Mr. Clinton M Bowers
LSU Family Law Conference Planning Chair
Bowers Law Firm, LLC
http://Www.bowerslawfirmllc.com
CLINTON M. BOWERS is a member of the Shreveport law firm of Bowers Law Firm, LLC, having joined the practice in 2009. He attended Louisiana State University in Shreveport, earning a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, cum laude, in 2005. He attended the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. From 2007 to 2009, he served as Research Assistant to Professor Frank L. Maraist at the LSU Law Center. In May 2009, he was awarded his J.D. and Graduate Diploma of Civil Law, magna cum laude and was elected to membership in the Louisiana Chapter of the Order of the Coif. Mr. Bowers’ practice primarily focuses on family law litigation and serving as a family mediator. He is admitted to practice before Louisiana state courts, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Since 2011, he has served on the Louisiana State Law Institute with assignments to the Marriage-Persons Committee, Surrogacy Committee, and Child Support and Visitation Committee. In 2020, he was appointed as a Member of the Louisiana State Law Institute’s Council.
Professor Andrea B. Carroll
LSU Law Center
Andi Beauchamp Carroll is the Associate Dean for Student & Academic Affairs and the Donna W. Lee Professor of Family Law at the LSU Law Center. Before joining the LSU Law faculty, Professor Carroll clerked for The Honorable W. Eugene Davis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She subsequently worked as an associate at the Dallas law firm of Baker Botts, L.L.P., handling appellate litigation. In 2003, Professor Carroll returned home to LSU Law, where she has been teaching and writing about family law, community property, and property for nearly two decades. Professor Carroll is the author of more than a dozen books and articles in her field. She has recently been published in the Cambridge University Press and her Tulane article on civil law property was honored as outstanding scholarship at the Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Professor Carroll is active in law reform in Louisiana, as a Member of the Council of the Louisiana State Law Institute and the Institute’s Children’s Code, Adult Guardianship, Surrogacy, and Property Committees. She has led successful legislative reforms in the areas of child relocation, spousal support, surrogacy, and community property reimbursement rights. As Reporter of the Law Institute’s Marriage and Persons Committee, Professor Carroll continues to work to improve the law related to marriage and the family.
Judge Michael A Crawford
Judge
United States Bankruptcy Court MDLA
Michael A. Crawford was sworn in as Chief Bankruptcy Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Louisiana on October 3, 2022. Judge Crawford was previously a member of Taylor Porter law firm in Baton Rouge for over 22 years serving as the chair of its banking, real estate and bankruptcy practice group for several years. He has lectured extensively on bankruptcy-related topics and completed the St. John’s University/American Bankruptcy Institute bankruptcy mediation course in 2014. Judge Crawford received his undergraduate degree in business/finance in 1984 from Louisiana State University. Later, while working full time in the family business in Ruston, he earned his MBA from Louisiana Tech University in 1988. He attended the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU and earned his Juris Doctorate in 1993. Following graduation, he served a one year judicial clerkship with the Honorable Gerald H. Schiff (Ret.), United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Judge Crawford grew up in Winnfield, Louisiana. He currently resides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He and his wife have two children.
Mr. Scott P. Gaspard
Owner
Scott Gaspard Law Firm LLC
Scott P. Gaspard is a sole practitioner in Baton Rouge, LA. He received his J.D. degree from the LSU Law School in 1992. Mr. Gaspard is a qualified domestic mediator and previously served as an Adjunct Clinical Professor at the LSU Law School where he taught in the domestic mediation clinic from 2008 to 2013. He a collaborative divorce professional and was a member of the Louisiana Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Court’s formation committee, a past member of its board of directors and a past chapter president. He is a regular volunteer in the Baton Rouge Bar Association’s community outreach programs, working with its Ask-A-Lawyer, Thirst for Justice, Wills for Heroes, and Pro Bono Project endeavors for the past thirty years. He recently was awarded his second Pro Bono Publico award by the Louisiana State Bar Association in 2022.
Mr. Kenneth P. Haines
Lawyer
Weems, Schimpf, Haines, & Moore (APLC)
http://www.weems-law.com
Kenny Haines is a proud 1989 graduate of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU. He has been practicing law with the same Shreveport firm, Weems, Schimpf, Haines, & Moore, for over 32 years handling all aspects of family, business and injury litigation in his career. He has worked as an Assistant District Attorney for the 2nd and 42nd JDCs, where he handled all post conviction matters and appeals for those DA offices. He worked on Child in Need of Care cases and handled juvenile and child support matters for the DeSoto District Attorney’s office. Kenny clerked for the late Pike Hall, Jr. at both the Second Circuit Court of Appeal and Louisiana Supreme Court. He has been lead counsel in well over one hundred appeals in his career. He has spoken on both family law
and appeal topics for the SBA, LSBA and LSU. He has served as Chairman of the Appellate Specialization Advisory Commission. He is the only lawyer in the State of Louisiana certified in both Family Law (2004) and Appellate Practice (2017).
