JOHN P. ZELBST
John Zelbst is a practicing trial lawyer, with a national practice out of his home office in Lawton, Oklahoma. In his 24 years of practice, John has represented clients from all walks of life and has tried to verdict almost every type of case there is, from misdemeanors to capital murder cases, from small claims to products liability. John currently holds many state and regional verdict records, including the largest personal injury jury verdict in Oklahoma in the amount of 24 million dollars. In addition, he also holds the record for the largest personal injury verdict against the United States of America (Judge trial only) in Federal court for all the Districts in Oklahoma in the amount of 7 million dollars.
John lives on a cattle ranch in Meers, Oklahoma, approximately 25 miles northwest of Lawton with his wife Cindy and son Clay. When not on the road, in the air or in trial, John takes an active role in his ranches.

WILLIAM A. TRINE
Bill Trine is a noted trial lawyer, author and teacher. He is listed in all editions of The Best Lawyers in America, is co-author of the best-selling book, How to Win Medical Negligence Cases, and is on the faculty of the Trial Lawyers College. He is a Past-President and Founder of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a public interest law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C., and a Past-President of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association which honored him with the coveted Norm Kripke Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. He is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and International Society of Barristers. His office is located in Boulder, Colorado.

MILTON GRIMES
Milton Grimes is a nationally recognized trial lawyer from Southern California where he has been practicing law for over twenty-five years. Mr. Grimes is best know for his representation of Rodney King in his civil rights suit against the City of Los Angeles in which he won a verdict of $3.8 million. He also represented two of the jurors from the O.J. Simpson case and has handled numerous high profile and noteworthy cases including the defense of Sheryl Massip in which he presented, for the first time in California history, the much-noted postpartum psychosis defense. In 1994 Mr. Grimes represented the family of Marcelino Corniel, a homeless man killed by Washington, D.C., park police, in their lawsuit against the Federal Government. Mr. Grimes handles both criminal and civil cases including police misconduct cases involving beatings and killings. He has received numerous awards and lectures around the county.

J. JUDE BASILE
J. Jude Basile, a California lawyer, born and raised in a rural western Pennsylvania coal mining area, grew up actually aware of the struggles of ordinary people. The oldest son of six children he learned the values of hard work from his parents while working in the family's neighborhood bar and grill frequented by the coalminers and steel workers. After being recruited by the University of Notre Dame to play football, he chose to transfer to a small school, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania where he is a member of the Athletic Hall of Fame. He has obtained 7 and 8 figure verdicts and settlements for individuals and families in cases that were rejected by other lawyers. He credits these results to the method and work he has done through the Trial Lawyers College and the Psychodramatic methods developed at the College. He continues to work in exploring and developing the methods used in this College's unique approach in achieving justice for "regular" people.

An honors graduate from law school in 1982 and former prosecutor, Jude is an accomplished trial lawyer and has represented individuals and families in private practice since 1985. He has been nominated six times as an Outstanding Trial Lawyer by his peers and received this award in 1994 and 1997 and was named the Trial Lawyer of the year in 2004. He is a frequently invited speaker to trial lawyer organizations throughout California and the United States. He attended the inaugural class of the Trial Lawyers College in 1994 and has been on the faculty since 1997. He is the founder of The Basile Law Firm with offices in San Luis Obispo and San Diego California. The practice emphasizes "people" who have suffered serious personal and financial injuries including wrongful death. Some of the areas Jude focuses on include highway and auto safety, product liability, civil rights, and elder and employment law.

KAITLIN P. LARIMER
Kaitlin Larimer has been active in the mental health field since 1974 and has been a Certified Practitioner in Psychodrama and Sociometry since 1984. She has a Masters in Social Work from the University of Nebraska and was trained in psychodrama by John Nolte PhD. and Ann Hale. Kaitlin has conducted numerous workshops and psychodrama training programs throughout the United States and Canada and together with John Nolte was active in the Midwest Center for Psychodrama and Sociometry and is one of the founders of the National Psychodrama Training Center. She is frequently asked to speak on the topic of psychodrama and its application to trial work and has written about the subject, most recently in Trial Magazine with James Leach and John Nolte.

In addition to her private psychotherapy practice, Kaitlin has been on the faculty of the Trial Lawyers College since 1997 and has helped develop the curriculum and the application of the psychodramatic and sociometric methods to the practice of law. She also works as a trial and jury consultant across the United States and has helped numerous lawyers obtain six-figure verdicts for injured plaintiffs and acquittals of criminal defendants.

R. REX PARRIS
R. Rex Parris is a trial attorney in Southern California and has successfully represented people for over 20 years. His first personal injury case, in which he obtained a multi-million dollar verdict, was also one of the first smoke detector cases in the State of California. Rex's efforts brought national attention to the need to require smoke detectors in all inhabited dwellings. He has, through his dedication to helping people and his tireless efforts on their behalf, obtained numerous multi-million dollar awards for his clients.

