11079-2015-Bozeman

MTLA Fall Seminar

Grace Under Fire:

Effective Advocacy For People

November 13, 2015
Hilton Garden Inn
2023 Commerce Way
Bozeman, MT

Seminar Co-Chairs:
Alex Rate, Bozeman

Justin Stalpes, Bozeman

Live Interactive OPTION - Problems with driving winter roads, hotel costs, time away from office? MTLA and Fisher Video Conferencing have a solution.

If you plan to attend by live remote from the Fisher location in Billings, Butte, Missoula, Great Falls, Kalispell or Helena, please call Carisa Fisher at 406-451-4842 AND register on line.

During online registration use the COMMENTS box to enter the remote location site nearest to you.

Seminar Sponsors FISHER - Video Conferencing \| Court Reporting \| Video Services \| Trial Presentation Consultation

Schedule 6.5 CLE Credits – including 1 ethics

7:30		Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:00		Introduction & Welcome Justin Stalpes, Bozeman
8:15		What Did the 2014 Elections Teach Us About Campaign Finance? Jonathan Motl, Helena
9:00		Effective Appellate Advocacy Hon. Justice James Shea Montana Supreme Court, Helena
10:00		BREAK
10:15		Whistleblower Claims: Fighting Fraud and Corruption Loren Jacobson, Dallas, TX
11:15		Lessons for Trying a Case in a Conservative Small Town Randi McGinn, Albequerque, NM
12:15		LUNCH (on your own)
1:30		Judicial Panel on Professional Ethics And Civility in the Courtroom (1 ethics credit) • Hon. John C. Brown, Eighteenth Judicial District, Bozeman • Hon. Brenda R. Gilbert, Sixth Judicial District, Livingston • Hon. Mike Salvagni, Eighteenth Judicial District, Bozeman
2:30		Diminishing Civil Rights in Montana: Time to Upgrade Title 49, The Montana Human Rights Act Timothy Kelly, Emigrant
3:15		BREAK
3:30		Finding the Winning Focus Michael D. Cok, Bozeman
4:30		SEMINAR ADJOURNS

Speaker Bios

Hon. John C. Brown was sworn in as District Court Judge for Department No. 3 of the Montana Eighteenth Judicial District, Gallatin County, on January 3, 2006 after being appointed by Governor Brian Schweitzer on October 17, 2005. Judge Brown was subsequently retained by the voters of Gallatin County in November 2006 and in November 2012. Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Brown was a partner in the Bozeman law firm of Cok Wheat Brown & McGarry and engaged in the private practice of law for 19 years with an emphasis in commercial and real estate litigation. Judge Brown is a long-time supporter of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Gallatin County (BBBS). He and his wife Kathy have served as a volunteer “big couple” for 15 years. Prior to that, Judge Brown served on the BBBS Board of Directors for six years.

Michael D. Cok graduated with honors from the University of Montana School of Law in 1978. He is a partner of Cok Kinzler PLLP, a law firm in Bozeman, Montana. He is an active trial lawyer, specializing in civil litigation, primarily representing individuals in products liability, personal injury, environmental contamination and insurance related claims. His clients have received over $100 million in verdicts and settlements. He has been inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers, ABOTA and is listed in the Best Lawyers of America and Super Lawyers. He is past president of the Montana Trial Lawyers Association and served on the Board for over 20 years. He is a member of the AAJ, Public Justice and a longtime member of the faculty of the University of Montana School of Law Advanced Trial Advocacy Program.

Hon. Brenda Gilbert serves as the District Court Judge for the Sixth Judicial District which includes Park and Sweet Grass Counties. She was appointed to and serves with two other district court judges as a member of the Sentence Review Division. Before being elected as a district court judge in 2012, Judge Gilbert practiced law in Livingston for twenty-five years, in a general civil practice. She is a graduate of Montana State University and the University of Puget Sound School of Law.

