About me
Professor Kelly Tait is an adjunct professor and a communication consultant who specializes in justice system education. Her areas of expertise include communicating with self-represented litigants, procedural fairness, courtroom communication skills, implicit bias, intercultural communication, social cognition and decision-making, demeanor issues, dealing with challenging people, and faculty development. She is also a Certified Justice System Coach. Professor Tait has taught justice system professionals across the United States and Canada as well as in Russia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Philippines, and the Caribbean. She has been on faculty of the National Judicial College since 2002. She has taught for the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association, National Association of Women Judges, National Center for Courts and Media, National Association of Administrative Law Judges, National Tribal Judicial Center, California Judicial Council, Supreme Court of Virginia, and the New York State Judicial Institute, among many other organizations.
Prof. Tait is a past president of the National Association of State Judicial Educators (NASJE) and is a long-term member of the NASJE News Editorial Board and the NASJE Diversity, Fairness, and Access Committee. Her most recent publication is “Procedural Fairness: A Treat for the Brain” in Case In Point (2016; http://www.judges.org/news/case-in-point/). She is one of the co-authors of the U. S. bench book “Handling Cases Involving Self-Represented Litigants: A National Bench Guide for Judges.” She has taught communication at the University of Nevada, Reno, for 19 years, as well as teaching for the University of Maryland in Heidelberg, Germany.
Prof. Tait often co-presents with Hon. David Suntag, who has over 25 years of experience as a State of Vermont trial court judge and over fifteen years of experience as a judicial educator. They combine their communication and judicial expertise on numerous topics including procedural fairness, handling cases involving self-represented litigants, and oral decision-making. Prof. Tait can be contacted at ktconsulting@aol.com.