Convention Schedule

Thursday, August 6

8:00

Registration & Breakfast hosted by Law School

8:45

Welcome and Introduction

John Heenan, Billings

9:00

Legal Education and the Legal Profession in the 21st Century

Dean Paul F. Kirgis, Missoula

9:15
 

Montana Insurance Law Update: The Year in Review

Prof. Gregory S. Munro, Missoula

10:15

BREAK

Countering the Attacks on Trial Lawyers & Access to Justice

Arthur H. Bryant, Oakland, CA

11:15

Perspectives from the Bench

•Hon. Chief Justice Mike McGrath, Montana Supreme Court

•Hon. Dirk M. Sandefur, Eighth Judicial District, Great Falls
•Hon. Justice James Jeremiah Shea, Montana Supreme Court

LUNCHEON PRESENTATION -  UM Ballroom
(lunch break 12:15-12:45; speech 12:45-1:30)

The Ideological Attack on Our State Supreme Courts

Steve Smith, Davis, CA

1:30

Mentoring and Supervising In Trial Practice:

Ethical Rules and Responsibilities (1 ethics credit)

Prof. Jordan Gross, Missoula

2:30

Beyond Asbestos and Pollution: The Critical Role of Insurance Coverage Litigation in the Sexual Abuse Crisis

Jim Murray, Washington, DC

3:30

BREAK

3:45

Litigating Medical Negligence Cases

Paula Sweeney, Dallas, TX

4:45

The Future of Trial Lawyers Requires We Be More Than Just Trial Lawyers

Thomas J. Beers, Missoula

6:30

Social Hour With Special Guest Arthur H. Bryant

Law School Courtyard

7:30

Annual Awards Dinner

UC Ballroom

Friday, August 7

8:00

Registraton & Contenintal Breakfast

8:15

Welcome and Introduction

Anthony Jackson, Bozeman

8:30

Issues and Strategies in Litigating Complex Commercial Cases

Timothy B. Strauch, Missoula

Ward “Mick” Taleff, Helena

9:00

Advanced Constructive Cross Examination for Plaintiff’s Lawyers

Roger J. Dodd, Valdosta, GA

10:30

BREAK

10:45

Trial by Human

Nicholas C. Rowley, San Diego, CA

12:15

Annual Membership Luncheon

UC Ballroom

1:15

Program Concludes

Thomas J. Beers, a native of Missoula, earned his law degree from the University of Montana School of Law in 1973. His practice, Beers Law Offices, specialized in personal injury, insurance bad faith, products liability and medical malpractice. Tom received the MTLA public service award in 1991 and was MTLA president 1992-93. Tom has been a member of the Supreme Court Commission on Civil Jury Instructions since 1995. He served in the Montana Attorney General’s Office as assistant attorney general, civil division staff attorney and criminal division chief. Tom has held the positions of special prosecutor for the western congressional district of the State of Montana and as a Missoula county prosecutor. Mr. Beers is a member of MTLA, AAJ, FBA and ABOTA. He joined MTLA in 1983 and served on the Board of Directors from 1988 to 1994. He also served as the Montana Chapter President of the Federal Bar Association from 2003 to 2004. Over the last five years Tom has focused a great deal of his time and attention on the science of how our human minds work and its relationship to better and more meaningful communication. 

Arthur H. Bryant is the Chairman of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm created by trial lawyers and now supported by over 2,500 of the best and most dedicated plaintiffs’ lawyers in the country. Working with them, Arthur and Public Justice use cutting-edge litigation to fight for consumers’ rights, workers’ rights, civil rights and liberties, environmental protection, the poor and the powerless, and access to justice for all. The National Law Journal has twice named Arthur one of the 100 Most Influential Attorneys in America. He has been honored by, among others, the American Association for Justice, the American Bar Association, Harvard Law School, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, the New Jersey Association for Justice, and the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association. The Oregon Trial Lawyers Association has named its public service award the Arthur H. Bryant Public Justice Award. For more information, see www.publicjustice.net. 

Roger J. Dodd has active offices in Park City, Utah (Dodd & Kuendig), Valdosta, Georgia (Dodd and Burnham), and Jacksonville, Florida (Spohrer and Dodd) where he practices trial work of all types. This includes personal injury, wrongful death, criminal defense, and domestic relations. He has been listed in Best Lawyers for more than 20 years. He is one of a handful of lawyers nationally who are listed in Super Lawyers in more than one state simultaneously. He is a fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and the American College of Family Trial Lawyers. He is Board Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in Civil Trial Practice for more than 21 years, and was Board Certified in Criminal Trial Practice for more than 20 years. He has lectured and taught lawyers and judges in all 50 states, and multiple foreign countries. TV and legal credits include CourtTV, TruTV, CNN, ABC, CBS, and cable TV.

