Trial Guides is proud to publish many of the nation’s top-performing female trial attorneys. To celebrate Women's History Month, we proudly present some of the recent accomplishments of our venerable female authors and presenters.
Megan Hottman
Megan Hottman is a lawyer, athlete, advocate, public speaker, group fitness instructor, business owner and entrepreneur, and commercial real estate landlord based out of Colorado. “Putting me at a desk all day long and making me choose just the one thing would not work for me,” she says. Megan has presented webinars for Trial Guides on the importance of cycling advocacy in trial law. Last year she received a $353 million verdict in the cycling case involving the death of Gwen Inglis. Her trial motto? “Just be your true self,” she says. “Don't try to be something that you're not. And with your clients: focus on the human story.” In addition to her thriving legal practice, Megan is also an athlete, a coach, and an outspoken advocate for better health among legal professionals. “If I could ask for one thing from the profession, it would be to start taking better care of the humans,” she says, “because I do believe that translates directly to more money at trial.”
Featured Product by Megan Hottman: How to Succeed in Your Next Cycling Case (On Demand CLE)
Lisa Blue
A popular Trial Guides author and speaker (Preparing for Voir Dire, Conducting Voir Dire, Jury Selection and Psychology and more), Lisa Blue runs one of the largest environmental law firms in the US. She has been named one of the Top 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America, one of the Top 50 Women Litigators in the US by National Law Journal, and has received numerous other state and national recognitions for her legal expertise. She was inducted into the National Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame in 2015. In addition to trial law, Lisa is also a trained psychologist, holding a PhD in counseling psychology. She is a vocal advocate for the value of mindfulness in trial work, and leads weekly, online meditation sessions for practicing attorneys.
Featured Products by Lisa Blue: Conducting Voir Dire and Preparing for Voir Dire
Deborah Chang
Deborah Chang is one of the founding members of Athea Trial Lawyers, an all-female law firm featuring many of Trial Guides’ bestselling authors and speakers. A specialist in both catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, Chang is known for taking on complex and high-profile cases. Some of her notable work includes a record-breaking $17 million verdict in Cuhbertson v. LACMTA, which set in motion industry-wide changes to ensure the safety of visually impaired train riders, as well as Rosen v. The Regents of the University of California, which requires state colleges and universities to better protect their students. Notable as well is the National Commission on AIDS’ class action lawsuit that established humanitarian protocols for maximum-security prisoners living with AIDS. Chang’s legal legacy is one of hard-fought—and much-needed—legal precedents that will have a positive impact for generations to come.
Featured Product by Deborah Chang: All The King's Horses: Storytelling in Traumatic Brain Injury Cases (On Demand CLE)
Randi McGinn
McGinn Law truly sets the bar for women in legal advocacy. She began her career by giving birth to her daughter, Heather, the day before her three-day bar examination. McGinn went on to become one of the country’s best trial lawyers, having tried over 130 civil and criminal cases to verdict with an astonishing 95 percent success rate. McGinn understands that trials are won or lost based on who tells the best story—and, as a former journalist, McGinn is a natural storyteller. McGinn was the first female president of the Inner Circle of Advocates, a group of the 100 best trial lawyers in the US. She is known for devastating cross-examinations, as seen in this video of her takedown of an expert in this cross-examination. McGinn obtained a record-setting verdict against a semi-trailer manufacturer for its choice not to build trailers with side underride guards.
Featured Products by Randi McGinn: Changing Laws, Saving Lives: How to Take on Corporate Giants & Win, and Creating Magic in Trial (DVD), and Closing Statements that Touch the Heart (DVD).
Courtney Rowley
Trial lawyer and mother of three, Courtney Rowley is the coauthor of four Trial Guides books: Trial By Woman, Voir Dire and Opening Statement, Running with the Bulls: How to Win Top Dollar Settlements and Damages Evolving. Rowley brought a suit against international chemical company giant Monsanto for toxic injuries sustained by women and children of the Sky Valley School System in Washington. In 2022, they obtained a verdict of $275 million and plan to prosecute at least two more cases, representing five other families, before the end of 2023. Courtney is a cofounder of Trial by Woman, a nonprofit organization that empowers, supports, and educates female business professionals. Among her proudest moments: securing an $18.6 million settlement against the city of San Diego on a case involving a nine-year-old boy who lost his leg after being struck by a truck driver (the largest personal-injury settlement of its kind). Courtney works in tandem with her husband, Nick Rowley, founder of Trial by Human and Trial Lawyers for Justice. A tireless advocate for civil rights, Courtney seeks to know her clients as human beings. In addition, Courtney is an outspoken avid advocate for girls’ education; she helped build water wells as well as a school in Kenya.
Featured Product by Courtney Rowley: Running With The Bulls: How To Win Top-Dollar Settlements (available in print and ebook)
Joane Garcia-Colson
Joane Garcia-Colson has represented numerous plaintiffs in matters regarding employment-related issues including wrongful termination and sexual harassment. Her professional highlights include a 1998 verdict for $62 million, one of the largest verdicts in the history of the state of California at the time, in a wrongful termination case involving a former vice president of a hearing aid manufacturer. Joane later obtained one of the first verdicts for financial elder abuse; she represented an eighty-one-year-old woman who had been taken advantage of in a real estate transaction. Joane is a certified psychodramatist and former actress: skills put to use in trial and also in her consulting work.
