Speakers

Lottie Bash
Partner, Faircloth Melton Bash and Green

Lottie L. Bash is a partner at Faircloth Melton Bash and Green and is based out of the Alexandria office. She defends personal injury and casualty claims across the state of Louisiana and has tried cases in both federal and state courts. Her legal expertise includes trucking defense, general commercial defense, tort litigation, school board defense, insurance defense, and coverage.

Bash also serves as a mediator and has successfully resolved more than 100 cases in mediation. She was appointed as one of the mediators in the United States District Court Western District of Louisiana litigation matter, In Re: Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta Claims.

Bash graduated from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi in 1996, and went on to earn her J.D. in 1999 from Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University.

Professor Dane Ciolino
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law

Professor Dane Ciolino is the Alvin R. Christovich Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. He also engages in a limited law practice and in law-related consulting, principally in the areas of legal ethics, lawyer discipline, judicial discipline, and federal criminal law.

He serves as the Executive Administrator and General Counsel to the City of New Orleans Ethics Review Board. Professor Ciolino also consults and serves as an expert witness in the fields of legal ethics, legal fees and the standards of care and conduct governing lawyers.

Professor Ciolino graduated cum laude from Rhodes College and magna cum laude from Tulane Law School, where he was inducted into Order of the Coif and selected as Editor in Chief of the Tulane Law Review. After graduating law school, he clerked for the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana and practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City and Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann LLC in New Orleans.

Andy Dotson
Chief Disciplinary Counsel for the State of Louisiana 

Anderson O. “Andy” Dotson was appointed by the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, with confirmation by the Louisiana Supreme Court, as Chief Disciplinary Counsel for the State of Louisiana in 2024. He served in the Office of the Parish Attorney for the City of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouge for 15 years, including five years as Parish Attorney. He also maintained a private practice with the Dotson Firm, LLC for 14 years. Prior to entering the public sector, Dotson was an associate at Phelps Dunbar, LLP.

Dotson received his bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and earned his J.D. magna cum laude from the Southern University Law Center where he previously served as an adjunct professor. He is currently an adjunct professor at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center.

Steve Herman
Special Counsel, Fishman Haygood, LLP

Steve Herman serves as special counsel at Fishman Haygood, LLP in the firm’s Litigation Section. His primary practice focuses on representing both plaintiffs and defendants in commercial, class action, and professional liability cases, and he is often asked to provide expert testimony in such matters. He is probably best known for serving as one of two Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs in the BP Oil Spill/Deepwater Horizon Litigation.

Herman is a past president of the Louisiana Association for Justice, a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and a member of the American Law Institute. He is also chair of the LSBA Class Action, Mass Tort, and Complex Litigation Section and serves on the Rules of Professional Conduct Committee. Herman teaches an advance torts seminar on class actions at Loyola Law School and the advance civil procedure course in complex litigation at Tulane Law School, of which he is an alumnus.

Hon. Guy Holdridge (’78)
Former Judge of the First Circuit Court of Appeal of Louisiana

Hon. Guy P. Holdridge recently retired from the First Circuit Court of Appeal where he served for nine years. Judge Holdridge previously served as a District Judge of the 23rd Judicial District Court. He served as a district court judge since 1991 and was the chief judge six times.

Judge Holdridge is the 2021-2024 editor of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure published by Thomson Reuters. He is a long-time member of the council of the Louisiana Law Institute and is now serving as the Director of the Institute. Judge Holdridge has served on numerous committees of the Law Institute. He is also a member of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Strategic Planning committee and Jury Instructions Committee.

Judge Holdridge earned his bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University in 1974 and a J.D. in 1978 from the LSU Law Center where he was a member of the Order of the Coif and Louisiana Law Review. While in law school, he had two of his articles published in the Law Review.

Hon. David C. Joseph (’03)
U.S. Western District of Louisiana

Judge David C. Joseph has served as a U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Louisiana since 2020. Prior to his appointment, he was the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.

Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Judge Joseph served as a commissioned officer and prosecutor in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps as a Senior Attorney in the Professional Liability & Financial Crimes Section of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and as an attorney at an international law firm, where he focused his practice on commercial and complex litigation.

Judge Joseph earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and graduated from the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center in 2003. He was a member of Louisiana Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Following his graduation from law school, Judge Joseph clerked for Justice Jeffrey P. Victory of the Louisiana Supreme Court and Judge John V. Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

Professor Andrew Jurs
University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law

Andrew W. Jurs is the Inaugural Robert Eglet Evidence Chair and Professor of Law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. He specializes in expert evidence and criminal law, and has taught previously at Drake University Law School, the University of Oregon School of Law, and the Wake Forest University School of Law.

His research focuses on the judicial management of expert evidence, and he has authored a textbook on the subject, as well as numerous influential articles. Professor Jurs’s work is widely recognized for its impact on evidence law and its practical application in the courtroom.

Prior to entering academia, he was an Assistant Attorney General at the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and a Deputy District Attorney in the Denver area. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and his J.D. from University of California, Berkley, School of Law.

Allan Kanner
Founder, Kanner & Whiteley, LLC

Allan Kanner is one of America’s leading environmental and consumer fraud attorneys. He is the founding member of Kanner & Whiteley, LLC, a national boutique law firm handling natural resource damages, environmental, toxic tort, climate change, whistleblower, first-party insurance, class action, business tort, and complex business litigation.