Mrs. Helen Popich Harris
President
Helen Popich Harris, APLC
HELEN POPICH HARRIS received her J.D. degree in 1991 from Loyola University School of Law and has thirty-two years of experience handling divorce, community property partition, child custody and support and spousal support matters. She is also experienced in litigation and appeals as well as various forms of alternative dispute resolution including arbitration, negotiation and mediation. Ms. Harris is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, a Louisiana Board Certified Family Law Specialist, and is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings. She is a frequent CLE speaker.
Mr. Jeffrey E. Meyers
Co-Founder
Asher Meyers, LLC
Mr. Meyers is a Managing Director of Asher-Meyers, LLC, and has utilized his experience in financial forensics and statistical background in providing detailed, analytic analysis in advising hundreds of disputes and consulting matters.
He is routinely involved in a variety of complex issues relating to commercial damages, lost profits, personal injury damages, matrimonial disputes, business interruption claims, intellectual property impairment and fraud.
Senator Fred H. Mills Jr.
State Senator
Louisiana State Senate
Senator Fred H. Mills, Jr. has served as a Louisiana legislator for fifteen years. He represented Louisiana House of Representatives District 46 from 2008 to 2011 and has represented Senate District 22 for three consecutive terms, which will end in 2024. He has been the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare since 2016, overseeing the physical, behavioral, and social healthcare policy and legislative directives governing the people of Louisiana. He has authored significant legislation impacting children and families in the areas of behavioral health care, access to physical therapy, medical marijuana, pharmacy benefit managers, Medicaid managed care, professional and occupational health licensing boards, safe drinking water, and the opioid crisis, to name just a few.
Senator Mills has served at one time on nearly every Senate standing committee and on numerous public and private boards and commissions, including the Acadian Ambulance Board of Directors for over fifteen years, the St. Martin Economic Development Authority (SMEDA) for over thirty years as a founding member and current president and CEO, and the Board of Directors for the St. Martin Parish Hospital Service District for over forty years.
He is a licensed pharmacist and has owned and operated Mills Cashway Pharmacy in Parks, Louisiana since 1981. He has also been on the Board of Directors and has served as the president and CEO of Farmers Merchants Bank and Trust for twenty-two years. Previously, he served as the executive director for the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy.
Senator Mills is a graduate of Breaux Bridge High School and the University of Louisiana at Monroe, College of Pharmacy.
Ms. Christine Arbo Peck
Senate Counsel
Louisiana State Senate
CHRISTINE ARBO PECK is a Senate Counsel with the Louisiana Senate. She serves as the senior most attorney for the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare. She provides guidance and oversight to Senate attorneys in developing, drafting, reviewing, and amending legislation. She drafts complex and controversial legislation and counsels Senators and staff in negotiation of healthcare policy matters and bill disputes. She negotiates compromise efforts and resolutions. Previously she spent sixteen years as an attorney and government relations director for the Louisiana Department of Health. She has been a presenter at the Louisiana Legislative CLE, teaches internal Senate staff drafting courses, and is often a conference co-presenter with Senator Fred H. Mills, Jr. Christine received her Juris Doctorate from the Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center in 1999, where she was a member of the Moot Court Board and a Robert Lee Tullis Moot Court Competitor.
Judge Frances Jones Pitman
Chief Judge
Court of Appeal, Second Circuit State of Louisiana
Honorable Frances Pitman received a Bachelor of Arts from LSU-Shreveport and a Master of Communication Disorders from LSU Health Sciences Center. She also holds a Juris Doctor from LSU Law Center.
Before attending law school, Chief Judge Pitman was a speech-language pathologist, special education teacher and a member of the medical/educational diagnostic team at the LSU Health Sciences Center, Children’s Center in Shreveport.
Prior to her election to the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal in November 2012, Chief Judge Pitman was a district judge for four years at the First Judicial District Court. Before becoming a judge, she was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Louisiana, in charge of the North Louisiana Civil Division. Chief Judge Pitman litigated civil and criminal cases throughout North Louisiana and authored hundreds of Attorney General Opinions. She was also a certified Family Law Mediator. She was the co-chair of the Shreveport Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Programs for a number of years, and is an active member in The Harry V. Booth-Judge Henry A. Politz American Inn of Court. Recently, she became the Chief Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeal, is the Chairman of the Louisiana Conference of Court of Appeal Judges, and is a board member of the Louisiana Judicial College.