Rex is very active in his community and devotes a substantial amount of his time and income to improving the lives of young people and towards eradicating child abuse. He was recently honored for these efforts when his community named the new high school "R. Rex Parris High School."

R. Rex Parris represents people with catastrophic and severe personal injuries, in wrongful death, legal malpractice cases and consumer class actions.

FREDILYN SISON
Fredilyn Sison graduated with honors from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and went to New York University School of Law in New York City. While at NYU, she interned with the American Civil Liberties Union (Access to Justice Project), Washington Square Legal Services (assisting attorneys on Battered Women cases), New York Attorney General's Office (Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau) and the Criminal Law Clinic, where she helped represent indigent people accused of misdemeanor crimes in the Eastern District of New York.

Committed to public service, Fredilyn has worked as a state public defender and as a prosecutor. In the last decade, she has devoted her career to representing poor people accused of federal crimes in the Districts of Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada and North Carolina. She is senior litigation counsel at the Asheville branch office of the newly created Federal Defenders of Western North Carolina. In 2005, she was the visiting defender at the Defender Training Branch and the U. S. Sentencing Commission in Washington, DC.

She has served on various legal and community boards and organizations, including the Chicano Awareness Center, Filipina-American Women's Network, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Minnesota Minority Lawyers Association (President), Minnesota Women Lawyers, National Asian-Pacific American Bar Association, National Lawyers Guild, Nebraska Hispanic Bar Association, Nebraska Legal Aid Society and the Snake River Alliance, an environmental group. As a speaker, she has spoken on numerous topics, including "Cultural Respect in the Criminal Justice System," "The Future of Affirmative Action," "What Counts as Violence?", "Which Women Count?" "Minorities in the Legal Profession" and "Psychodrama and the Art of Storytelling." Her more interesting experiences have been sitting as a jurist in a mock trial of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot and defending Christopher Columbus against charges of rape and genocide in a mock trial.

She has written a chapter in Practical Guide for Defending a Federal Criminal Case and an article on the effects of incarceration on families, and co-authored an article on jury selection for The Warrior. A graduate of the TLC class of June 2000, she is on the faculty of TLC. She has served as President of the F Warriors.

CYNDY SHORT
Cyndy Short is a criminal defense lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri.  Cyndy specializes in death penalty trial work and provides trial and mitigation servies for clients & lawyers appointed to represent the poor in capital cases.  Cyndy graduated from law school in 1987 and became a Missouri Public Defender in 1988.  In 1994 Cyndy began her work in the Capital Trial Division of the Missouri Public Defender system and remained in that office until 2003.  Over the years Cyndy's work has been recognized by the Missouri Bar who awarded her the Lon O. Hocker Award and by the MSPD system who named her Defender of Distinction.  The Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty recognized her work in the Clarence Dexter case with the Courageous Litigator of the Year award.  

Today Cyndy practices with her husband Brian McCallister (TLC'95) at the McCallister Law Firm.  Cyndy trains lawyers and mitigation specialists in Kansas City and at the TLC Death Penalty College. 

L. JOANE GARCIA-COLSON - Executive Director of the Trial Lawyers College
Joane Garcia-Colson, graduated with honors from the University of Denver College of Law in 1990 and is the Executive Director of the Trial Lawyers College. Prior to assuming this position, Ms. Garcia-Colson was a trial lawyer in Palm Springs, California and represented numerous plaintiffs in both state and federal courts in wrongful termination, sexual harassment and other employment related matters and also represented plaintiffs in personal injury cases, on fraud claims and in real estate disputes and construction defect matters. In 1998 she obtained a $62 million verdict in Federal Court in the Central District of California, one of the largest verdicts in the history of the State of California in a wrongful termination/breach of oral employment contract case on behalf of a former vice-president of a large hearing aid manufacturer. In December 2003, Ms.Garcia-Colson along with Trial Lawyers College Alumni Matthew C. Bishop, obtained one of the first verdicts for Financial Elder Abuse in Napa, California on behalf on an 81 year old woman arising out of a real estate transaction. Ms. Garcia-Colson has been on the faculty of the Trial Lawyers College since 1998 and the Executive Director since 2000.

KENT W. SPENCE
Kent W. Spence is a third generation Wyomingite who was born and raised in Riverton, Wyoming. He received his undergraduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Montana in 1982 and his Law degree from Mercer University, Walter F. George School of Law in Macon, Georgia in 1986. He thereafter worked at the Spence Law Firm. Kent has been a partner in the firm since 1995.