Loren Jacobson is a partner at Waters & Kraus in Dallas, Texas. Ms. Jacobson manages the firm’s False Claims Act & Qui Tam practice, representing whistleblowers in the pharmaceutical, medical device, hospice and home health care, government contracting, and construction industries, among other areas. She has achieved government or state intervention in many of her qui tam cases, and her clients have been part of several large Department of Justice settlements. Lauren also litigates False Claims Act and other qui tam cases in state and federal court. She frequently writes and speaks on False Claims Act issues. She earned her law degree from Columbia University. After law school, Jacobson clerked for the Honorable Alvin Hellerstein, District Court for the Southern District of New York and the Honorable Wilfred Feinberg, Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Timothy C. Kelly has been a practicing civil rights attorney for thirty-three years. He is a member of the bar in the states of Montana, Illinois and Ohio, and in the federal districts of Northern Illinois, Northern Ohio, Montana, and the Ninth Circuit. His practice is limited to the prosecution of civil rights and discrimination claims in state and federal courts and before state and federal agencies. Prior to 1998, he served as the hearing examiner/ALJ for the Montana Human Rights Commission and then as the HRC general counsel. Since 1998, he has been lead counsel in cases involving claims under the Montana Human Rights Act, Governmental Code of Fair Practices, Title VII, Title IX, FLSA, Equal Pay Act, FMLA, the Civil Rights Acts, federal Fair Housing Act, the ADEA, and the ADA.

Randi McGinn is a woman warrior from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who should try to copyright the term “demonstrative evidence.” She has destroyed adverse witnesses by leaving a pretentious Beverly Hills doctor standing in front of the jury covered with post-its and clutching a grapefruit to his chest, by grilling a government snitch until he threw up and by exposing the fact that a world-renowned polygraph expert had been polygraphing his own sperm cells in the dead of night. After the local district attorney was recused from the first criminal prosecution of an Albuquerque Police Department shooting case in 50 years, she was appointed as special prosecutor. Randi became the first woman president of the Inner Circle in 2015 and is double listed in criminal and civil litigation in Best Lawyers in America. Her book, “Changing Laws, Saving Lives: How to Take on Corporate Giants and Win” was published this year by Trial Guides.

Jonathan Motl is Montana’s 11th appointed and 8th confirmed Commissioner of Political Practices. The office of the COPP is a state agency with authority to enforce Montana’s ethics, campaign practices and lobbying laws. Prior to becoming Commissioner Mr. Motl worked for 30 years as a trial attorney in predecessor firms to the current Morrison, Sherwood, Wilson and Deola law firm in Helena, Montana.

Hon. Mike Salvagni was born in Butte and raised in Walkerville. He graduated from Carroll College in 1969 and earned his law degree from the University of Montana School of Law in 1973. Following law school he served as a law clerk to the Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme Court, then maintained a private general law practice and served as public defender for 6 years in Bozeman. In 1982, he was elected as Gallatin County Attorney, an office he held for 14 years. In 1996, he was elected District Court Judge of the 18th Judicial District, and was reelected in 2002, 2008 and 2014. For 11 years Judge Salvagni presided over the Gallatin County Treatment Court. He has served on the District Court Council. He is a member of the Uniform District Court Rules Commission. Judge Salvagni chairs the Gallatin County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. He served as president of the Montana Judges’ Association and on the Judicial Education Committee of the Association.

Justice James Jeremiah Shea was born and raised in Butte, Montana. After graduating from Butte Central Catholic High School, he attended the University of Montana, where he earned his undergraduate degree in 1988 and his law degree in 1991. Following graduation from law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul G. Hatfield of the United States District Court in Great Falls, Montana. After completing his clerkship with Judge Hatfield, he moved to Portland, Oregon where he worked as a trial attorney with the Metropolitan Public Defender and then practiced civil law in the private sector. Justice Shea returned to Montana in 1996, and practiced in Missoula until 2005, when Governor Brian Schweitzer appointed him Judge of the Workers’ Compensation Court. He served as Workers’ Compensation Judge until 2014, when Governor Steve Bullock appointed him to the Montana Supreme Court. He was sworn in as an Associate Justice on June 2, 2014. Justice Shea and his wife Kathy have two daughters, Kate and Moira.