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Live Event

Trial Skills


Total Credits: 6 including 5 Alabama CLE Credit, 1 Ethics Credits

Average Rating:
Not yet rated
Categories:
Trial & Litigation
Faculty:
Rip Andrews |  Kendall Dunson |  Robert MacKenzie |  Terrence W. McCarthy |  Dean Carole Smitherman |  John Lentine |  Gregory Cusimano |  Hon. Javan Patton Crayton |  Sanford Hooper |  Judge Tamara Harris Johnson
License:
Not Applicable
Location:
Holiday Inn Birmingham - Hoover by IHG - Hoover, Alabama

Dates


Description

Elevate your courtroom presence and master the art of persuasion at our upcoming trial skills CLE seminar. Designed for seasoned attorneys and new trial lawyers alike, this seminar delivers expert insights on key trial techniques, including effective jury selection, persuasive storytelling, and witness examination. Participants will learn key information to help refine their skills in evidence presentation, witness preparation, and courtroom demeanor, gaining the confidence and expertise needed to succeed in the courtroom. Our faculty of experienced trial attorneys will share practical strategies and real-world examples, providing actionable takeaways to enhance your trial practice and improve your chances of success.

Handouts

Faculty

Rip Andrews's Profile

Rip Andrews Related Seminars and Products

Marsh Rickard & Bryan PC


Mr. Andrews is a graduate of Georgetown University and The University of Alabama School of Law.  He is a member of the Alabama State Bar and the Alabama Association for Justice.  He practices in the areas of personal injury and products liability, doing both litigation and appeals.


Kendall Dunson's Profile

Kendall Dunson Related Seminars and Products

Beasley Allen Crow Methvin Portis & Miles PC


Kendall handles product liability, general personal injury and workers’ compensation cases involving defective industrial machinery as a member of Beasley Allen Law Firm’s Personal Injury and Product Liability Section. He has worked on numerous cases to compensate clients for their losses and influence corporations to design and manufacture safer products.  


Robert MacKenzie's Profile

Robert MacKenzie Related Seminars and Products

Starnes Davis Florie LLP


Bob MacKenzie is a partner at Starnes Davis Florie, having joined the firm in 1984 after completing law school. Bob's practice is devoted to handling a broad scope of litigation including medical and legal malpractice actions and commercial litigation. Bob also represents lawyers and health care professionals in disciplinary matters before Alabama Regulatory Boards. He has published multiple articles on the defense of legal malpractice suits. He received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina and his J.D. from the Cumberland School of Law. He is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is Past-President of both the Birmingham Bar Association and the Judge James Horton Inn of Court.


Terrence W. McCarthy's Profile

Terrence W. McCarthy Related Seminars and Products

Lightfoot, Franklin & White


Terry McCarthy is a partner at the Birmingham law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White, and is the co-author (along with Charles Gamble and Robert Goodwin) of the Seventh Edition of McElroy’s Alabama Evidence, the Fourth Edition of Gamble’s Alabama Rules of Evidence, and the forthcoming Gamble’s Alabama Rules of Evidence: Pocket Edition. He has also authored numerous scholarly articles on evidence issues and gives several CLE presentations each year on various evidence topics. Terry has taught evidence courses as an adjunct professor for most of his legal career at multiple law schools, and the last three years he taught first year Civil Procedure at his alma mater, The University of Alabama School of Law. He serves on the advisory committee for the Alabama Rules of Evidence, and has a diverse trial and appellate practice. He may be reached at tmccarthy@lightfootlaw.com. 


Dean Carole Smitherman's Profile

Dean Carole Smitherman Related Seminars and Products

Miles Law School


Dean Smitherman grew up in Birmingham and graduated from Spellman College in Atlanta in 1973. She went on to earn her J.D. at Miles Law School, graduating first in her class in 1979.  Dean Smitherman was first elected to the Birmingham City Council in 2001 and has been re-elected twice. She campaigned unsuccessfully for the mayor's office in 2003, 2007, and 2009. As President of the Birmingham City Council she assumed the office of mayor when Larry Langford was convicted in 2009. A month later, she then lost the position when the new council convened on November 24, 2009, and elected Roderick Royal as council president on a 5–4 vote, thus automatically making Royal the acting mayor. Smitherman later lost her election bid as mayor in a special election following Langford's conviction.  Carole Smitherman was Birmingham's first African-American female mayor. She also was the first African-American woman hired as a deputy district attorney in Jefferson County and first African American female Municipal and Circuit Court Judge in Birmingham. Smitherman also served as a municipal prosecutor for the city of Irondale.  She was elected to her current judicial office in 2012, after beating attorney Pat Thetford. The seat handles civil matters and controversy over $10,000.
 


