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Spanish teacher turned lawyer joins PDO
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Posted on Jan 20 2006
An English and Spanish teacher turned lawyer joins the CNMI Public Defender’s Office after serving as law clerk for over two years with Superior Court Associate Judge Kenneth Govendo.
Attorney Kelley Marie Butcher, who passed the CNMI Bar last year, began her new job as an assistant public defender early this week, the Saipan Tribune learned yesterday.
Acting Chief Public Defender Elisa Long confirmed that Butcher indeed joined the PDO team and that she is very happy with the lawyer’s decision.
Butcher, of San Diego, California, graduated in 2003 from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. She came to Saipan in September of the same year to work as a law clerk for Govendo.
Cyndi Indalecio, secretary of Govendo, described Butcher as “nice, sweet, and very competent.”
Indalecio said a month before the lawyer arrived on the island, she already knew that Butcher is a nice person by just talking to her on the phone.
Butcher was the founder, director and teacher of an English as a Second Language Program in Mexico in 1991 to 1993.
As a teacher, she taught English as a second language and Spanish from beginning to advanced levels at Tennessee Foreign Language Institute.
She also worked as a financial representative at the Union Bank of California, in National City, California, in 1998 to 2000.
In 1995 to 1997, she became a law clerk at the Law Offices of Ramos and Ramos in Nashville, TN.
Butcher served a legal intern in 2000 at the Supreme Court of Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she participated in the Mexican Court System as part of a summer abroad program. She analyzed differences between Mexican and American legal systems, reviewed criminal and civil cases, and other works.
For five months in 2001, Butcher served as an administrative legal assistant for Southern District of California Magistrate Judge John A. Houston.
On the same year, she served for four months as legal intern for U.S. District Court Southern District of California Judge Napoleon A. Jones Jr.
In 2002, she was the administrative legal assistant for U.S. District Court Southern District of California Judge M. James Lorenz.
