Settlement, Mediation and Consent to Use Magistrate (2025 CLE by the Sea)

Scott Bales Related Seminars and Products

Scott Bales LLC

Scott Bales served on the Arizona Supreme Court for fourteen years, including as Chief Justice from July 2014 until July 2019. After retiring from the Court, he was the Executive Director of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System through July 2020. He now consults on appeals and internal investigations and serves as a neutral.

Justice Bales serves on the Council of the American Law Institute and the Board of Trustees for the National Conference of Bar Examiners. He previously chaired both the Council of the ABA’s Section on Legal Education and the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference. Justice Bales has often taught courses at the law schools at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. Before joining the Court, he practiced law in Arizona for nearly 20 years.

He was a partner in Phoenix firms that later became Osborn Maledon and Lewis Roca. As Arizona’s Solicitor General from 1999-2001, he handled major appeals, oversaw the enforcement of Arizona election laws, and supervised the preparation of legal opinions. Justice Bales also was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Policy Development, a federal prosecutor, and a Special Investigative Counsel for the Justice Department’s Inspector General. He clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and for Ninth Circuit Judge Joseph T. Sneed III. After graduating from Michigan State University, he received a master’s degree in economics and his law degree from Harvard.

David K Duncan Related Seminars and Products

David K. Duncan is a retired United States Magistrate Judge. During his 17 years on the Phoenix bench, in light of that court's heavy civil case load, he presided by the parties' consent in more non-prisoner civil cases than many District Judges sitting in other cities across the country. In his last year as a judge, he had more hours on the bench in civil cases than any other federal judge in the District of Arizona. During his judicial career David served as chair of the Ninth Circuit's Magistrate Judges Executive Board, was a member of the Circuit's Information Technology Committee, and was a co-author (along with former UA law Dean Paul Marcus) of "The Rights of the Accused under the Sixth Amendment" (now in its third edition). Prior to joining the District Court in 2001, he was an Assistant United States Attorney. Before government service he was a partner in the Phoenix firms Osborn Maledon, P.A. and Meyer, Hendricks, Victor, Osborn & Maledon, P.C. He attended Brown University and the University of Arizona, and obtained his J.D., with high distinction, from the University of Arizona where he was a member of the Arizona Law Review. He served as a law clerk to the Hon. William D. Browning in Tucson.
After retiring, David co-founded Convergent ADR, LLC, a mediation and arbitration firm. Its members now include retired Arizona Court of Appeals Judge Peter Swann, Phoenix attorney Chris Berry, and Sally Schneider Duncan, who retired in 2022, after serving 18 years as a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge where she served on all calendars including two rotations on the downtown Phoenix civil docket.

Sally Schneider Duncan Related Seminars and Products

Sally Schneider Duncan is a retired Maricopa County Superior Court of Arizona Judge. After 18 years of resolving disputes on the civil, family, and criminal benches, she transferred her skills to a platform where she could help litigants reach mutually satisfying conclusions to costly and distracting litigation. At Convergent ADR, she serves as a mediator, arbitrator, discovery dispute master, and litigation strategist.

Her “been around the block” experience in all areas of civil litigation equips her to find solutions where others may not. She understands every corner of the courtroom both as a private practice litigator, public defender, and trial judge with dozens of trials. Before her appointment to the bench, Sally worked as an Assistant Federal Public Defender and was in private practice for 15 years–first at one of Phoenix’s oldest and most respected firms and later as a partner at two international law firms–where she handled complex commercial cases including contract, environmental, construction, professional discipline, regulatory compliance, insurance, real estate, employment, corporate compliance, trade secrets, and general business litigation.

She regularly serves as a guest lecturer and Adjunct Trial Practice Faculty at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, where she was invited to speak on Professional Responsibility and serve as a faculty member teaching Trial Practice Skills. She has also served as a judge presiding over mock trials.

Sally earned her B.A., with honors, summa cum laude, and her J.D. from the University of Arizona. She was admitted in Federal District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where she argued a case and learned that listening before you speak is the surest way to the surest way to find the best answer.