Mr. Franz N. Borghardt
Borghardt Law Firm
http://www.borghardtlawfirm.com
Franz Borghardt practices criminal defense law in Louisiana federal, state and municipal courts. He is the owner of the Borghardt Law Firm. He is a graduate of the National Criminal Defense College and the Trial Lawyers College. He is a member of the NACDL and LACDL. He is a CJA Panel Member for the Federal Middle and Eastern Districts of Louisiana. He has previously been employed as a felony assistant in the East Baton Rouge Office of Public Defender and the East Baton Rouge District Attorney's Office. He additionally consults on jury selection. He has presented CLE’s in the areas of jury selection, domestic violence, criminal law topics, and a seminar for law enforcement officers and law enforcement forensic scientists. He has written published articles on criminal law topics, cell phone search and seizure, jury selection, and social media. Franz cohosts the Legally Unfiltered podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud and provides regular legal commentary on Talk 107.3 radio. Franz has also provided legal commentary on WAFB and WBRZ news channels and is a guest legal analyst on Court TV.

Franz has served as an adjunct professor at the Paul M. Hebert LSU Law School and teaches Criminal Law (ACJ II). He formerly served as a member of the Louisiana Public Defender Board and presently is on the East Baton Rouge Alcohol Beverage Control Board. He has previously served on the Louisiana Legislature Law Enforcement Body Camera committee and previously chaired the taskforce. He is immediate Past-President of the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He was selected to the 2017 Class of the Baton Rouge Business Report’s Forty Under 40 and is a 2018 Honoree of Club Blue’s Great Futures Gala. He has been selected multiple times to Super Lawyers Rising Stars and is Martindale Hubbell AV rated. He is a graduate of the Paul M. Hebert LSU Law School. He received his undergraduate degrees from Louisiana State University and graduated from Catholic High School.

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.

Professor Beatrice Summer Chandler
LSU Law Center
Professor Chandler joined the Law Center faculty in 2021. Prior to joining the Law Center faculty, she served as a visiting assistant professor at Southern University Law Center. She also served as an assistant professor at Concordia University School of Law. Prior to joining Concordia University School of Law, she was as a visiting assistant professor at the Georgia State University College of Law. She brings a wealth of practice experience to her teaching. Prior to joining the academy, Professor Chandler practiced for fifteen years in large national and international law firms, focusing her practice on business bankruptcy, commercial real estate related litigation and transactions, and other business transactions and disputes.

Professor Chandler’s research interests are in the areas of bankruptcy and legal ethics. She teaches business and commercial law courses. Professor Chandler is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina – Asheville.

Professor John M. Church
LSU Law Center
Professor John M. Church is the Joe W. Sanders Alumni Association Professorship and Allen L. Smith, Jr. Professorship Associate Professor of Law at LSU Law Center. He also serves as Director of the Apprenticeship Program at the Law Center. Professor Church teaches Torts, Products Liability, Toxic Torts, Wine Law, Intellectual Property, and Antitrust Law. He has a master’s degree from the University of Illinois and a law degree from the University of Colorado, where he was a Harlo Fellow, the Case Note Editor of the University of Colorado Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Prior to joining the Law Center faculty in 1991, Professor Church clerked for Judge Robert H. McWilliams of the U.S. Tenth Circuit, and practiced law in Denver. He serves as the Law Center’s representative to the Board of Governors of the Louisiana State Bar Association and is active in local and state bar activities. He is one of the founding board members of the Louisiana Civil Justice Center, an organization dedicated to the provision of legal services to those in need. In 2019, he received the Distinguished Professor Award from the Louisiana Bar Foundation. He is the co-author of Tort Law: The American and Louisiana Perspectives and Louisiana Tort Law. He focuses most of his writing in the area of food and wine regulation, tort law and toxic torts.

Professor Dane Ciolino
Loyola University College of Law
Dane S. Ciolino is a law professor and lawyer in New Orleans, Louisiana. He serves as the A. R. Christovich Distinguished Professor of Law at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, where his teaching interests include Professional Responsibility, Evidence, Advocacy, and Criminal Law. He is the editor of the weblog Louisiana Legal Ethics and the book Louisiana Legal Ethics: Standards and Commentary (2021).

Professor Ciolino graduated cum laude from Rhodes College in 1985, and magna cum laude from Tulane Law School in 1988, where he was inducted into Order of the Coif and selected as Editor in Chief of the Tulane Law Review. After graduation, he clerked for the United States District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, and practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City, and Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann LLC, in New Orleans.

