Legal Interpreting Training Presenters

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Jason Palmer
Stetson University College of Law
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law
B.A., University of Virginia
J.D., George Washington University Law School


Professor Jason Palmer teaches legal research and writing, transactional document drafting, judicial opinion writing, law and sexuality, international litigation and arbitration, and complex litigation. Professor Palmer is the co-author, along with Professor Arturo Carrillo, of the article Transnational Mass Claims Processes in International Law and Practice, published in 28 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 343 (2010). He is also the author of the book chapter "Remedying Mistakes in Mass Claims without Compounding Errors - Lessons from the Palestinian Late Claims Program" in Designing Compensation After Upheaval: Insights from the Experience of the United Nations Compensation Commission (Oxford University Press 2015). He has published on self-efficacy in Millennial students with the Cleveland State Law Review and on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Seton Hall Law Review. His article, Emotional Intelligence and Homophobia, will be published Fall 2019 by Wake Forest Law Review and his article A Separation of Powers Analysis of Forum Non Convenient' Adequate Available Forum will be published Summer 2020 by St. John's Law Review. He is currently working on a book on domestic and international mass claims processes to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing and a textbook on International Litigation and Arbitration to be published by Carolina Academic Press.

Professor Palmer is currently serving as the 2019-2021 Chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Professional Development (Arc of Career) Committee. He is also a 2016-2020 Legal Writing Institute board member and the 2018-2020 Treasurer for the Legal Writing Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving legal communication by supporting the development of teaching and scholarly resources and establishing forums to discuss the study, teaching, and practice of professional legal writing. He is 2018-2020 Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees for Great Explorations Children's Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. He was the 2014-2015 Chair of the Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues for the Association of American Law Schools and was the Co-Chair of the Legal Writing Institute 17th Biennial Conference held in July 2016. Professor Palmer was the 2014-2016 Faculty Liaison for the Stetson University College of Law Board of Overseers. Since 2015, Professor Palmer has been the Co-General Editor of the American Bar Association Section of International Law Year in Review. He also serves as an editor for the Legal Writing Institute's Monograph Series and has served as an assistant editor of the Legal Writing Institute's Journal of Legal Writing. He is an associate editor for the Scubas Journal of Legal Writing and a corresponding editor for International Legal Materials, which is published quarterly by the American Society of International Law. Recently, Professor Palmer was appointed the Faculty Advisor to Stetson Law's Journal of Comparative and International Aging Law and Policy.

Prior to joining Stetson, he worked for the Department of State as a team leader representing the United States in international arbitration cases before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. He also spent four years in Switzerland working as an claims judge for the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts, adjudicating claims for format Swiss bank accounts of victims of Nazi persecution; and for the United Nations Compensation Commission, coordinating review of Palestinian claims against the Iraq as a result of its invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Before working in Switzerland and at the Department of State, Professor Palmer spent several years in private practice in Washington, D.C., focusing on commercial litigation and international arbitration. he has also taught courses in U.S. legal writing to Swiss lawyers at the Europa Institute at the University of Zurich and taught legal research and writing at the George Washington University Law School.




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Elizabeth Boals
Director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Assistant Professor of Law
Stetson University College of Law

Liz Boals teaches Evidence, Criminal Law, and a variety of Advocacy courses and serves as the Director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy. Prior to her appointment at Stetson University College of Law in 2020, Professor Boals taught at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL) for 15 years. At AUWCL, she served in administrative positions, including as the Assistant Dean of Part-time and Online Education, Director of the Criminal Justice Practice and Policy Institute, and Associate Director of the Weinstein Trial Advocacy Program.

Professor Boals has published various advocacy case files and books on criminal procedure and expert testimony. She is the recipient of multiple teaching and community leadership awards and is a long-time member of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) teaching faculty. Professor Boals frequently lectures both domestically and abroad on topics related to expert witness testimony, eye-witness identification, and trial skills.

Before transitioning to a full-time teaching position, Professor Boals was a labor and employment litigation attorney for the U.S. Department of Commerce and private practice. Professor Boals began her legal career as a public defender in the Office of the Public Defender in Alexandria, Virginia, handling a felony caseload from trials in Circuit Court through appeals to the Virginia Court of Appeals.




