Our Team

Bar Admissions
Washington State Bar, 2007; Oregon State Bar, 2013

Bio
The Forensic Justice Project is led by Executive Director Janis C. Puracal, a litigator with over a decade of experience in trial and appellate work in state and federal courts. Janis has encouraged decisions based on sound science in civil and criminal cases and has been instrumental in advocating for changes in the law based on developments in various fields of scientific study. Janis was a young civil litigator when her brother, Jason, was wrongfully convicted in Nicaragua, and she became devoted to innocence work after she successfully represented Jason in an international campaign to win his exoneration and bring him home. Jason was freed in September 2012 after nearly two years in captivity. Janis’s work including briefing in Nicaraguan and international courts, diplomatic relations in the U.S. and Nicaragua, lobbying on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., and media appearances on a national and international level, including CNN, Reuters, and The Today Show. Since Jason’s release, Janis has continued to work with her brother to advocate for legal reform and won awards for her pro bono contributions to social justice. She is an Associate Member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and an adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where she teaches a course on wrongful convictions. Janis continues to work to prevent and correct wrongful convictions through the Forensic Justice Project.

Bar Admissions
Massachusetts, 2000; Oregon, 2013

Bio
Professor Aliza B. Kaplan serves as Of Counsel to the Forensic Justice Project. Aliza teaches Lawyering and is the Director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic where students engage in a critical examination of and participation in important and complex issues and cases in the criminal justice system. She also helped create the Community Law Division at Metropolitan Public Defender and co-founded the Oregon Innocence Project. She is also a documentary film producer—the 2007 film she co-produced, My Country, My Country, was nominated for an Academy Award, and her 2010 film, The Oath, was nominated for two news Emmy Awards. Prior to teaching at Lewis & Clark, Aliza was an Associate Professor of Legal Skills at Brooklyn Law School. She was also the Deputy Director of the national Innocence Project and co-founded the New England Innocence Project. She was an associate at Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault in Boston and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Judge Joseph E. Irenas of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Professor Kaplan was the 2015 recipient of the Leo Levenson Award for Excellence in Teaching. She teaches, gives presentations on and researches/writes in the areas of criminal law and public interest lawyering.

Bar Admissions
Massachusetts State Bar 2007; Oregon State Bar 2017

Bio
Alice grew up in Washington, D.C. before attending high school and college in Massachusetts. She first became interested in criminal law while working as a paralegal for two years for a criminal defense and civil liberties firm in Boston. That interest led her to the Cardozo School of Law, where she participated in clinical programs with the Innocence Project and Legal Aid Society. After law school, she worked for almost ten years as a staff attorney and supervisor in the Massachusetts public defender’s office. She represented more than a thousand clients in that time on charges ranging from trespass to attempted murder and everything in between. She relocated to Portland in 2017. In her spare time, Alice loves cooking, gardening, puzzles, and exploring Oregon with her family.