Women Speakers at the 2015 JRCLS Annual Conference Part 3

SARAH BARRINGER GORDON (SALLY) the Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and a Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.  She will be speaking with Professor Paul Bender of Arizona State University during the general session at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, February 13, 2015.  They will speak on the topic The New Law of Religious Freedom: Hobby Lobby and The Town of Greece Decisions.  Professor Gordon is a widely recognized scholar and commentator on religion in American public life and the law of church and state.  Her first book, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (Univ. of North Carolina, 2002), won the Mormon History Association’s and the Utah Historical Society’s best book awards in 2003. Her new book, The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America (Harvard, 2010), explores the world of church and state in the 20th century. She is currently working on a third book, tentatively titled The Place of Faith, about religion and property across American national history. Professor Gordon serves as co-editor of Studies in Legal History, the book series of the American Society for Legal History, and is on the boards of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation and the McDowell-Hartman Foundation. In 2011 she received the University of Pennsylvania’s Lindback Award for distinguished teaching, and in 2004 and 2009 the Law School’s Robert A. Gorman Award for Teaching Excellence. In 2012, she was appointed a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.  Professor Gordon earned her B.A. from Vassar, her J.D. from Yale, her M.A.R. (religion) from Yale, and her Ph.D. in history from Princeton.

CHRISTY SMITH is Operations Counsel at Clear Channel Outdoor in Phoenix, Arizona. She will be speaking on Friday, February 13 at 2:30 p.m. with Aubrey Stock of Norton Rose Fulbright and Gordon Wright of Cooper & Scully. They will be speaking on the topic A New Generation of Lawyers: Practice Challenges for Women, Men and Families. Christy earned her B.A. from Arizona State University, and her J.D. in 2000 from Brigham Young University. She has been at Clear Channel Outdoor since 2012; her career highlights before that time include employment at the Arizona Department of Administration, chair for the Governor's Regulatory Review Council, Deputy General Counsel at the Office of the Governor—Janice K. Brewer, Assistant General Counsel of SunCor Development Company, and also practice with Gallagher and Kennedy, and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P. She is active in several community organizations, including the Phoenix Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, where she served as past chair.

 

 

EILEEN DOYLE CRANE is the Prelaw Advisor at Utah Valley University and Coordinator of the Center for Prestigious Scholars.  She will be speaking at the presentation for students on Thursday, February 12, 2015 at 5:00 p.m. with Lew Cramer, President of Coldwell Bank Commercial.  Their topic will be Networking Survival Skills.  As the founding director of the BYU Prelaw Advisement Center, Eileen helped BYU undergraduates be accepted at 170+ ABA-approved law schools in the United States.  Eileen attended J. Reuben Clark Law School, fulfilling a dream she had had since she was five years old when she used to put her name on her attorney-father’s professional cards.  She started teaching at UVU in the Legal Studies Department while in law school, teaching Culture of Law and Health Care Law.  She served as the president of the Western Association of Prelaw Advisors and the chair of the Prelaw Advisors National Council.  For the past 25 years, Eileen has presented at national and regional conferences on financial aid, career planning, and networking.  Eileen currently serves the chair of the BYU Law CSO Jobs Committee and co-chair of the Media & Outreach Committee.  She also serves as the vice-chair of Leadership Training in the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, along with six other dedicated team members, as she and her committee help emerging JRCLS chapters develop into strong chapters all over the world.

 

JENNIFER GIFF is a member of the Gila River Indian Community.  In 2011 she joined the in-house legal staff for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community providing legal counsel and advice for the Community’s enterprises.  She will be speaking on Friday, February 13, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. with Professor Bob Miller of ASU.  Their topic will be Economic Development on Reservation Lands.  Ms. Giff earned a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1989 and received a J.D. from Arizona State University in 1995.  She served the Gila River Indian Community as in-house legal counsel from 1996 to 2010.  From 2000 to 2003 she was licensed as a Special Assistant United States Attorney to prosecute individuals committing crimes within the Community in the U.S. District Court of Arizona.   Ms. Giff has lectured at Arizona State University, American Indian Policy Institute, Tribal Financial Managers Certificate Program since 2009.  In spring, 2012 she taught Tribal Law & Government at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.