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JAMES COOPER

Assistant Dean James Cooper.

James Cooper is a legal designer with two degrees from the University of Toronto and a Master of Law degree from Fitzwilliam College at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. A commentator and journalist, he has appeared on ABC News, Fox TV, Newsworld, Warner Brothers News, and Univision in the U.S.A., CBC Newsworld and City TV in Canada, Televisa in Mexico, and S.B.T. and O Globo in Brazil, His work has been published in Marie Claire, O Globo, the Globe and Mail, the American Bar Association Journal, the National Law Journal, the San Diego Union Tribune, and Behavioral Sciences and the Law. ACCESO’s "globalización guy" has written, produced and directed films for the B.B.C., Channel Four in the U.K., and the U.S. History Channel and his work has been screened in international film festivals as well as the Directors’ Guild of America.

James Cooper is Assistant Dean, Mission Development at California Western School of Law in San Diego where he has taught International Trade Law, the Law of Armed Conflict and Peacekeeping, Globalization Law and Cross-Cultural Negotiation. He is a Canadian Barrister, a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the San Diego County Bar Association. He is co-founder and director of Proyecto ACCESO.

CARLOS GONZALES

Carlos Gonzales is a Peruvian-American journalist. He is director, producer and investigative reporter for the station KBNT, Univision San Diego and appears in reports for Univision all over the hemisphere. He is an expert on issues affecting the border between the United States and Mexico and an activist to improve the living conditions of his country in social, legal and environmental issues. Mr. Gonzales is Director and President of INC (Immigration Network Center) that works to educate the migrant community living in the United States. Mr. Gonzales is the founder of Professionals in the Media and has received prizes such as the journalist of the year from the CCNMA (Association for Chicano Journalists of California) and for improving the life of the migrants in the community. Also he has received awards for professional ethics by the County of San Diego for improving the lives of the Latin Community. He was chosen by the AGC (Jewish American Committee) to go to Israel and Palestine to investigate the conflict between the two countries.

MAXWELL GOULD

ACCESO training lawyers in cross-examination skills. Here Peruvian prosecutor, Hanmerli Rosendo Carrasco Vergaray practices his new act on ACCESO faculty member Maxwell Gould as instructor Michael Mandig looks on.

Mr. Gould received his J.D. from New York University School of law and his B.S. from Harvard University. He has worked for the Legal Aid Society for the last seventeen years specializing in family and criminal law as well as social security law. He has worked for a federal judge in the East District of New York. He now works as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Defense Division in Manhattan specializing in representing mentally ill, chemically addicted clients.

D. MICHAEL MANDIG

Mr. Mandig received his J.D., B.S. and B.A. at the University of Arizona. He is a member of the American Association of Trial Attorneys and member of the Association of Trial Attorneys of Arizona. He was a professor at the University of Arizona, College of Law, where he developed an international litigation and dispute resolution course. He has had experience in international courts. For example, in one of his cases he represented a Mexican client in his complaint against an American sales company. In 1996, he was named as director of a project in Arizona in which he trained judges and attorneys. The project was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In 1996, he was awarded a scholarship by the United States Information Agency to visit four cities in Mexico and give courses about the function of private dispute resolution and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

ANDREW MUROFF

Mr. Muroff holds numerous degrees including a law degree from the Detroit College of Law and an M.B.A. from the University of Windsor in Canada. He has extensive experience in the law, public relations, and the media. He was President of SoftQuad Inc., the co-inventor for Extensible Mark Up Language (XML) and a public company which is traded on the NASDAQ. An author and television commentator about investment, intellectual property and technology, Mr. Muroff has lectured extensively. In April 2002, he was an instructor with ACCESO's media advocacy courses in Santiago, Chile for prosecutors and public defenders. He writes and produces music. His digital curriculum vitae can be found at www.muroff.ca.

CARMEN GLORIA ORMEÑO SEPÚLVEDA

Ms. Gloria Ormeno is a public defender working in the ninth region of Chile. A graduate of the Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Gabriela Mistral. This "Super Defensora" was selected as one of Chile's first public defenders and trained with Janeen Kerper and Lilia Velasquez in San Diego in October 2000. Ms. Ormeño has been an instructor in ACCESO oral advocacy programs in Chile and brings her experience as a highly successful litigator in the new penal procedure of Chile.

