ER 8.4 Misconduct
Faculty
Nancy Greenlee, Counselor and Attorney at Law
Jessica Kokal, Broening Oberg Woods & Wilson PC
Keith Swisher, University of Arizona College of Law
Meredith Vivona, Ethics Counsel, State Bar of Arizona
Don Wilson, Broening Oberg Woods & Wilson PC
Nancy A Greenlee
Nancy A. Greenlee, sole practitioner, specializes in representing lawyers in disciplinary proceedings. From 1990 to 1996, she served as a State Bar of Arizona staff bar counsel responsible for investigation and prosecution of matters involving violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct. Nancy was a member of the State Bar of Arizona Ethics Committee from 2007 to 2016. She is the chair of the State Bar of Arizona Ethics Advisory Group. She is a former lawyer member of the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct and a former Board member of the Young Lawyer’s Division of the Maricopa County Bar Association. Nancy graduated, with distinction, from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1986, and worked in private practice, handling primarily plaintiff’s personal injury cases and general litigation matters including some dissolution cases. Nancy frequently serves as a panel member for CLE seminars dealing with professional conduct and ethics. She can be reached at (602) 264-8110 or nancy@nancygreenlee.com.
Donald Wilson, Jr, Shareholder, Broening Oberg Woods & Wilson PC
is a senior member in the law firm of Broening Oberg Woods & Wilson, P.C., which he joined in 1981. Mr. Wilson is an experienced litigator, with substantial trial experience. He concentrates his practice on the defense of attorneys in malpractice and disciplinary matters. Mr. Wilson served as a Judge Pro Tem on the Maricopa County Superior Court bench for twenty years, and is a past president of the Arizona Association of Defense Counsel. He is also a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel and is certified in legal malpractice by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys. Mr. Wilson was selected by his peers as a Best Lawyer in legal malpractice in 2011-2019 and has been named Lawyer of the Year for legal malpractice defense by Best Lawyers in 2014, 2016 and 2019. He has also been nominated as a Southwest Superlawyer in legal malpractice for multiple years, including 2019. He is also a member of the Arizona Attorney Ethics Advisory Group. Mr. Wilson completed his undergraduate education and obtained his law degree at Arizona State University. In his leisure time, Mr. Wilson enjoys the company of his wife, Mary, and is an avid reader and archery hunter. Mr. Wilson can be reached at dwj@bowwlaw.com.
Meredith L Vivona, State Bar of Arizona
Meredith L. Vivona is the Ethics Counsel for the State Bar of Arizona, where she advises lawyers through the Ethics Hotline, presents ethics related CLE programs, acts as legal advisor to the Fee Arbitration Program, serves on the Ethics Advisory Group and acts as liaison to the Arizona Supreme Court’s Attorney Ethics Advisory Committee. Prior to becoming Ethics Counsel, Meredith served as Practice Management Attorney for Practice 2.0 and the Trust Account Helpline, the State Bar’s confidential practice management and trust account advice program. Before joining the State Bar of Arizona, Meredith served as Independent Bar Counsel, investigating and prosecuting misconduct allegations brought against attorneys, when the Lawyer Regulation Office had a conflict. Part of Meredith’s responsibilities included serving as Acting Disciplinary Counsel for the Commission on Judicial Conduct where she investigated and resolved judicial misconduct complaints. Before serving as IBC, Meredith enjoyed a varied career in private practice, with experience in civil litigation matters throughout the state. Meredith is admitted to practice in Arizona and the U.S. District Court for the State of Arizona. Meredith received her Juris Doctor from Wake Forest Law School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Keith Swisher, Swisher PC
Keith Swisher is Professor of Legal Ethics and Director of the Bachelor of Law and Master of Legal Studies Programs at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Prof. Swisher teaches legal ethics and procedure, serves as ethics counsel and expert witness to lawyers, law firms, and judges, and represents indigent defendants in the Ninth Circuit. His scholarship is regularly published and cited in the areas of legal and judicial ethics and disqualification, and he previously founded and edited the first blogs on judicial ethics and lawyer disqualification. He is a former member of the ABA's Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and the Editorial Board of ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct. In 2011, he received the ABA's Rosner & Rosner Young Lawyer Professionalism Award, and in 2016, he received the AJC's Learned Hand Emerging Leadership Award.
Previously, Prof. Swisher clerked for the Ninth Circuit (Canby, J.) and practiced at Osborn Maledon in Phoenix.
Jessica Jean-Marie Kokal, Broening Oberg Woods & Wilson PC
Jessica Kokal is a partner with Broening Oberg Woods & Wilson. Jessica moved to the Valley from the Detroit metropolitan area to attend Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University as a National Merit scholar recruit. She remained at Arizona State University to attend law school at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law while also working full-time at a small Phoenix firm. After joining the firm of Broening, Oberg, Woods & Wilson as an associate in 2016, Jessica was invited to become a partner in 2018.
During her career, Jessica has defended over 30 arbitrations both in what are now known as Tier 1 cases in the state of Arizona and in the AAA forum, taken and defended hundreds of depositions, participated in dozens of administrative hearings and settlement conferences, and defended multiple trials, before both juries and the presiding disciplinary judge and disciplinary hearing panel, to verdict. She currently focuses her practice in the areas of general liability defense, insurance bad faith with a focus in workers’ compensation bad faith, and professional malpractice and lawyer disciplinary proceedings.
In addition to maintaining her practice, Jessica oversees the firm’s mentorship program and chairs the firm’s marketing and recruitment committees. Between 2017 and 2019, she also directed the Phoenix Ladder Down program, designed to help women lawyers extend the “ladder down” to other women lawyers. She currently leads the firm’s mentorship program.