MODERATOR

Michelle Engert, JD, is a senior scholar in residence in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology in the School of Public Affairs.  She also serves as the SPA academic pre law advisor.  She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of New Mexico School of Law.  She was a litigator and an assistant federal public defender in the federal districts of New Mexico and Maryland and also served at the Administrative Office of the United States Courts in Defender Services, and the Office for Access to Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice as a senior counsel advising on, and implementing the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.  

PANELISTS

Soniya Shah is from Buffalo, NY and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2015 with a degree in Technical Writing. After graduating, she moved to Boston to work for Hewlett-Packard as a technical writer. In 2018, she moved to DC to start law school at the Washington College of Law. Since then she has clerked at Lowenstein Sandler in global trade & policy, working with sanctions law, imports, exports, and national security. At WCL, she serves as a staffer on the Administrative Law Review, as secretary of the Intellectual Property Law Society, and is the blog coordinator for the Information, Security, and Privacy Law Society.

Caroline Koch is from Tampa, FL and graduated from American University in 2018 with a degree in Law & Society and a minor in Justice. Caroline's Honors Capstone highlighted the potential of Drug Treatment Courts in the United States. After a summer working at AU's Justice Programs Office on the Veterans Justice and Mental Health Research Team, Caroline started school at AU's Washington College of Law. Since then, she has served as a judicial intern for the Honorable Zuberi B. Williams in Montgomery County District Court, evaluating search warrants and emergency evaluation petitions and writing opinions. She also clerked for a private criminal defense firm, reviewing discovery for Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations and writing motions. At WCL, she serves as Senior Forum Editor for the American University Law Review, a Teaching Fellow for the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, a Blog Editor for the Criminal Law Practitioner, and as a mentor in the Women's Law Association.