Total Credits: 1 CLE, 1 Ethics
ER 8.1. Bar Admission and Disciplinary Matters
ER 8.3. Reporting Professional Misconduct
Faculty
Sarah Epperson, State Bar of Arizona
Rebecca Kennelly, Office of the Attorney General
Patricia Sallen, Ethics at Law PLLC
*Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees
Sarah Epperson is 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. Sarah is an Arizona native who earned her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Arizona, summa cum laude, and her J.D. from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law. After earning her law degree, Sarah served as a Judicial Law Clerk for the Honorable Virginia C. Kelly of the Arizona Court Of Appeals, Division II. Prior to assuming the role of Ethics Counsel, Sarah enjoyed a varied career in private practice, with experience in civil and commercial litigation, estate controversies, insurance defense, and civil appeals. She was honored as a Southwest Super Lawyers Rising Star from 2020 to 2022 and was listed with the Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch in both 2021 and 2022. Sarah is admitted to practice in Arizona and the U.S. District Court for the State of Arizona and is a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, the American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility, and the Arizona Women Lawyers Association. When not in the office, Sarah can be found reading in the Arizona sunshine, planning her next international adventure, or cheering on the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Patricia Sallen is a lawyer in private practice focusing on professional responsibility issues. She represents lawyers in discipline and admission matters, provides ethics advice to lawyers, serves as an expert witness on professional-responsibility issues, and consults on a myriad of other law-related topics. She regularly presents at CLE seminars and publishes articles about professional responsibility and writes the Eye on Ethics column for Arizona Attorney. She also has taught professional responsibility as an adjunct professor at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law for more than a decade. In addition to practicing in private law firms, she spent more than 15 years working for the State Bar of Arizona as both a bar counsel and ethics counsel and supervised programs such as the Fee Arbitration Program and Client Protection Fund. She served as expert consultant to the Arizona Supreme Court's 2014-15 comprehensive ethical rules review effort and to the Court's 2019-20 Task Force on the Delivery of Legal Services, which resulted in the groundbreaking rule changes allowing non-lawyer firm ownership and legal paraprofessionals. She currently serves on the State Bar's Ethics Advisory Group and the Supreme Court's Task Force on Ethics Rules Governing the State Attorney General, County Attorneys, and Other Public Lawyers.
attended the University of Arizona for her undergraduate studies and law degree. She served as a Deputy County Attorney for Maricopa County from 2007 to 2013, beginning in the Juvenile Division and working her way to the Vehicular Crimes Bureau where she advanced to Assistant Bureau Chief. Between 2014 and 2017, Rebecca presided over administrative hearings at the Executive Hearing Office for the Arizona Department of Transportation. Since the fall of 2017, Rebecca has been a litigator with the State Bar of Arizona where she pursues allegations of unethical conduct made against lawyers before the Attorney Discipline Probable Cause Committee and the Presiding Disciplinary Judge. Rebecca is also a member of the Arizona Women Lawyer Association, and has two kids, ages six and four.
