Surviving a Disaster: How to Restart Your Practice in the Aftermath of a Disaster

Kye Walker is the Founder and Managing Attorney at The Walker Legal Group.

Carlos A. Rodr?guez-Vidal, a Capital Member, has practiced as a trial attorney and litigator in civil and commercial cases in the Litigation and Trial Practice Department of the firm since 1983, and is the Firm's Managing Member. He chairs the department since 2000. His daily work currently revolves around disputes involving franchise, distribution and sales representation contracts, construction and various other types of civil and commercial contracts. Because of the nature of Puerto Rico's continuously evolving economy and legal landscape, Mr. Rodr?guez-Vidal has also worked over the years in diverse areas of substantive and procedural law, including federal practice and procedure, banking, government procurement and bids, product liability, insurance, antitrust, intellectual property, and petroleum marketing practices.

Judge Karen Wells Judge Roby (L ’87) has served 15 years as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

She is co-chair of the ABA Litigation Section’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee and formerly co-chaired the section’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. She has been appointed to the ABA’s Committee for Racial and Ethnic Diversity for 2014-2015. And she is the Louisiana Supreme Court’s designee on the Louisiana Commission on Civics. In 2012, Judge Roby became the first African American woman to lead the Federal Magistrate Judges Association, a national organization of more than 600 members started in 1961. She enhanced the group’s communications, ushered in a new web presence with historical information and worked through pay litigation to protect the interests of all magistrate judges.

Judge Roby is also a Tulane adjunct faculty member, Judge Roby teaches a course on E-Discovery and Digital Evidence. She is also an Associate Professor in the Trial Advocacy program, a semester-long series of simulations in trial skills, and coaches the Black Law Students-Frederick Douglass Moot Court team.

She has spoken on legal topics at more than a hundred events across the United States and is published in the areas of social media and ethics, settlement and ethics and attorney fees. In 2013, she was among the notable graduates featured on a panel of “Pioneering Women of Tulane Law School.”

Judge Roby traveled with Lawyers/Judges Without Borders in 2012 to instruct magistrates, police prosecutors and criminal defense counsel in Nairobi, Kenya, on best practices in case management and trial procedure. In 2013, she served on a panel on civic education with national leaders including retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.