WIL Regional Conference: Introducing the Speakers Part 3

Lisa Watts Baskin 

Lisa Watts Baskin has practiced law in Utah for nearly 30 years, a J.D. graduate of J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU. For the past 15 years, she has been in solo practice, presently serves as an Administrative Law Judge, Utah Office of Inspector General and under contract with various municipalities to provide ordinance drafting and legal guidance. She possesses advanced skills in administrative and public law, including public policy formulation and analysis, legislative and initiative drafting, election law and related litigation, and Medicaid claims adjudication. 

Lisa Watts Baskin

Lisa has been a law clerk at the Utah Supreme Court, Associate General Counsel for the Utah State Legislature, and Executive Director to the Utah Constitutional Revision Commission. She is a civil litigator in private practice and board member and chair to numerous boards, including Real Women Run (Chair), Utah Foster Care Foundation (Chair, Exec. Board), and North Salt Lake Planning Commission. She served as North Salt Lake City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem and Second Vice-President of Utah League of Cities and Towns. She is licensed to practice law in Utah, District of Columbia, California and the United States Supreme Court.

Sara Dansie Jones

Sara Jones is currently President of IFINIDI, where she consults with C-level teams on building revenue growth and talent strategies. Prior, Sara was the CEO of ApplicantPro, one of Utah’s fastest-growing tech companies, and responsible for growing a management team during a period of intense expansion. She was also head of business development at School Improvement Network, another of Utah’s fastest-growing tech companies, where she gained deep experience on research-based educational research. She is passionate about building highly functioning organizations, having coached management teams as well as dozens of professionals and attorneys and helping them advance through various career opportunities.  

Sara started her career as a patent attorney at Workman Nydegger, Utah’s largest IP law firm, where she became a shareholder. She taught advanced patent law at BYU Law School. She has a J.D., cum laude, from Brigham Young University, and a degree in chemical engineering, with honors, from the University of Utah.

Sara Dansie Jones

Sara is a recognized technology business community leader. She co-founded the non-profit Women Tech Council in 2007, where she has developed deep connections within the Utah tech community and with executives, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and community leaders. She is often asked to speak to high-level executives about how women positively impact the economic value of organizations. She helps executives to understand gender bias, overcome potential gender-related pitfalls within their organizations, and create opportunities for their organizations by engaging women as meaningful business partners.

Barbara Melendez

Barbara Melendez

Barbara Melendez is a Shareholder with Richards Brandy Miller Nelson in Salt Lake City.  Her practice focuses primarily on immigration and employer/immigration compliance matters. She represents multi-national corporations, educational institutions, religious organizations, and employers on inter-company transfers, all temporary and permanent work visas, investment visas, including working with counsel around the world to help U.S. companies on cross-border employment issues.

Barbara also represents individuals and their families before the Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration Customs and Enforcement as well as the Department of Labor, Board of Immigration Appeals, and in Federal Court.  She has lectured and advised companies throughout Asia and Latin America on investor visas and employment-based visas.

Gayla Sorenson

Gayla Moss Sorenson is currently the Dean of Admissions at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark School of Law. Prior to assuming that role in the fall of 2014, her career spanned a variety of law firm and in-house experiences. After graduating from BYU Law in 1985, she spent four years with Lewis & Roca in Phoenix and then twenty years with Motorola--first as a litigator, followed by extensive experience as a commercial attorney supporting global transactions, and ending her time there as a Vice President and senior legal advisor. Most recently, she was the Director of Global Compliance Operations for Biomet, Inc., a global medical device company based in Warsaw, Indiana.

Gayla Sorenson

Gayla has been actively involved in the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, including having served as Chair of the Finance Committee. Her additional volunteer work has included serving as a Senior Fellow for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. Gayla is a member of the Arizona and Indiana bars. She is married to Ferril Sorenson and very much enjoys the roles of wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, and aunt. Her hobbies include reading, travel, and golf.