Defend(H)ers

From death row to the streets of Harlem to Guantanamo Bay, women criminal defense attorneys speak in their own voices about the cases, the clients, and the community they built for one another. Defend(H)ers is a podcast presented by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Women in Criminal Defense Committee, featuring these attorneys in extended, in-depth conversations about their work.

Contributors

Host

Lindsay Lewis

Lindsay Lewis is a criminal defense attorney and founding partner of Dratel & Lewis in New York, where she practices in both federal and state court. She has successfully defended a wide range of criminal matters, from extradition cases to high-profile sex, cyber, crypto, terrorism, assault, drug trafficking and fraud cases, to minor cases with potentially serious collateral consequences, and regularly handles school discipline matters. She serves as co-chair of NACDL's Women in Criminal Defense Committee and has been named by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star and most recently as a Super Lawyer. Her firm has also just been ranked by Chambers Spotlight as a small firm with big impact.

Host

Meghan Skelton

Meghan Skelton is the owner of SkeltonLaw LLC, focusing on federal criminal appeals, post-conviction litigation, and compassionate release advocacy. A former assistant federal public defender, she also served as senior litigation counsel for the Military Commissions Defense Organization, representing a survivor of CIA torture at Guantanamo Bay. She has argued appeals before ten federal circuit courts.

Host

Melinda Sarafa

Melinda Sarafa is a founding partner of Sarafa Zellan PLLC in New York, with nearly 30 years of experience in federal criminal defense. She began her career as an assistant federal public defender in Houston and has clerked for two federal judges. She is a Life Member and board member of NACDL and a former co-chair of the Women in Criminal Defense Committee.

Host

Molly Parmer

Molly Parmer owns Parmer Law, a boutique criminal defense firm with offices in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia, and specializes in high stakes cases, predominately in federal court. A former assistant public defender in the Northern District of Georgia, she serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and is a legal analyst on CourtTV, CNN, FOX News, and NBC.

Host

Sonya Pfeiffer

Sonya Pfeiffer is a trial attorney with Pfeiffer Rudolf in Charlotte, focusing on wrongful conviction litigation and complex criminal defense. She began as a public defender, then moved to private practice, handling white collar defense, civil litigation and pro bono death penalty work, including the 2012 Racial Justice Act litigation. She is a licensed barrister in Canada, where she teaches trial advocacy.

Sonya is also an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker who spent more than a decade as a television news reporter in the U.S. and Europe. She co-hosts Abuse of Power, a Webby Award-winning podcast on Audible, and owns SE CLT Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Charlotte.

She serves on the board of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and co-chairs its Women in Criminal Defense Committee. She is licensed in North Carolina, Washington, D.C. and Massachusetts, and before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Producer

Chip Warren

Chip Warren is a writer, filmmaker, and narrative producer based in Budapest, Hungary. His audio documentary work includes producing multiple seasons of Abuse of Power on Audible, a Webby Award-winning podcast examining wrongful convictions and law enforcement misconduct. His broadcast documentary work aired on MSNBC, BBC, Channel 4, and Discovery International, with a focus on juvenile justice and the carceral system and has earned Crystal Clarion, Gracie Allen, and PASS awards for outstanding documentary series. He is currently in production on The Unfinished Legacy of Bullet Shih, a feature documentary.

http://chipwarren.com

Editor

Gujka-Laczi Evelin

Guests

Guest

Alice Fontier

Alice Fontier is a criminal defense attorney and legal consultant with over 20 years of experience in public defense. She has served as managing director of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and the Criminal Defense Practice at the Bronx Defenders, and is past president of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She is an adjunct professor at NYU Law and a lecturer at Columbia Law.

Guest

Blair Berk

Blair Berk is a partner at Berk Brettler LLP in West Hollywood, California, with more than 30 years of criminal defense practice. A Harvard Law graduate, she specializes in high-profile cases that draw intense public and media attention and has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America since 2005 and selected to Super Lawyers every year since 2006.

Guest

Denny LeBoeuf

Denny LeBoeuf is a capital defender based in New Orleans with over 35 years of experience representing people facing the death penalty at trial and in post-conviction proceedings in state and federal courts. She served as director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project and later as director of the ACLU's John Adams Project, which assisted in the defense of capitally charged Guantanamo detainees.

Guest

JoEllyn L. Jones

JoEllyn L. Jones is the founding attorney of the Law Office of JoEllyn L. Jones LLC in Bridgeton, New Jersey, and a practitioner in residence at Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice. A former public defender, she holds a master's degree in restorative justice and currently serves as president of the Association of Black Women Lawyers of New Jersey. She is a former member of the New Jersey Governor's Clemency Advisory Board.

Guest

Premal Dharia

Premal Dharia spent nearly 15 years as a public defender in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and at the military commission at Guantanamo Bay before moving to systemic work as director of litigation at Civil Rights Corps. She is the executive director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration at Harvard Law School and a graduate of Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Guest

Teny Geragos

Teny Geragos is a founding partner of Agnifilo Intrater LLP in New York, defending individuals in federal and state criminal cases at both the trial and appellate levels. She has led high-profile defenses including Sean Combs and Harvey Weinstein's rape retrial, and was named the New York Law Journal's Criminal Defense Rising Star in 2026. Lawdragon has recognized her as one of their 500 Leading Global Litigators.