Fredilyn Sison
For most of her career, Fredilyn Sison was a public defender. She currently works as a training coordinator for the Federal Defenders of Western North Carolina in Asheville. In addition to Trial in Action, Sison has written on jury selection, child pornography, and foreign law, as well as the effects of incarceration on families. She has also published articles on the value of psychodrama during jury selection. She continues to attend workshops as a certified practitioner in psychodrama. Along with her Trial in Action coauthors, Joane Garcia-Colson and Mark Peckham, Sison co-created The 3 Sisters, LLP.
Mary Peckham
After receiving her undergraduate degree, Mary Peckham took a position as a director and counselor for disadvantaged children in Detroit. She later became a lawyer to help people in crisis. Peckham served on the Committee for Justice for Abused Women where she helped establish Colorado’s statutes on domestic violence. Her commitment to understanding, and humanizing, her client's cases is a hallmark of her practice. Her practice includes family law, wills and estates, and probate. Mary is psychodrama-certified as a practitioner in psychodrama and sociometry.
Featured Product by Joane Garcia-Colson, Fredilyn Sison and Mary Peckham: Trial In Action: The Persuasive Power of Psychodrama
Artemis H. Malekpour
Artemis H. Malekpour (co author of Damages Evolving and presenter of The Art of the Ask, and multiple other On Demand videos, co-runs the litigation consulting firm Malekpour & Ball. She specializes in focus groups, trial strategy, and jury selection, drawing from her professional training in psychology and psychiatric research. Artemis interned with Dr. David Ball while she was in law school: a critical fork in the road for her legal career. She focuses on the mechanisms of human decision making as they relate to case framing, verbiage, and body language. Malekpour has consulted on a wide variety of notable cases across the country. Through years of jury research, trial observation, and discussion moderation, she brings a refreshingly relatable approach to modern jury work. “How to tell a story is maybe the most important skill you can learn,” she says. “As a lawyer, you need to be ready to react like a human when the topic of tragedy comes up.”
Featured Product by: Artemis H. Malekpour: Damages Evolving (available in print and ebook)
Lita Barnett Luvera
Lita Barnett Luvera was the Luvera Law Firm’s managing partner for personnel, general business, and firm operating policies. Luvera was instrumental in multiple multimillion-dollar outcomes, and remains deeply committed to her community; she has also been actively involved in the Center for Women and Democracy at the University of Washington, a program through which she traveled to Cuba with Senator Maria Cantwell and met with local women leaders in democratic development. A lover and patron of the arts, Luvera served for over a decade on the Board of Trustees for PONCHO (Patrons of Northwest Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations), promoting arts in the Pacific Northwest. Her Trial Guides book, Luvera on Advocacy, has been widely lauded by Inner Circle members and new lawyers alike.
Theresa Bowen Hatch
Before she began her decorated career as a national trial lawyer, Theresa Bowen Hatch was an on-air television news reporter and a writer for the Associated Press. Her love of storytelling blended seamlessly into a career as a trial lawyer, where she prides herself on telling her clients’ stories with compassion and care. Hatch has won numerous seven- and eight-figure verdicts and settlements on her clients’ behalf. In addition to trial work, Hatch is the coauthor of Trial by Woman and cofounder of the Trial by Woman community, Hatch’s legal career focuses on cases involving catastrophic impairment. She is listed among the Top 100 Civil Plaintiff’s lawyers in the National Trial Lawyers Association and was recognized as one of the nation’s top 1 percent of trial lawyers by the National Association of Distinguished Counsel.
Nicole Reimann
A highly skilled courtroom lawyer with extensive experience trying cases to verdict before judges and juries in federal and state court, Nicole Reimann has represented Fortune 500 companies in a wide range of matters, including insurance coverage, federal antitrust violations, contract disputes, economic torts, and personal injury. She also has considerable experience in mediation with great success in resolving matters through alternative dispute resolution and negotiated settlements. Reimann also represents children in dependency and delinquency court. In 2010, she received the Support Center for Child Advocates Distinguished Advocate Award. She is a partner at the firm Batchis Nestle & Reimann in Bala Cynwyd, PA.
Featured Product by Nichole Reimann: The Deposition Handbook
Candess Zona-Mendola
Candess Zona-Mendola is a trial paralegal with over twenty years of experience. A popular Trial Guides author and speaker, Zona-Mendola’s expertise extends across several legal specialties, including personal injury, family law, civil rights, and employment, as well as mass tort cases. Zona-Mendola has been part of cases that helped women injured through defective medical devices and pharmaceuticals; she is also highly experienced in food-safety litigation. She has been invited to speak at national seminars regarding the work that goes into preparing federal court cases, as well as on food safety litigation. She is also the editor of several legal blogs, including the award-winning www.makefoodsafe.com. She is proud to have been the trial paralegal for trial teams that won nearly $300 million in verdicts.
Join Candess for a live webinar on April 6th, 2023: A Paralegal's Guide to Effective Communication.
Also by Candess Zona-Mendola: The Indispensable Paralegal: Your Guide to Getting It All Done (available in print and ebook)
