Jacob Metoxen (Oneida Nation) Tribal Healing to Wellness Court Legal Specialist Jacob S. Metoxen (Oneida Nation) is an attorney whose work focuses primarily on criminal justice. He is a former tribal prosecutor, judge, and Assistant U.S. Attorney, where he handled cases involving domestic violence in Indian Country. Jacob also has experience assisting federally recognized tribes with establishing and maintaining juvenile healing to wellness courts – working alongside court personnel to ensure programs are tailored to the community. He is passionate about helping tribes develop dynamic systems that are self-sufficient. During his spare time, Jacob enjoys spending time with his family, running, and reading.

James (Jim) Eberspacher is the director of Impaired Driving Solutions, a division of All Rise providing training and targeted assistance to treatment courts and collaborative partners that serve individuals with impaired driving offenses. He has more than two decades of cumulative experience in treatment courts, corrections, policy development, and training/technical assistance. In his current role, he is responsible for the overall daily operations, training, curriculum development, outreach, promoting the expansion of impaired driving treatment courts, and providing solutions to communities to eliminate impaired driving. Prior to joining Impaired Driving Solutions, for seven years, he served as the Minnesota state treatment court coordinator providing oversight in forming treatment court policy and strategic planning, state standards, funding, research, and delivery of training and technical assistance to treatment court teams. Prior to his role at the state level, he served as the coordinator for three treatment court teams in rural Minnesota and worked as a probation officer. Overall, Jim has over two decades of experience in treatment courts, policy development, and training/technical assistance.

Earned my Bachelor of Arts majoring in Psychology from Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts, in 1994. Began my professional career working for St. Ann’s Home, a residential treatment facility in Massachusetts working primarily with adolescent girls in a therapeutic group home. In 1998 moved to Arizona and began my career as a probation officer for Maricopa County Juvenile Probation and have been supervising youth on probation in the community for the past 26 years. My current specialized caseload is working with juveniles with sexually abusive behaviors which emphasizes collaborative approaches to community supervision and rehabilitation working closely with treatment providers, families, and other community partners.

Since 2021, I have dedicated myself to supporting individuals as a Peer Support Specialist, leveraging my extensive experience to drive positive change. In my role as Justice Services Coordinator and Probation Advocate for Behavioral Health, I have consistently worked to advocate for those in need, ensuring they receive the necessary support and resources for successful reintegration.

Jen’s role at PharmChem includes business development, sales, and agency training leader. Before joining PharmChem, she spent over ten years with Alcohol Monitoring Systems (SCRAM Systems), the world’s leading provider of continuous alcohol monitoring devices. During that time, she worked as an advisor with problem-solving courts, probation offices, sheriff’s offices, pretrial services, and more across the United States. And she was responsible for developing and implementing numerous county-wide monitoring programs that effectively targeted reducing recidivism rates for alcohol and drug offenses. She also specializes in providing continuing legal education for attorneys, courts, and related agencies within the criminal justice system.

Jessica Pearce is a senior site manager in the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ Child Welfare and Juvenile Law program. Ms. Pearce specializes in providing the nation’s juvenile and family courts with state-of-the art training on juvenile justice issues and most recently served as the editor for the Enhanced Juvenile Justice Guidelines. She specializes in the practical application of juvenile justice research and reform. In addition, Ms. Pearce has an extensive background writing and training on alcohol and other drug issues as they relate to juvenile justice including juvenile drug treatment courts. She is one of the country’s foremost experts on juvenile drug treatment courts, having spent more than twenty years developing training and technical assistance tools for use by juvenile drug treatment courts.

John R. Gallagher, PhD, LCSW, LCAC, earned his doctorate in social work from the University of Texas at Arlington and is an associate professor at Indiana University School of Social Work. He is a licensed social worker and licensed clinical addiction counselor and has worked at the Berks County, Pennsylvania, dual-diagnosis drug court; Tarrant County, Texas, drug court; and St. Joseph County, Indiana, drug court. His research agenda is related to exploring the factors that may contribute to racial disparities in drug court outcomes, assessing the use and impact of medication-assisted treatment in drug courts, and completing program evaluations for treatment courts. Dr. Gallagher is the lead researcher in numerous journal articles related to treatment courts, and his work has been cited in the NADCP Adult Drug Court Best Practice Standards. He also serves as associate editor for Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly and was recently the guest editor for a special issue on treatment courts.

Joshua Heath is a member of the Chickasaw Nation. He has been a full-time judge for the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community Court since 2024. He was a member of the Wellness Court Planning Committee and now serves as the Wellness Court Judge. Previously, he served as a full-time judge for the Tulalip Tribe of Indians in Tulalip, WA, from 2019 to 2024 and as the court’s presiding Wellness Court Judge for several years. The Tulalip Wellness Court program served as a mentor court for both the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP, now called All Rise) and the Tribal Law and Policy Institute (TLPI) while he was the judge. He also assisted in developing the Tulalip Mental Health Alternatives Program (MHAP) and was the first judge to preside over the inaugural Tulalip MHAP Court program in 2022, before joining SRPMIC’s bench. This was the first tribal mental health wellness court program in the country. Prior to this, he was a full-time judge for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians in Tacoma, WA, from 2016-2019, a full-time judge for the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Parker, AZ, (2013-2016), and was a prosecutor for the City of Glendale, AZ, from 2010 to 2013. He was the Chief Justice of the Yavapai Apache Nation Court of Appeals from 2014-2018, the Chief Justice of the Makah Tribal Court of Appeals from 2020-2025 and has been an appellate panelist for the Northwest Intertribal Court System (NICS) since 2020, which serves a number of tribal appellate courts in the Pacific Northwest. He is admitted to the Arizona and Washington State Bars, as well as to several tribal bars. He graduated with his J.D. from Regent University School of Law (cum laude) in 2010 and earned his B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Grand Canyon University (summa cum laude) in 2006.