Clinic Faculty & Staff
Vida B. Johnson, Director, Professor of Law
Vida Johnson is a Professor of Law at Georgetown law, where she co-directs the Criminal Justice Clinic. She is also the co-Director of the E. Barrett Prettyman Program, a post-graduate training program for aspiring public defenders. She is a graduate of NYU Law School and the University of California at Berkeley. After graduating law school, she was an E. Barrett Prettyman fellow at Georgetown Law. After her time as a fellow, she was a public defender in Washington DC, where she handled serious cases. She also supervised public defenders there. Prof. Johnson writes about criminal procedure, policing and race.
John M. Copacino, Professor of Law Emeritus
Professor Copacino was the Director of the Criminal Justice Clinic and the E. Barrett Prettyman graduate fellowship in criminal trial advocacy. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the Director of the Juvenile Law Clinic at the Antioch School of Law. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School and received an LL.M. as a Prettyman Fellow at the Law Center. He has served as lead counsel in hundreds of criminal cases and post conviction cases in the District of Columbia. He regularly participates in local and national training programs for criminal defense lawyers.
Amanda K. Rogers, Visiting Professor of Law
Amanda K. Rogers is a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law, teaching and supervising in the Criminal Justice Clinics. Previously, Professor Rogers directed and started the Caritas Clemency Clinic at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. She and her students represented incarcerated individuals seeking release from prison through compassionate release. She litigated cases in federal district courts across the country, including Alabama, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and the Virgin Islands. Prof. Rogers began her criminal defense career with Georgetown Law’s Prettyman fellowship. After the fellowship, Prof. Rogers joined the Public Defender Service as a trial attorney representing both adults and children charged with serious felonies in D.C. Superior Court. By the end of her tenure, she was a supervising attorney and served on PDS’ forensic practice group, which trained and supervised lawyers involved in forensic science litigation.
Pierce Suen, Visiting Professor of Law
Pierce Suen is a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law, teaching and supervising in the Criminal Justice Clinics. Before joining Georgetown, Pierce spent a decade at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia where he was a supervising attorney. During his time at PDS, Pierce tried cases ranging from fare evasion to first-degree murder and represented indigent clients at every level of proceedings—in juvenile, misdemeanor, and felony court, and in direct appeals, parole revocation, and post-conviction relief. Pierce is a faculty instructor at Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop and has conducted trainings for the Washington Counsel of Lawyers, the Navy JAG Corps, and the NACDL National Forensic College. Pierce is a graduate of NYU Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern scholar, and the University of Chicago.
Lauren VonWiegen, Investigations Supervisor
Lauren is the Investigations Supervisor and Director of the Investigative Internship Program. She received a B.A. in Criminal Justice from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lauren went on to spend nearly seven years working as an Investigative Specialist at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she investigated both pre-trial serious felony cases and worked as a Defense Victim Outreach Specialist on IRAA cases.
Jacob Friedman, E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow
Jacob Friedman (he/him) grew up in Pittsboro, North Carolina and received his law degree from the University of Georgia. While at UGA, he interned for the local public defender’s office in Athens, Georgia. During his law school summers, Jacob interned for the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama as well as the Mecklenburg County Public Defender’s Office in Charlotte, North Carolina. After law school, Jacob clerked for Chief Judge Leigh Martin May of the Northern District of Georgia. He received his B.S.B.A from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his free time, Jacob enjoys writing and performing original music.
Dominique Malone Boni, E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow
Dominique Malone Boni grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and earned her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where she was a student attorney in the Criminal Defense Clinic. While in law school, Dominique interned at the Federal Community Defender for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in their Capital Habeas Unit, ACLU-DE, the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia in their Trial Unit, and Phillips Black. Additionally, over her time in law school, she received attorney awards for oral advocacy, pro bono leader of the year, and the 2025 Philadelphia Bar Association’s Public Interest Section Law Student Award. Before law school, Dominique worked as an investigator at the Southern Center for Human Rights, assisting clients on death row with their appeals, interviewing witnesses in the field to gather information for court, and initiating class action lawsuits with her teams to hold prisons and jails accountable for their actions towards incarcerated people. She received her B.S. in Criminal Justice and Communication from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.