LAW OFFICE TECHNOLOGY

Carole Levitt, J.D., M.L.S.
Carole Levitt is a nationally recognized author and speaker on Internet legal research. She has more than 20 years of extensive experience in the legal field as a law librarian, legal research and writing professor (Pepperdine University School of Law), California attorney and Internet trainer. Additionally, she is co-author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Fact Finding on the Internet (American Bar Association, 2006) and, as president and founder of Internet For Lawyers, provides customized Internet legal research training to legal professionals.

Levitt is a member of the state bar associations of Illinois and California and the County Bar Association of Los Angeles. She is chair of the California State Bar’s Law Practice Management & Technology Section and serves on the executive board of the Los Angeles County Bar Law Practice Management Section. Additionally, Levitt is a member of the Association of Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) and has served as the vice president of the 400-member Southern California Association of Law Libraries.

Levitt received her Juris Doctorate from The John Marshall Law School, where she graduated with distinction and was a member of the school’s law review. She earned her Bachelors in Political Science and her Masters in Library Science at the University of Illinois.

Mark Rosch
As Vice President of Marketing for Internet For Lawyers (IFL), Mark Rosch is the developer and manager of the Internet For Lawyers Web site, editor of IFL’s newsletter, and writes and speaks about legal technology and using the Internet for research and marketing. Additionally, he is co-author of The Lawyer's Guide to Fact Finding on the Internet (American Bar Association, 2006).

Previously, as Vice President, Public Relations for E! Entertainment Television Networks, he was responsible for developing and supervising all publicity strategy and its implementation for the E! Entertainment Television cable network, as well as the company’s newest network, Style.

Rosch is a member of the Association of Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) and the ABA and has served as a member of the board of directors of the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society. He has also served as a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Public Relations steering committee, the Television Publicity Executives Committee and the American Film Institute.

He graduated from Tulane University with a B.A. in Sociology.

CIVIL LAW UPDATE

Anne Melani Bremner
Anne Bremner has been a trial attorney for 25 years and is a litigation shareholder in the law firm of Stafford Frey Cooper. She has represented the Seattle Police, Bellevue Police, Tacoma Police, Des Moines Police, as well as other private and public entities, priests and judges, in civil and criminal trials.  She was defense counsel and obtained a defense verdict in Vili Fualaau v. Highline School District and the Des Moines Police Department (the “Mary Kay Letourneau case”) and also successfully defended class actions in WTO (the “Battle of Seattle”) based litigation and for the SPD Police Dogs (a national test case brought by the ACLU). Bremner also defended the Olympic Pipeline Company in a $500 million explosion BI suit brought by ARCO.

Bremner and her cases have been featured on Dateline NBC, Court TV, MSNBC, FOX News Channel, Good Morning America, The Today Show and the E! News Channel. She is an on-air legal analyst for Northwest Cable News and Seattle Fox Affiliate KCPQ-13 and appears regularly on national TV as a legal analyst for FOX News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News with Nancy Grace, CBS, ABC (GMA) and Court TV. Bremner also provides legal analysis and acts as a legal consultant for People Magazine and is regularly consulted by Time Magazine, USA Today, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and BBC News.

Bremner is a national faculty member for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and has been a frequent lecturer for seminars throughout the United States, St. Kitts and Costa Rica. In 2008 she was inducted as a fellow in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, widely regarded as the most exclusive trial lawyer group in the world. She is one of only 14 Washington attorneys and the first woman in Washington State to be honored with fellowship.

She received her B.A. in Medieval History (with Honors) from Stanford University in 1980 and was awarded her J.D. in December 1982 from Seattle University.

PLENARY LUNCHEON

Hon. Jean Hoefer Toal
South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal began her service as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of South Carolina in 1988 and was installed as Chief Justice on March 23, 2000, for the balance of the term of her predecessor, which expired June 30, 2004. She was re-elected in February of 2004 and was installed as Chief Justice on June 9, 2004, for a 10-year term. Chief Justice Toal practiced law for 20 years prior to her election to the South Carolina Supreme Court. She is a member of the Richland County, South Carolina and American Bar Associations, the S.C. Women Lawyers Association and the John Belton O’Neall Inn of Court. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Agnes Scott College and is President of the Conference of Chief Justices and Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts.

H. Thomas Wells Jr.
H. Thomas Wells Jr. , a partner and founding member at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, PC, in Birmingham, Ala., is immediate past president of the American Bar Association. Wells ended his one-year term as president upon adjournment of the 2009 Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Wells has served on numerous committees and in leadership roles in the Alabama State Bar, the Birmingham Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He has served in the ABA’s policy-making House of Delegates since 1991 and was chair of the ABA House of Delegates, the second highest elected office in the American Bar Association, from 2002-04.  He is a former chair of the ABA Section of Litigation, the largest section in the ABA with more than 75,000 members. 

