Scroll to find short clips from judges, attorneys and law students providing helpful insight on their law journeys and how it can apply to you!
Shorts
Justice Paige Petersen's Advice to First-Generation Students!
Justice Paige Petersen was appointed to the Utah Supreme court in December 2017 by Governor Gary Herbert. Before joining the Supreme Court, she was a district court judge in the Third Judicial District, which serves Salt Lake, Summit, and Tooele counties. Justice Petersen graduated summa cum laude from the University of Utah in 1995, after first obtaining an associates degree from the College of Eastern Utah in Price. She received her law degree from Yale Law School in 1999. After graduation, she clerked for two years in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. After her clerkship, she joined the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City, practicing civil litigation. She then transitioned to criminal law, serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. There, she handled cases involving organized crime and international narcotics trafficking. Petersen then prosecuted war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, where she was a member of the trial team responsible for successfully prosecuting the former Serbian Chief of Police for ethnic cleansing and mass murder in Kosovo. She then returned to Utah and joined the U.S. Attorneys Office in Salt Lake City, where she prosecuted violent crimes for three years before taking the bench.
Criminal Defense attorney, Jesse Nix, talks about what he did in law school that helped the trajectory of his career.
Jesse began his legal career working for the Salt Lake District Attorney in 2008, but quickly learned that he’d rather defend someone who made a mistake rather than put an innocent person in jail. His interest in helping people at their worst moments comes from his belief that every person, regardless of their background or crime, deserves the best defense. He joined the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association (LDA) in 2012 where he excelled at achieving excellent results for his clients, despite at times having the highest caseload of any attorney. Recognizing his legal skills and ability to teach others, Jesse became LDA’s intern coordinator. He was responsible for training law students from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University on practicing criminal defense. Jesse’s passion for helping people at their worst moments persuaded Jesse to form Conyers & Nix. Jesse was recognized for his legal expertise when he was nominated to become a Judge in the Salt Lake City Justice Court. After he was not selected by Mayor Jackie Biskupski, Utah Governor Gary Herbert appointed Jesse to serve on Utah’s Third District Judicial Nominating Commission where he interviews lawyers applying to be trial judges.
