Brandon T. Booth holds a Juris Doctorate (2008) and a B.S. in Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship (1998) from the University of Wyoming. He served as State Public Defender in Wyoming from September 2024 – March 2026. In that capacity, he oversaw a 100+ member agency and managed felony and misdemeanor caseloads. He also worked as an Associate Attorney in private practice and Assistant Public Defender in Colorado. He is now employed as Deputy Bar Counsel for the Wyoming State Bar. Booth has extensive trial experience with over 45 criminal jury trials, including homicide and death penalty cases, and participates in various committees such as the Expense Authorization Committee and Drug Court Defense Counsel Representative.

Alison Gee is an attorney with Yonkee & Toner, LLP practicing in Gillette – her hometown. Alison graduated from the University of Wyoming undergrad, University of Colorado law school, and holds an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Alabama. She has practiced law for 20 years in the areas of estate planning, property and mineral law, and business formation and operation. Alison represents several Wyoming governmental entities including hospitals, school districts, and other special districts. Alison is President-Elect of the Wyoming State Bar and serves as a Commissioner for Wyoming on the Uniform Laws Commission. Alison and her husband Shaun have three children, and they enjoy hockey, skiing, basketball, riding horses, hiking and fishing.

Mark W. Gifford is Bar Counsel for the Wyoming State Bar. He is a Wyoming native who received his B.A. in accounting from the University of Wyoming and his law degree from Stanford University. After 30 years of private practice, Mark took the position of Bar Counsel in 2011. He started the Ethics Hotline in 2014 and was instrumental in getting Wyoming’s Lawyer Assistance Program launched the same year. He is a member of the NCBE’s MPRE Policy Committee and a past member of two ABA Standing Committees. Gifford is a past recipient of the Gerald R. Mason Professionalism Award.

Honorable Nathaniel S. Hibben currently serves as a District Court Judge for the First Judicial District in Laramie County, Wyoming, where he presides over a broad range of matters including civil, criminal, and family law cases. Prior to his appointment to the First Judicial District Court, Judge Hibben served as a Circuit Court Judge in the Eighth Judicial District and as a municipal judge in Torrington, Wyoming. Before joining the bench, he worked in private practice and served as a public defender in Goshen County. Judge Hibben also served as President-Elect of the Wyoming State Bar prior to his appointment to the circuit court bench. He earned his law degree from Liberty University School of Law and began his legal career clerking for Justice Keith Kautz during Justice Kautz’s tenure as a district court judge in Goshen County.

Marshall Keller joined the Navy in 1991 and became a member of the SEAL Teams. After leaving the active-duty navy he attended school at Montana Tech University in Butte, Montana and graduated with a degree in engineering in 2002. After working for different companies overseas and in the United States.

Marshall graduated from the Wyoming School of Law in 2019. Upon graduation he started solo practice in Thermopolis, Wyoming under the mentorship of Michael Messenger. Marshall’s current primary focuses of law consist of municipal law, estate planning, probates and estate distributions, business counseling, and civil litigation involving either property, estates, or contracts.

Honorable Katharine G. McKay currently serves as a District Court Judge for the Ninth Judicial District in Sublette County, Wyoming. She previously served as Staff Attorney and Law Clerk for Judge Jason Conder of the Ninth Judicial District, an attorney in private practice, a Staff Attorney for the Northern Arapaho Child Support Program, and a Supervisor in the Wyoming Office of the Public Defender in Fremont County. Judge McKay earned her bachelor’s degree from Lewis & Clark College and her Juris Doctor from the University of Wyoming.

Rennie Phillips graduated from the UW College of Law in 2011 and started her own firm, Rennie Phillips Law, LLC, in April of 2020. Her practice focuses on family law, including an extensive background in domestic violence. Rennie divides her time between Albany and Teton Counties; therefore, she represents clients throughout western Wyoming.

Rennie serves on the Board for the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association (WTLA) Chair of the Family Law section. She also serves on the “Access to Justice 2.0” committee, which was formed by Wyoming Supreme Court to address various barriers that Wyomingites face in the legal system. She is a past Chair for the Family Law section of the Wyoming State Bar and past Chair of the Legal Aid of Wyoming Board of Directors. Rennie also serves on the Wyoming United for Choice Board.

Garry J. Rhoden is a trial attorney and founder of the Rhoden Law Firm in Craig, Colorado. His practice ranges from civil and criminal matters to municipal law, probate, estates, and agricultural matters. He also serves as a contractor with the Colorado Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel and the Colorado Office of the Child’s Representative.

Before establishing his current rural practice, Garry worked with several nationally recognized litigation firms across the country and served as a Legal and Policy Fellow for the United States House of Representatives on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He has also taught U.S. Legal History at the University of South Florida and Florida Constitutional Law at Florida Coastal School of Law.

Garry earned his J.D. from the University of Florida College of Law, a Master’s degree in International Policy and Practice from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of South Florida.

Alan Romero is Senior Associate Dean, William T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, and Director of the Rural Law Center at the University of Wyoming College of Law. He previously taught at the University of North Dakota, University of Idaho and University of Chicago. He has taught a variety of property-related courses and published a book and articles about property law, including issues such as takings, rural property law and land use regulation. Professor Romero received a B.A. summa cum laude from Brigham Young University in 1990 and a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1993, where he served as President of the Harvard Journal on Legislation and Director of the Harvard Legislative Research Bureau.

Samuel Western has been writing about the west for over 40 years. He spent 25 years as the Northern Rockies correspondent for The Economist. His latest book of nonfiction is The Spirit of 1889, Restoring the Lost Promise of the High Plains and Northern Rockies, published by the University of Kansas Press. He lives in Sheridan, Wyoming.