Family Court of the District of Columbia Superior Court

Judges' Bios

Chief Judge Anita Josey- Herring | Judge Peter Krauthamer | Judge Jennifer Di Toro | Magistrate Judge Kenia Seoane Lopez

Faculty Bios

Linda Delaney, J.D. | Deborah Epstein, J.D., Professor | Kit Gruelle | Evan Stark, Ph.D., M.S.W.

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Honorable Chief Judge Anita Josey-Herring was appointed to the bench in November 1997 by President William Clinton. As an Associate Judge, she served in the Family, Civil and Criminal Divisions of the court. In 2000, Judge Josey-Herring was appointed by the Chief Judge to serve as the Deputy Presiding Judge of the Family Court and later served as the Presiding Judge of the Family Court from 2006 through 2008.

Chief Judge Josey-Herring is a 1987 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. While attending Georgetown as an evening division student, she was a member of the Legal Ethics Law Journal and was employed full time in various legal support positions. Chief Judge Josey-Herring obtained a judicial clerkship position with the Honorable Herbert B. Dixon, Jr. in Superior Court of the District of Columbia. As a judicial clerk, she worked on a variety of civil law issues including family law, contract disputes, and landlord and tenant issues. In 1988, Chief Judge Josey-Herring joined the District of Columbia Public Defender Service as a staff attorney. While in the trial division, she handled a heavy caseload and litigated juvenile, misdemeanor and felony cases in the Superior Court and supervised staff attorneys. She also served in the Public Defender Service’s appellate division arguing cases before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. In 1994, while handling serious felonies and homicide cases, Chief Judge Josey-Herring was appointed by the Board of Trustees of the Public Defender Service to the position of Deputy Director of the agency. As Deputy Director, Chief Judge Josey-Herring assisted the Director in all aspects of management and administration, including budgetary decision-making and supervision of agency staff. She also directly supervised the Investigations Divisions, the Prisoner Rights Program, and the Criminal Justice Act Office that is responsible for coordinating the appointment of counsel in all criminal cases in the District of Columbia. In addition, she administered the agency’s grant funded programs and coordinated the attorney and law clerk hiring programs. She also monitored the agency’s personnel policies for compliance with personnel law and handled personnel matters along with the Director. In addition, she testified before the District of Columbia City Council on proposed criminal law legislation and other matters.

During her service in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Chief Judge Josey-Herring has led numerous initiatives to improve the quality of justice and service to litigants and attorneys alike. She led the highly regarded Family Treatment Court Initiative that provides drug treatment and social services to mothers charged with neglecting their children due to substance abuse. Additionally, Chief Judge Josey-Herring presided over the Family Treatment Court calendar from its inception and collaborated with District agencies to deliver services to parents and children in the neglect system. She also presided over the Juvenile Drug Court prior to the establishment of the Family Treatment Court. Chief Judge Josey-Herring played a significant role in the development and implementation of the D.C. Family Court and implemented numerous programs, in her role as Deputy Presiding and later Presiding Judge of Family Court, to improve the quality of justice provided to District families.

Chief Judge Josey-Herring has also served on numerous committees, including the Superior Court of the District of Columbia Rules Committee, the Criminal Justice Act Panels Committee, the Committee on Appointment of Magistrate Judges, the Court’s Privacy and Access Committee, the Strategic Planning Committee, and was the Chair of the Superior Court Judicial Education Training Committee. In 2007, Chief Judge Josey-Herring was appointed by the Mayor of the District of Columbia as a Commissioner on the Selection and Tenure of Administrative Law Judges, which she ultimately chaired.

She is also a former board member of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and has participated in numerous extracurricular activities over the course of her legal career. She has received many awards in recognition of her service to citizens of the District of Columbia.

Honorable Peter A. Krauthamer was appointed to the District of Columbia Superior Court in 2011 by President Barack Obama. Judge Krauthamer has resided in the District of Columbia and Silver Spring, Maryland since 1970. He graduated from Bethesda Chevy Chase High School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brandeis University in 1979, and a Juris Doctorate from Boston University School of Law in 1982. After graduating from law school, Judge Krauthamer began his career as a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) in 1983. While at PDS, Judge Krauthamer handled juvenile delinquency cases, adult misdemeanors and tried numerous felony cases, including serious and complex felony one cases. During his tenure at PDS, Judge Krauthamer served as Deputy Chief of the Trial Division in 1988, Trial Chief in 1990, and Training Director in 1992. He joined the Federal Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia from 1994 to 1995, and then joined the Howard University School of Law Faculty as an Assistant Professor where he taught Evidence and also served as a Clinical Supervising Attorney for the Criminal Justice Clinic from 1995 to 2000. Thereafter, Judge Krauthamer served as Deputy Director for the District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency until 2004 when he rejoined PDS as its Deputy Director until his judicial appointment. Since his appointment to the Superior Court bench, Judge Krauthamer served in the Civil Division from January 2012 until January 2013, when he began his current assignment in the Family Court. Judge Krauthamer is married and has two sons.

