staff directory
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On-Site Staff
Professor Fred Lederer
Director
Fredric I. Lederer is Chancellor Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Legal and Court Technology (CLCT) and the Courtroom 21 Project at the College of William & Mary’s School of Law. He received his B.S. from Polytechnic University in New York and his J.D. from Columbia University Law School where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Columbia Law Review and recipient of the Archie O’Dawson prize (which provided for study with judges at each of the three levels of the federal courts, including Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court). He holds an LL.M. from the University of Virginia. His post-graduate work includes a year as a Fulbright-Hayes Scholar in Freiburg, Germany. He served as a member of the United States Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps until 1980 when he joined the William & Mary faculty. He has served as prosecutor, defense counsel, and trial judge.
Professor Lederer’s areas of specialization include evidence, trial practice, criminal procedure, military law, and legal technology. He is one of the founders of the ABA prize winning Marshall-Wythe Legal Skills Program in which all students spend two years in simulated law firms in which they learn professional ethics, legal research and writing, interviewing, negotiation, alternative dispute resolution, and basic trial and appellate practice - much in the form of simulated client representation.
Professor Lederer is the author or co-author of eleven books, numerous articles, two law related education television series, and is the author of a popular series of “fairy-tale” trials for elementary and middle school students. Among his works in progress is An Introduction to Basic Advocacy and Litigation in a Technological World. Professor Lederer is also the founder and Director of Courtroom 21(CLCT), “The Courtroom of the 21st Century Today,” the world’s most technologically advanced courtroom.
Martin Gruen
Deputy Director for Courtroom Design & Technology
Martin Gruen is the Deputy Director for Technology and Court Design. Since the project's conception, Martin has directed, installed and/or designed the technology systems within the courtroom. He brings over twenty-five years experience providing court technology systems to the legal community.
Martin began his career in legal technology design and installation in 1974. Initially concentrating in the areas of sound re-enforcement and audio recording, he has now emerged as a national expert in court related high technology legal uses. As president and the founder of Applied Legal Technologies, Martin designed many of the nation’s leading state-of-the-art court technology installations and has served as a consultant to several of the nation’s major legal technology manufacturers. His extensive experience with courthouse electronic systems includes courts at the federal, state, county and municipal levels. He has also worked with law firms and law schools.
Nancy Archibald
Associate Director for Operations & Administration
Nancy Archibald, Associate Director for Operations & Administration, has been connected with the College of William & Mary for several years. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Arizona and her Master’s degree in Special Education from the College of William and Mary’s School of Education in 1993. She served as the College’s Intermediate Appeals Officer for In-state Residence for ten years and came to the Center for Legal and Court Technology in 2000, where she directs the day- to-day operations and serves as the Center’s interface with the College.
Stacey-Rae Simcox
Associate Director for Research, Professional Education & Terrorism Prosecution
Stacey-Rae Simcox is Associate Director for Research, Professional Education and Terrorism Prosecution and Adjunct Professor of Law at the William & Mary School of Law, teaching Internet Law, Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy and Legal Skills. Professor Simcox also co-teaches portions of the Electronic Discovery course and teaches a number of Continuing Legal Education courses concerning technology and ethics and technology augmented trial practice. Professor Simcox received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science from Ohio University and her Juris Doctorate from William and Mary School of Law. She served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Susan Crawford of the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, DC. As an attorney in the United States Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, Professor Simcox held a variety of positions including prosecutor; labor attorney; fiscal, contract and general administrative law attorney; Chief of Administrative Law; torts and litigation attorney; and legal assistance attorney. She also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney. Professor Simcox is the Center’s specialist on the use of technology to try major terrorism cases.
