Speakers
Jamal Alsaffar
National Trial Law
Austin, Texas
Jamal Alsaffar has spent his entire career as a trial lawyer representing individuals and families. He has successfully represented clients in state, federal, and appellate courts across the country in complex personal injury and medical negligence cases. In addition to a Texas statewide practice, Jamal has a national Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) practice representing veterans and military families around the country.
Jamal has also served as the National Chair of the Federal Torts and Military Advocacy Section for the American Association of Justice.
Jamal is a member of the American Association for Justice and Texas Trial Lawyers’ Association. He has served as Co-Chair of the Birth Trauma/Medical Negligence Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice, and has twice served as the Chair of the Federal Tort Liability and Military Advocacy section of the American Association for Justice. He is on the Federal Torts Executive Committee for the American Association for Justice.
David Barber
Thomas Law Offices
Louisville, Kentucky
David Barber has tried more than 130 cases to Kentucky juries with an increasing emphasis on negligent security and dram shop claims.
David Barber is devoted to holding people and corporations accountable when they have violated safety rules and harmed people in the community. David is especially interested in helping people harmed by negligent security in businesses such as bars, restaurants, hotels, and concert venues, and injuries resulting from unsafe service of alcohol (Dram shop law).
In 2022, David obtained the largest reported verdict in Kentucky history related to negligent security and alcohol service (Dram shop liability).
Justice Angela McCormick Bisig
Kentucky Supreme Court
Louisville, Kentucky
Justice Angela McCormick Bisig was elected to the Kentucky Supreme Court in November 2022. She serves Jefferson County in the Fourth Supreme Court District. Justice Bisig has been a member of the Kentucky Judiciary for 20 years. She has served in both district and circuit courts and as chief judge of both terms. She is also one of two founding circuit judges in the commonwealth who presided over cases on a newly formed business court. Justice Bisig worked as a juvenile court judge for many years. She was a founding member of a restorative justice program, which currently serves to rehabilitate juveniles and bring healing to crime victims. She helped establish a special program called the enhanced supervision docket providing court supervision of domestic violence offenders. She also founded Jefferson County’s only language and cultural immersion training for court system partners.
She was named the Kentucky Justice Association Judge of the Year in 2016.
Kevin Burke
Burke Neal, PLLC
Louisville, Kentucky
Kevin Burke is a founding member of Burke Neal PLLC where he handles appellate litigation and collaborates with attorneys at the trial and appellate levels on brief writing and strategy. Kevin has argued on behalf of appellants, appellees, and amici curiae resulting in numerous precedent-setting opinions including more than 40 published opinions from the Kentucky Supreme Court alone. As a member of the Kentucky Supreme Court Appellate Rules Committee, Kevin helped draft the 2023 Rules of Appellate Procedure. Kevin serves on the Kentucky Justice Association Board of Governors as well as the Amicus Committee. In 2010 and 2012, he was awarded Outstanding Board Member of the Year Award by the Kentucky Justice Association.
Chris Finney
Finney Injury Law
St. Louis, Missouri
Chris Finney is a trial lawyer from St. Louis. He represents plaintiffs and tries cases when he and his clients believe they should be tried. He frequently co-counsels on cases and tried just under 30 jury trials before the age of 40. He has improved at trial in the last few years after years of losing and getting small verdicts. He battles insecurity in the courtroom and as a lawyer. He second guesses many decisions he makes. He would like to try more cases and talk less. He resides in St. Louis with his wife, Christine, and their 5 children.
Betsy Greene
Greene & Schultz Trial Lawyers
Bloomington, Indiana
Betsy Greene has dedicated her career to helping individuals who are carelessly hurt or killed by others. Betsy began practicing injury law in 1988 and started her own firm with partner, Fred Schultz, in 2005. She has tried over 100 jury trials in her career and takes pride in giving every case individualized attention and using her experience to help clients navigate their way through tough times. She is known to the insurance industry as a top trial attorney who has the skill and the experience to fight for her clients. Betsy is past president of Indiana Trial Lawyers Association and American Board of Trial Advocates, Indiana Chapter. She currently represents Indiana on the AAJ Board of Governors.
