Three members of the Committee on Civil Justice Reform will discuss recent and upcoming changes to the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure. Early registration is recommended!
Justice Robert M. Brutinel was appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court in November of 2010, and elected as Vice Chief Justice in January 2018. Prior to his appointment, Justice Brutinel served as the Presiding Judge of the Yavapai County Superior Court, where he presided over cases involving civil, criminal, juvenile, mental health, drug court, probate and domestic relations matters. He has served on the Arizona Supreme Court Committee on Juvenile Courts, the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct, the Arizona Supreme Court Commission on Technology, the Supreme Court Arizona Judicial Council, the Arizona Character Education Commission, and the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet. Justice Brutinel is a past president of the Arizona Judges Association and the Yavapai County Bar Association, and has served as an Advisory Board Member for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections. Justice Brutinel is the Chair of the Court Improvement Workgroup and he also currently serves a member of the Arizona Juvenile Justice Commission. In 2010 Justice Brutinel was chosen as the National Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Judge of the Year. Justice Brutinel graduated from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Economics in 1979, and received his law degree from the University of Arizona, College of Law in 1982. Justice Brutinel was admitted to practice law in Arizona in 1982. Prior to serving as a judge he practiced law in Prescott, Arizona, primarily in the areas of business and real estate matters, as well as Indian Law.
Jodi Knobel Feuerhelm has over 30 years of experience in the areas of construction counseling and litigation, product liability, contract, real estate and other complex commercial disputes. She has represented clients in trial, mediation and arbitration proceedings throughout Arizona and California. Jodi’s construction practice covers a wide range of projects and issues, including construction defect claims, lien and payment disputes, insurance coverage issues, contract and warranty claims, and materials failures, with projects ranging from residential complexes to schools, pipelines, hotels, resorts and other commercial buildings. Her commercial litigation experience includes a wide variety of tort and contract disputes arising out of real estate, financial, and business transactions. In recent years, Jodi has applied her decades of litigation experience to serving as an arbitrator and mediator of commercial and construction disputes. Jodi is a member of the American Arbitration Association’s Panel of Commercial and Construction Neutrals, and serves on the Executive Council of the State Bar of Arizona’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Section. She has served as a sole arbitrator and on 3-member arbitrator panels, handling construction-related disputes arising out of commercial and residential projects, as well as a variety of commercial and consumer disputes. Jodi also serves on the American Arbitration Association’s Roster of Mediators. In 2016, Jodi was a co-recipient of the State Bar of Arizona’s “Member of the Year” Award. She is listed in Best Lawyers in America© in Commercial and Construction Litigation (2016 to present) and has been selected as a Southwest Super Lawyer® in Business and Construction Litigation (2014 - 2017). Jodi is a member and current Vice-Chair of the Bar’s Civil Practice and Procedure Committee, and is a past Chair of the Ethics Committee of the State Bar of Arizona. Jodi also served on the Arizona Supreme Court’s Task Force on the Rules of Civil Procedure, which proposed significant amendments to Arizona’s Rules of Civil Procedure that took effect in 2017.
Andrew M. Jacobs concentrates his practice in appellate litigation. He is also an experienced trial lawyer. The head of the Snell & Wilmer’s appellate practice, Andrew has argued a dozen times before the Ninth Circuit (including en banc), many times in Arizona’s courts of appeals, four times before the Nevada Supreme Court, and three times in the Seventh Circuit. He is counsel of record in a case accepted for review by the United States Supreme Court, and is increasingly involved in petitions for certiorari and responses to them. Andrew was the chair of the Ninth Circuit's Lawyer Representatives in 2011-2012, served on the Ninth Circuit's Advisory Committee on Rules and Practice from 2008 through 2012, and served as the lawyer-coordinator for the Ninth Circuit's pro bono program from 2007 to the present in the Districts of Arizona and Nevada. Andrew has been appointed by the Arizona Supreme Court to serve on its Judicial Performance Review Commission, its Task Force on the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure, and its Committee for Civil Justice Reform. He is also the lawyer-coordinator for the Arizona Court of Appeals’ pro bono program for Division Two. As a trial lawyer, Andrew leads a wide variety of commercial litigation, class action, and civil rights representations. He has tried cases in Chicago, Phoenix, Tucson, and Bisbee, including four jury trials, several bench trials, several preliminary injunctions, and a number of arbitrations. Andrew is also in his third year as Chair of the Arizona State Bar's Civil Procedure and Practice Committee, which helps write the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure. As a leader in that group, and a working group leader in two Supreme Court commissions, Andrew has participated actively in the drafting of many rules of civil procedure, and for that reason regularly presents CLEs on these subjects with his friends and colleagues in Phoenix, Tucson, and around the state. Andrew was honored by the State Bar as Member of the Year in 2016 (along with two other peers simultaneously honored), has been Martindale-Hubbell AV-rated since 2007, a Super Lawyer since 2012, is AV-rated and a Super Lawyer in Appellate Law, and has been recognized by other honorary groups.
*The State Bar of Arizona does not approve or accredit CLE activities for the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education requirement. This activity may qualify for up to 1.0 hours toward your annual CLE requirement for the State Bar of Arizona, including 0 hour(s) of professional responsibility.