Kent has been admitted as counsel in cases throughout the Rocky Mountains, California, Nevada, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Oregon, Montana, Utah and Texas. He has practiced in numerous Federal District Courts and has appeared before the Wyoming Supreme Court and the Federal Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kent twice attended Western Trial Advocacy Institute, founded by Gerry Spence and the late Justices Rose and Cardine. He also attended Gerry Spence’s thirty day long trial lawyers college in 1995 and has been on the faculty from that time to the present. Since 1995 Kent has been active as one of the Board of Directors of LAW (Lawyers and Advocates of Wyoming), a non-profit law firm focused on social cause cases.

Kent is a Past President of Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association (where caps on non-economic damages were defeated during his term as President; (He is a member of American Trial Lawyers Association, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, American Bar Association, Wyoming Bar Association and Teton County Bar Association.

Kent specializes in personal injury, wrongful death, civil rights and criminal defense trial law.

Kent and his wife Lisa have two children, Ariella and Dylan.

DANA K. COLE
Dana K. Cole is a tenured Associate Professor of Law at the University of Akron School of Law where he teaches Trial Advocacy, Advanced Trial Advocacy, Evidence and Criminal Law. His published works include Psychodrama and the Training of Trial Lawyers: Finding the Story, 21 N. Ill. L. Rev. 1 (2001) - an article describing the training methods used at the Trial Lawyers College. Dana has extensive jury trial experience in civil and criminal cases. He is a frequent faculty member in trial advocacy workshops and seminars throughout the country including Harvard Law School's Winter Trial Advocacy Workshop. Dana was a member of the Trial Lawyers College class of 1995 and has been on the teaching faculty of the Trial Lawyers College since 1996.

Dana is the father of two daughters - Amanda and Megan.

JIM NUGENT
Jim Nugent practices both civil and criminal law in New Haven, Connecticut. He has tried over 75 cases involving, among other things,  personal injury, wrongful death, defamation, adverse possession, 1983 civil rights, murder, shooting of police officers, burglary, assault and theft of firearms.   

Since his graduation from TLC in 1998, Jim has remained involved in the college as a staff member.  He has implemented the TLC method into all aspects of his practice, including trial preparation.  He invests tremendous time and energy in every one of his cases. Taking the time to get to know each and every one of his clients extremely well allows Jim to tell the jury the powerful truth of each of his clients lives. He fights for the justice his clients deserve.  

Jim is Board Certified as a Civil Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy and has been continuously Board Certified since 1998.  

Jim served in the military for 11 years, obtaining the rank of Sergeant E-5 and is Air Assault qualified. He is currently serving in the Connecticut Governors Horse Guard, a mounted Calvary Unit.  

Jim practices law with his wife, Julie, a 2003 graduate of TLC.

LYNNE JABEN BRATCHER
Lynne Jaben Bratcher, is a practicing trial lawyer with Bratcher Gockel & Kingston, L.C., in Kansas City, MO handling plaintiffs' discrimination, civil rights, and personal injury cases. She has tried, as lead counsel, between seventy-five and one hundred jury trials in federal and state courts, and has argued numerous appeals in both federal and state appellate courts. Lynne established the firm at which she currently practices in 1995, upon completing the first class of the Trial Lawyers College in 1994. She is a frequent lecturer, both nationally and locally and has taught trial advocacy at the local law school. Lynne has been a maverick as a female plaintiffs’ trial lawyer, trying many jury trials when women were seldom seen representing plaintiffs as lead counsel in jury trials. Lynne was raised in Kansas City by a German Jewish immigrant mother who fled Hitler’s Germany in 1938. Lynne has been married for over thirty years to her husband Mike and they have two grown children, Aaron and Lisa, of whom they are very proud. Lynne serves on the TLC Board of Directors as the F Warriors liaison.

CARL BETTINGER
Once upon a time, there was a lawyer named Carl Bettinger, who strutted and fretted his time upon life’s stage, from day to day, full of sound and fury, often signifying nothing. After attending TLC in 2002, there came a person named Carl Bettinger, who still practiced civil law in Albuquerque, New Mexico, largely in the area of personal injury, and particularly on behalf of mothers and fathers warehoused and mistreated in nursing homes, but now he had changed from a pretender, to one who tried to live truthfully under life’s circumstances. Since that time, he has struggled through many psychodrama workshops, improv acting workshops and TLC Staff trainings. He’s still pretty dense at times, but juries seem to like him.

IMAGING SPENCE
Imaging Spence, wife of Gerry Spence, brings her lifetime of training and experience in management to the college. She managed her husband’s legal business for many years and continues to manage the family assets. Her management of the ranch and its cattle operation began more than thirty years ago. After the retirement of Kay Ellison, the past ranch manager, Ms. Spence took over the ranch once more.

She is a design expert whose houses have appeared in many national publications and television presentations including Architectural Digest and The Travel Channel and others. She has been responsible for the design and construction of the recent improvements to the ranch, its cookhouse, lodge and numerous buildings. She has trained and manages the kitchen crew at the college and is ultimately responsible for its celebrated cuisine. She is a member of several national non-profit boards. Like most of the TLC board, her services to TLC are pro bono.

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