Brian Haara
Author, Bourbon Justice
Louisville, Kentucky
Brian Haara has practiced law in Kentucky for more than 25 years, He found a way to combine his passions for law, bourbon, and history with dusty bourbon stories that play out better than fiction. Brian found that old bourbon lawsuits tell the real story of bourbon history, and those stories are better than marketing tales. Brian is author of Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America, which tells the history of bourbon through American litigation and how America business developed around—and because of—whiskey. He’s also the author of the popular bourbon blog, Sipp'n Corn®, he’s on the monthly podcast, Bourbon Community Roundtable with Bourbon Pursuit.
Richard Hay
Hay & Knight, PLLC
Somerset, Kentucky
Richard has represented plaintiffs in tort cases for over 35 years, and has tried more than 60 injury and death cases. He practices with his daughter, Sarah Knight, in Somerset, Kentucky. They exclusively represent plaintiffs in product liability, medical negligence, motor vehicle and other serious injury cases.
Justice Michelle Keller
Kentucky Supreme Court
Covington, Kentucky
Justice Michelle M. Keller was appointed to the Kentucky Supreme Court in April 2013. She was subsequently elected in both 2014 and 2022 for two full terms on the Court. Prior to her service on the Supreme Court, Justice Keller was elected as Judge on the Kentucky Court of Appeals in November 2006. Justice Keller served as the Court of Appeals representative on the Judicial Conduct Commission and Chairperson of the Court of Justice’s Technology Governance Committee, and is currently serving as Chairperson of the Kentucky Access to Justice Commission and Criminal Rules Committee. Prior to her service on the bench, Justice Keller practiced law for 17 years. She served as an Assistant County Attorney for her home county of Kenton.
Recently, the Kentucky Bar Association honored Justice Keller with the 2020 Distinguished Judge Award.
Laurie Higginbotham
National Trial Law
Austin, Texas
Federal tort attorney Laurie M. Higginbotham is a nationally experienced trial and appellate lawyer. In addition to trial work as a federal tort claims attorney, Laurie handled a number of appeals in various courts of appeals including the Texas Supreme Court, the 4th, 5th, 9th and 10th Circuits and in the United States Supreme Court.
In 2011, Laurie was recognized by Texas Lawyer as one of 20 “Winning Women,” profiling outstanding female Texas litigators and appellate lawyers who prevail in high-stakes cases that make law or have an impact nationally or statewide, win large monetary awards, and handle first-of-their-kind or bet-the-company litigation or appeals.
Laurie is a member of the American Association for Justice and Texas Trial Lawyers’ Association. She served as the 2021-2022 Vice-Chair of the American Association for Justice in the Federal Tort Liability & Military Advocacy Section. Previously, she served twice as the Chair of the Federal Tort Liability and Military Advocacy section of the American Association for Justice.
Justice Debra Hembree Lambert
Deputy Chief Justice, Kentucky Supreme Court
Somerset, Kentucky
Justice Debra Hembree Lambert was elected to the Supreme Court of Kentucky in November 2018. She serves the Third Supreme Court District, which is composed of 25 counties.
Justice Lambert came to the Supreme Court after four years on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Prior to taking the appellate bench, Justice Lambert was a Circuit Judge/Family Court Division for the 28th Judicial Circuit, composed of Lincoln, Pulaski and Rockcastle counties.
Chief Justice John D. Minton appointed Justice Lambert as Chair of the newly created Kentucky Judicial Mental Health Commission in 2022. In that role, she will lead a large group of key stakeholders in a statewide effort to improve how judicial processes affect cases where parties have mental health, substance use or intellectual disabilities.
Jenn Liakos
Jenn Liakos Law
Palos Verdes Peninsula, California
For more than twenty years, Jenn Liakos has worked tirelessly as a mass tort attorney, fighting pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing companies who failed to warn consumers of the dangers of their products. Her practice has focused largely on issues impacting women and children including SSRI withdrawal, babies who were born with birth defects after being exposed to medications during pregnancy and the vaginal mesh and talcum powder litigations. She has also focused on the area of mental health drugs and the many failures by the manufacturers of those drugs to properly warn doctors and their patients of the dangers associated with taking them. She has taken on large corporations like Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb and 3M—and she is not afraid of the fight.
