FDAP - Key Persons
Amy Grigsby, a staff attorney at FDAP since 1987, is responsible for coordinating the court appointed counsel program for juvenile dependency appeals, including case processing, case assignment, and panel management.
Bill Robinson joined FDAP as a Staff Attorney in July of 2023. Prior to this, since 1998, Bill was a Staff Attorney, Assistant Director, and Senior Staff Attorney at SDAP, where his work focused on mentoring panel members in homicide and sex-crime cases as part of the Greening program. Before this, Bill was a panel attorney for 16 years. Bill has written articles and conducted training on many topics, including issue spotting, homicide law, credits, how to write a brief, oral argument, the Ex Post Facto Clause, and the 2022 new sentencing laws. Among his many published wins and losses are two gems, People v. Mendoza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1114 (aiding and abetting requires a specific intent, even for a general intent
crime, such that intoxication evidence is admissible), and People v. McWilliams (2023) 14 Cal.5th 429 (a police officer's discovery of a parole search condition does not attenuate the wrongfulness of a preceding unlawful detention). Bill is a longtime resident of San Francisco and has two wonderfully grown-up daughters.
Bonnie Palmer is a brief processor/clerk and has worked at FDAP since 2000.
Brian Birchett was born in Oakland, California. He went to Oakland Technical High School. Brian likes cats and dogs.
Claudia graduated from California State University, East Bay in 2020 with a degree in political science, with an emphasis in pre-law. Claudia worked at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco before joining FDAP. While working at LSC, she worked with immigration attorneys, social workers, pro bono attorneys, and DOJ-accredited representatives. For fun, Claudia likes to spend time with her family, visit new places, and enjoy tasty food.
Deborah Rodriguez is a 2017 graduate of UC Law SF. While in law school, she was a member of the Women's Law Journal and nationally-ranked Moot Court team. She also participated the Appellate Project, where she represented an indigent noncitizen before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and interned with the Federal Public Defender. She began working at FDAP in 2018.
Job Titles:
- Members of the FDAP Board of Directors
Elizabeth Wilkie joined FDAP in 1997 and, soon thereafter, became the Office Administrator. At the time, she was fresh from her overseas graduate study in Environmental Politics, a self-designed program linking international relations, political theory, and geology, and studying the juxtaposition of humanity's technological prowess with its environmental impact. At FDAP, she discovered a strong link between her studies, public defense work, and the societal fabric underlying social and environmental justice. In her spare time, she continues to think (and sometimes write) about the intersection of environment and public justice, rivers and seas, wilderness and love.
J. Bradley O'Connell joined FDAP in 1986, as one of its original staff attorneys. Brad has litigated appeals and authored articles on a range of issues, including homicide, jury instructions, enhancements, and habeas corpus. He has argued before the U.S. and California Supreme Courts, including: Hedgpeth v. Pulido (2008) 555 U.S. 57 (erroneous theories of liability), People v. Randle (2005) 35 Cal.4th 987 (imperfect defense of others), People v. Buza (2018) 4 Cal.5th 658 (DNA arrestee searches), and People v. Duvall (1994) 9 Cal.4th 464 (state habeas standards). He previously co-taught Post-Conviction Remedies at UC Law SF.
Job Titles:
- Supervising Staff Attorney
Jeremy Price has been a FDAP staff attorney since 2005. He specializes in civil commitment appeals, while also representing indigent clients in criminal and juvenile delinquency appeals. His cases have resulted in dozens of published opinions, including favorable decisions from the California Supreme Court in Conservatorship of Eric B. (2022) 12 Cal.5th 1085 and from the First District Court of Appeal in In re Khalid B. (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 1285 and People v. Shepherd (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th 1193. In 2019, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court appointed Jeremy to the Criminal Jury Instructions Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations to the Judicial Council of California regarding updates to CALCRIM. He graduated from UC Law SF. He loves being outdoors with his family in the Bay Area and misses nights out in downtown New York City listening to live jazz.
Jonathan Soglin, FDAP's Executive Director, began his legal career as a judicial law clerk for a federal magistrate and then as a staff attorney at the Ninth Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals. After five years serving on state and federal appellate panels, he joined FDAP in 1998 as a staff attorney. He has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States and the California Supreme Court, served on the CALCRIM committee, and taught post-conviction remedies at UC Law SF.
