Total Credits: 1.25 including 0.0 Ethics CLE, 1.25 CLE
This one and a half hour highly interactive seminar is a must for both trial and appellate prosecutors as it will focus on framing issues, writing briefs, appellate options, and oral advocacy.
| State v. Serna Opinion (211.2 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| Oral Argument Excerpt (3.9 MB) | Available after Purchase | ||
Rob Ellman is the managing partner at Ellman Law Group LLC in Phoenix. He has practiced law since 1985. Mr. Ellman earned his J.D. from Cornell Law School and practiced with Hale & Dorr (now Wilmer Hale) before moving to Arizona in 1990. He has 22 years of distinguished state and federal public service as a litigator, supervising attorney, and as an adviser to four Arizona Attorneys General and three United States Attorneys.
Before founding the firm in 2017, Mr. Ellman was General Counsel to the Arizona House of Representatives, where he advised the majority caucus leadership on innumerable legal issues and policy decisions. Before that, he served as Solicitor General for the State of Arizona; as Chief Counsel of the United States Attorney’s Appellate Division for the District of Nevada; and as Unit Chief in the Arizona Attorney General’s Capital Litigation Section.
Mr. Ellman has been lead counsel in hundreds of appeals in Arizona courts and the Ninth Circuit, and he has trained countless attorneys (mostly prosecutors) in the areas of appellate advocacy, professionalism, and trial practice.
Diane M. Johnsen grew up in a small copper mining town in Southern Arizona. She graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in journalism in 1975, then worked as a reporter for four years for the Arizona Daily Star, where she covered government and politics. She left journalism to attend Stanford Law School, where she was a member of the Stanford Law Review. After graduating from Stanford in 1982, she served a one-year judicial clerkship with Judge Ben Duniway on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She then worked for two years at Munger Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles before joining the Phoenix law firm now known as Osborn Maledon. Governor Napolitano appointed her to Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals in 2006. Judge Johnsen served as Chief Judge of Division One during 2013-2015. She is a member of the American Law Institute and has a Master of Laws degree in judicial studies from Duke Law School. Her thesis for that program is "Building a Bench: A Close Look at State Appellate Courts Constructed by the Respective Methods of Judicial Selection," 53 S.D. Law Rev. 829 (2016).
Hon. John Pelander was appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court by Governor Brewer in July 2009 after 14 years with Division Two of the Court of Appeals, where he served as that court’s chief judge from July 2004 through June 2009. In July 2014, he became Vice Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and served in that role until January 2018. Justice Pelander retired from the bench March 1, 2019. Thereafter, pursuant to Chief Justice administrative orders, he has continued to periodically sit with the Court on a call-back, active duty status.
Justice Pelander received his bachelor of arts degree from Wittenberg University (1973, cum laude), a J.D. degree from the University of Arizona (1976, with high distinction and Order of the Coif), and his Master of Laws in Judicial Process from the University of Virginia in 1998. Justice Pelander is a former shareholder with Slutes, Sakrison, Grant & Pelander, P.C., where his practice from 1977 to 1995 focused on civil matters, including insurance defense, employment law, commercial litigation, and appeals.
Before beginning his law practice, he served as Executive Editor of the Arizona Law Review and as a law clerk to the Hon. Richard H. Chambers of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1976-77. Before joining the bench, Justice Pelander was a certified specialist in the field of personal injury and wrongful death. He was an associate with the American Board of Trial Advocates, has taught at numerous state and county bar association programs, and has served as a faculty member of the Arizona College of Trial Advocacy. Justice Pelander also has served on the Arizona Commission for Judicial Performance Review, the Arizona Judicial Council, as chair of Arizona’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, and as an officer of the national Council of Chief Judges of the State Courts of Appeal. In 2015, Justice Pelander was elected to membership in the American Law Institute. Before his appointment to the Supreme Court, he served by designation on that court for 11 years in the ongoing, comprehensive general stream adjudication. Justice Pelander and his wife Mary have two adult sons.
Neil V. Wake was appointed as a United States District Judge for the District of Arizona in 2004 and has been a Senior Judge since July 2016. He received his B.A. degree, with high distinction, from Arizona State University in 1971 and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from Harvard University in 1974, where he was a member of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. He is admitted to practice in Arizona, Colorado, and the Navajo Nation. From 1974 to 2004 he engaged in a litigation practice in Phoenix, primarily in the fields of business, administrative, constitutional, election, Indian law, and appellate litigation. He practiced in several law firms, including his own firm. He was listed in The Best Lawyers in America for business litigation and appellate litigation from 1989 until leaving law practice and has been a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers since 1993. He served on the State Bar of Arizona's Civil Practice and Procedure Committee for nearly 20 years, authored chapters on administrative law in the Arizona Appellate Handbook since 1980, and was Chair of the State Bar Appellate Practice Section in 2003-2004. He was the Chair of the Committee on Local Rules of Practice, U.S. District Court, 2006 to 2017.
Agencies
Services