31st Annual Family Law Retreat to the Beach

Joan-Marie Sullivan Related Seminars and Products

Sullivan Law

Joan-Marie Sullivan has thirty-eight years of experience as an attorney. For the majority of those years, her practice has focused on family law and she has assisted countless clients with divorce and child custody issues. Ms. Sullivan is also an accomplished appellate attorney. She has filed numerous briefs in all three of Alabama’s appellate courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Civil Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. She has orally argued before both the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court. Her efforts have resulted in many changes to Alabama’s legal landscape over the past three decades. Ms. Sullivan is a 1985 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Alabama and earned her law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1988. Ms. Sullivan previously practiced law in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and worked at Lanier, Ford, Shaver and Payne and Wolfe, Jones & Boswell in
Huntsville, Alabama. She has been in private practice since 1995 and is currently a partner at Sullivan Banks Law LLC.

In addition to maintaining an active trial practice, Ms. Sullivan served as the Editor of the Alabama Law Weekly for the past thirty years. Ms. Sullivan is certified as both an appellate and family law mediator. Ms. Sullivan served as the Chair of the Alabama State Bar Family Law Section from 2019-2021 and in 2018, she was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court to serve on the Appellate Rules Committee, where she still serves. She was also appointed to the Supreme Court’s Confidentiality and Privacy in Court Records Task Force. In addition, she served on the Advisory Committee on Child-Support Guidelines and Enforcement for the Supreme Court from 2021-2023.

Presiding Judge Terry Allen Moore Related Seminars and Products

Judge

Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

Terry A. Moore is a 1990 graduate of the University of South Alabama. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1993. Following graduation, he entered private practice in the Mobile, Alabama, law office of Adams & Reese, where he specialized in workers' compensation and civil litigation. In 1998, he became a partner in the Mobile law firm of Vickers, Riis, Murray & Curran, LLC. In 2004, Moore co-founded Austill, Lewis, Pipkin & Moore, P.C., where he served as a member until 2006, when he was first elected to serve on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. Moore was re-elected to the court in 2012, 2018, and 2024, and he has been the presiding judge of the court since February 2024. 

While practicing law, Moore published numerous articles in legal journals, law reviews, and seminars. In 1998, West Publishing issued Alabama Workers' Compensation, a two-volume treatise that was written by Moore between 1992 and 1997. That treatise is now considered the leading authority on its subject by the appellate courts of Alabama, having been cited in dozens of cases. Moore used the knowledge he gained from researching that treatise to teach workers' compensation law to judges, lawyers, and workers' compensation professionals throughout the state and to provide pro bona services. 

Judge Moore's greatest accomplishments have been his marriage and the birth of his two sons. He married the former Ashlee Stewart of Mobile in 1992. In 1999, they welcomed Michael Alexander "Alex" Moore to the family, and, in 2003, the family was completed with the birth of Thomas "Pierce" Moore. 

Judge W. Scott Donaldson (ret.) Related Seminars and Products

DCH Health System

Scott Donaldson was a Judge on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals from 2013 until retiring in 2021 and was a circuit judge from 2003-2013. Before taking office, he had an extensive trial and appellate law practice for 18 years. Donaldson was also the Chief Judge of the Court of the Judiciary (the court that adjudicates all complaints filed against Alabama judges).  He served on the Alabama State Bar Commission and State Bar Disciplinary Commission and is a current or former chair or member of numerous other judicial and legal committees including the Evidence Committee, the Civil Pattern Jury Instructions Committee, and the Appellate Rules Committee.  He has been an attorney or trial judge in approximately 180 jury trials and in hundreds of bench trials.   After retiring from the bench, Donaldson had an active mediation, arbitration, trial and appellate law practice. He is currently the General Counsel for the DCH Health System.

