Family Court of the District of Columbia Superior Court

Judges' Bios

Chief Judge Anita Josey-Herring | Judge Jennifer Di Toro | Judge Darlene Soltys |Judge Adrienne Jennings Noti |

Speaker Bios

Rashida Prioleau | A.Rachel Camp | Kimberly Daulton |

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Honorable Chief Judge Anita Josey-Herring, President William Clinton appointed the Honorable Anita Josey-Herring to the bench in November 1997. As an Associate Judge, she served in the court's Family, Civil and Criminal Divisions. 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 Legal Ethics Law Journal member. She 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 the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. As a judicial clerk, she worked on various civil 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, 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. She was 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 to comply with personnel law and handled personnel matters with the Director. In addition, she testified before the District of Columbia City Council on proposed criminal law legislation and other issues. 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 kindness 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. She also collaborated with District agencies to deliver services to parents and children in the neglected system. She also presided over the Juvenile Drug Court before establishing the Family Treatment Court. Chief Judge Josey-Herring played a significant role in the development and implementation of the D.C. Family Court. In her role as Deputy Presiding and later Presiding Judge of Family Court, she implemented numerous programs to improve the quality of justice provided to District families.

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Judge 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 Master's 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 Judge Di Toro represented low-income residents of the District of Columbia in the D.C. Superior Court. She also supervised law students handling misdemeanor cases. After completing her Fellowship, Judge Di Toro joined the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia as a staff attorney. There she managed misdemeanor and felony cases. Judge Di Toro also worked in the Special Litigation Division and assisted in preparing impact litigation suits. She also worked in the General Counsel's Office, handling ethics and conflict inquiries. Judge Di Toro has also been in private practice as an associate at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP law firm. There, she participated in white-collar criminal defense and complex civil litigation. She provided direct representation to clients in D.C. Superior Court. Judge Di Toro has worked in government, private practice, and legal services during her fifteen years of practice. She joined the Superior Court for the District of Columbia from The District of Columbia's Children's Law Center, serving 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. Judge Di Toro established supervision standards, training, litigation protocols, and program expansion and innovation with other Center members' management team members. Throughout her career, Judge Di Toro has been an active member of the legal profession. She has trained law students and attorneys in legal services and private practice through the Washington Council of Lawyers, Georgetown University Law Center, and the Harvard Law School.

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Judge Darlene Soltys, In July 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Darlene M. Soltys for appointment to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The Senate confirmed her nomination as Associate Judge on December 17, 2015. Judge Soltys grew up in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She graduated with honors from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, majoring in Political Science and History, and received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center (GULC). At GULC, she participated in the Criminal Justice Clinic, representing indigent people charged in the Superior Court. Judge Soltys served as the first law clerk to the Honorable Gregory E. Mize. She worked for the then-Office of Corporation Counsel, trying cases against juvenile respondents. Judge Soltys served as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Prince Georges County, Maryland, in the Child Abuse and Sexual Assault Section and later in the Homicide Section. In 2004, Judge Soltys joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. During her tenure there, Judge Soltys served primarily in the Violent Crimes and Narcotics Trafficking Section of the Criminal Division, trying cases in federal District Court. Judge Soltys participated in long[1] term investigations using wiretap authorizations and other forms of electronic surveillance to infiltrate violent gangs and drug trafficking organizations alongside members of the FBI/MPD Safe Streets Task Force. Judge Soltys is a recipient of the Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney. She was named Senior Litigation Counsel in 2013 and received numerous special achievement awards from USAO-DC. Judge Soltys also collaborated with visiting foreign prosecutors and jurists and lectured at area law schools on gang prosecutions and electronic surveillance. Her first judicial assignment was in the Probate/Tax Division. Since 2019, she has served in Family Court, first in the Domestic Relations Branch handling divorce and custody cases, and now as Deputy Presiding Judge.

