Defend(H)ers

Melinda Sarafa, NACDL Women in Criminal Defense Committee, Chip Warren
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Careers

From death row to the streets of Harlem to Guantanamo Bay, women criminal defense attorneys speak in their own voices about the cases, the clients, and the community they built for one another. Defend(H)ers is a podcast presented by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Women in Criminal Defense Committee, featuring these attorneys in extended, in-depth conversations about their work.

Episodes

  1. 17h ago ·  Video

    Melinda Sarafa & Teny Geragos

    Teny Geragos has had a run that would be difficult to make up. She delivered the opening statement in the Sean Combs trial, cross-examined the complainant in Harvey Weinstein's retrial, represented the Alexander brothers, and gave birth to her second child along the way. She heard every verdict a jury can return — acquittal, conviction, mistrial. In this conversation with Melinda Sarafa, Teny goes back to the beginning: watching her father defend Scott Peterson when she was 14, and how the pretrial media crush convinced her she wanted to fix the narrative problem — from inside a newsroom, not a courtroom. She went to NYU for media and communications, interned at network shows, and then went to law school anyway. The background didn't go to waste. They cover the Combs case in depth — the Cassie Ventura video, how the defense discovered CNN had sped the footage up by 30%, the TikTok strategy, and what it takes to separate a domestic violence charge from a sex trafficking charge when the public has already merged the two. Plus: her approach to cross-examination, why being a woman in that chair mattered, and her one piece of advice for young women considering criminal defense.

  • 1 Episode

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

From death row to the streets of Harlem to Guantanamo Bay, women criminal defense attorneys speak in their own voices about the cases, the clients, and the community they built for one another. Defend(H)ers is a podcast presented by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Women in Criminal Defense Committee, featuring these attorneys in extended, in-depth conversations about their work.

Information

  • Creator
    Melinda Sarafa, NACDL Women in Criminal Defense Committee, Chip Warren
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    1
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Defend(H)ers
  • Show Website
    Defend(H)ers