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GREGORY A. BELZLEY is an honors graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, and has been a successful litigator for almost 30 years. In the course of his career, he has been involved in virtually all types of civil litigation. He has participated and been consulted in complex litigation, and has twice had verdicts that received national attention. By the age of 45, Mr. Belzley had the unusual distinction of persuading a jury to return a defense verdict in a multi-million dollar case involving a catastrophic injury to a teenager, while persuading another jury to award a gay Puerto Rican immigrant more than $1 million for his mistreatment during an overnight incarceration in the Louisville jail. Since 1987, he has aggressively defended the constitutional rights of Americans behind bars. Beginning in 2004, he has engaged in this work full-time, and in 2009 formed his own firm for this purpose. Mr. Belzley has argued cases before the First and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeal, in which those courts held for the first time that strip searches of misdemeanor arrestees in their circuits were unconstitutional absent a reasonable, individualized suspicion that such persons were carrying or concealing weapons or contraband. He has been lead counsel for plaintiffs in five strip-search class actions in Jefferson, Franklin, Hopkins and Bullitt Counties in Kentucky, and in New Haven, Connecticut, that were ultimately settled for a total of more than $23 million. In addition, in an effort to improve health care for inmates, he has filed numerous "inattention-to-medical-needs" cases involving deliberate indifference to inmates who are suicidal, who are experiencing alcohol and drug withdrawal, who have taken an overdose of drugs, who have been diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses, and who have lost the ability to walk without assistance. Mr. Belzley had been a partner at the Louisville firms of Woodward, Hobson & Fulton, Frost Brown Todd, and Dinsmore & Shohl. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Kentucky Justice Association, where he chairs the Law School Outreach Committee. Mr. Belzley is a frequent writer and lecturer on Fourth and Eighth Amendment Rights and class actions. He is currently a Contributing Editor for Civil Rights for the KJA's bi-monthly publication, The Advocate. Mr. Belzley has given numerous seminars in his practice area for the KJA, and has given three nationwide internet-based seminars on jail litigation. In March 2008, he co-chaired a jail and prison litigation conference in Washington, D.C. with Professor Margo Schlanger of the Washington University in St. Louis College of Law, where he spoke on representing inmates on contingent fee. Mr. Belzley was an instructor at the American Bar Association Torts and Insurance Practice Section Trial Academy in Reno, Nevada in 2004, and in May 2008, co-chaired and instructed at the KJA Trial College at the University of Kentucky. He chaired the KJA's 2011 Trial College at UK. Mr. Belzley has lectured law students at the Brandeis and Chase Colleges of Law on inmates' rights and jail litigation. DANIEL J. CANON is a member of the Louisville law firm of Clay Frederick Adams, PLC, where he practices primarily in the areas of civil and constitutional rights litigation, with a focus on employment discrimination. He is particularly involved in First Amendment issues. Mr. Canon is a member of the Kentucky Bar Association, the Southern District of Indiana, Eastern and Western districts of Kentucky, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is also a member of the American Inns of Court. Mr. Canon earned his B.A. degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Louisville, and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from the University of Louisville Law School. MARK G. HALL is a sole practitioner in Louisville, Kentucky. His practice is concentrated in the areas of criminal defense and civil rights litigation. Mr. Hall spent four and a half years of active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps as a prosecuting attorney. He is a member of the Kentucky Bar Association, Louisville Bar Association and the Kentucky Justice Association.
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