ALMOST EVERYTHING YOU WILL EVER NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TRIAL

WORK, JURY PERSUASION, PRODUCTS LIABILITY, AND

ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY

     A CLE Seminar Hosted by the

  Charleston School of Law

      Friday, December 1 from 2pm-5pm              Saturday, December 2 from 9am-12pm

        The Dewberry Charleston Hotel         334 Meeting Street 

        Charleston, SC 29403

Ed Bell, Esq. and Don Keenan, Esq. will be covering Jury Persuasion

 Jim Gilbert, Esq. will be presenting on Products Liability Law

 The Honorable Aphrodite Konduros will discuss Trial Work

 Allyson Haynes Stuart, Esq. will speak about Electronic Discovery

To RSVP, provide your name and S.C. Bar number to: Michael Abro

mabro@charlestonlaw.edu

843-377-4058

No later than November 1st 

Approval of 6 hours of S.C. CLE credit is anticipated. The cost for non-Charleston School of Law alumni will be

$150. Please make checks payable to Charleston School of Law and include “December 1-2 CLE” in the memo line.  Send checks to

Charleston School of Law, Attn: Michael Abro, P.O. Box 535, Charleston, SC 29402 by November 1st.

DON'T LOSE MILLIONS LOOKING FOR THOUSANDS...

Jury Persuasion - Ed Bell, Esq. and Don Keenan, Esq.

2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Trial Work - The Honorable Aphrodite Konduros

Products Liability - Jim Gilbert, Esq.

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Adjourn 

 5:00 p.m.

Registration - Continental breakfast will be served   8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. 

  9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. 

Electronic Discovery - Allyson Haynes Stuart, Esq.

  11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. 

Adjourn

  12:00 p.m. 

S A T U R D A Y , D E C E M B E R 2 , 2 0 1 7

AGENDA

F R I D A Y , D E C E M B E R 1 , 2 0 1 7

    1:15 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Registration - Light refreshments will be served

J. Edward Bell III, Esq.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

South Carolina native J. Edward Bell III, founder and senior partner of Bell Legal Group, is an attorney, businessman, and entrepreneur.  In a career spanning more than 30 years, he has distinguished himself as a top litigation attorney at local, state, and national levels and tried more than 300 major cases throughout the United States.   A graduate of University of South Carolina School of Law, Mr. Bell distinguished himself as a top civil litigator in the field of complex litigation law with his success in the demanding auto torts and auto safety field. His unique approach in auto case work led him to establish a Vehicle Safety Research Center, a facility that conducts auto defect investigations, accident re- enactments, develops exhibits, and explores the complex nature of the issues surrounding injury and accident cases. Since its inception, the center has evolved into a multi-disciplined Science and Technology Center used to assist attorneys in unraveling technical information associated with trial work.

His legal career continues to bring him national recognition in the fields of Environmental Law, Auto Safety, Auto Defects, and Product Liability. He is a member of the Bars of South Carolina; United States District Court, District of South Carolina; United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals; United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and United States Supreme Court. Mr. Bell is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation-only group with membership limited to 100 of the best plaintiff trial lawyers in the United States.  He is recognized as a Martindale-Hubbell AV® PreeminentTM  Peer Rated attorney, listed in The American Trial Lawyers Association's prestigious Top 100 Attorneys; named to Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers, Lawyer of the Year, Benchmark's Litigation Star; and received the SC Lawyers Weekly Leadership in Law Award.  He is the Chairman of the Board of Garden & Gun Magazine, The Litchfield Company, and serves as President of the Charleston School of Law.

A native of Sumter, Mr. Bell lives in Georgetown with his wife, Dawn, and their two young children, Jeb and Middleton.  He volunteers through Duncan United Methodist Church, Helping Hands and Habitat for Humanity and has sponsored numerous programs in area hospitals, schools and youth organizations. Mr. Bell is on the Board of Directors of the Mission Society, Atlanta and a former Board Member of Richmont University, Atlanta.

A 1968 graduate of New York University Law School, James L. Gilbert is the owner of The Gilbert Law Group, P.C. an Arvada, Colorado law firm. The firm specializes in product defect litigation, primarily automotive and truck products. He now has over 40 years of experience litigating complex cases against some of the world’s largest corporations.

Highly skilled and comfortable in the courtroom, Mr. Gilbert has received a number of favorable jury verdicts. His work involving defective aftermarket windshield installations, including a $6,100,000 jury verdict against an aftermarket installer, was chronicled in a cover story in Lawyers Weekly entitled "Personal Injury Cases That Made a Difference." He was also lead counsel at trial for jury verdicts that included $35,000,000 awarded in a conversion van case, $17,500,000 awarded in a seatbelt case, $43,500,000 awarded in a seat back failure case and most recently $52,000,000 in a seatbelt failure case.

