Courthouse Steps

The Sacramento law firm of Trainor Robertson is pleased to announce that Elana M. Ribman has joined the firm’s litigation group. As an attorney with the firm, Ms. Ribman will assist the firm’s clients with matters of commercial real estate and business litigation.

Ms. Ribman earned her degree from the Syracuse University, College of Law in 1997, where she was an Associate Editor of the Syracuse Law Review and a member of the Justinian Honorary Law Society. Ms. Ribman’s other honors include serving as a judicial extern to the Honorable John S. Rhodes, United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Ms. Ribman is a member of the California Bar Association.

Tia Boatman is a senior associate with Best Best & Krieger LLP in the Municipal and Redevelopment Practice group of the Sacramento office. Boatman primarily counsels public sector clients, including cities, housing authorities, joint powers and redevelopment agencies on legal and legislative matters relating to: Community Redevelopment Law, local land use decisions affecting housing, financing and the development of affordable housing, public housing programs and operations, and general municipal law.

Prior to joining Best Best & Krieger, Boatman served as Agency Counsel to the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and as Chief Consultant to the California State Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee. In these capacities, she provided legislative expertise and advice on Community Redevelopment Law, State regional housing needs assessment process, state and federal regulations and programs affecting housing, and public entity real property acquisition and disposition. Additionally, she has served as the Principal Consultant for the Assembly’s Speaker, Assembly Rules Committee, and the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

Boatman received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from San Diego State University, and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. While in law school, Ms. Boatman received highest honors in Trial Preparation and Advocacy and graduated as a member of the National Order of Barristers.

James D. Mart joins JAMS, The Resolution Experts, the nation’s largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services. After more than thirty-seven years of practicing law, Mr. Mart will mediate and arbitrate cases full-time at JAMS. For the past twenty years he has been a partner at Mart & deVries in Sacramento where he had a complex tort litigation practice emphasizing professional liability, bad faith insurance, selective personal injury and business litigation.

Mart has served as a Member of the Bar Council of the Sacramento County Bar Association, as an Ex Officio Member of the Board of Governors of the California Trial Lawyers Association and a member of the Board of Directors of the Capitol City Trial Lawyers Association of which he was President in 1982 and 1983. Mr. Mart earned his LL.B. from Hastings College of Law, University of California in 1965 where he was Class Valedictorian (Order of the Coif, Phi Delta Phi, and Thurston Honor Society) and he received his A.B. from San Jose State College in 1961.

Barbara Christiansen also joins JAMS. Christiansen is a highly skilled ADR specialist who for the past five years has served in numerous court and administrative agency dispute resolution programs, as well as in private mediations, arbitrations and early neutral evaluations. She established Employment Dispute Resolution Services in Sacramento in 1999 and has over 15 years of experience in the exclusive practice of employment law.

Christiansen has been a mediator and arbitrator in scores of private and public sector State and Federal employment cases including actions for discrimination and harassment based on age, disability, ethnicity, pregnancy, race, sex and sexual orientation, wrongful discharge, breach of employment contract, defamation, wage and hour violations, and school discipline and discharge matters.

Currently active in several professional organizations, she is a member of the Labor and Employment Section of the State Bar of California, and a member of the Association of Attorney-Mediators and the Association for Conflict Resolutions, and was a member of the former ADR Committee of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District. Prior to establishing Employment Dispute Resolution Services in 1999, Christiansen was an Attorney and Shareholder with Littler Mendelson in Sacramento from 1987 to 1998. She was Assistant to the General Counsel, California Manufacturers’ Association from 1985 to 1987. Additionally, she received a license as a General Securities Representative for the National Association of Securities Dealers in 1981 and Insurance Agent License from the State of California in 1979.

Christiansen earned her J.D. with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. She received her B.A. from UC Santa Barbara. Additionally, she has a life elementary education credential, which she received from California State University.