Deborah Ruth Kant served most of career as a senior appellate litigator at the Department of Justice’s Appellate Staff. In that role, she litigated, briefed, and argued cases before the federal courts of appeals in a wide variety of subject-matter, and assisted in the litigation before the United States Supreme Court.

Debi also served in several leadership positions at the Department, building and overseeing the Department’s mediation program for the 94 US Attorneys’ Offices and main Justice at both the district court and appellate court levels. She served as mediation counsel and advisor in over fifty cases in the federal courts of appeals, and many more cases at the district court level.

Debi trained hundreds of Justice Attorneys in mediation, and advanced negotiation techniques. In addition, she taught mediation and mediation advocacy as an adjunct Professor for several years in George Washington University Law School’s LLM program.
Debi holds both basic and advanced mediation certificates. Since 1992, she has been a mediator in several programs, including the then DC Human Rights and Minority Business Division, the DC Mediation Service, the Multi Door Program in Superior Court in DC, and the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. For the past five years, Debi has been engaged in coaching in appellate advocacy and teaching legal research and writing to international LLMs.

Debi has also been quite active in social action programs in many different venues. Her initiatives have included: mentoring refugees, financial literacy education for low income residents, and advocacy in economic justice and universal child care in DC