Honorable Jennifer Di Toro was nominated by President Barack Obama in February 2011, and confirmed by the Senate in September 2011.

Judge Di Toro holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University, a Master’s Degree from The University of Oxford and a Masters in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center. Following graduation from Stanford Law School, she received an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship to work in the Georgetown University Law Center’s Criminal Justice Clinic. There she represented low-income residents of the District of Columbia in D.C. Superior Court. She also supervised law students handling misdemeanor cases. After the completion of her Fellowship, Judge Di Toro joined the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia as a staff attorney. In addition to handling misdemeanor and felony cases, Judge Di Toro also worked in the Special Litigation Division where she assisted in preparing impact litigation suits, and for the General Counsel’s office handling ethics and conflicts inquiries.

Judge Di Toro has also been in private practice, as an associate at the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. There, she participated in white-collar criminal defense, complex civil litigation, and provided direct representation to clients in D.C. Superior Court.

During her fifteen years of practice, Jennifer Di Toro has worked in government, in private practice, and legal services. She joins the Superior Court for the District of Columbia from The District of Columbia’s Children’s Law Center, where she served for seven years as the organization’s Legal Director. At The Children’s Law Center, Judge Di Toro oversaw the work of nearly fifty lawyers engaged in all aspects of litigation involving children and families in the District of Columbia. Judge Di Toro was responsible for hiring, training, and supervising attorneys and supervisors assisting families seeking custody, guardianship, adoption, access to health care and special education services for needy children and families. Together with other members of the Center’s management team, Judge Di Toro established supervision standards, training and litigation protocols, and program expansion and innovation.

Throughout her career Judge Di Toro has been an active member of the legal profession. She has trained law students, attorneys working in legal services and those in private practice through the Washington Council of Lawyers, Georgetown University Law Center, and the Harvard Law School.

Honorable Kenia Seoane Lopez is a Magistrate Judge in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Prior to her appointment in 2012, Judge Seoane López served as a Bilingual Attorney Negotiator in the Domestic Violence Unit of the Superior Court. Before joining the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, she was an Assistant Attorney General in the Legal Services Section of the Child Support Division in the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. Judge Seoane López is a Board Member of the Spanish Education Development Center, the Chair of the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia Judicial Council, and a former president of the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia.

Judge Seoane López received her Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice, cum laude, from Northeastern University, her Masters of Arts degree in Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School, and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Upon graduating from law school, Judge Seoane López clerked for the Massachusetts Superior Court and then for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

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Read Faculty Bios

Linda Delaney, J.D., is a Partner at Delaney Stafford L.L.C., a family law firm dedicated to working on behalf of families of separation and divorce. Ms. Delaney has devoted the majority of her career working on behalf of children and families in the process of separation and divorce. Of these family matters, she has concentrated on complex cases that involve issues that include domestic violence, addiction, mental health, and children with special needs. Incorporating both the law and the social science, Ms. Delaney strives to bring empirically based, best practice standards and always a child-centered approach to her cases and when invited to participate as CLE faculty member and panelist. Acknowledged for her work on behalf of children and spouses who are victims of domestic violence, Ms. Delaney was a recent recipient of the Community Partners Award from the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence for her exceptional support to the domestic violence community including victims and survivors.

Throughout her career, Ms. Delaney consistently served in a pro bono capacity supporting organizations dedicated to serve children and families in need. Of late, she currently serves as a founding board member and immediate past president of the Maryland Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), a multidisciplinary organization that promotes the collaboration of judges, attorneys, mental health providers, and court administrators in their work for children of separation and divorce. As the President of the Maryland Chapter of AFCC, Ms. Delaney established a state-wide education program that included a traveling roadshow of AFCC faculty members that brought cutting edge educational programs to family law professionals working in every judicial circuit in the state. She is also a member of the Advisory Council for the Better Life Lab of the New America Foundation, a program designed to promote a public policy debate among community and business leaders on the most pressing workforce and family issues of the day. Ms. Delaney also served as a member on the Georgetown Child Mental Health Advisory Council, a multi-disciplinary professional group that advances the mission of the Georgetown University’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry department headed by Matthew Biel, MD, through outreach and philanthropic support. She also serves as an Alternative Dispute Resolution facilitator for the D.C. Family Court.