Prof. Jordan Gross teaches Professional Responsibility and Criminal Law classes at the University of Montana, and supervises the Law School’s Prosecution Clinics. Prof. Gross is a member of the bar in Montana and in Washington State. She is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for Montana, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. Prof. Gross serves on the Western Montana Bar Association Pro Bono Committee and she regularly gives presentations to members of the Montana bar on legal ethics and professional responsibility. Before joining the law school faculty, Gross was a partner in a litigation firm in Seattle specializing in federal criminal defense, complex civil litigation, and appeals. She clerked for United States District Court Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein and Washington State Court of Appeals Judge Susan R. Agid before entering private practice. Professor Gross earned B.A. degrees in Political Science and English Literature from the University of Washington and her J.D. degree, cum laude, from Howard University School of Law.

Paul F. Kirgis is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Montana School of Law. Dean Kirgis is an expert in the field of dispute resolution. He has taught Civil Procedure, Evidence, and Alternative Dispute Resolution, and has published widely on topics ranging from the civil jury to arbitration to negotiation pedagogy. His articles have appeared in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, the Negotiation Journal, the Oregon Law Review, the William & Mary Law Review, the Ohio State Law Review, and the Georgia Law Review, among others. A member of the American Law Institute, Dean Kirgis served as Chair of the AALS Dispute Resolution Section for 2014-15. Dean Kirgis began his legal career practicing with two major law firms in Washington, D.C., where he had extensive litigation experience in areas including defamation, insurance coverage, commercial disputes, antitrust, government contracts, and tax. He then joined the faculty of St. John’s University School of Law in New York City, where he founded the Hugh L. Carey Center for Dispute Resolution. He was awarded the Faculty Outstanding Achievement Medal by St. John's University in 2012 and was twice voted the Law School's Professor of the Year by the students. He assumed the Deanship at the University of Montana in 2015.

Chief Justice Mike McGrath was raised in Butte, Montana. He earned a degree in business administration from the University of Montana in 1970 and graduated from Gonzaga University School of Law in 1975. Following graduation from law school he worked as a Reginald Heber Smith Community lawyer fellow in Reno, Nevada, providing legal services to low-income clients. He served in the United States Air Force from 1970 until an honorable discharge in 1972. He was a Montana Assistant Attorney General from 1977 to 1982. He was elected to five terms as Lewis and Clark County Attorney beginning in 1983. He was elected to two terms as Montana Attorney General, serving 2000 to 2008. He oversaw a staff of more than 700 employees and focused on methamphetamine prevention and natural resource and consumer protection issues. McGrath was elected to an eight-year term as Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme Court in November 2008, and took office January 5, 2009. He and his wife Joy have two sons, Pat and Chris, and three grandchildren.

Greg Munro, Professor and Director of Professional Skills at the University of Montana School of Law, regularly researches and writes the quarterly Insurance Consumer Counsel’s Column for Trial Trends. Prof. Munro has published articles, a book and book chapters on topics of insurance, torts, medical-legal and legal education. He teaches Torts and Insurance Law at the University of Montana School of Law. He has also taught Trial Advocacy, Remedies and co-coached the law school’s national championship Trial Team from 1989 until 1999. He regularly teaches CLE for organizations of lawyers, judges and law professors. Munro is a past president and board member of MTLA. He serves on the Montana State Uniform District Court Rules Committee and practiced plaintiff’s civil litigation in Billings for thirteen years before joining the UM School of Law in 1988.

Jim Murray is a senior partner in the DC office of Dickstein Shapiro’s Insurance Coverage Group (policyholder-only) and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. He is a nationally-recognized trial lawyer with more than 25 years of courtroom experience. He has assisted his clients in securing more than $500 million in insurance recoveries in the last three years alone and well over $1 billion in the last decade on matters involving almost every line of insurance. Jim has been involved in insurance coverage litigation involving underlying claims of sexual abuse for more than a decade. He recently concluded his role as Special Insurance Counsel to the Catholic Bishop of Helena in the Diocese’s successful Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding. He represented Beebe Medical, Inc. in the worst case of pediatrician child sexual abuse in recorded history, and he advised class counsel in the $190 million mediated class settlement with Johns Hopkins Hospital regarding boundary and privacy invasions by a Hopkins gynecologist. Jim has two law degrees from Oxford and a J.D. from Harvard. He is a Rhodes Scholar and a 1976 graduate (philosophy) from the University of Montana. He grew up on a farm and ranch on the Fort Peck Reservation. In 2014, he received the University of Montana’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Nicholas C. Rowley has extensive courtroom experience representing victims of serious injuries and medical malpractice, especially those who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, spinal injuries, and chronic pain. In 2009, the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego awarded Nick its "Outstanding Trial Lawyer" award. In 2013, Nick was honored with the organization's top award - "Outstanding Trial Lawyer of the Year." Some of Nick's other recent successes include a record-setting $74,525,000 verdict for a victim of medical malpractice, a $38,600,000 jury verdict for a young man who fell from a hotel balcony while intoxicated, a $17,000,000 award for a woman who suffered a mild traumatic brain injury caused by a fall from a hotel window and a $13,860,000 award for a mild traumatic brain injury caused by an automobile crash. Nick has served as an instructor at Gerry Spence's famed Trial Lawyers College and delivers keynote addresses nationwide on his revolutionary approach to voir dire and damages. Other lawyers, faced with low settlement offers from insurance companies, frequently bring Nick into their cases just before trial. Nick is a relentless warrior who has prevailed in the courtroom time and time again. He prides himself on his caring and empathic approach to working with his clients and their families, and his ability to help juries find the truth and deliver justice to the injured.