Ed Zilavy
Assistant Director for Legal Information Technology
Ed Zilavy is Assistant Director for Legal Information Technology at the Center for Legal and Court Technology. He has over 14 years experience working in information technology with Fortune 500 companies and the legal industry. Prior to joining CLCT, he held positions with software and legal technology companies including McKenzie River Corporation, Personic Inc. and KnowledgePoint - CCH (Wolters Kluwer). Most recently he was with Courtroom Connect as the Product Manager for CourtTV Professional and the Courtroom View Network as well as projects with the National Center for State Courts. He has served as Senior Technical Advisor to the Courtroom 21 project since 2004, and is currently the Benjamin Franklin Fellow at the William & Mary Law School. Ed received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
John Byram
Assistant Director for Court Design
Caryn C. Lederer
Special Counsel for Public Service and William B. Spong Public Service Fellow
As a William B. Spong Fellow (on a public service leave-of-absence from the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges*) Caryn Lederer serves as CLCT's Special Counsel for Public Service, overseeing all of the Center's public interest projects. Ms. Lederer's work primarily focuses on preparation for the impending detainee trials to be conducted by the Office of Military Commissions in Cuba, where she serves as CLCT's Senior Liaison with the Office of Military Commissions. Prior to joining CLCT, Ms. Lederer worked at Weil, Gotshal with regular and pro bono clients including XM Satellite Radio, Bertelsmann A.G., Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, the New York City Bar Association's Vance Center for International Justice Initiatives, and the Urban Justice Center. She received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2004 and subsequently worked in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. Prior to law school she worked with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to launch kaisernetwork.org, the nation's premier online resource for health policy news and event webcasts. Ms. Lederer received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 2000 and lives in New York City.
*The Center for Legal and Court Technology extends special thanks to the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Rebecca Hulse
Assistant Director for Technology + Privacy
Before law school, Professor Hulse studied Chinese in Taiwan, completed a master's degree in Chinese legal history, and worked as the Deputy Director for China and Hong Kong at the U.S. Trade Representative. She graduated from Harvard Law in 2001 and worked as a media lawyer in Boston in private practice before moving to Williamsburg. At CLCT, Professor Hulse specializes in privacy and technology issues, and teaches a privacy law and technology seminar as an adjunct faculty member at William and Mary School of Law.
René Bowditch
Assistant Director for Research & Professional Education
René Bowditch is Assistant Director for Research and Professional Education, and Adjunct Professor of Law at the William and Mary School of Law, teaching Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy and Legal Skills.
She earned her Bachelor of Journalism with Honors from the University of Texas and her J.D. from the William and Mary School of Law where she was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. Professor Bowditch served as law clerk to Judge D. Dortch Warriner of the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Her practice experience includes tenure in the Labor Law Department at McGuire Woods in Richmond, Virginia, and in general practice with a small law firm in Newport News, Virginia. She also was Press Secretary for U. S. Congressman Paul Trible in his Capitol Hill office.
Professor Bowditch was privileged to help inaugurate the well respected and much emulated Marshall-Wythe Legal Skills Program in which she taught for thirteen years. In 1998 she received the St. George Tucker Adjunct Professor of Law Award.
Celeste Vaughn
Assistant Director for Affiliates & Courtroom Information Project
Celeste Vaughn is the Assistant Director for Court Affiliates and CIP (Courtroom Information Project). She has been working in marketing communications for over 20 years, with most of her experience in business to business. She has a Master's degree in Marketing from Temple University, and an undergraduate degree from Kutztown University. She lives in Newport News with her husband Paul and her son, Liam.
Chris Taranto
Courtroom Technologist
Chris Taranto is the Courtroom Technologist, responsible for ensuring the technology in the courtroom is functioning properly. He also trains the students and CLCT staff on the proper use of the technology. Chris came to the Center after ten years in the US Air Force specializing in video production work.
Diane Gray
Court Record Manager
Diane Mason Gray has been a stenographic court reporter since 1974. She free-lanced for 21 years before serving nine years as an Official U.S. Court Reporter in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division. Since December 2003, she has been the Court Record Manager for the Courtroom 21 Project at the College of William and Mary School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Diane holds the Registered Professional Reporter (1975 and 1986) and the Certified Realtime Reporter (1992) certifications from the National Court Reporters Association as well as the Certified Verbatim Reporter certification (1998) from the National Verbatim Reporters Association. She holds state court reporting certifications from Virginia and North Carolina. Currently, she is a member of the National Court Reporters Association, the National Verbatim Reporters Association, and the Virginia Court Reporters Association. She is affiliated with the United States Court Reporters Association and the American Association of Electronic Reporters and Transcribers and also serves on the advisory board for the Virginia Careers Institute in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She has authored several articles published by the Journal of Court Reporting.
Mary Beth Dalton
Administrative Assistant
Mary Beth Dalton is a Michigan native and received her undergraduate education at Central Michigan University where she earned a B.S. in Education. She earned her M.S. from the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse and was an administrator in the field of cardiac rehabilitation for 15 years. Before coming to the Center, she also worked as an analyst for Ford Motor Company. Mary Beth is also a professional genealogist and owns Jigsaw Genealogy in Williamsburg.