Since joining the faculty at Loyola, Professor Ciolino has served as reporter to the Louisiana State Bar Association Ethics 2000 Committee, as chairperson of a Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board Hearing Committee, as chairperson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana Lawyer Disciplinary Committee, as executive administrator and general counsel for the City of New Orleans Ethics Review Board, and as a member of various Louisiana State Bar Association committees (including the Professionalism Committee, the Lawyer & Judicial Codes of Conduct Committee, and the Ethics Advisory Service Committee).

Professor Ciolino engages in a limited law practice and in law-related consulting, principally in the areas of legal ethics, lawyer discipline, judicial discipline, governmental ethics, and federal criminal law. His practice includes handling disciplinary matters before the Louisiana Supreme Court, the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, and the Louisiana Judiciary Commission, legal malpractice cases, lawyer disqualification matters, and legal fee disputes. He also consults and serves as an expert witness in the fields of legal ethics, legal fees, and the standards of care and conduct governing lawyers. His engagement agreements are available here: Retention Information and Agreements.

Professor William R. Corbett
LSU Law Center
Professor William R. Corbett is the Frank L. Maraist Professor of Law and the Wex S. Malone Professor of Law at LSU Law Center, where he teaches and writes primarily in the area of Labor and Employment Law, but he also teaches Torts. He is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. Professor Corbett served as Interim Dean at LSU Law Center during fiscal year 2015-2016, and served as Vice Chancellor from May 1997 to January 2000. He was honored by the Louisiana Bar Foundation as the 2013 Distinguished Professor. He received his B.A. from Auburn University and his law degree from the University of Alabama, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Alabama Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. He also received the M. Leigh Harrison Award presented to those graduating in the top 5 percent. He joined the law faculty at LSU in 1991, after practicing in Birmingham, Alabama with Burr & Forman. Professor Corbett has served as Executive Director of the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel for the last 22 years. Prior to that, he served for several years as Executive Director, and then as faculty advisor, of the Louisiana Judicial College.

Professor Keith B. Hall
LSU Law Center
Professor Keith B. Hall is the Campanile Charities Professor of Energy Law, and the Director of the Mineral Law Institute at LSU Law Center. He teaches Mineral Rights, Advanced Mineral Law, International Petroleum Transactions, and an Energy Law Seminar which focuses on environmental issues relating to the oil and gas industry. Prior to joining the Law Center’s faculty in 2012, he taught Introduction to Mineral Law as an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University School of Law from 2008 until spring 2012, and practiced law for 16 years at Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann LLC in New Orleans. His publications have focused on oil and gas leases, pooling and unitization, hydraulic fracturing, induced seismicity, and the management of produced water. He is co-author of one of the two national casebooks on oil and gas law and also is co-author of a book on the legal issues relating to hydraulic fracturing. He is a frequent speaker at national and international oil and gas, energy, and environmental law conferences, and is a contributing co-author to the forthcoming new edition of the leading textbook on international petroleum transactions. In addition to teaching at LSU, he has taught energy law classes as a visiting professor at Baku State University in Azerbaijan and at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and as an adjunct professor at Loyola University College of Law. Professor Hall is a member of the Board of Editors for the Oil & Gas Reporter, the Board of Trustees for the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, the Advisory Council for the Institute for Energy Law, and the Board of Trustees for the Energy & Mineral Law Foundation. He is a former Chair of the Louisiana State Bar Association's Environmental Law Section and former Chair of the Oil & Gas Committee of the ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources. He serves on the Louisiana Law Institute’s Water Law Committee and is a registered professional engineer. He co-authors “Recent Developments: Mineral Law” for the bimonthly Louisiana Bar Journal. Professor Hall received his law degree, summa cum laude, from Loyola University College of Law, where he served as Managing Editor of the Loyola Law Review. He graduated from Louisiana State University with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering.

Professor Melissa T Lonegrass
LSU Law Center
Professor Melissa Lonegrass is the Harriett S. Daggett-Frances Leggio Landry Professor of Law, Bernard Keith Vetter Professor of Civil Law Studies, and Wedon T. Smith Professor in Civil Law. Professor Lonegrass earned her J.D. from Tulane Law School, where she graduated first in her class. Before joining the LSU Law faculty in 2008, Professor Lonegrass worked as an associate at the New Orleans firm of Irwin Fritchie Urquhart & Moore LLC, specializing in civil defense, with an emphasis on pharmaceutical and medical device defense. Professor Lonegrass has taught numerous civil law courses at the Law Center, including Western Legal Traditions, Obligations, Sales and Real Estate, Security Devices, and Successions, Donations & Trusts. Her scholarship focuses on Louisiana civil law, comparative legal methodology, landlord-tenant law, and contract law. She recently co-authored a textbook on Louisiana’s law of sale and lease, and has published articles in the Tulane Law Review, the Louisiana Law Review, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review, and the Loyola Chicago Law Journal. From 2016-2018, Professor Lonegrass was appointed as a Scholar-in-Residence of the Louisiana Bar Foundation, and in 2019, she was elected as an Academic Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Counsel. Professor Lonegrass is active in law reform in Louisiana, serving as a member of the Council of the Louisiana State Law Institute, as the reporter of the Institute’s Landlord-Tenant Committee and the Notaries Committee, and as a member of many other committees, including the Committee on Successions and Donations.