Hon. Dirk M. Sandefur was elected to Montana’s Eighth Judicial District (Cascade County) in 2002. Prior to election, Judge Sandefur served for eight years as chief legal counsel for Cascade County and local government subdivisions. After graduating from University of Montana School of Law with high honors in 1993, he worked for one year in private practice as an associate attorney in a Great Falls law firm and briefly as a contract public defender handling felony criminal cases. Judge Sandefur earned his undergraduate degree, with honors, in computer sciences from the University of Montana and worked as a police office for three years. Judge Sandefur was re-elected in unopposed contests in 2008 and 2014.

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.

Steve Smith has a forty year career as the lead consultant, strategist and/or manager for successful statewide ballot measures, legislative issue campaigns, candidate and Supreme Court Justice campaigns. From California, he has worked in statewide efforts in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. He also consulted in a variety of other states. His clients have included Planned Parenthood, the California Branches of the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, and the American Cancer Society, a variety of state and national unions, and the California ACLU among others. In recent years Steve has successfully worked directly for State Supreme Court Justices, or for Independent Expenditure Committees defending Supreme Court incumbents in direct elections or contested retention elections. Taking a break from politics about 16 years back, Steve served in the Governor’s Cabinet in California as the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations and the CA Secretary of Labor for five years.

Timothy B. Strauch is a Montana trial attorney in Missoula, where he focuses primarily on plaintiff’s commercial and serious personal injury litigation. He and Mick Taleff represented Masters Group International in a lawsuit against Comerica Bank, in winning a $52 million jury verdict (the largest verdict in Montana and among the top 40 largest verdicts in the country in 2014). Also in 2014, Tim and David Paoli represented Kelly Logging in a lawsuit against First Interstate Bank, in winning a $17 million jury verdict. Tim was a co-recipient with Mick Taleff of the 2014 MTLA Trial Lawyer of the Year award. Mr. Strauch has been practicing law since 1992. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore School of Law in Maryland. Mr. Strauch was appointed by the Montana Supreme Court as the first Disciplinary Counsel for the State of Montana’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel and served in that capacity for more than three years. Mr. Strauch also handles professional discipline defense and consultation, is a frequent CLE speaker, and has written several articles on ethics and professional responsibility. He currently serves on the State Bar of Montana's Ethics Judicial Relations committees. 

Paula Sweeney practiced in Dallas with her partner John Howie for 22 years, until his untimely death, at the firm Howie & Sweeney, which they founded. She is now happily Of Counsel in the Dallas office of Slack & Davis. She has been recognized by the Dallas Bar Association as its Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2013 and Legend of Trial Law in 2012. Ms. Sweeney was also featured in a Texas Monthly article “The Crusader” for her work on behalf of malpractice victims, and in 2003 received the Defender of Democracy Award from Common Cause, Texas, in recognition of her work to protect the citizens of Texas from the lobby-driven onslaught against their right to access the courts. Her annual survey article on Health Care Law in Texas has been recognized as Best Continuing Legal Education Paper from the State Bar of Texas and Best Non-Judicial Article from the Texas Judicial Council. In 2009 she was awarded the State Bar of Texas’ prestigious Gene Cavin Award for lifetime achievement in supporting Continuing Legal Education in Texas. Sweeney has been Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law since 1986 and is a contributor to the Million Dollar Arguments audiotape series. 

Ward “Mick” Taleff earned his law degree from the UM School of Law in 1976. He has practiced in Great Falls since then including two years with the Cascade County Attorney’s Office. His current firm, Taleff Law Office, was established in October 2004. Prior to that he practiced with the firm of Alexander, Baucus, Taleff, Paul & Young. Mr. Taleff’s primary emphasis for many years has been on commercial, banking, bankruptcy, construction, probate and insurance related matters. His practice is varied, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. He devotes a third to forty percent of his time as a mediator in various federal and state cases. Mick is an appellate mediator for the Montana Supreme Court. He was previously a Neutral Early Evaluator for the United States District Court for the District of Montana. He has acted as a mediator or arbitrator in more than 700 cases, and presently conducts between one and three mediations per week. Taleff has served as a visiting faculty member at the UM School of Law and University of San Francisco trial academies. He is a member of MTLA, Montana Defense Trial Lawyers Association and American College of Trial Lawyers. Mick was a co-recipient with Tim Strauch of the 2014 MTLA Trial Lawyer of the Year award.