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Conference Overview

“Giving Voice: Discovering & Telling the Client’s Story”

This year’s 17th Annual National Alliance of Sentencing Advocates & Mitigation Specialists (NASAMS) Training, “Giving Voice: Discovering & Telling the Client’s Story,” will focus on exploring the techniques for and complexities of uncovering the stories of our client’s lives, and the importance of storytelling and narrative to sentencing advocacy, penalty phase presentation and criminal defense. Among the questions that will be addressed: How do we work with vulnerable, damaged clients including the mentally ill, youth, and those who have been chronically under served by the system? How can we uncover and describe trauma, risk, and resilience within our client’s lives? In what way is the ability to listen deeply crucial to advocacy, team building, and client/ family relationships? To give our client a voice, what do we need to understand about human behavior and functioning? What basic tools of the trade will enhance our ability to pull everything together? Special sessions will be devoted to team building, working with youthful offenders, and critical issues in the sentencing advocacy and capital mitigation disciplines. Members of the defense team from all backgrounds and levels are encouraged to attend. You may register to attend either two or three days of the conference and will have the opportunity to select from sessions offered by both Life in the Balance and Sentencing Advocacy Training.

Who Should Attend

The NASAMS Sentencing Advocacy Training is a must for...

• Sentencing advocates
• Mitigation specialists
• Forensic social workers in defensebased practice
• Defense attorneys
• Defense investigators
• Paralegals
• Forensic experts
• Criminal justice professionals working in alternative sentencing or re-entry
• Restorative justice professionals
• Victim outreach specialists
• Community advocates who promote fair and equitable sentencing
decisions

DPMI

The Death Penalty Mitigation Institute is a one-day program designed to provide a comprehensive overview for professionals who are new to capital casework & those who are in their first years of practice. Renowned faculty from across the country share their expertise as they review step by step the issues which require investigation and exploration in every capital case. Topics include: bio-psycho-social history investigations, mental retardation & mental illness, future dangerousness, securing life pleas, and producing the penalty phase -- all of which are addressed within the context of the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases & the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function.

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