Chief Judge Pitman and her husband, Judge Mike Pitman, are founders of and instructors for “Kick It Up,” a Christian martial arts program for children at Summer Grove Baptist Church and “Don’t Be A Victim,” a safety training program for senior citizens, women and children. She is a first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do; an avid tennis player, who has captained several state-champion teams; and has competed in a number of marathons and triathlons. She has one daughter and two granddaughters.
Professor Ronald J. Scalise Jr.
Tulane University Law School
Ronald J. Scalise Jr. is the Eason-Weinmann Chair of International and Comparative Law and the Director of the Eason-Weinmann Center at Tulane University Law School. He previously held the John Minor Wisdom and the A.D Freeman professorships at Tulane and the McGlinchey Stafford professorship at the LSU law school, where he taught from 2004 to 2009. In his more than two decades of teaching, he has continuously taught both common-law Trusts and Estates and civil-law Successions, Donations, and Trusts.
His scholarship focuses both on domestic trusts and estates issues as well as comparative and civil law perspectives on successions. He has authored an extensive number of law review articles, book chapters, and treatise updates. He is the editor for the Thomson Reuters edition of the Louisiana Civil Code and the primary author for the annual updates for six volumes of the Louisiana Civil Law Treatise series. Professor Scalise has spoken, taught, or lectured in a variety of foreign countries, including the UK (Cambridge), France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Malta, Scotland, Hong Kong, Canada, and South Africa. He has also served as a visiting scholar as the Max-Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany, and currently serves as a Professeur Invité at the Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas.
Professor Scalise has served on numerous law reform projects on both the state and national level, including as Reporter for both the Successions and Donations Committee and the Trust Code Committee of the Louisiana State Law Institute as well as the Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission's committees on the Community Property Disposition at Death Act and the Conflict of Laws in Trusts and Estates Act.
Professor Scalise's national and international work has also garnered him a number of accolades and recognitions. He is a member of the American Law Institute, an associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, the Treasurer of the American Society of Comparative Law, an academician in the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law, and an academic fellow in the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel (ACTEC). He currently serves as the Southern Regional Chair and the Louisiana State Chair for ACTEC and is a member of the Board of Regents. He also currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Louisiana State Bar Association.
Ms. Dwazendra J. Smith
D. Smith Legal, L.L.C.
Dwazendra J. Smith is a native of Shreveport, Louisiana. She is a solo practitioner at D. Smith Legal, L.L.C. in Lafayette, Louisiana. She is licensed in Louisiana and Texas and a board-certified Family Law Specialist, certified by the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization. In addition to Family Law, her practice includes, but is not limited to, Criminal defense (state and federal), Personal Injury (state and federal), Estate Planning, and appellate work. She also provides pro bono services and is the Chair of the Pro Bono Advisory Committee for the Lafayette Bar Association. She served as the President of the Lafayette Young Lawyers Association for the 2015 – 2016 term and was both the first Black and first Black female President.
Ms. Smith is a 2009 graduate of Southern University Law Center (SULC). During her law school matriculation, she served as the Student Bar Association President (2008-2009) and 2L Class President (2007-2008). She also served on the Moot Court Board, was a pupil of the American Inns of Court, and the Symposium Editor of the inaugural board for Southern University Law Center’s second law journal, the Journal of Race, Gender, and Poverty. She was also a member of various organizations such as the Criminal Law Society, Delta Theta Phi Law Fraternity, and the Black Law Students Association (BLSA). She was the recipient of the ALI – ABA Scholarship and Leadership Award, the Chancellor’s Leadership Award, and the CALI Award for the highest grades in Legal Writing and Security Devices.
Prior to graduating from SULC, she was a summer extern for the late Honorable Ralph E. Tyson of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana and summer intern for retired Chief Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Prior to attending law school, Ms. Smith attended Louisiana State University in Shreveport (LSU-S) and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 2006. She achieved all of this while being a single mother to her beloved daughter, Dhaija, who is an honorary graduate of SULC.
Ms. Smith is currently a member of the Lafayette Parish Bar Association, the Louisiana State Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas, and the Acadiana Inns of Court. She is admitted to practice in all Louisiana and Texas state courts and before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana and the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ms. Smith has always led a life of service and has provided pro bono services for almost fifteen years, receiving numerous accolades for same. However, she does not do it for the awards or recognition. She has always wanted to be an attorney since childhood to help others and to truly make a difference in the world. Throughout her legal career, she has always been motivated to volunteer and serve others because she feels that regardless of socioeconomic status, everyone should have access to the legal system and access to attorneys who will zealously represent them. Ms. Smith is honored and elated to be a part of this event, and she looks forward to speaking with everyone, motivating everyone, and answering any questions.
