Champions of Justice

Thank you to our Champions of Justice!

Want to be a Champion of Justice and add your name to the list below?

Click here to learn more!

Meredith Baker
Law Office of Meredith Baker LLC

112 Edith Blvd. NE
Albuquerque NM, 87102
meredithbakeresq.com
Email: meredithbakeresq@gmail.com
Office: 505.697.1900
Fax 505.933.6363

Meredith Baker is an experienced trial lawyer and member of the board of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. She works closely with her clients to represent them aggressively and ensure a beneficial resolution. Meredith graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 2007. While attending the first tier school, Meredith gained valuable experience clerking at the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Baker served as associate counsel to the Inspector General for Amtrak between 2009-2011, where she gained valuable experience as a specially appointed prosecutor in New Mexico, California, Washington D.C. and New York. From 2011-2012, Ms. Baker served as the Securities Attorney for the State of New Mexico, Regulation and Licensing Department. In 2012, Meredith entered private practice, concentrating in family law, children’s law and felony sex assault cases.

Brock Benjamin
Benjamin Law Firm

1600 Kansas,
El Paso, TX 79901
https://www.brockmorganbenjamin.com/
Email: https://www.brockmorganbenjamin.com/contact/
Office: 915.201.1826

Brock Benjamin is board certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Speciliazation. That means he is one of very few attorneys who  can say “I specialize in criminal law.” His practice is primarily federal criminal law and appeals. The Benjamin Law Firm has two attorneys that can assist in State and Federal matters, and takes pride in their work and strive for the best result for their clients. Brock grew up in the small southern Arizona border city of Douglas, Arizona and joined the U.S. Army and served as a U.S. Army Ranger in the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Lewis, Washington and then with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. After the military, he went to law school and started out doing plaintiff’s legal malpractice, suing other attorneys/lawyers who had committed some form of fraud or breached a fiduciary duty to their clients. While with that firm, he second chaired two million dollar plus cases, one of which took over 5 weeks to try.

Theresa Duncan
Duncan Earnest LLC

515 Granite NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
T: 505-842-5196
E: teri@duncanearnest.com

Teri began her legal practice as an appellate attorney, first clerking for Judge Lynn Pickard of the New Mexico Court of Appeals and then working for the Public Defender Department’s Appellate Division. She was lured into trial practice by her friend and mentor, Barbara Bergman, who recruited Teri to join the defense team for State of Oklahoma v. Terry Lynn Nichols in 2003.  After spending the longest year-and-a-half of her life in Oklahoma, Teri returned to New Mexico and joined the law firm of Freedman, Boyd, Hollander et al. In 2012, Teri left FBH to start a new practice with her partner (and fellow Public Defender alum), Mark Earnest. Teri practices primarily in the areas of criminal defense and civil rights, both at trial and on appeal.  With Professor Bergman, she is co-author of Wharton’s Criminal Evidence (15th edition) and Wharton’s Criminal Procedure (14th edition). Teri is co-chair of NMCDLA’s amicus and CLE committees, and is a frequent presenter at NMCDLA continuing education programs. Teri is a member of the NMCDLA Board of Directors.

Deirdre Ewing

District Defender-Fifth Judicial District
Law Offices of the Public Defender
500 N. Main St., Ste. 105
Roswell, NM 88201
575-887-0224 x10409 (Carlsbad)
575-208-1655 x10704 (Roswell)

Deirdre Ewing has been an attorney with the Law Offices of the Public Defender since 2013 and has been the district defender in Roswell and Carlsbad since 2017.  She has presented to the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Women in Criminal Justice Task Force and has taught CLEs for LOPD and NMCDLA on subjects from appealing 5-409 detention orders, working with LGBTQI clients, and the importance of self-care for criminal defense professionals.  She has also provided Constitution Day presentations to schools in Carlsbad and Albuquerque over the past few years.  Ms. Ewing is proud to serve as a member of NMCDLA’s board of directors.

Tova Indritz

Tova Indritz, Albuquerque criminal defense lawyer in private practice, handles federal, state, and Indian tribal court criminal trials, appeals, and post-conviction petitions.
She has a special interest in the confluence of criminal and immigration law and in the issues of representing non-U.S. citizens, and lectures and writes (Cultural Issues in Criminal Defense) on this topic. She represented the three amicus curiae in State v. Paredez, cited in Padilla v. Kentucky, holding that the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel includes the obligation to determine clients’ citizenship and inform non-citizens of specific immigration consequences of criminal charges.
She clerked for a trial judge in Washington, D.C., the year after graduating law school, was an Assistant Federal Public Defender in New Mexico for 5 years, and Federal Public Defender for the District of New Mexico for 13 years, until beginning private practice in 1995.
She has done 57 oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
four oral arguments before the New Mexico Supreme Court, testified before the U.S. Congress, the New Mexico legislature, and other policy making bodies, including the Navajo Nation. She collected all the federal first degree murder indictments for a two year period and testified before Congress that re-enacting the federal death penalty would apply primarily to Indians charged with first degree murder in Indian Country, and so was able to move toward enactment of the current 18 U.S.C. §3598, which provides that the federal death penalty does not apply to first degree murders on Indian land unless the tribe whose land it is has opted-in to application of the federal death penalty for murders on their land.
She was awarded NMCDLA’s highest honor, the Driscoll Award, and the Albuquerque Bar Association’s Outstanding Lawyer of the Year.
Her education is Juris Doctor from Yale Law School; Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Pittsburgh, and B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, from George Washington University.
Tova Indritz is a former national board member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and co-chairs NACDL’s Native American Justice Committee and NACDL’s Immigration Committee.
She has been a member of the NMCDLA board of directors from 1993-97 and from July, 1999 to the present.

Marc Lowry
Rothstein Donatelli LLP

500 4th Street NW, Suite 400
Albuquerque, NM 87102
T: 505-243-1443
E: mlowry@rothsteinlaw.com
www.rothsteinlaw.com/attorney_profile/6

Marc graduated from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1999 and clerked for Chief Judge Richard C. Bosson of the New Mexico Court of Appeals, New Mexico and then Chief Judge James A. Parker of the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico.  Marc joined Rothstein Donatelli LLP in the fall of 2003 where he specialized in criminal defense.  An essential focus within his criminal defense practice is overcoming irrational prosecutions by obtaining and presenting exculpatory evidence to grand juries, using the same to secure post-conviction relief, and expunging criminal records for those improperly arrested. Marc is currently serving as Secretary on the NMCDLA Board of Directors.

Jack Mkhitarian
New Mexico Criminal Law Offices

1008 5th St. NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
T. 505-375-4765
www.newmexicocriminallaw.com

Jack Mkhitarian graduated from the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management and studied law at the University of New Mexico School of Law. He is licensed in New Mexico and established a practice in Albuquerque in 2009 to practice exclusively in the area of criminal defense. He is a member of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, and an active member of the United States District Court’s Criminal Justice Act (CJA) Panel of Attorneys. Jack Mkhitarian has extensive experience in the New Mexico State Courts and has handled over 1000 cases in New Mexico District Courts, Metropolitan Court, and Magistrate and Municipal Court. He practices State-wide and has appeared in nearly every courthouse in New Mexico.