Ms.Delaney is a Fellow of the American Association of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML). In addition to her work with the Maryland Chapter of the AFCC, she has long served as a faculty member for continuing legal education courses sponsored by the AAML, the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association, the Family Law Section of the D.C. Bar, the Bar Association of Montgomery County and has provided training for members of the judiciary in the District of Columbia and the State of Maryland as well as at the National Conferences of the ABA and the AFCC.

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Deborah Epstein, J.D., Professor, has been Co-Director of the Georgetown University Law Center’s Domestic Violence Clinic for over 25 years. She has spent more than 30 years advocating for the rights of survivors of domestic violence and has represented hundreds of women in civil protection order cases, written extensively in the field, and trained police officers, advocates and judges across the country and internationally. Epstein co-chaired the DC Superior Court’s effort to design and implement its Domestic Violence Unit, an early model effort to integrate civil and criminal cases involving intimate abuse. She has served as the Chair of the D.C. Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, co-Director of the D.C. Superior Court Domestic Violence Intake Center, a member of the D.C. Mayor’s Commission on Violence Against Women, a member of the D.C. Superior Court Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, and a member of the Board of Directors at both the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the House of Ruth. Her book, Listening to Battered Women: A Survivor-Centered Approach to Advocacy, draws on her experience representing hundreds of women in civil protection order cases and her commitment to lifting up the voices of domestic violence survivors seeking safety.

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Kit Gruelle, a survivor of domestic violence, who has worked as an advocate for battered women and their children for 33 years. As a renowned community educator, she has trained scores of advocates, criminal justice professionals (law enforcement, prosecutors, magistrates and judges), health care providers, clergy, legislators, educators, and other allied professionals on the complexities of domestic, sexual, and family abuse. She has guest lectured at colleges, universities, medical and law schools, schools of social work and public heath, and departments of sociology, women’s studies, and psychology on violence against women and children. In 1996, while she was working at Family Violence and Rape Crisis Services in Pittsboro, N.C., she created and managed the BRIDGES Program, one of the first Coordinated Community Response (CCR) programs in North Carolina. For the last twenty-one years, she has been a subject matter expert and trainer for California POST (Peace Officers Standards and Training), helping develop training films and curricula for first responders, public safety dispatchers, and hostage/ crisis negotiators. She has served as an expert witness for battered women in both state and federal courts. Ms. Gruelle is the advocate/subject of Private Violence, an intimate and compelling documentary on domestic abuse which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and then on HBO in October, 2014. She is also a co-author, with Dr. Elicka Peterson Sparks, of a gender-based violence textbook, Intimate Partner Violence: Effective Procedure, Response and Policy. In 2012, Ms. Gruelle graduated from Appalachian State University in Boone, Noth Carolina with a B.S. in Sociology (concentration in gender-based violence).

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Evan Stark, Ph.D., M.S.W., is a sociologist, forensic social worker and award-winning researcher with an international reputation for his innovative work on the legal, policy and health dimensions of interpersonal violence, including their effect on children. His critically acclaimed book, Coercive Control: The Entrapment of Women in Personal Life (Oxford, 2007) is credited with the adaptation of a New Definition of Woman Abuse by Great Britain and with influencing new laws in England, Scotland and the Irish Republic, Taiwan, and elsewhere that recognize abuse as a “liberty crime.” A founder of one of the first shelters for abused women in the U.S., Dr. Stark co-directed the Yale Trauma Studies with Dr. Anne Flitcraft, path-breaking research that was the first to document the significance of domestic violence for female injury, child abuse, and women’s health in the 1980’s. Dr. Stark has served as an expert in more than 100 criminal and civil cases, including Nicholson v. Williams, which made it unconstitutional to take children from mothers because they were abused. His evidence before the Royal High Court in England was critical to the successful Appeal of Sally Challen murder case. He has held academic appointments at Yale, the University of Edinburgh, and Bristol University and served as a consultant educator with women and justice organizations throughout the world, including Australia, Russia, Canada, El Salvador, Turkey, Serbia, and Taiwan. Dr. Stark is a Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Public Health at Rutgers, the State University in New Jersey.

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