Donaldson is a faculty member of the National Judicial College and has taught many four-day evidence courses to hundreds of trial judges across the country.  He has also taught evidence courses for 13 state judicial associations, the ABA Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice Section, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and for the judges of the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board.  He teaches evidence and trial skills courses for the Alabama Circuit/District Judges Associations including new judge orientation sessions and for the Probate Judges Association. Donaldson taught Trial Advocacy at the University of Alabama School of Law each semester from 2006-2022 and was an instructor for the 40-hour Domestic Relations/Civil mediator training course for alabamamediationtraining.com. He is a frequent speaker at continuing legal education programs and has authored numerous legal articles as well as the Alabama Trial Notebook, published by the University of Alabama School of Law CLE program. He is a Fellow of the Alabama Law Foundation and Vice-President of the Board of Directors. 

Penny Davis Related Seminars and Products

Alabama Law Institute

Ms. Davis received her B.S., M.A. and J.D. from The University of Alabama. She is a member of the Alabama State Bar and Tuscaloosa Bar County Association. Ms. Davis is a frequent speaker for CLE Alabama on various topics. As an adjunct faculty member at The University of Alabama School of Law, she teaches Family Law and Equity. She is co-author of Alabama Divorce, Alimony and Child Custody Lawyer's Educational Press (3rd ed.). Ms. Davis is the former Associate Director of the Alabama Law Institute and served as Reporter for the following projects: Alabama Uniform Child Custody, Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act; Alabama Uniform Interstate Family Act: Legal Separation Act and Joint Custody.  She serves as the Chair of the Alabama Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Child Support Guidelines and Enforcement.

Judge Roman Shaul Related Seminars and Products

Alabama State Bar

Roman was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  He attended undergraduate, graduate and law school at the University of Alabama.  He practiced law in Tuscaloosa for a couple of years then practiced with the Montgomery, Alabama firm of Beasley Allen for 17 years.  As a lawyer, Roman had a multi-jurisdictional practice and was licensed to practice law in 8 states and over 35 federal jurisdictions.  He has represented individuals, businesses, insurance companies and state governments.  Roman previously served as a trial judge in Montgomery County, Alabama.  In June of 2018, he resigned his judgeship to become the General Counsel of the Alabama State Bar.  He is married to Caroline Thames Shaul and has three daughters, Anne Kingsley (16), Isabel (15) and Thompson (8).

Amber James Related Seminars and Products

New Beginnings Family Law, P.C.

Amber Yerkey James is the founder and Founder and Visionary at New Beginnings Family Law, P.C., a boutique matrimonial and family law practice located in Huntsville, Alabama. Amber’s main areas of practice are divorce, child custody, parental alienation, mediation, adoption and surrogacy.

Prior to opening her own practice, Ms. James worked in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama in the Domestic Relations Division as a law clerk for the Honorable Ralph A. Ferguson, Jr. and in the firm of Shaw-Anderson, LLC. Ms. James earned her B.A. in Music and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her Juris Doctorate from the Birmingham School of Law in 2006. She is admitted to practice in Alabama and before the U.S. Supreme Court. She is also a board-certified family law trial advocate having received her board certification from the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Ms. James is a member of the Alabama State Bar and the American Bar Associations, Morgan County, and Huntsville-Madison County Bar associations. Amber is also a member of the Women’s Economic Development Council, the Women’s Business Council of the Huntsville Madison County Chamber of Commerce, and the Board of Directors of the AUM Foundation.

New Beginnings Family Law, P.C. has been recognized on the Law Firm 500 list of fastest growing law firms on two occasions. In 2020, Amber was recognized as the Female Entrepreneur of the Year by the Catalyst Center for Business and Entrepreneurship and her firm was chosen as the Professional Services Business of the Year in 2020 by the Huntsville Madison County Chamber of Commerce. New Beginnings Family Law, P.C. is consistently recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in Huntsville, Alabama and received the designation of Best Place for Working Parents.

Laura Susan Burns Related Seminars and Products

MD

Burns, Brashier & Johnson LLC

Lance Burns, M.D, has practiced emergency medicine in Maricopa County for more than twenty years. He received his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1985, did his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and has been in practice since 1988. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Arizona Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians and is an assistant clinical professor on the faculty of Midwestern University. He is an outside medical consultant for the Arizona Medical Board.