Judge Aquilina will share her experience presiding over the Larry Nassar sentencing hearing in Ingham County, Michigan, including strategic choices she made, and why survivors’ voices featured so prominently in the hearing.

Ms. Milleville will share her experience prosecuting licensed health care professionals who abuse their position of trust in order to sexually assault patients. She will discuss the unique challenges involved in prosecuting these cases, addressing common victim dynamics and why predators masquerading as health care professionals can go undetected for so long.

Ms. Coppleson will discuss the Illinois Sexual Assault Incident Procedure Act—why this law was created, how it holds law enforcement accountable for investigating sexual assault, and how it might be useful in jurisdictions beyond Illinois.

Ms. Dunn will discuss her work representing sexual assault survivors bringing challenges against colleges and universities for failing to appropriately handle their complaints. She will also discuss her national policy work in relation to Title IX.

Professor Allen will discuss her proposal for reframing sexual assault messaging around public health concerns. This approach, she believes, holds more promise than criminal law interventions do as a way of shifting societal perceptions around sexual assault, denormalizing rape, and ensuring better outcomes for victims.

Professor Avalos will discuss her proposal for refocusing criminal law’s sexual assault lens in order to scrutinize a common but overlooked scenario – “first encounters” where the parties have never before shared sexual contact. She argues that in these first encounter scenarios, the crime of sexual assault should be reframed to consider whether the perpetrator meaningfully sought the victim’s consent before initiating sexual activity.