Our Southern California Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers recently presented its eighth annual Trial Basics Seminar (“TBS”). Herring Law Group (Herring Imming’s predecessor) founded the program in 2015. It has become a major annual educational event for California’s family law community. We are pleased to continually host eager and focused family law lawyers toward improving their courtroom skills.
It has been said that each family law case has different needs. We recognize the availability of various alternative courses of resolution. But we believe that if a case cannot be settled, then the consequence is that the courts are there to decide the issues. Our job is to be prepared to expertly litigate those cases to their logical ends.
HI believes tight trial skills directly generate settlements. There is nothing like a trial deadline, a list of pretrial tasks and issues, and capable counsel ready to “do what is needed” to generate settlement anxiety in an opposing party. We settle the vast majority of our cases because others know what we can do. We are not always in trial, and we actively fight to keep our clients out of it … but if it is unavoidable, we press for the win.
For TBS, we have been blessed each year by the active presence of family law guru and friend, Garrett Dailey, as our moderator. Garrett’s contributions to California family law through his Attorney’s Briefcase legal research and update service, annual Family Law Boot Camp, Family Law 101 presentation, and Year in Review seminars are unparalleled. His advocacy in the trial and appellate courts is legendary.
TBS is a fast-moving event. We gave a whopping 22 presentations throughout the day. Topics ranged from Pre-trial Discovery Planning to Appellate Considerations. Our audience of nearly 450 continually interacted with us via Zoom’s “chat” and “Q&A” features.
A couple weeks following the “main event” Zoom presentation, we held an in-person Practicum at Loyola Law School in downtown Los Angeles. Chris Melcher and Sandra Mayberry led that as always.
Sincere thanks to all who made it happen: Garrett, Chris, Sandra, Andrew Botros, Ryan Wedeking, Robert Benavente, Kyle Siems, Leigh Galyon, Claudia Ribet, and Justice Sheila Sonenshine (ret.). Supporting all of us was one of HI’s Legal Administrators, Kristiné Kirschke — without whom we could not have succeeded as we did. HI’s Greg Herring served as the annual Dean and as a presenter, too.
In the eight years we have presented TBS, we have educated over 1,500 family law attorneys throughout California! Making it all sweeter is that we present TBS at no cost to our students – not a cent has ever been charged! We provide substantial Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Credits to boot! It remains a huge pleasure and honor to continue serving, sponsoring, and facilitating TBS.