Depos: Mastering the Deposition: A Critical Skills Workshop (CA) (2012)

Faculty:

Amy Brantly is Of Counsel in the Los Angeles office of Susman Godfrey.  Ms. Brantly represents plaintiffs and defendants in a range of complex litigation cases, in both state and federal courts, including class actions, antitrust cases, securities cases, trade secrets litigation, executive compensation cases and fraud cases.

Amy successfully manages actions from filing of the initial complaint or answer, through discovery and motion practice to trial.  She has taken and defended numerous depositions and worked with several damages and industry experts.  Amy regularly participates in hearings, mediations, arbitrations and trials.  She is currently counsel to technology companies, healthcare companies, start-ups and investors.

Amy is an active member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and has served as a mentor to high school students at Garfield High School.  She also sits on the Board of Governors of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles and is currently the Co-chair of Business Development.

Amy has lectured to both plaintiff and defense lawyers on class action waivers and class arbitration issues and frequently speaks as a panelist or moderator at bar events, including the WLALA Litigators Forum and for WLALA’s career development programs. 

Damian D. Capozzola is a partner in Crowell & Moring's Los Angeles office. Now in his sixteenth year of litigation practice, Damian has handled significant litigation matters across a broad spectrum of industries and has represented some of the world's largest defense contractors, food manufacturers and wholesalers, and telecommunications companies.

Damian has successfully first-chaired nine jury trials, three bench trials, and one arbitration, and has contributed to successful trial results and settlements in a number of other matters.

He has extensive experience in taking and defending depositions, and he has written and lectured on litigation strategies -- including the effective use of technology in the courtroom -- and working with experts. Since 2006 he has been the coauthor of the Thomson Reuters/West Trial Practice Series treatise Expert Witnesses in Civil Trials: Effective Preparation and Presentation.

Damian also has experience with a range of environmental issues, from mass tort litigation to multi-party groundwater contamination mediations to advising clients on discrete issues. Finally, through the years, he has devoted a significant amount of pro bono time prosecuting misdemeanor crimes for two local municipalities. Most recently, Damian secured guilty verdicts on both counts in a two-day bench trial in which the defendant was represented by an attorney with an established track record of filing civil rights lawsuits alleging officer misconduct.
 
Damian was chosen as a Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star from 2008 through 2011, including a feature article in 2009.

Damian served in 2011 as a Governor’s appointee to the California Law Revision Commission, and he is currently the Vice-President of the Italian-American Lawyers of Los Angeles and the Thomson-Reuters LiveNote Litigation Advisory Board.

Ruth Kahn is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.  Her practice focuses on the defense of toxic tort and products liability cases, and environmental litigation. Ms. Kahn has been repeatedly identified as one of the top women litigators in the State of California.

Ms. Kahn works closely with a number of nationally renowned experts, including epidemiologists, toxicologists, and industrial hygienists to provide a highly skilled, comprehensive defense. She is particularly interested in cases in which law and science intersect.

Ms. Kahn actively represents manufacturers and distributors of chemical and petroleum-based products in personal injury and wrongful death litigation and trials. Her focus is managing and defending complex, multi-party cases involving cancer, lung disease, and birth defects, where the plaintiff(s) allege they have been injuriously exposed to a chemical. Very often, Ms. Kahn, together with others at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, represent all or a substantial number of defendants sued in an action.

Additionally, Ms. Kahn was one of the trial attorneys for several defendants in the Lockheed Litigation Coordinated Judicial Proceedings in Los Angeles, which arose from the Skunkworks facility in Burbank, California, and involved a total of 600+ injury/death claims.

Ms. Kahn has successfully defended the interests of numerous corporations in products liability and mass tort litigation across the country. She has been admitted pro hac vice in numerous jurisdictions and has extensive litigation and trial experience involving both industrial and consumer products.

Ms. Kahn has assisted in the successful defense of major pesticide/herbicide manufacturers in products liability cases in Los Angeles and San Diego Counties, arising from alleged exposures to agricultural, professional landscaping, and lawn and garden products.

