On Tuesday March 4, 2003, international diplomats, prosecutors, public defenders, ministry of justice officials, legal educators, and law students came together in Santiago, Chile to celebrate the life and legacy of Janeen Kerper. Ms. Kerper died of cancer on January 16, 2003 after a long battle with lung cancer. A professor of law at California Western School of Law, Janeen was a pioneer of legal design and judicial innovation and a co-founder of Proyecto ACCESO.

The presenters spanned the Western Hemisphere’s legal sector. Lawyers from Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Germany and the United States detailed the legal technologies that are being developed in the Americas and tested in different countries.



Carmen Gloria Ormeño, a public defender from the Ninth Region of Chile, moderated the discussion and gave a tribute to Janeen Kerper. Ms. Ormeño studied with Janeen at Proyecto ACCESO courses in Temuco and San Diego, California, Carmen Gloria paid tribute to Janeen’s legacy and her role in developing cutting edge curricula to teach new tools required for the judicial reform throughout Latin America and her love of the region.


Steven R. Smith, Dean of California Western School of Law also paid tribute to the role that Janeen Kerper played in legal education, both in North and South America. For Dean Smith, Janeen exemplified the public service role that lawyers can take in their respective careers. The technologies that Janeen created have been used to train a new generation of legal professionals in Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. Her legendary teaching and caring approach to the legal profession inspired many judges and lawyers as many Latin American countries transitioned to from the inquisitorial model to more open, transparent trials.


A number of the speakers at the conference featured new technologies that have recently emerged in Chile as part of this transition process. Jorg Stippel, a German lawyer who works for the GTZ, German technical cooperation agency and in the Chilean Ministry of Justice, demonstrated several of the multimedia educational tools he produced in 2002. The new enhanced CD, Re-Musica, was a particular hit with the audience, as Dr. Stippel danced to a merengue song from the CD that featured lyrics about judicial reform. Geared to at-risk youth and the law student market, the CD also features the new criminal procedure, international human rights documents, and videos of Chile’s top musicians performing music commissioned to disseminate information about the country’s judicial procedures.

Yerko Ilijic, a Bolivian lawyer working with the Ministry of Justice in Chile, talked about his Casa de Justicia, a visual model to explain the new criminal procedure laws and their benefits, to high school students. Sr. Ilijic spoke about the good part of globalization – the development of legal technologies that combine the plastic arts with public education programming. Ideas concerning the role of video cameras and safety regulations in public spaces and the manner in which they interact with the right of privacy were unveiled.

James Cooper, a Canadian lawyer who directs Proyecto ACCESO and is Assistant Dean at California Western School of Law, spoke of Janeen’s contribution to judicial innovation and her love of multiculturalism. James then introduced the new documentary film Una Nueva Justicia en Marcha, which will also be released on DVD in 2003.

For many of the audience, the film came as a surprise, combining the music of Re-Musica with imagery shot in mid-December in La Paz, Bolivia, Arica, Chile and the train line between the two cities.

Said one prosecutor in the Public Ministry: "This film really captures the spirit of the reform movement as it goes across the country."