FOUNDER, INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LAW
Donald M. Temple received his B.A. from Howard University in 1975, his J.D. from the University of Santa Clara School of Law in California in 1978 and his LL.M. in constitutional and international law from Georgetown University Law Center in 1981. Temple’s law practice consists of civil and commercial litigation, with an emphasis on police misconduct, race discrimination and business disputes. He has litigated successfully against numerous police departments, governments and corporations, including, but not limited to, the District of Columbia, Philadelphia and Prince George’s County governments; ICMA-RC Pension Fund; Breen Capital Investment Corporation; Amtrak; American Eagle; Hyatt Regency; Southern Management; Potomac Electric Power Company; Bank of America and Chevy Chase Bank; Congressmen Mervyn Dymally and Romano Mazzoli. Temple received the Ollie May Cooper Award in 2007 for his outstanding service and leadership to the Washington Bar Association, the Black Law Students Association’s Cora T. Walker Award and the prestigious National Bar Association’s Gertrude E. Rush Award.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Susan E. Sutler (Suji) joined The Charles Hamilton Houston Law School Preparatory Program (CHH) as Executive Director in April 2012. Attorney Sutler was previously ‘of counsel’ to Mercer Law Associates on selective civil litigation cases involving issues including age and race discrimination against public school employees, employment wrongful termination, breach of contract and wrongful death. For 16 years, she was an Associate and Supervising Clinical Law Professor at the University of the District of Columbia, David A Clarke School of Law in the Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic. Teaching and representation strategies focused on integrating special education, juvenile and neglect legal advocacy with intent to prevent and end systemic practices that promote zero tolerance, generate illiteracy and high dropout rates, ignore mental illnesses in youth and fuel the school-to-prison pipeline. Prior to teaching, Attorney Sutler served as the Supervising Attorney for DC Public Schools, Division of Special Education and as an Administrative Due Process Hearing Officer on special education, disciplinary and labor management cases. She received her JD from Howard University School of Law and a BA from Williams College.
LAW SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
Everett Bellamy has been in the forefront of higher education for 44 years. Most recently, he served as the Interim Director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion at Georgetown University Law Center. From 1980 to 2010, he was an assistant dean for the JD Program at Georgetown Law. He also was an adjunct law professor at Georgetown, teaching a course on small business law and entrepreneurship for twenty-eight years. He has been a member of the American Bar Association, Business Law Section and the BusinessWeek Alliance Market Advisory Board. For twelve years, he was co-chair of the National Bar Association Law Professors Division. In 1998, he taught a course on international business regulation at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He has advised small business owners and entrepreneurs for over 30 years. He has been a guest lecturer at Howard University Small Business Development Center, Babson College (MA) School of Entrepreneurship and the University of Maryland’s Hinman CEOs Program in Entrepreneurship Education. He has also been a frequent speaker at conferences on the issues, both business and legal, facing business owners and entrepreneurs. Currently, he serves as the general counsel and EVP for the tech startup, Thread Bioscience Inc. and is a legal advisor for Atunwa Digital, an African-focused ad network company connecting advertisers and brands to a vast net of African owned media companies. Atunwa has offices in NYC and Accra, Ghana.
LEGAL RESEARCH
Itunu Sofidiya is the Director of RISE and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown Law Center. Prior to her position as Director, Itunu served as a Librarian and Professor at Georgetown Law Center and Texas Southern University. She has also worked as a Staff Attorney for a non-profit and an Associate Attorney for a firm that dealt with immigration and criminal law matters (specifically death penalty appeals). Itunu earned her B.A., from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She holds a Master’s of Library Science from Texas Woman’s University, where she became a member of the Epsilon Omega Epsilon Honor Society, and a J.D., with honors, from Thurgood Marshall School of Law, where she was a member of the Innocence Project. She is a currently on the SEAALL Scholarship Committee and is also a member of the American Association of Law Libraries, American Libraries Association, and of the state bar of Maryland.
CIVIL PROCEDURE
Nicole Dillard is a practicing attorney who is a Juris Doctor (JD) graduate of Catholic University, Columbus School of Law. Professor Dillard has also earned her Masters of Education in Bilingual Education from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Virginia. Professor Dillard has served the Howard University School of Communications department since 2011 first as an adjunct and now as an Assistant Professor where she has taught in the Legal Communications sequence. Professor Dillard’s law practice focuses primarily on labor and employment consultation and litigation, as well as business immigration and corporate visa matters. Ms. Dillard is an experienced litigator with more than 18 years’ experience representing corporate clients in trial, appellate area courts, and administrative law forums for employment matters and in alternative dispute resolution proceedings as well as representing clients in federal administrative forums on immigration matters.
APPELLATE ADVOCACY
James Whitehead is a staff attorney in the Appellate Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (“PDS”), where he litigates criminal appeals for indigent clients before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. His practice areas range from litigating post-trial appeals to seeking release for incarcerated clients through the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act.
Previously, Mr. Whitehead served as a staff attorney and supervising attorney with PDS’s Trial Division, where he represented clients primarily accused of serious felonies including sexual assault and murder. Mr. Whitehead has also been an adjunct faculty member at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, where he taught Appellate Advocacy (Moot Court) and Moot Court Competition. Mr. Whitehead graduated from the University of Virginia with degrees in Economics and Sociology (’01) and received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law (’04).
APPELLATE ADVOCACY
Jennifer Williams has been a staff attorney with the Appellate Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia for six years. As an appellate attorney, Ms. Williams represents clients from PDS’s Trial and Civil divisions on appeal, drafting briefs and arguing on behalf of clients before the DC Court of Appeals. Before starting at PDS, Ms. Williams spent two years as a law fellow at the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AL. At EJI, Ms. Williams represented clients on Alabama’s death row in their direct appeals and represented clients originally sentenced to life without parole as children. In 2014, Ms. Williams graduated from Stanford Law School, where she participated in the Criminal Defense Clinic, representing clients at the trial and appellate levels. During law school, she completed summer clerkships with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Bronx Defenders, and the Center for Court Innovation. Before law school, Ms. Williams worked at the Prison Law Office in Berkeley, CA, assisting with class action lawsuits challenging conditions of confinement in California prisons. She graduated from Yale University in 2010.