Assistant US Attorneys Albert and Epps to become Superior Court Magistrate Judges 
 
WHAT: Installation Ceremony for Magistrate Judges Janet Albert and Diana Harris Epps  

WHERE: Third-floor atrium of the Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW  

WHEN: Monday, September 15th at 4:00pm  

WHO: Chief Judge Rufus King III, presiding Magistrate Judge-designates Janet Albert and Diana Harris Epps Judge Brook Hedge and Senior Judge Arthur L, Burnett, Sr.  

Biographies:

Janet E. Albert was born in Norwich, Connecticut and raised in Simsbury. She graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern University and received her J.D. from the Washington College of Law. While in law school, Ms. Albert was a student attorney for the Women and the Law Clinic, representing mothers in the abuse and neglect system of DC Superior Court. Ms. Albert also served as a Dean's Fellow for a family law professor and worked as a legal intern for the Office of the Corporation Counsel, Child Support Section.  

Upon completing law school, Ms. Albert returned to the Office of the Corporation Counsel where she served in the Child Support Section, Domestic Violence Unit and the Abuse & Neglect Section. Ms. Albert held numerous positions in the office, including Trial Attorney, Termination of Parental Rights Coordinator, Special Assistant to the Deputy, Family Services Division, Interim Chief of the Domestic Violence Section, and ultimately, Chief of the Abuse & Neglect Section.  

During Ms. Albert's time at the Office of the Corporation Counsel, she was a member of numerous committees responsible for improving practices in the child abuse and neglect system, including the DC Children's Advocacy Center Case Review Team and Working Group and the Child Protection Legislation Committee. She was also a member of both the Child and Family Services Agency's Child Fatality Review Committee and the DC Fatality Review Committee. Ms. Albert also participated in the DC Superior Court Improvement Project Advisory Committee and was the chair of the Mediation Subcommittee. In that capacity, she was instrumental in the establishment of the Child Protection Mediation Pilot Project that has since become a program of the DC Superior Court's Multi-Door Dispute Resolution Division.  

In 1999 Ms. Albert joined the US Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section as a trial attorney where she prosecuted Internet child pornography and child sex abuse cases on federal lands. While working in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Ms. Albert was awarded an LLM in Litigation and Dispute Resolution from GWU Law School in 2000. She became a licensed foster parent in April 2001.  

In September 2001, Ms. Albert became an Assistant United States Attorney for the United States Attorney's Office for DC During her tenure, she worked in the Appellate Division, Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section, and Community Prosecution and Grand Jury Section. Ms. Albert's most cherished accomplishment was the adoption of her son Jonathan in April 2003.  

Diana Harris Epps is a graduate of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and she received her Juris Doctor from the Facility of Law and Jurisprudence at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Following her graduation from law school, Mrs. Epps obtained a judicial law clerkship with the New York State Fourth Appellate Division located in Rochester, NY.  

Ms. Epps joined the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia in 1991. From then until the present she prosecuted countless violent offenders both in the DC Superior Court as well as the United States District Court for DC In 1998, Mrs. Epps became one of the first community prosecutors assigned to the City's seven police districts. As a community prosecutor, Mrs. Epps worked closely with local and federal law enforcement, local community groups and various local government agencies to forge partnerships between those agencies and the residents of the southeast, Anacostia region of the city. She helped develop more efficient ways of delivering the appropriate level of services to the citizens to enhance the overall quality of life in that region of the city. To that end, Mrs. Epps created and facilitated various training programs for both law enforcement and community members and she assisted the implementation of new and innovative programs sponsored by the United States Attorney's Office in partnership with the police department and the Courts. During her tenure with the United States Attorney's Office, Mrs. Epps also coordinated all fugitive extradition proceedings for the office.  

Prior to joining the United States Attorney's Office, Mrs. Epps worked for the Office of the Corporation Counsel for the District of Columbia in the Juvenile Section. While with the Corporation Counsel, she volunteered as a mentor-tutor to local high school students and served on a city wide-multi-agency committee whose goal was to design and develop alternative community based programs for the District's juvenile offenders. One such program was that of the late Honorable Luke Moore's Reclaim Our Youth Program, which was designed to partner parishioners from various religious communities with at-risk young people in need.