Clients with Sex Offenses, Part II: Interpreting the Data for Defense Advocacy

Clients with sex offenses often face assumptions about risk, rehabilitation, and future dangerousness that can heavily influence advocacy and decision-making. For defense teams, understanding how research, risk assessment tools, and related data are used, interpreted, and sometimes misunderstood is essential to building effective, evidence-informed advocacy.

Join us on August 11 at 1 p.m. ET with Matt Vigil, Supervising Attorney with Saint Louis University School of Law’s Legal Clinics, for a practical follow-up to ARC’s Clients with Sex Offenses: What the Data Says webinar. During this session, we will examine how risk assessment results and other data can be contextualized within a client’s life history and presented to judges and other decision-makers.

Participants will explore how to work effectively with experts, identify common misconceptions that can shape outcomes in these cases, and present data in ways that support client-centered advocacy. This webinar is designed for attorneys, mitigation specialists, investigators, social workers, and other defense practitioners working with clients with sex offenses.

Click the link below to register. 

This webinar will be recorded. CLE credits are not available for this webinar; however, a letter of attendance will be provided upon request to Mary Roberts at [email protected].

Speaker’s Bio:

Matt Vigil is an Adjunct Professor and Clinic Staff Attorney at Saint Louis University School of Law with extensive experience in criminal defense and sentencing mitigation, particularly in sex offense cases. A 2011 graduate of SLU Law, Matt began his legal career in the school’s Legal Clinic before joining the Missouri State Public Defender’s Clayton Trial Office in 2012.

In 2016, Matt joined the Missouri State Public Defender’s Commitment Defense Unit, where he represented clients facing civil commitment proceedings under Missouri’s Sexually Violent Predator statute. During his tenure, he developed substantial expertise in sex offense sentencing mitigation and served as a resource for public defenders across the state, training, and consulting with trial attorneys on mitigation strategies, sentencing advocacy, and case development in sex offense matters.

In 2019, Matt joined the Public Defender’s Eastern Capital Litigation Unit as Associate Trial Counsel. He returned to SLU Law in 2020 to serve as Clinic Staff Attorney, where he leads a legal services partnership with a local nonprofit workforce development program. He also teaches the Public Interest Field Placement Seminar and a course on sentencing mitigation.

Matt has presented extensively on sex offense sentencing mitigation at Missouri State Public Defender training programs and has served on the faculty of new defender training workshops. His teaching and practice focus on effective mitigation advocacy, sentencing strategy, and client-centered representation.