Lewis Roca Lawyer Receives Tom Karas Criminal Justice Award

PHOENIX (December 9, 2020) – Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie announced that Randy Papetti, a litigation partner, has received the 2020 State Bar of Arizona Tom Karas Criminal Justice Award. This prestigious award recognizes lawyers who work to uphold the rule of law and the principles of criminal justice by representing clients and/or the public with exceptional integrity, fairness, tenacity, creativity, brilliance and most importantly, professionalism. Tom Karas was known for his devotion to the field of law, his integrity and defending the rights of the accused. Karas opened the first Federal Public Defender Office in the United States and thereafter was a partner with Lewis and Roca in the 1970s before becoming a sole practitioner.

As a member of the firm’s Litigation Practice Group, Papetti is an experienced litigator and trial lawyer in the areas of intellectual property, commercial, healthcare and real estate law. Early in his career, Papetti assisted on a case where the defendant had been convicted based on a forensic medical diagnosis known as “Shaken Baby Syndrome” (SBS). Due to this case and his tenacity to understand the science behind SBS, Papetti is now known around the world for his work questioning SBS, a controversial diagnosis which has been used for decades to wrongfully convict people of homicide and other crimes, and to unjustly separate parents from their children. He has devoted thousands of pro bono hours representing clients, consulting with physicians and other lawyers and writing the leading text in the field, The Forensic Unreliability of the Shaken Baby Syndrome (C. Milroy, M.D. ed., Academic Forensic Pathology Int’l 2018). His work and that of others at the firm has contributed to a number of clients being exonerated and parents being reunited with their children and families.

Papetti is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has been consistently named a Best Lawyer by The Best Lawyers in America, which named him one of the Phoenix Lawyer of the Year for Bet-the-Company Litigation in 2020 and Lawyer of the Year for Litigation-Regulatory Enforcement in 2019. He is also annually recognized as a Southwest Super Lawyer and by Chambers USA. Papetti is a past Chair of the Antitrust Section of the State Bar of Arizona and currently serves as a member of the Advisory Committee on Rules of Evidence for the Arizona Supreme Court.

About Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP

Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP is an Am Law 200 commercial law firm handling complex matters in litigation, intellectual property, business transactions, gaming, government relations and other practice areas. Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie offices are located in Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Reno, Silicon Valley and Tucson. For more information, visit lrrc.com.

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