legal doctrine, forensic insight, and trial advocacy, the program gives you the tools to create reasonable doubt where the prosecution relies on assumption, emotion, or misunderstood science—making you more effective not just in defending these cases, but in persuading judges and juries when it matters most.
CLE Credit: Up to 11 hours of self-study CLE Credit. Please confirm with your state's CLE commission to ensure this program is available for self-study CLE certification.
Presentations Included:
- Motions in Limine – Joseph A. Bugni
- Embracing the Suck: Voir Dire in Sexual Assault Cases – Richard Kammen
- Understanding Pediatric Female Penetration: Anatomy, Physiology, and Research – Tristan Ashly Wristen, MSN, BSN, RN, FN-CSA, SANE-A, SANE-P
- Exploring Digital Evidence – Andrew Garrett
- Why Would They Lie? – Michael Waddington
- Bringing Your SANE-A Game: Preparing to Cross Forensic Medical Providers in Sexual Assault Cases with Postpubertal Alleged Victims – Laurie Rose Kepros
- Sex, Crimes, and Self-Defense: The Ethics of Burnout & Stress – Justin Andrus and Logan Perkins
- The Client Intake Interview: The Start of a Wonderful Relationship – Steven B. Epstein
- Forensic Psychological Evaluations with Accused Sexual Offenders – Dr. Ryan J. Jordan, Ph.D.
- When Bias Speaks Louder than Abuse, Allegations, and Accuracy: Navigating Advocacy in Child Sex Cases – Zanele Ngubeni
- Police Interrogation, Psychological Coercion, and Unreliable Statements, Admissions and/or Confessions: Science and Litigation – Dr. Richard Leo
Prices
- List Price $205.00
- Member Price $179.00