Ms. Meghan H. Bitoun
Louisiana Legal Ethics, LLC
Meghan Bitoun is an associate at Louisiana Legal Ethics, LLC, where she represents attorneys and their clients in disciplinary proceedings, fee disputes, and legal malpractice matters. She has an extensive track record in appellate advocacy, practicing in all five Louisiana circuit courts, the United States Fifth Circuit, and the Louisiana Supreme Court. Prior to her current role, Meghan served as a Staff Attorney at the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, where she represented indigent defendants in capital cases. Meghan lives in New Orleans with her husband and three children, and she is the reigning Queen of the Krewe of King Arthur, one of New Orleans’ largest Mardi Gras krewes.

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 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.

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.

Professor Heidi Howat Thompson
Assistant Professor Professional Practice
LSU Law
For over 25 years, Heidi Howat Thompson has taught legal research, writing, and analysis courses at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, where she graduated Order of the Coif and was a member of the Louisiana Law Review. She earned her undergraduate degree in Accounting from LSU. Thompson served as a research attorney for the Louisiana First and Second Circuit Courts of Appeal and as an attorney in private practice before becoming a full-time professor. She currently serves on The Redbook’s Board of Editorial Advisers and formerly served on the Kaplan Louisiana Bar Review faculty. Thompson has enjoyed the privilege of writing and presenting on topics related to legal writing before local and national audiences—including judges, attorneys, state agencies, private firms, and other law professors. She has also authored the Louisiana Practitioner Rules for Citation to Legal Authorities—a set of uniform citation rules—which can be used by law students, practitioners, and judges when citing to legal authorities in Louisiana court documents. Thompson enjoys teaching and serving her students, law school, and the local community. She is also an avid tennis player.

Professor J. Randall Trahan
LSU Law Center
Professor J. Randall Trahan is the Louis B. Porterie Professor of Law and the Saul Litvinoff Distinguished Professor of Law at LSU Law Center. Professor Trahan is a civil law specialist and presently teaches Sales & Real Estate, Security Devices, Civil Law Property, and Successions & Donations. He has also taught Family Law, Obligations, Matrimonial Regimes, Legal Traditions & Systems, and Western Legal Traditions, and is co-author, along with Professor Ken Murchison, of Western Legal Traditions & Systems: Louisiana Impact. He has written a new book entitled: Louisiana Law of Property: A Précis, published by LexisNexis. Professor Trahan received his B.A. in Political Science from LSU in 1982, and his law degree in 1989, with high honors, from LSU Law Center where he was Articles Editor of Louisiana Law Review and was inducted into The Order of the Coif. Before joining the Law Center faculty in 1995, Professor Trahan served as law clerk to the late Judge Alvin B. Rubin in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for one year and then practiced law with the firm of Phelps Dunbar in Baton Rouge for five years. He serves as Reporter for three committees of the Louisiana State Law Institute: the Adult Guardianship Committee, the Birth Certificate Committee, and the newly established Legion Beyond Moiety Committee.

Mr. Frank P. Tranchina Jr.
Tranchina Law, LLC
http://www.Tranchinalawfirm.com
Frank P. Tranchina, Jr., is a partner in the law firm of Tranchina Law, L.L.C. He received his law degree from Loyola University School of Law in 1979. He is Board Certified in Family Law by the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization and is also licensed in the State of California. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. He is a past chairman of the Family Law sections of the Louisiana State and Jefferson Bar Associations as well as co-chair of the board certification committee for family law practitioners when first introduced to Louisiana. In addition, Mr. Tranchina has been a frequent lecturer at seminars and conferences throughout Louisiana. Since 1995, he has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America and has been identified in Who's Who in American Law since 2000. In 2007, he was inducted into the Academy of Court Appointed Masters. He has also been listed in Louisiana Super Lawyers magazine since its first publication in 2007 and in Northern California Super Lawyers magazine since 2015.

Mr. Tranchina was appointed by the Louisiana Supreme Court to the Family Court Rules Committee selected to recommend uniform rules for Family and Domestic Relations Court across the State of Louisiana. He frequently acts as Special Master on complex community property cases and has been appointed by family court judges as an expert witness. In 2014, he was qualified in the Los Angeles Superior Court as an expert on Louisiana law and testified regarding the validity of a transsexual marriage that took place in Louisiana. In 2016, he was also qualified in the Circuit Court of Prince William County, State of Virginia, as an expert in Louisiana Community Property.

Mr. Tranchina served as a member of the Marriage - Persons Committee for the Louisiana State Law Institute. Most recently, he has been inducted into the International Academy of Family Lawyers. He has also been named “2019 Lawyer of the Year in Family Law” by Best Lawyers in America. And just recently announced, Mr. Tranchina has added the accolade of receiving the "2024 Lawyer of the Year in Family Law" by Best Lawyers in America.