Kanner has enjoyed a distinguished forty-five-year career representing individuals, businesses, and governmental entities in hundreds of complex, multi-district, and high profile cases in both state and federal courts.

In 1979, Kanner graduated with his law degree from Harvard Law School. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Kanner is a member of the bars of California, the District of Columbia, Louisiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico (Federal), and Texas.

Amy Groves Lowe (’97)
Partner, Taylor Porter

Amy Groves Lowe is a Partner at Taylor Porter, where she has a litigation practice in various areas of law, including insurance defense, labor and employment, education law, and administrative law.

Lowe has more than 20 years of experience in representing public agencies, public employees and public officials in federal and state courts, in administrative hearings, and before the Louisiana Legislature. She has also served as an Administrative Law Judge for several state agencies in disciplinary hearings.

In addition to her litigation experience, Lowe has a Master of Arts in Psychology from Louisiana State University. She has combined her expertise in these two areas by serving as a jury consultant, assisting other litigators in jury selection, pre-trial research, and statistical analysis and serving as a litigation consultant in expert and lay witness preparation. In addition, she has conducted numerous presentations on jury selection and effective and ethical presentation to juries and has been published in the Baton Rouge Bar Association journal.

Justice Jay McCallum (’85)
Louisiana Supreme Court

Justice Jay McCallum (’85) began his tenure as an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court on November 13, 2020. He serves on several committees including the Louisiana Sheriff’s Executive Management Institute, the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana Historical Society and was appointed by his fellow justices to serve on the Louisiana State Law Institute.

Prior to becoming a Supreme Court Justice, Justice McCallum served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for 11 years, as a trial judge at the Third Judicial District Court for 15 years and in 2018 was elected without opposition to serve on the Second Circuit Court of Appeal.

In addition to an undergraduate degree from Northeast Louisiana University (now the University of Louisiana Monroe), and a Juris Doctorate from the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Justice McCallum holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Judge Jane Triche Milazzo (’92)
U.S. Eastern District of Louisiana

Judge Jane Triche Milazzo was sworn in as a United States District Court Judge for the U.S. Eastern District of Louisiana in October 2011. She had previously served on the bench for Louisiana’s 23^rd Judicial District Court, becoming the first female to be elected to do so.

After graduating from LSU Law in 1992, Judge Milazzo went into practice with her family at the Law Offices of Risley Triche, LLC, where she engaged in a general civil practice. She became the first female to practice law in Assumption Parish. Judge Milazzo is the President-Elect of the Federal Bar Association and previously held leadership positions with the Assumption Parish Bar Association, the Twenty-Third Judicial District Association, District Judges Association, and the Louisiana State Bar Association.

Prior to her legal career, Judge Milazzo taught elementary school for several years. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Nicholls State University and her J.D. from LSU Law.

Lawrence W. Pettiette, Jr.
Partner, Pettiette, Armand, Dunkelman, Woodley & Cromwell, L.L.P.

Lawrence W. Pettiette, Jr. is a partner in the law firm of Pettiette, Armand, Dunkelman, Woodley & Cromwell, L.L.P. in Shreveport, Louisiana. His practice is primarily defense of health care providers in medical malpractice litigation.

Pettiette has lectured extensively on the topic of litigation particularly medical malpractice defense at LSU Medical Center, LSU Law School, Louisiana State Bar, LAMMICO annual defense counsel seminar, Shreveport Bar Association, and the Local Chapter of the American Inn of Court. He is also a founding member of the Harry V. Booth-Henry Politz Inn of Court.

In 1975, Pettiette graduated summa cum laude from Northeast Louisiana University (today known as the University of Louisiana Monroe). He graduated from Emory School of Law in 1978 and was president of the Moot Court Society. Upon graduation, he clerked for United States District Court Judge Tom Stagg until he entered private practice.

Professor Paul Rothstein
Georgetown University Law Center

Professor Paul F. Rothstein is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. He is renowned for his work in evidence, torts, civil and criminal lawsuits, governmental, legal, and judicial ethics, and the judicial process from the Supreme Court on down, including constitutional aspects.

Prior to entering academia, Professor Rothstein had a distinguished career as a trial and transactional lawyer handling tort, criminal, commercial, regulatory, and corporate matters. Among his professional accomplishments, he is author of the books Evidence: Cases, Materials and Problems; Evidence in a Nutshell; Federal Rules of Evidence; Federal Testimonial Privileges; and several other books and approximately 100 articles.

Professor Rothstein was first in his class at Northwestern Pritzker Law School of Law, was elected Editor-in-Chief of the Northwestern University Law Review, and received—two years running—a Fulbright Scholarship at Oxford University in England.

Professor James Steiner-Dillon
University of Akron Law School

James Steiner-Dillon is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Akron School of Law. He was previously an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Dayton School of Law and has held non-tenure track appointments with Columbia Law School and the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law). Professor Steiner-Dillon holds a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy from New York University.

Professor Steiner-Dillon’s scholarship focuses broadly on the construction of legal knowledge, with particular emphasis on courts’ engagement with scientific expertise. His scholarship has appeared in the Utah Law Review, Albany Law Review, Indiana Law Review, the University of Cincinnati Law Review, the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, the St. Louis University Law Journal and the West Virginia Law Review. His work has been featured on the podcasts Ipse Dixit and Excited Utterance.