NAPD Has a Training Director!
Jeff Sherr, NAPD Training Director
Training and education have been NAPD’s highest priorities since our beginning on January 1, 2014. In fact, we had an Education Committee before we had a website. There have been amazing volunteers who have taken NAPD’s educational efforts to the highest level, with 150|PLUS| webinars as well as 620 blogs since we began. All of the webinars are now stored on MyGideon for any-time viewing. We have held one Workload Conference and another is scheduled for November 17-18th. We have also held three leadership institutes, two at Valparaiso University Law School and one at Kentucky DPA. Another is scheduled for May of 2018. However, we have not held a training for investigators and social workers. And NAPD has identified that as a distinct need.
We are now in the process of filling that need. We have successfully recruited one of the nation’s top training people in Jeff Sherr. Jeff is the Manager of the Education and Strategic Planning Branch of the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. Long before that, he got his beginning in theater. He has a degree in Theater from Kansas University and studied with the National Shakespeare Conservatory. Jeff is still actively involved in theater in Kentucky and performs regularly with a house long form improv team in Lexington. Once he graduated from law school in 1995, Jeff became a public defender as a lawyer with the Juvenile Post Dispositional Unit in Frankfort, Ky. From there he served as a trial lawyer in Stanford, Ky. When a position opened up as a juvenile trainer, DPA hired Jeff to fill that position.
Ed Monahan, who was at the time the Deputy Public Advocate and Director of Training, recruited Jeff to that position. Under Ed’s mentorship, Jeff soon took over as the Manager of the Education and Strategic Planning Branch of DPA. He now has a staff of two other lawyers, a recruiter, and an administrator. From that vantage point, he runs one of the most creative public defender training units in the country.
Jeff is a faculty member for Gideon's Promise, the National Criminal Defense College, Clarence Darrow Death Penalty College, Harvard Trial Advocacy Workshop, and other state litigation institutes. In addition to regularly training public defender litigators and trainers, Jeff has trained public defender leaders nationally and for many individual defender states and offices.
Jeff already curates NAPD’s blogs, facilitates all the webinars, and posts regularly on NAPD’s Facebook page. As the new NAPD Training Director, he will work with several groups to plan and implement social worker and investigator training. NAPD is fortunate to have someone of Jeff’s experience and creativity. Welcome, Jeff!