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Judge Adrienne Jennings Noti was sworn in as a Magistrate Judge on the District of Columbia Superior Court in 2014. Judge Noti has served in all divisions of the Superior Court. Before her appointment, Judge Noti worked at the Office of Child Support Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she developed and implemented a federal child support policy. Previously, Judge Noti practiced family law for ten years. She served as a Managing Attorney at the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program, coordinating the Advocacy and Justice Clinic. From 2002 – 2010, Judge Noti was a clinical law professor. As a Practitioner-in-Residence at American University’s Washington College of Law, she supervised the representation of low-income clients in family law cases in the Superior Court. Before that, at Rutgers School of Law – Newark, she led a law clinic and pro bono project. Judge Noti was previously a staff attorney with the Safe Horizon Domestic Violence Law Project in New York City. Judge Noti has taught as an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Social Work, Rutgers University - Newark, American University’s Washington College of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center. Judge Noti is a native Washingtonian and graduate of D.C. public schools. Judge Noti received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her Juris Doctorate, magna cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable Carol Bagley Amon on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

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Rashida Prioleau, Rashida Prioleau is the Chief of the Child Protection Section II, in the Family Services Division at the Office of the Attorney General, for the District of Columbia. For fourteen years, Rashida handled the civil prosecution of child abuse and neglect cases in the District of Columbia. Rashida has vast experience in working with a diverse team of professionals including social workers, medical experts, federal and local law enforcement, child advocates, and mental health professionals. Rashida is particularly skilled at using a multidisciplinary team approach in the prosecution and treatment of child abuse. Rashida has experience working in specialty assignments such as working with unaccompanied refugee minors and working at the Child Advocacy Center as part of the multidisciplinary team participating in the forensic interviews of alleged child victims of physical or sexual abuse. In January 2018, Rashida became the sole child welfare prosecutor in HOPE Court, a treatment court in the District of Columbia that works with sexually exploited children in the child welfare and juvenile systems. Rashida provides training to international and national audiences on the dangers, warning signs, and risk factors of the commercial sexual exploitation of minors. Rashida is the co-chair of the DC Human Trafficking Task Force a group of just under three hundred members of federal and local government agencies, medical professionals, and NGOs dedicated to anti-trafficking work. In her current role as Chief, Rashida manages a group of Assistant Attorney Generals handling the civil prosecution of abuse and neglect, including those that appear in appear in HOPE Court.

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A.Rachel Camp is a Co-Director of the Domestic Violence Clinic and a Professor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center. She joined Georgetown’s faculty in 2011 and became a co-director of the Domestic Violence Clinic (DVC) in 2013. Professor Camp has extensive experience teaching domestic violence law, lawyering and litigation skills, and about the art of teaching and supervision. She has represented, and has supervised law students representing, hundreds of survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in civil protection order and family law cases, both at Georgetown and as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the University of Baltimore School of Law. In addition to direct legal representation, Professor Camp has supervised law students on community education and systemic legal reform projects aimed at increasing access to justice for survivors. Professor Camp currently serves on the D.C. Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board and the Board of Directors of the D.C. Affordable Law Firm. Professor Camp writes on clinical pedagogy and has published articles on a range of topics relating to best methods for teaching and supervising law students. Additionally, her scholarship explores the intersection of IPV, shame, and litigation. Pursuing Accountability for Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence: The Peril (and Utility?) of Shame, 98 Boston Univ. L. Rev. 1677 (2018), explores how formal and informal methods of shaming those who harm lead to counterproductive outcomes for reducing violence in intimate relationships. From Experiencing Abuse to Seeking Protection: Examining the Shame of Intimate Partner Violence, 13 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 103 (2022), examines how shame can permeate a survivor’s experience with IPV on individual, social, and institutional levels. Professor Camp provides trainings to a range of audiences on shame, IPV, and trauma, including judges, legal practitioners, and non-lawyer professionals. In addition to her work in the DVC, Professor Camp is the faculty director for the D.C. Affordable Law Firm LL.M. program.

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Kimberly Daulton is the Children’s Law Center Director of Social Work. She oversees the organization’s social work program, a collaborative effort between Children’s Law Center’s social workers and attorneys. Under her leadership, the organization has increased its capacity to provide clinical assessments, holistic recommendations, and robust advocacy on numerous legal cases. Kim was hired as the organization’s first clinical social worker in 2010 and grew the program to what it is today. She oversees a staff of five social workers and is a core member on numerous/dozens of family law cases each year, including child welfare, special education, and custody matters. In addition to her work at Children’s Law Center, Kim interviews and assesses prospective adoptive parents by providing psychoeducation and preparing home studies for private adoptions. Kim has also directly worked in therapeutic foster care as a case carrying social worker, clinical supervisor and foster parent trainer and recruiter. Additionally, she was a therapist providing individual, couples, and family attachment based and trauma-informed therapies. Kim has extensive training and certifications in advanced trauma treatment, attachment focused therapies, compassion fatigue, domestic violence, and substance use disorders. She uses these trainings, paired with her twenty-plus years of hands-on social work experience, to train judges, lawyers, students, and fellow social workers.

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