Mr. Gilbert is a frequent lecturer and member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation- only group with membership limited to 100 lawyers. He is a Fellow in the International Society of Barristers and is listed in Best Lawyers in America. Mr. Gilbert was the national chairman of the Attorneys Information Exchange Group for 15 years.

James L. Gilbert, Esq.

Allyson Haynes Stuart joined the Charleston School of Law faculty in 2004 after serving as a director of the legal department at Sony Corporation of America.  She was a law clerk for the Honorable David C. Norton, United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, and worked as an associate in the New York firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton before joining Sony.  Professor Stuart has taught as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and at the Institut de Empresa (I.E.) Law School in Madrid, Spain.  She teaches Contracts, Civil Procedure, and Evidence, as well as E-Discovery, Information Privacy, and Internet Law.  Professor Stuart also practices Of Counsel with Crystal & Giannoni-Crystal LLC, where she focuses on Privacy,  Data Security and E-Discovery issues.

She is a frequent speaker at CLE's and Law Review Symposia on issues covering Privacy, Internet Law, and E-Discovery. Her scholarship in those areas has been published by law reviews including the N.C. Journal of Online Technology, the Northwestern Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property, the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, the University of Miami Law Review, and Penn. State Law Review, and has been widely cited in casebooks, law review articles, and by courts. 

Allyson Haynes Stuart, Esq.

Don C. Keenan, Esq.

During his forty years specializing in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, Mr. Keenan has secured over 327 verdicts and settlements over $1,000,000 including nine over $10,000,000 and one over $100,000,000. Mr. Keenan has dedicated his practice to child injury and wrongful death cases arising from medical negligence, products liability, and premise liability, with the goal of making our society safer for children.  He has handled cases in 47 states and on three continents.

Mr. Keenan successfully handled the 1980’s United States Supreme Court case of Kathy Jo Taylor which was the first case in United States history to establish due process rights for foster children. Again in late 1999 he handled the nationally publicized case of Terrell Peterson, an abused foster child, who was on the cover of Time Magazine (11/2000) and was the subject of the highest rated 60 Minute story of the year. Both cases resulted in significant changes in the rights of children in state custody. In 2006, he obtained the largest U.S. jury verdict on behalf of an abused child.

In 1992, Mr. Keenan became the youngest National President of the American Board of Trial Advocates and during his tenure, led a delegation of lawyers to Czechoslovakia and later was invited to Russia to produce the first civil trial in the history of those two emerging democracies. In 1997, he became National President of the Inner Circle of Advocates, the most exclusive group of trial lawyers in the country. In 1999, Mr. Keenan was given the prestigious Chief Justice Award for Civility and Professionalism, the highest award possible for a lawyer in Georgia. He now serves on the Advisory Committee for the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, which trains the majority of new judges in the United States. In 1990 and again in 1992, Mr. Keenan was named Trial Lawyer of the Year.                                                                        Awards / Distinctions

• Selected by Oprah Winfrey as one of the “People Who Have Courage” noting that Mr. Keenan has been fighting for the rights of abused children for 25 years • Emory University bestowed the “Career Achievement Award for Public Policy and Child Advocacy” • Named by the National Law Journal as one of the top three medical malpractice lawyers in the United States • Called “The Voice of the Voiceless” by The Atlanta Globe • “Internationally renowned child advocacy lawyer” by Points North Magazine • “A famous advocate for children”, Business Chronicle • Seven time recipient of “Top 100 Irish Americans” presented by Irish America Magazine • 2007 Ellis Island Medal of Honor (only 100 awarded each year) • 2008 Tradition of Excellence Award – State Bar of Georgia

Mr. Keenan has appeared on every major national news program including: 60 Minutes, 20/20, Larry King Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Montel, The O’Reilly Factor, the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and National Public Radio (NPR) addressing children’s issues. 

Judge Aphrodite Konduros is a member of the South Carolina Court of Appeals. She currently serves as vice-chairman of the Chief Justice's Commission of the Profession, a member of the South Carolina Senate Judiciary Sentencing Reform Commission, subcommittee chairman of the Supreme Court Family Court Docketing Committee, a member of the Supreme Court E- Filing Committee, a member of the South Carolina Bar's Vulnerable Adult Task Force, and a member of the South Carolina Bar Pro Bono Board. She is also the 2013 recipient of the American Board of Trial Advocates' Jurist of the Year Award. Judge Konduros was elected to the Family Court in February 2002 to fill the unexpired term of the Honorable Amy C. Sutherland, retired. On February 6, 2008, she was elected to the South Carolina Court of Appeals to finish the unexpired term of Chief Justice Donald W. Beatty. She was reelected to the South Carolina Court of Appeals in 2015. She and her husband, Sam Konduros, live in Greenville and Seabrook Island, South Carolina.

The Honorable Aphrodite Konduros