John Lentine's Profile

John Lentine Related Seminars and Products

Sheffield & Lentine PC


Mr. Lentine received his B.A. with honors from the University of West Florida and his J.D. from Cumberland Law School. He is a Past President of the Alabama Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the Greater Birmingham Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, and the Legal Aid Society of Birmingham. He is a Life Member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and he has been Board Certified as a Criminal Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy and has served as the Board’s State Coordinator in Alabama. He has been appointed by the Alabama Supreme Court to serve on the Alabama Criminal Rules Committee and the Alabama Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions Committee. Mr. Lentine is an adjunct faculty member at Cumberland School of Law where he teaches Trial Advocacy, and the Birmingham School of Law where he teaches criminal law and the Death Penalty. He also teaches at the National Criminal Defense College at Mercer Law School in Macon, Georgia and the Bill Daniel Trial College in Athens, Georgia. He is listed in the Best Lawyers in Birmingham, Super Lawyers of Alabama and the Best Lawyers in America in the area of criminal defense. and was the 2010 recipient of the Judge Walter P. Gewin Award from CLE Alabama for his contributions to the development and presentation of CLE programs.


Gregory Cusimano's Profile

Gregory Cusimano Related Seminars and Products

Cusimano Roberts Mills & Knowlton, LLC


Greg Cusimano is a partner at Cusimano, Roberts, Mills & Knowlton in Gadsden, Alabama, and a co-founder of Winning Works, LLC, a nationally recognized trial consulting firm. Widely regarded as one of the nation’s leading trial attorneys, he is a former president of the Alabama Association for Justice (formerly ATLA) and a popular speaker who has presented in 48 states on trial strategy, persuasion, and advocacy.
An accomplished author, Greg wrote Winning Case Preparation (AAJ Press/Trial Guides), served as editor of the six-volume Litigating Tort Cases (AAJ Press/Thomson Reuters), and was editor for the first four editions of Alabama Tort Law. Most recently, he published Seeds for Success: Principles of Persuasion (AAJ Press).


Greg is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), a lifetime member of the American Association for Justice’s Board of Governors, and has received both the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Leonard Ring Champion of Justice Award from AAJ. He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1993.


Hon. Javan Patton Crayton's Profile

Hon. Javan Patton Crayton Related Seminars and Products

10th Judicial Circuit, Civil Division


Judge Javan J Patton began her legal career as a prosecutor with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.  As a prosecutor in Montgomery County she was assigned to a specialized team responsible for the prosecution of violent crimes against females involving both felony and misdemeanor charges. In 2009 she returned to Birmingham where she worked with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office prosecuting misdemeanor and felony cases in several courtrooms. In 2011, Judge Patton transitioned to the City of Birmingham where she served as an Assistant City Attorney practicing in civil litigation working as a trial attorney litigating issues that included; Civil Rights Violations, Municipal Liability, Wrongful Arrests, Unlawful Detainment, Excessive Force, Assault and Battery, Employment Discrimination, Personnel Appeals, Wrongful Termination and Car accident cases in both state and federal courts. In the fall of 2016, Patton was elected to serve as a Civil Circuit Court Judge for the 10th Circuit of Alabama.
Judge Patton is currently a member of the Alabama State Bar Association, Judicial Council of the Magic City Bar, the Alabama Circuit Judges Association, the Women Section of the Birmingham Bar, a member of the ALI Probate Law Legislative Committee, a member of the Entertainment Committee of the Birmingham Bar, a member of the Alabama Circuit Judges Association Scholarship Committee, and the 2020 recipient of the Drayton James Award from the Young Lawyers Section of the Birmingham Bar. 


Sanford Hooper Related Seminars and Products

Lightfoot Franklin & White, LLC


Judge Tamara Harris Johnson Related Seminars and Products

10th Judicial Circuit Court


Judge Tamara Harris Johnson is a Jefferson County Circuit Civil Court Judge. She is a graduate of Spelman College, Atlanta, GA and Howard University School of Law.  While a third-year law student, she co-authored, with Dean Herbert O. Reid, Sr. and EEOC Commissioner J. Clay Smith, an Amicus Curiae Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on The Regents of the University of California v. Alan Bakke, commissioned by the National Medical Association. She was admitted, by exam, to practice law in the District of Columbia (1978), Michigan (1981), California (1983) and Alabama (1989).  She was as a law clerk to D.C. Superior Court Judge William S. Thompson and the first female and first African American attorney to represent D.C. union members in the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, National Association of Government Employees and American Federation of Government Employees. She was a prosecutor in Los Angeles and Jefferson County.  She was the first In-House Counsel for the Birmingham Public School System, and the first female City Attorney for the City of Birmingham, hired by Mayor Bernard Kincaid.  She was a Bar Examiner for the State of Alabama from 2000 to 2004, and she taught Basic Skills in Trial Advocacy at Cumberland School of Law.  Judge Johnson is a graduate of Leadership Birmingham (1995) and Leadership Alabama (2000).  She is the first African American female to receive the distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the Birmingham Bar Association, which she received in 2023. She is the 2025 recipient of the Maud McLure Kelly Award, by the Women’s Section, Alabama State Bar, for making a lasting impact on the legal profession and whose commitment to women’s rights was and continues to be an inspiration for all women in Alabama. She is a 2025 Birmingham Bar Foundation Fellow.  She is most proud of being the mother of Erica Parker, M.D. (Emergency Medicine) and Major Ashley Johnson, JAG, U.S. Air Force (LLM in Military Law, with specialty in National Security). 


Location

Holiday Inn Birmingham - Hoover by IHG

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2901 John Hawkins Parkway, Hoover, Alabama 35244, United States
(205) 739-2700
www.ihg.com