JOANE GARCIA-COLSON
Trial Consulstant
Joane Garcia-Colson spent her childhood in a small mountain town in Colorado where she developed a life-long love of the mountains. She spent her early years exploring her passion for all things creative: writing, singing, acting, drawing, painting, and cooking. In 1984, she graduated with a BFA in Musical Theatre and has performed in several musicals across the country. Her most recent role was as the Female Authority Figure in Hairspray. Some would say that that was type casting.
After her son was born, Joane reluctantly gave up the theater but determined to put her performance skills to work helping people. Law school was the obvious choice. With her background in the threatre, trial work was the perfect vehicle.
Joane graduated with honors from the University of Denver College of Law in 1990. She is a former member of the faculty of Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College and served as its Executive Director from 2000 to 2009. When Joane was an active trial lawyer, she represented numerous plaintiffs in both state and federal courts on a variety of cases. In 1998, she obtained a $62 million verdict in Federal Court in the Central District of California, one of the largest verdicts in the history of the State of California in a wrongful termination/breach of oral employment contract case on behalf of a former vice-president of a large hearing aid manufacturer.
Joane has spent years intensively studying psychodrama and sociometry, and is a certified psychodramatist. She has worked as a trial consultant for numerous lawyers across the country on a wide variety of cases, both civil and criminal. She uses her performance and psychodrama skills, and her years of experience in the art of communication, to make a difference in the lives of the clients she has worked with. Joane is passionate about helping lawyers and their clients become more effective at communicating their clients’ stories to a jury.
Over the years, Joane has spoken to and/or given numerous presentations and workshops for a variety of trial lawyer associations across the country. She is co-author of Trial In Action: The Persuasive Power of Psychodrama published by Trial Guides and has also been published in a variety of legal publications. Joane and co-authors Fredilyn Sison and Mary Peckham are dedicated to helping trial lawyers recognize and realize their full potential using the modalities of psychodrama, sociometry, sociodrama, improvisation, storytelling, and play back theatre, along with other cutting-edge communication methods.
Believing that “life is a journey and not a destination,” Joane attended culinary school in 2012. In a moment of temporary insanity, she opened a restaurant in Palm Springs that quickly became one of the top restaurants in the Coachella Valley. She retired from the culinary world in the summer of 2018.
MARY C. PECKHAM
Mary grew up in Colorado, where she makes her home. After graduation from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, Mary became a VISTA volunteer in Detroit and stayed in Michigan to be a director and counselor for disadvantaged children. Mary then returned home, graduating from the University of Denver College of Law in 1979. Mary became a lawyer because she wanted to help people. She later served on the Committee for Justice for Abused Women (CJAWS) where she was instrumental in establishing Colorado’s existing statutes concerning domestic violence.
When Mary founded her firm Kurtz and Peckham with Katy Kurtz in 1979, she committed to three values: excellence, integrity, and compassion. This commitment has only deepened and sharpened over the years. Her commitment to address each client’s unique individual circumstances in the most thoughtful and effective way possible remains a hallmark of her practice.
Mary is admitted to practice in all state courts in Colorado and the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. Her practice centers around all aspects of family law, wills and estates and probate. She is a member of the Colorado Bar Association, the Denver Bar Association, Family Law Section, and the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association.
Mary was a staff member of Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College in Dubois, Wyoming. Mary’s work with Trial Lawyers College led her to a rigorous course of study in psychodrama and sociometry, and she has been certified as a practitioner (CP) and trainer (TEP) in psychodrama and sociometry.
Mary, whose daughter Audie is a teacher and writer, likes to spend her free time with her husband, Paul, hiking, camping, motorcycling and traveling. Her other interests include learning to speak Spanish.
FREDILYN SISON
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Training Coordinator and Director
Federal Public Defendant for the Western District of North Carolina
1 Page Avenue, Suite 210, Asheville, NC 28801
(828) 232-9992, FAX (828) 232-9992
Where hasn’t Fredi worked? She’s been an Assistant Federal Defender in Omaha, Nebraska; Boise, Idaho; Reno, Nevada and Asheville, North Carolina, with side stops in Washington, DC as visiting counsel at the Defendant Training Branch and at the U.S. Sentencing Commission. She’s in such “high demand” that she recently received a recruiting email asking her if she would like to be a legal assistant in an up and coming workers’ comp firm. She wrote back thanking them but she was having too much fun being an advocate for poor people and had to decline their lovely offer. Then she killed her LinkedIn account.
An honors grad of Cornell University and New York University School of Law, Fredi has served on the faculty for numerous programs around the country. Her favorite tag line during her teaching sessions is, “You understand this is interactive, right?” To date, no one has successfully slunk down low enough for her to not make eye contact and ask for a volunteer.
Fredi co-authored Trial In Action: The Persuasive Power of Psychodrama and expects to be an answer to a trivia question one day because of it. She’s written article/chapters on various topics: child pornography, voir dire, cross-examination and the effects of incarceration on families. Her passions include psychodrama (where she’s certified as a practitioner, not to be confused with being certified period), piano, and Improv. She will pay improv games all day if allowed, and you’ll often hear her muttering, “Whoosh, Bang, Pow!”
ROBERT L. COLLINS of Houston
Course Advisor
robertcollins@psychodramaworkshop.com
Robert is the author of the “Litigating Bus Crash Cases” chapter of the West Publishing treatise on “Litigating Truck Accident Cases,” He has served as Chair of the AAJ Trucking Litigation Group, Chair of the AAJ Bus Litigation Group, and Chair of the AAJ Motor Vehicle Collision, Highways and Premises Liability Section.
A prosecutor for many years, Robert has also tried truck and bus cases for four decades from coast to coast, he has served as plaintiffs’ class counsel in “multiple death bus/truck crash” cases, and he served as court-appointed plaintiffs’ class counsel with Irving Younger in the first mass tort wrongful death class action in the United States – the Kansas City Hyatt Skywalk Disaster - representing 113 wrongful death cases and hundreds of injury cases.
Robert currently maintains an active trial docket in Texas, New Mexico,
California, and Washington in state and federal courts. He has tried cases in several other states as well.
Having served for several years on the Texas State Bar Disciplinary Committee, Robert served as Chair of that committee and serves as an expert witness on lawyer ethics and attorney’s fees.
A Diplomate and member of the Board of Trustees of the National College of Advocacy, Robert created and has served as course Advisor of the AAJ Trucking Litigation Skills College, and he has served as Course Advisor for the AAJ Jazz Fest Seminar and various Seminars for AAJ, the State Bar of Texas, numerous other trial bar and trial lawyer organizations around the country and the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys, where he also serves as an officer and on the Board of Regents. Robert has also been an invited speaker for the North American Brain Injury Society and he lectures and teaches regularly about litigating traumatic brain damage and trucking cases around the country.
Robert has used Psychodrama in dealing with witnesses and clients for many years, even before he knew it had a name. He regularly works with experts to reveal and develop the truth of story in the cases he litigates. Robert strongly believes "the Case Truth is revealed by the Case Story - that is what happened, the human results and why. This story and the facts of an event are most richly and articulately revealed by use of psychodrama to re-live the events."