Lauren Dodge began her legal career in Bay Area trial courts representing adults and children accused of crimes. In 2015, she shifted her practice exclusively to appeals, representing indigent clients in appellate courts throughout the state. She joined FDAP as a staff attorney in 2019. She has argued before the Court of Appeal numerous times and has obtained relief for many clients, including reversal of a murder conviction and 70-year sentence based on insufficient evidence. (People v. Wear (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 1007.) She successfully argued before the California Supreme Court in People v. Rodriguez (2020) 9 Cal.5th 474, a case that put an end to the widespread practice of prosecutors improperly "vouching" for the credibility of their law enforcement witnesses. Prior to attending and graduating from UC Law SF in 2002, Lauren worked as a journalist for several news organizations, including the Associated Press.
Louise Collari joined FDAP as a staff attorney in 2017. Prior to that, she was a member of the FDAP and SDAP appellate panels representing parents in juvenile dependency appeals. Louise successfully argued two cases in the California Supreme Court: In re I.C. (2018) 4 Cal.5th 869 where the Court overturned jurisdictional findings that were based solely on the hearsay statements of a truth incompetent non-testifying minor and In re A.R. (2021) 11 Cal.5th 234 where the Court found that when an attorney failed to file a timely appeal in accordance with the client's instructions, the parent may seek relief based on the attorney's failure to provide competent representation. She also had a published reversal in In re B.D. (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 803.
Megan Hailey-Dunsheath joined FDAP in 2020 after several years representing adults and juveniles in criminal and delinquency appeals. While on FDAP's appellate panel, she successfully argued In re Ricardo P. (2019) 7 Cal.5th 1113 in the California Supreme Court. Prior to that, she worked as a deputy public defender in Contra Costa County and represented death-sentenced inmates in post-conviction proceedings at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center. She has also represented families of children with special education needs in litigation against school districts and taught legal research and writing to international law students. Megan is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Nathaniel Miller graduated from Berkeley Law in 2014 and began his legal career clerking for a federal district court judge in San Francisco. He then worked as a deputy public defender in Tulare County before joining FDAP in 2018. His cases that have resulted in favorable published decisions include People v. Baratang (2020) 56 Cal.App.5th 252, In re David C. (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 657, and People v. Francis A. (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 399.
Richard Braucher has been a staff attorney at FDAP since 1998. He also serves on the board of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center and has been a member of its Amicus Committee since 2006. A couple of Richard's notable published cases are: In re McGhee (2019) 34 Cal. App. 5th 902 (voiding the CDCR's Prop. 57 regulations that excluded from parole consideration more than a third of otherwise eligible inmates); In re Elias V. (2015) 237 Cal.App.4th 568 (holding that statements by a child interrogated by police at a school were involuntary, in part, because they resulted from the type of coercive interrogation techniques condemned in Miranda). For more than a decade, Richard has joined juvenile justice activists, lawyers, and justice-involved youth and their families in drafting, advocating for, and implementing youth justice reform legislation.
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Office Administrator
Sami Goski grew up in the Bay Area and received a bachelor's degree in both Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She joined FDAP in 2005 while she was completing a master's degree in Museum Studies at San Francisco State University. Things that keep her up at night include: climate change, global pandemics, injustice, oppression, genocide, rainforest destruction, the Federalist Society ….
Stephanie Clarke began her legal career with the State of Connecticut Office of the Public Defender, where she handled both trials and appeals. At the University of Connecticut School of Law, Stephanie participated in its nationally-recognized criminal defense clinic. Upon moving to San Francisco, she spent two years in civil practice before joining FDAP as a staff attorney in 1991. Since 1994 she has been an instructor and adjunct faculty member at UC Law SF, where she has taught legal research and writing, moot court, appellate advocacy, and death penalty law. She represented death row clients on appeal from their capital convictions for several years as a deputy state public defender in the California Office of the State Public Defender before returning to FDAP in 2003. She has handled several California Supreme Court cases, maintains her own Court of Appeal caseload, and endeavors to review, approve, and send on panel attorney compensation claims as promptly as possible.
Treana graduated from California State University - San Bernardino in 2020 with a degree in Psychology. She worked at the Contra Costa Public Defender's Office before joining FDAP. She enjoys research, mystery novels and caring for her plants.
Wendy Bauer was born and raised in Southern California before attending San Francisco State University to earn her Bachelor's degree. Wendy fell in love with the Bay Area and has been a San Franciscan ever since. Before joining FDAP as a Case Processor in 2011, she enjoyed a career in the graphic arts industry, specializing in typography and digital prepress for lithography and engraving. Wendy has always been an advocate for green practices for the home and business, enjoys gardening, music, art and gets a kick out of repairing various devices.