Stephanie Duncan-Peters was born in New York, New York. She was a 1970

graduate of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. She received her B.A. from

Muhlenberg College in 1974 and her J.D. from Catholic University in 1977. At Catholic

University, she was the Chancellor of the Moot Court Board, a member of the Law

Review, and the winner of two appellate advocacy competitions. Following her graduation

from law school, she clerked for the Honorable Stanley S.Harris, who was then an associate

judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Ms. Duncan-Peters joined the staff of the Public Defender Service for the District of

Columbia in 1978. She became the deputy chief of felony trials in 1982, and remained with

the Public Defender Service until 1985. In 1985, Ms. Duncan-Peters became a trial attorney

with the public integrity section in the criminal division of the United States Department of

Justice. In that capacity, she handled federal grand jury investigations, trials and appeals

throughout the United States involving the alleged corruption of public officials. When Ms.

Duncan-Peters left the Justice Department in 1989, she joined the law firm of Chaikin and

Karp, P.C. where she litigated personal injury cases on behalf of plaintiffs in the District of

Columbia and Maryland.

Throughout her career, Ms. Duncan-Peters has been active in the District of

Columbia Bar and the community. She is currently on the Steering Committee of the Injury

to Persons and Property section of the D.C. Bar, and has previously served on the

Criminal Law and Individual Rights Steering Committee. She taught criminal trial practice at

Catholic University’s Law School from 1984 to 1990, and has been an instructor at the

Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, the

Criminal Practice Institute, and The Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute. Currently, she is

a volunteer at the hospice unit of the Washington Home.