RAFAEL RAFAELLI, III

Rafael Raffaelli III is an Argentine-American lawyer practicing law in the Big Apple. "The New York Street Fighting Lawyer" has been a trainer for ACCESO in Costa Rica, bringing his quick wit and decade of experience practicing law for his Latin American clientel. A graduate of Cambridge University (UK), he appears on New York City television and has taught cross-cultural communication and problem-solving skills.

PHILIP ROBBINS

Mr. Robbins earned his J.D. and B.A. from the University of Arizona. He is a senior partner of Robbins and Green, www.rglaw.com a private law firm located in Arizona where he practices in the areas of personal injury and wrongful death. He has served as an arbitrator and mediator on various occasions. He served as the president of the Committee of Latin American Laws of the State Bar. He was a delegate for a conference on small business administration at the White House in Washington, D.C. He has participated and presented seminars in the United States of America, Chile and Mexico. He directed a seminar about products liability in Latin America in Miami in September 2001 for the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade.

THE HONORABLE LAURA SAFER ESPINOZA

Judge Espinoza received her B.A. from Barnard College and her J.D. from New York Law School. Judge Safer Espinoza is the New York State Acting Supreme Court Justice and a Deputy Administrative Judge for the Bronx Criminal Court. Judge Safer Espinoza has been a grant recipient of numerous United States Information Service grants throughout Central and South America. She is a co-founder of Proyecto ACCESO.

THE HONORABLE MICHAEL A. TOWN

Judge Michael Town of Hawai, an ACCESO faculty member, works with Panamanian Judge Waleska Hormechea de Segovia in facilitating new oral advocacy skills at Costa Rican training session in October 2001.

A judge in the Criminal Division of the Circuit Court in Honolulu, Hawaii.
With Proyecto ACCESO, he is juez miguel antonio pueblo and is an instructor in our Oral Advocacy I workshops. A leader in the problem solving court movement of the United States, Judge Town works with avant garde jurists to develop horizontal systems of justice that prevent delinquency.

Judge Town´s commitment to Latin America goes as far back as his days in Colombia with the United States Peace Corps. Since then, Judge Town received A.B. from Stanford, his Juris Doctor degree from Hastings College of Law and an LL.M. degree from Yale School of Law.

He started the Legal Aid office on Maui and litigated civil cases on behalf of low income folks in areas of family law, governmental benefits and native Hawaiian rights including regaining the target island of Kaho`olawe from the U.S. Navy.

Judge Town was appointed to the bench as a district family court judge in 1979. In 1993, he was appointed to the circuit court and has served as Senior Judge (presiding judge) of the Family Court of the First Circuit, which is a unified family court hearing a wide variety of family and child related cases. In this work, Judge Town continued to work towards more horizontal judicial methods that are restorative in nature.

Judge Town served on the Board of Trustees of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges from 1990 to 1997 and speaks on behalf of the Council on subjects such as the unified family court, the role of the court, domestic violence, alternative dispute resolution, and therapeutic, preventive and restorative justice. He has publishes regularly. In ACCESO´s Oral Advocacy workshops, Judge Town uses his experience from two parts of the judicial system (defense and the Bench) to empower participants.

LILIA S. VELASQUEZ

ACCESO instructor Lilia Velasquez (La Flama de la Justicia) in action

Lilia Velasquez is the Flame of Justice. She received her LL.M. degree from the University of San Diego, School of Law, her J.D. degree from the California Western School of Law, and her B.S. degree from San Diego State University. She has had her own private law firm specializing in immigration since 1985. Ms. Velasquez has been recognized as one of the best attorneys in San Diego in immigration law by the San Diego Union Tribune and been lauded for her human rights work by California Lawyer magazine and other lawyering periodicals. She consults for women's advocacy groups, the Mexican government, the U.S. State Department and various international agencies. She is featured regularly on national and international news programs, including ABC World New Tonight, National Public Radio, Univision and Fox News. She is a professor at California Western School of Law and lectures regularly to jurists, law enforcement officials, bar associations, community activists and youth groups around the Americas.