This month, Office of Defense Services Appellate Division Chief Nicole Walker was elected to serve as a member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (AAAL).

Walker is one of two attorneys in Delaware and one four public defenders nationwide to be elected to the AAAL.

“It is an honor to be elected to the Academy and serve as one of two members from the First State,” Walker said. “It has also been a privilege to spend my career ensuring our clients receive due process of law by providing them a voice in the most prestigious state supreme court in the country.”

The AAAL was founded in 1990 to recognize outstanding appellate lawyers and promote the improvement of appellate advocacy and the administration of the appellate courts. To be eligible for membership, a nominee’s practice must have focused substantially on appeals during at least the last 15 years. Academy membership is limited to 500 members in the United States.

The ODS’s Appellate Division, overseen by Walker, represents clients in appellate litigation as well as in post-disposition matters such as expungements, juvenile sex offender registry removal and sentence commutations. Appellate Division attorneys assist other ODS divisions with difficult legal issues, often representing clients in the Delaware Supreme Court.

Walker has represented numerous clients in appellate matters over the course of her 22-year legal career. Her work has resulted in several overturned murder convictions and, when Delaware had the death penalty, the reversal of three death sentences.  Her litigation was also integral in changes that ensured that all offenders held at violation of probation centers were entitled to credit for incarceration.