Committees

AACJ Permanent Committees

AACJ's success in attaining its goals depends on the imaginative and diligent work of the volunteer members who serve on its permanent and ad hoc committees. Chairs of the committees cannot achieve these goals by themselves. We urge members who want to participate to contact the committee chair in their area of interest.

Finance

The Finance Committee is chaired by the Treasurer and oversees general accounting, budget, financial management and financial planning.

Chair: Joe Keilp

Indigent and Capital Representation

This committee carries forward AACJ's fight for equitable treatment of indigent defendants. Because adequacy of representation is closely tied to reasonableness of compensation for counsel, AACJ attacks indigent representation contract systems that enforce disincentives to adequate representation. It also seeks to ensure that capital defendants are represented by competent counsel and provided with adequate resources through adoption of the ABA Standards for Capital Representation.

Chair of Indigent Defense: Judy Lutgring

Chair of Capital Representation: John Canby

Membership and Member Services

This committee is responsible for membership retention and recruitment, creating and conducting a program to attract new members. The committee also is responsible for the annual AACJ Awards.

Membership Chair: Judy Lutgring

The Strike Force Subcommittee maintains Strike Force volunteers to represent members who are threatened with contempt or other sanctions because of their representation of their clients.

Strike Force Subcommittee Chair: 

Planning

Chaired by the President-Elect, the Planning Committee is responsible for formulating the long-range goals of the organization for presentation to the Board of Governors and for developing fundraising.

Chair: Judy Lutgring

Political

This committee is responsible for legislative and bench-bar relations. It is composed of three subcommittees: Legislative, Rules and Amicus.

The Legislative Subcommittee oversees AACJ's lobbying efforts.

Legislative Subcommittee Co-chairs: Robert McWhirter, Steven Sherick

The Rules Subcommittee advances member interests by proposing changes to the rules governing court proceedings and by submitting comments on behalf of AACJ on rules changes proposed by others.

Rules Subcommittee Chair: John Canby

Amicus Subcommittee - In selected cases of statewide or national importance, AACJ appears as Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) in support of the fair administration of justice.

Amicus Subcommittee Chair: Kevin Wein

Public Relations and Community Outreach

This committee will develop procedures for promoting AACJ's message to the public, including press releases, a speaker's bureau and media contacts.

Chair: Jean-Jacques Cabou

Publications

In order to keep its members informed on issues of concern to those members, the Publications Committee publishes The Defender and provides current information on AACJ's web site.

Co-chairs: Robert McWhirter, Heather Williams

Technical Chair: Joe Keilp

Seminars

This committee designs the program and obtains the speakers for our annual seminars. Chair oversees all seminars. Each seminar has a chair or co-chairs.

Co-chairs: Ralph Ellinwood, Kelly Smith