APPELLATE SKILLS WORKSHOP

FRIDAY JUNE 21, 2024

9.00-12.15 EST

INDIANA GOVERNMENT CENTER SOUTH

CONFERENCE ROOM A

9.00-10.00 Skills Training- Telling Your Client’s Story to the Appellate Courts

10.00-10.10 Break

10.10-11.10 Writing a Persuasive Statement of Facts: Small Groups

11.10-11.15 Break

11.15-12.15 Lesson in the Law and What 45 Years in the Profession Taught Me

The Honorable Judge Margret Robb

The Indiana Public Defender Council is presenting an in-person, skills-based appellate workshop. We will focus on the development of themes, theories, and storytelling. We will then apply these skills by writing an engaging and persuasive statements of facts. Senior Court of Appeals Judge Margret Robb will be the keynote speaker for the event.

PRESENTERS

SENIOR COURT OF APPEALS JUDGE MARGRET ROBB

Margret G. Robb, the first woman elected Chief Judge in the 110-year history of the Court of Appeals, was appointed in July 1998 by Governor Frank O’Bannon. In 2012 she was honored, with a concurrent bi-partisan Resolution, by the Indiana Legislature. Previously she served as Founding Chair of Governor Otis Bowen’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Honored for her public service, some of Judge Robb’s awards include the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law Distinguished Alumni, Indiana Business Journal Woman of Influence, Indiana State Bar Association “100 Years of Women in the Legal Profession,” appointment to the ABA Committee responsible for accrediting law schools, and election as President of the national Council of Chief Judges of State Courts of Appeal.

She holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Business Economics from Purdue University, a Magna Cum Laude J.D. from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, a graduate of the Graduate Program for Indiana Judges and the Indiana Judicial College.

Prior to her appointment to the Court, Judge Robb was, for 20 years, engaged in the general practice of law in Lafayette, and served as a Chapter 11, 12 and a standing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy trustee for the Northern District of Indiana. She was a registered family and civil mediator and served as a Tippecanoe County Deputy Public Defender.

Judge Robb has been President/Chair of the Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis Alumni Association, the Bankruptcy Section of the Indiana State Bar Association, the Indiana Bar Foundation, Appellate Practice Section of the Indiana State Bar Association, the Appellate Judges Council of the American Bar Association, and the Appellate Judges Education Institute. She has been an officer of the Indiana State Bar Association, the Fellows of the Indiana State Bar Foundation, Tippecanoe County Bar Association, and the National Association of Women Judges. She has also been a Board member of the Indianapolis Bar Association, the Indianapolis Bar Foundation, and the Senior Council Section of the Indianapolis Bar Association. She was the moderator for the 2005-2006 and Chair for the 2006-2007 Indianapolis Bar Association’s Bar Leader Series. For 17 years, Judge Robb chaired a Continuing Legal Education program that raised over a million dollars to fund scholarships for law school students. She is also a member of the American Bar Foundation, American Judicature Society, a Master Fellow of the Indiana State Bar Foundation. and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. She is a frequent speaker and author on legal topics for attorneys, other judges, and professional, civic and community organizations.

Judge Robb chaired the Supreme Court Task Forces on Family Courts and the development of Trial Court Local Rules and is involved in several projects to benefit the Indiana legal system. She has also served as a member of the Indiana Board of Law Examiners, the Governance Committee of the Supreme Court IOLTA (Interest on Lawyer Trust Account) Committee; the Federal Advisory Committee on Local Rules for the Federal Court for the Northern District of Indiana; and the Federal Advisory Committee for the Expediting of Federal Litigation.

Judge Robb has written extensively on a variety of legal topics: “Reflections of Baseball, Life and the Law” in the Indiana State Bar Association’s journal, Res Gestae and “Running Bases, Winning Cases: Why the Grand Old Game of Baseball is like the legal profession,” in the ABA Journal. She also authored a chapter on Supreme Court Justice Leonard Hackney in Indiana Supreme Court Justices, a chapter on Judge Robert H. Staton, in an upcoming book on judges of the Indiana Court of Appeals, co-authored a chapter, “From Juvenile to Family Courts,” in Essays on Indiana Legal History; co-authored an article “Do You Want To Know a Secret? Do You Promise Not to Tell? Whoa OH OH: Judges, Opinions, and Judicial Notice” in the Indiana Law Review; and co-authored an article “Appeals on Wheels: Traveling Oral Arguments Boost Public Outreach,” in the ABA Judges Journal.

Judge Robb is a recipient of the 2001 Maynard K. Hine distinguished alumni award given in recognition of support and service to IUPUI and Indiana University. She has also been honored with the 2004 Bernadette Perham “Indiana Women of Achievement” Award , bestowed by Ball State University to honor of one of their outstanding professors; the 2005 Indiana State Bar Association’s Women in the Law Recognition Award; the 2006 Tippecanoe County YWCA Salute to Women “Women of Distinction” Award; the 2007 Warren G. Harding High School, Warren, Ohio, Distinguished Alumni Award the 2010 Indiana University Alumni Association President’s Award, a 2010 Indiana Lawyer Distinguished Barrister Award, the 2011 Indianapolis Bar Association Women and the Law Committee’s Antoinette Dakin Leach Award, the 2011 David Hamacher Award from the Appellate Practice Section of the Indiana State Bar Association, a 2012 Indiana Business Journal Woman of Influence award, a 2014 Indiana Women’s Commission Trailblazer award, one of five women to ever receive the special recognition as a “Trailblazer,” a 2014 Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law Distinguished Alumni award, and a 2018 Indiana State Bar Association Litigation Section’s Judicial Civility award.

Judge Robb was retained on the Court of Appeals in 2000, 2010, and 2020 and was married to a retired Purdue University professor. Their son, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, is a Commander on active duty in the United States Navy. Judge Robb retired in June 2023 and now serves as a Senior Judge.

RUTH JOHNSON

Ruth is a research attorney with the Indiana Public Defender Council (IPDC) where she provides research and training to public defenders across the State of Indiana. Ruth’s public defender career includes representing clients in post-conviction relief proceedings and on direct appeal. For ten years Ruth served as Appellate Division Chief at the Marion County Public Defender Agency. Ruth serves on the Indiana State Bar Association, Appellate Section executive committee. In 2015, Ruth received the Indianapolis Bar Association Professionalism Award. In 2018, Ruth and IPDC’s training director, Diane Black, partnered with a licensed mental health professional to develop a Resiliency program for Public Defenders. The Resiliency program provides strategies for public defenders to stay strong in health and spirit as they navigate the daily barrage of inequities, roadblocks, and injustice. The Resiliency program has been provided free to public defenders across the State of Indiana and other justice system partners statewide and nationally.

SUZY ST. JOHN

Suzy St. John joined the Indiana Public Defender Council in 2021 as a staff attorney helping develop training materials and providing legal research assistance. Suzy is a part-time contract appellate attorney and adjunct legal writing professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. Suzy began her career in the Appellate Division of the Marion County Public Defender Agency. She has drafted hundreds of appellate briefs on federal and state constitutional law, statutory construction, sufficiency of evidence, trial procedure, and sentencing issues.

Suzy’s cases have been featured in the Indianapolis Star, Wall Street Journal, and the opening monologue of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Before coming to IPDC, Suzy also spent time working as a staff attorney in the Indiana Supreme Court, where she assisted trial court judges across the state in revising pattern jury instructions and updating the Criminal Benchbook.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Indiana Government Center Conference Rooms A and B, 402 West Washington Street, Indianapolis, United States