Judge Mitch Perry
Chief Judge, Jefferson Circuit Court
Louisville, Kentucky
Judge Mitch Perry is Circuit Court Judge for the Thirtieth Judicial Circuit, Division Three. Judge Perry also serves as Chief Judge for Jefferson Circuit Court. Prior to becoming a judge, he served as Assistant County Attorney for Jefferson County. Judge Perry received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown College and Juris Doctorate from the University of Louisville School of Law.
Judge Kaelin G. Reed
Circuit Court Judge
Lebanon, Kentucky
Judge Kaelin Reed is Circuit Court Judge for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Division Two, presiding over Green, Marion, Taylor and Washington counties. Previously, Judge Reed served in private practice as a personal injury attorney and Associate Attorney for Golden and Walters Law Firm. He is a graduate of Transylvania University and the University of Kentucky College of Law.
Robert Swafford
Strike for Cause Trial Consulting
Austin, Texas
Robert Swafford is a nationally recognized jury and witness preparation consultant. He has been involved in a number of high-profile cases, including the John Wiley Price trial in Dallas, the West explosion case, and the Sandy Hook survivors vs. Alex Jones case in Austin. Robert assisted with the critical work necessary for the verdict against Hilton in Harris County in 2022, the verdict against Scrap Metal Services which was 2019’s largest business law verdict in Texas, and the recent verdict against BMC West & Silva in Travis County. Robert speaks extensively on jury selection, focus groups and witness preparation.He has done witness preparation or jury selection in every kind of case that can be tried in front of a jury, including criminal, probate, contract disputes, intellectual property rights and family law.
Justice Kelly Thompson
Kentucky Supreme Court
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Kelly Thompson was elected to the Supreme Court in November 2022 from the Second Supreme Court District. He served as a Kentucky Court of Appeals judge from January 2007 until his election to the Supreme Court.
Judge Thompson was chief trial counsel for the Kentucky Department of Highways in Hardin County from 1972 to 1973 and served as law clerk for the Kentucky Court of Appeals from 1973 to 1974. He then practiced law in Bowling Green from 1974 until his election to the Court of Appeals. He was the chief public advocate for the Eighth Judicial District from 1976 to 1999.
Judge Thompson was admitted to practice before the U.S. Board of Claims and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has successful appellate experience in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Kentucky and the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
Judge Penny White (Ret.)
Professor Emerita | University of Tennessee College of Law
Knoxville, Tennessee
Judge Penny White (Ret.) is Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus at University of Tennessee College of Law and former Director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution and the UT Legal Clinic. She presently serves as a Visiting Faculty member at the Harvard Law School. Judge White's areas of expertise include judicial ethics and lawyer’s professional responsibility, pretrial civil and criminal procedure, trial practice, evidence, and negotiations. Before beginning her teaching career, she practiced law in Johnson City, Tennessee, focusing on civil rights cases and criminal defense. After practice, Judge White served as a judge at every level of the court system in Tennessee. She also teaches at the National Judicial College, where she received the NJC’s Advancement of Justice Award and the V. Robert Payant Award for Teaching Excellence. She is the author of CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED, published numerous articles on evidence, criminal procedure, and ethics, and authored several benchbooks for state court judges. Judge White is most proud of two handbooks she authored for lawyers and of her article “Relinquished Responsibilities,” published by the Harvard Law Review, which unpacks the Supreme Court’s judicial ethics jurisprudence.
Megan Whiteside
Whiteside Legal, PLLC
Washington, DC
Megan Whiteside is an experienced trial lawyer, mom of three, national speaker, adjunct professor, and podcast host of Mom Life and Law. She is a passionate advocate for her clients, as well as for fellow moms in the legal profession. Megan has significant litigation experience in both jury and bench trials. Representing injured people and their families is an honor and a responsibility she does not take lightly. Megan believes that her role is both to guide clients with compassion, and to protect their legal rights as a passionate and competitive litigator. Megan leverages her prior experience on the defense and her prior experience representing victims to make strategic and tactical decisions in each case. Megan focuses on representing clients in nursing home abuse and neglect, medical negligence, and car crash cases.