Bill Karns specializes in major personal injury, and only represents plaintiffs.  He is a partner at Cheong, Denove, Rowell, Bennett and Karns.  Bill is a Consumer Attorney’s Association of Los Angeles (CAALA) Board of Governor, and is currently its Government Relations Chair.  He also serves on the Consumer Attorney’s of California (CAOC) Board of Governors, and was elected to its Board of Directors. Bill was appointed to the LACBA’s Judicial Election Evaluation Committee in 2010.  He is a Board of Governor for the Italian American Lawyers Association.  Bill has lectured to both plaintiff and defense lawyers on deposition strategy, traumatic brain injury, and human anatomy.

Viiu Spangler Khare is a partner with Berkes Crane Robinson & Seal LLP. She has practiced in California since 1997 and is an experienced trial attorney with a broad civil practice including breach of contract actions, insurance defense, insurance coverage and toxic torts, with an emphasis on products liability, premises liability and personal injury defense.  In addition to managing and trying cases for a variety of corporate clients, Ms. Khare also represents plaintiffs in personal injury and medical malpractice actions. Ms. Khare is a member of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles and regularly volunteers for People For the American Way's Election Protection Program, providing voters with one-to-one assistance at a variety of precincts in the United States on Election Day. Ms. Khare has been recognized by Pasadena Magazine as a 2010 Top Civil Litigation Lawyer and has spoken on a variety of topics at Continuing Legal Education seminars and conferences.
 
Ms. Khare earned her B.A. at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington and attended graduate school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. After working as a professional actress for 10 years, Ms. Khare entered law school and received her J.D. from Whittier Law School in Los Angeles, California, graduating cum laude in 1997. While attending Whittier Law School, Ms. Khare was Solicitations Editor for the Whittier Law Review and was active in the Student Bar Association and the Whittier Public Interest Law Foundation.
 
Ms. Khare authored Happily Settled Ever After: In re the Marriage of Heikes for the Whittier Law Review and her published opinions include Belmonte v. Employer's Insurance Co., (2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 430, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 661.

Mike Murray serves as the technical liaison for Veritext California.  Mike is knowledgeable in many legal applications such as LiveNote, Summation, Sanction, TextMap and more.  His responsibilities range from working with internal staff to training clients on the latest litigation technology including presenting MCLEs to attorneys throughout the state of California.

Additionally, Mike works with the internal development team to create such products as the Veritext iPhone/iPad app, Mobile Depo and other upcoming tools.  

Karen L. Stevenson is Senior Counsel in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group in Los Angeles. She specializes in complex commercial matters, including unfair competition (state and federal), financial fraud, sexual harassment, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and business torts.

A skilled trial lawyer, Ms. Stevenson is lead counsel in high-stakes disputes for national and regional clients, including banks, institutional investors, and mortgage lenders. Twice selected as a Los Angeles Magazine Southern California Super Lawyer in business litigation and nominated by Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles as one of the Top 100 Women Litigators in Los Angeles, Ms. Stevenson is a frequent speaker and advisor on electronic discovery, the admissibility of electronically stored information, and social media.

Ms. Stevenson currently serves as a Trustee to the Rhodes Trust which oversees the Rhodes Scholarship program for Oxford University in England, and serves as the 2011-2012 Rhodes Scholarship District Secretary for Southern California and Arizona. Ms. Stevenson is the Associate Editor of the American Bar Association, Litigation News and Litigation Update, a member of Women in e-Discovery and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Arts and Sciences Foundation for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and she is a past President of the Board of Directors for the non-profit, Women’s Care Cottage.

Ms. Stevenson earned her J.D. with distinction at Stanford Law School. While at Stanford Law, with her teammate, Ms. Stevenson won the Marian Rice Kirkwood Moot Court Award for Best Team of Advocates. She earned an M.A. in European History at Oxford University, England as a Rhodes Scholar and received her B.A. in History (Phi Beta Kappa) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where she was a Morehead Scholar.