Spring 2025 – Teaching the Next Generation of Trial Lawyers: Difficult Cases and Difficult Clients

8:00 AM – 8:45 AM: Continental Breakfast 

8:45 AM – 9:00 AM: Opening Remarks
Dean Jamelle Sharpe, University of Illinois College of Law 

9:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Panel I – Representing Unpopular Clients – Strategies and Ethics
Moderator: Kimball Anderson, Winston & Strawn LLP
Panelists: Charles Blixt, former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of R.J. Reynalds Tobacco Company and Reynolds American, Inc.; Lynn H. Murray, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP; Prof. Patrick Keenan, University of Illinois College of Law; Dan K. Webb, Winston & Strawn LLP

Panel Description:  Every attorney has an ethical obligation to zealously represent their clients. What responsibilities are attendant to such an obligation? What are the limits of zealous advocacy? Further, the acceptance of such responsibilities may be met with widespread public criticism, controversy, and personal moral conflicts. How do attorneys manage these potential conflicts, both outside the courtroom and inside the courtroom. Finally, how do attorneys manage their clients, who may have differing opinions of what constitutes zealous advocacy and the outer bounds of what is acceptable advocacy? This panel brings together academics and distinguished attorneys to address professional ethics in representing difficult clients and advocating difficult cases and the controversies inherent to such representation. This conversation focuses on both ethics and strategies when faced with difficult cases or difficult clients.

11:00 AM – 11:15 AM:  Break

11:15 AM – 12:00 PM: Keynote Address I –  Dan Herbert – Representing Clients in Difficult Cases

12:00 PM – 12:15 PM: Break and Serving of Lunch (provided)

12:15 PM – 2:00 PM: Panel II – Representing Difficult and Unpopular Clients in the National Security Arena
Moderator: Prof. Tony Ghiotto, University of Illinois College of Law
Panelists: Eugene Fidell, Yale Law School (Counsel for Bowe Bergdahl); Alberto Mora, former Navy General Counsel; Annie Morgan, Defense Counsel (Counsel for Abdul Al-Rahim Al Nashiri, alleged mastermind of the USS Cole Bombing)

Panel Description: This panel explores the unique ethical responsibilities and challenges, as well as the moral and professional concerns, faced by attorneys representing difficult and unpopular clients in the national security arena. Speakers will share experiences and lessons learned from representing suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay and from representing high-profile and controversial servicemembers before courts-martial. Further, speakers will discuss the challenges attendant with advising senior military and executive branch officials who intend to order actions that push against domestic and international law, in addition to societal and democratic norms.

2:00 PM – 2:15 PM: Break

2:15 PM – 3:00 PM: Keynote Address II: Lori Laird – Behind a Mass Shooting Trial in Texas, a Lawyer’s Own Grief

3:00 PM: Closing Remarks – Prof. Tony Ghiotto