In Santiago de Chile on April 5, 6, and 7, 2004 ACCESO Trainers Claudio Pavlic and Michael Mandig launched the New Advanced Oral Advocacy Course for ACCESO Capacitacion. Covering everything from how to lead expert witnesses to the use of computers in the courtroom, this new and innovative course has empowered a whole new generation of legal advocates from San Diego, California to Quito, Ecuador. It has now been tried, tested and perfected for the Chilean legal context.

Claudio Pavlic is a former National Public Defender of Chile and a long-time ACCESO Trainer. He has taught oral advocacy to lawyers, judges and other legal professionals in Chile, Ecuador and Paraguay. A graduate of the University of Chile, Mr. Pavlic appears regularly in the Chilean media on topics concerning justice and the penal reform process. El Superdefensor Claudio provided real life examples of oral advocacy and its challenges to the group of prosecutors, public defenders and private lawyers that were participants in the workshop in advanced oral advocacy.

D. Michael Mandig is a graduate of the University of Arizona´s College of Law, where he has taught international litigation techniques. He has trained hundreds of lawyes and judges in more than 15 countries in oral advocacy and other courtroom skills. Named one of the top 50 lawyers in Arizona in 2003 by the Arizona Business Journal , Mr. Mandig is a litigator with clients on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Mr. Mandig serves on the curriculum committee of Proyecto ACCESO. Using his experiences in the U.S, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador. and Mexico, "el Pistolero" delighted the ACCESO participants with new technology and methods to present digital and more complex evidence.

The course was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and California Western School of Law. All the particpants won Janeen Kerper Scholarships to attend. Professor Kerper, who died of lung cancer in January 2003, was a co-founded of Proyecto ACCESO and a pioneer of the judicial reform movement in Latin America. A scholarship was established in 2002 to honor her work and continue her legacy in building a legal profession and culture dedicated to the promotion of the rule of law. Fifteen prosecutors, public defenders, private lawyers and law professors won the scholarship after a national competition was launched in March 2004. "We are so happy to be able to honor Janeen this way," said James Cooper, director of ACCESO, at the opening ceremony at the Hotel Bonaparte in Providencia, a suburb of Santiago de Chile. "She taught us well and we will continue her work," added Claudio Pavlic. Marko Magdic, a prosecutor, and Marcia Castillo, a lawyer, were among the winners of the scholarship. They were students of Professor Kerper during her first course in Temuco, Chile in October 1997.

We gave out a number of Janeen Kerper becas which entitle participants to a full scholarship to the seminar.

Janeen was a practicing trial lawyer for 10 years, retiring from active practice in 1983 to become a full time professor of law at California Western School of Law. Since 1983 Janeen has designed a number of innovative courses in trial advocacy and professional ethics for California Western, the Hastings College of Advocacy, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, American Trial Lawyers Association, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Institute for Criminal Defense Advocacy, the United States Information Service and numerous other public and private organizations.

She was a co-founder of Proyecto ACCESO with Jamie Cooper, Judge Laura Safer Espinoza and Angel Valencia. Her reputation as a teacher is worldwide. She has taught courses all over the United States as well as in England, France, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Panama, Venezuela, Paraguay and Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico.

She has had a sustainable impact on a generation of Latin American lawyers and judges as her reputation as a teacher is legendary. We will all miss her very much.

The Janeen Kerper Scholarship has been established by California Western School of Law and Proyecto ACCESO as a periodic award to lawyers, judges and law enforcement officials who are committed to public policy, robust defense and the promotion of the rule of law in the Americas.