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Katherine Donoghue
Associate Director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy
Stetson University College of Law


Kate Donoghue earned her Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College with an All-Academic Honor in 2007 and her Juris Doctor Magna Cum Laude from Fordham Law School in 2010. While at Fordham, Kate was a member of Fordham's Trial Advocacy Team and the National Champion of the 2009 Lone Star Classic.

Following graduation, Kate practiced complex commercial litigation in New York, focusing on contract and land-use disputes. Kate subsequently transitioned into public service advocacy, where she initially represented abused and neglected children in juvenile court and then spent six years as an Assistant State's Attorney prosecuting felony cases on behalf of the State of Connecticut at both the trial and appellate levels. As a prosecutor, Kate was appointed as a Domestic Violence Coordinator and to Connecticut's Human Trafficking Task Force. Throughout her years of practice, Kate was also employed as an Adjunct Professor of Trial Advocacy at Fordham Law School.

In 2020, after her family relocated to Florida, Kate transitioned to full-time academia. She was a Professor of Legal Studies at Keiser University, where she received the "Rising Star" Award, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Legal Studies at Franklin University, before joining Stetson University Law School as the Associate Director of the Center for Excellence Advocacy.



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Ben Hall
CSC, NIC, SC:L
Hallenross & Associates, LLC
Partner


Ben Hall began his professional interpreting career over 40 years ago as a freelance interpreter in Central Ohio. He has worked as an adjunct instructor in the Interpreting Education Program at Columbus State Community College and served as a Commissioner for the Commission on Collegiate Interpreter Educators (CCIE), which is the only accreditation body for sign language interpreter programs. He has also worked as the national Director for Interpreter Relations at CSD (Communication Services for the Deaf), the largest deaf organization in the world.

Ben served on the national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) Board of Directors for 13 years in varying capacities, including President of RID. Some of his professional contributions include: overseeing development of the NAD-RID National Interpreter Certification (NIC) and the Code of Professional Standards; collaborating with then NAD President Libby Pollard to co-author the State NAD-RID Collaboration Plan designed to foster networking between NAD and RID at the state and local levels.

Ben is a Master Legal Trainer by the National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers (NCIEC). He is a former mentor/trainer with the MARIE/DOIT Center at the University of Northern Colorado. He is presently involved with the Train-the-Trainer program with Project CLIMB: Cultivating Legal Interpreters from Minority Backgrounds which serves to increase the number of interpreters of colors and heritage signing backgrounds by creating career paths for specialization in legal interpreting for practitioners from these underrepresented communities.

  • RID National Interpreter Certification (NIC)
  • RID Specialist Certification: Legal (SC:L)
  • Previously awarded: RID Comprehensive Skills Certificate (CSC)
  • Supreme Court of Ohio Certified, Rostered Interpreter
  • Master Legal Trainer (from National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers)
  • Ohio Department of Education licensed Interpreter for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
  • Winner of both the Russell Moore and Darlene Jahn Award, distinguished service awards from the Ohio Chapter of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf


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Anna McDuffie
B.S., CI/CT, NIC, SC:L, Core Certified Healthcare Interpreter


A native of Atlanta, she graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science in Interpreting for the Deaf. After graduation, she moved to Boston, where she worked as a staff interpreter at The Learning Center for Deaf Children, a bilingual/bicultural school for the Deaf. She also worked part-time at Boston University as an interpreter for various graduate programs. Anna returned to Atlanta in 1999 and has been working as a freelance interpreter for the past 21 years. She earned a Certificate of Interpretation and Certificate of Transliteration (CI/CT) from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) in 1999, the Specialist Certificate: Legal from RID in 2008 and the National Interpreter Certification from RID in 2011. Anna began teaching medical interpreting workshops with her co-presenter, Dr. Heather Brown, in 2008 and is very passionate about standardizing best practices for medical and legal interpreting.

Additionally, they published an article in a nationally peer-reviewed medical journal entitled
Health Care Providers and the Americans with Disabilities Act in the Journal of the American Association of Physician Assistants in January 2011. She also teaches workshops on legal interpreting. Anna currently lives in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband, Eric. She enjoys spending time with her stepdaughter, Cece, her fur kids, Lola and Pippa, traveling, and playing tennis in her free time.