Judge Emily S. Merckle
Attorney
Shreveport City Court, Division A
Judge Emily Merckle serves as the District 1, Division A Judge for Shreveport City Court. Judge Merckle was elected in January of 2020. She presides over misdemeanor crimes, traffic court, evictions, small claims, civil trials, and peace bonds. Judge Merckle graduated magna cum laude from Mississippi College School of Law in 2013. She was previously a partner at Gatti & Merckle Law Firm from 2016-2020, having practiced as an associate beforehand, where she primarily handled family law cases and personal injury cases. Before being elected, Judge Merckle was affirmed by the Louisiana Supreme Court and the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal in a hotly contested custody case regarding non-parent/same-sex custody rights. Judge Merckle has clerked for the Honorable Robert E. “Bobby” Waddell, the Honorable Eugene Bryson, and the Honorable Roy Brun. In law school, Judge Merckle interned for the Honorable Justice Scott Crichton and the Honorable Jeanette Garrett. Judge Merckle began her “Kids in the Courtroom” Program for Caddo Parish in 2023, and she is an executive committee member of the Shreveport Bar Association, a member of the Louisiana City Judges’ Association, a previous board member of her church, past president of the Delta Delta Delta Alumni Association, and a member of the Krewe of Justinian. She also graduated magna cum laude from Louisiana State University in 2009, and served as an English teacher through the Washington, D.C. Embassy, teaching in Avingnon, France from 2009-2010. Judge Emily Merckle has been married to Chris Merckle since 2016, and they have a two and a half year old daughter, Mary-Hallie, a three month old son named Wright, and a fifty pound goldendoodle, Pumpkin.

Professor Tracy L. M. Norton
LSU Law Center
Tracy L. M. Norton joined the LSU Law faculty in 2022 and is the Erick Vincent Anderson Professor of Professional Practice. Prof. Norton is an accomplished legal educator and scholar whose significant contributions to the field of legal communication and pedagogy include published works and influential presentations on a variety of pressing issues such as the application of artificial intelligence in law practice and legal education; the transition to online teaching before, during, and after the pandemic; and the challenges and opportunities presented by generational shifts in the legal profession. She began introducing technology into the law school classroom in 1998 with her pioneering self-paced legal citation tool, the Interactive Citation Workstation, housed on Lexis+. Through her scholarly work and advocacy for effective teaching strategies over the past 27 years, Prof. Norton has left an indelible mark on the landscape of legal education – both nationally and internationally -- with her forward-thinking approach to pedagogy and law practice. She has taught at Touro University School of Law in New York, South Texas College of Law in Houston, and Texas Tech University School of Law in Lubbock. She currently researches and writes about using generative artificial intelligence within the bounds of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

Clare Roubion
Louisiana Legal Ethics, LLC
Clare Roubion is a 2014 graduate of the LSU Law Center. Clare Roubion is engaged in a limited law practice and in law-related consulting, principally in the areas of legal ethics, lawyer discipline, and judicial discipline. Her practice includes handling disciplinary matters before the Louisiana Supreme Court, the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board and the Louisiana Judiciary Commission, legal malpractice cases, lawyer disqualification motions and lawyer fee disputes.

Michael H Rubin
McGlinchey Stafford
Mike Rubin is a veteran appellate lawyer who has handled hundreds of appeals in state and federal courts, including before the U.S. Fifth, Seventh, and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeal, on a wide variety of issues affecting the entire Gulf region. As a trial litigator, Mike has handled ground-breaking cases in the areas of finance and secured lending and major multimillion-dollar commercial transactions, as well as trials of national importance concerning federal voting rights, bankruptcy, environmental law, and constitutional issues. Mike served as an adjunct professor at the LSU, Southern, and Tulane law schools for 40 years teaching courses in security devices and ethics. He is a prolific writer; his numerous legal publications on real estate, finance, and ethics have been cited as authoritative in state and federal courts around the country and have been used in law schools across the nation. A nationally known speaker and humorist who has given over 475 major presentations throughout the USA as well as in Canada and England, Mike also is an author of legal thrillers that have won national awards and have been translated and sold internationally.