In addition, Wells served as co-chair of the ABA’s Special Committee on Disaster Response, which was commissioned after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He also has been a member of the ABA’s Commission on the American Jury and the ABA Commission on the Future of the Legal Profession.

Wells is a frequent speaker and participant in state and national programs dealing with trial and litigation issues. 

Wells earned his bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Alabama, where he was president of the Student Government Association and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his law degree, Order of the Coif, from the University of Alabama. He also was a member of the Alabama Law Review and Hugo Black Scholar while in law school.

CRIMINAL LAW UPDATE

JOSEPH H. HARTZLER
Joe Hartzler, the government’s lead counsel in the Oklahoma City bombing case, is a 59-year-old attorney who has concentrated 31 years of practice mostly in the area of criminal law. After graduating from Amherst College (B.A., 1972) and American University’s Washington College of Law (J.D., 1978, summa cum laude) and clerking on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Hartzler became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago in 1979.

During his nearly 10 years in that office, Hartzler prosecuted virtually every type of federal offense from mail theft and food stamp fraud to public corruption and terrorism. He successfully prosecuted a former county judge for corruption and five members of a terrorist organization for seditious conspiracy. Hartzler rose to several supervisory positions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Chief of the Civil Division and Chief of the Criminal Division. He left government service in 1989 to become a partner at a large Chicago law firm where he developed a criminal defense practice.

In 1991, Hartzler and his family moved to central Illinois, where he returned to public service as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, concentrating mostly on white-collar criminal cases. He served as First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of Illinois under the previous U.S. Attorney, Jan Paul Miller, and now serves as the Appellate Chief under the current U.S. Attorney.

On April 19, 1995, the tragedy in Oklahoma City created a need for an experienced prosecution team drawn from the best federal prosecutors in the nation. Hartzler volunteered his services, and Attorney General Janet Reno selected him to head the team. The two-year assignment took him first to Oklahoma City and then to Denver for the trial of Timothy McVeigh, which the Washington Post described as “perhaps the most complex, massive and emotionally charged criminal case in U.S. history.” The government presented its case-in-chief in 17 days. Reflecting on the government’s success, the ABA Journal reported that Hartzler “led the well-prepared nine-member prosecution team, presenting a complicated case with masterful choreography.” 

Hartzler is a devoted father of adult three sons. In 1995, he was named M.S. Father of the Year by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, an honor that sent Hartzler and his family to meet President Clinton in the Oval Office. He has received numerous other accolades including two honorary doctorates, a leadership award and a public education award from the National M.S. Society. Multiple sclerosis affects Hartzler’s mobility but not his spirit or ability.

YLD/TIPS

James W. McElhaney
Jim McElhaney is the foremost teacher, writer and speaker on trial techniques in North America. He is the Joseph CC. Hutcheson Distinguished Lecturer in Trial Advocacy at the South Texas College of Law in Houston and the Baker & Hostetler Distinguished Scholar in Trial Practice at CWRU School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio.

McElhaney has given more than 800 seminars, speeches and workshops on evidence, procedure and trial practice in every one of the United States and throughout Canada and is the most widely read author on trial techniques in the United States. As a former prosecutor in the U.S. Army JAGC and trial lawyer in a litigation firm, McElhaney has an active practice as a trial strategy consultant in civil and criminal trials. He is a graduate of Duke University School of Law.

LAW FIRM MANAGEMENT

James A. Durham
Jim Durham is chief marketing and business development officer for McGuireWoods. He has spent almost 20 years in the legal marketing and management world, having coached and trained lawyers in business development, marketing and management strategies. 

He previously served as chief marketing officer for the law firm of Ropes & Gray and was founder and president of his own consulting firm, where he worked with hundreds of law firms on business development, client service, practice group planning and strategic planning. Durham has interviewed hundreds of clients on behalf of law firms to determine how they judge outside counsel and what they value most in outside counsel relationships. He also served as senior vice president of sponsorships for Major League Baseball Advanced Media and was the General Counsel and VP of Marketing for Senior Tour Players, Inc., where he represented professional golfers including Sam Snead, Doug Ford, Bob Goalby and Gene Sarazen. 

He co-edited and authored The Lawyer’s Guide to Marketing Your Practice (ABA) and wrote The Essential Little Book of Great Lawyering. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College and his law degree from Emory University School of Law.