Cumberland Panelists

Jequette Edmonson Noland

Legal Aid Society of Birmingham

Jequette A. Edmonson Noland was born in Tuskegee, Alabama but raised in Birmingham, Alabama from the age of four. While working in public relations, she attended the Birmingham School of Law. The best part of working in journalism/public relations was the privilege to tell public interest stories. Now she works in public-interest law telling the stories of those who are not always able to speak for themselves.

She began her legal career as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Birmingham in 2000. After being assigned to the City of Birmingham’s jail court for eight years, she was promoted to Managing Attorney for LAS. In 2016, she was named Executive Director.

Christina "Christi" Graham

Senior Counsel, PNC Bank

Christine Baylet Bergeron

Senior Corporate Counsel of Technology, Shipt

Kelsie Long

Balch & Bingham, LLP

Kelsi’s practice focuses on transactional matters involving corporate and securities and data privacy and security. She routinely advises clients on corporate formation, routine commercial transactions, strategic acquisitions and data breach disclosures, and guides clients through due diligence and contract negotiations.

Kelsi earned her dual J.D./MBA degree from The University of Alabama School of Law and The University of Alabama Manderson Graduate School of Business. Kelsi serves her community through her involvement in the Rotaract Club of Birmingham, Alabama Leadership Initiative, and Blackburn Institute as a Fellow.

Calle Mendenhall

Farris, Riley & Pitt, LLP

Calle Mendenhall is a trial attorney specializing in mass tort pharmaceutical and medical device litigations. She has a national practice and is currently licensed in the state of Alabama and in all federal district courts within the state. She has been as a MidSouth Rising Star by Super Lawyers since 2018 and ranked as a Top 100 Trial Lawyer by the National Trial Lawyers since 2014. She is also an active member in the American and Alabama Associations for Justice.

Calle attended the University of Alabama where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and then earned her J.D. from Cumberland School of Law where she was an active member of the school’s trial advocacy program.

Christi Graham is Senior Counsel at PNC Bank, National Association. In her role as Senior Counsel, Christi provides legal support to Commercial and Corporate & Institutional Banking, including the commercial Real Estate Banking segment, as well as various commercial back-office functions like flood compliance, credit and underwriting, and document control functions.

Christi is active in the Birmingham Bar Association, where she has served on many committees and is a past chair of the Women Lawyers’ Section. In 2019, Christi was selected as a Fellow of the Birmingham Bar Foundation in recognition of her contributions to the local bar and legal profession. Christi currently serves as President of the Birmingham Bar Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that encourages and unifies the philanthropic and educational efforts of the Birmingham Bar for the betterment of our community and for the promotion of justice.
Christi serves as Secretary on the board of directors for Woodlawn Community Table, which operates food cooperatives in the Woodlawn area of Birmingham, and she volunteers with her children’s activities, most recently as team mom for the Mountain Brook High School Varsity Men’s Basketball Team.

Christi received her Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) from the University of Georgia and her J.D. from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University.

Christine Baylet Bergeron is the Senior Corporate Counsel of Technology at Shipt. In this role, she works closely with the Technology, Marketing and Product teams to operationalize new initiatives and strategically elevate Shipt’s brand and capabilities. Christine has developed standard procedures for procuring technology, established an enterprise program on generative AI and helped build a library of contracts to support Shipt’s growth. She has also had the privilege to be involved in multiple community engagement efforts including the Shipt Serves Cabinet, the LadderUp Program Cabinet, and most recently the Birmingham Promise Mentors Program.

Prior to working at Shipt, Christine served as an Assistant General Counsel at Regions Bank where she focused on Legal Services, Privacy and Cyber Security.

Christine also had the opportunity to work as a Contracts Agent at Southern Company.

Brandy Robertson

Heninger Garrison Davis

Brandy Robertson began her career in the legal field as a secretary having earned an associate degree from Gadsden State Community College in Paralegal Studies. Brandy worked as a paralegal for 14 years and attended classes at night to obtain her undergraduate and law degree. Brandy received her B.A. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in Criminal Justice and her J.D from the Birmingham School of Law in 2006.

Brandy joined Heninger Garrison Davis in 2011, in the Mass Tort department helping clients who have been damaged from medical devices or harmful products. In 2017, Brandy followed her heart and made a move to the civil litigation department at Heninger Garrison Davis where she represents clients who have been wronged or injured. Brandy’s practice area includes personal injury, civil sexual abuse, wrongful death, nursing home abuse / negligence, and medical malpractice matters.

Katrina Brown-Graham

Creative Mind Law

Katrina Brown-Graham is the founder and managing attorney of Creative Mind Law, she counsels small and emerging businesses to protect, monetize, and grow profitable brands with trademark, copyright, commercial real estate, and business law solutions. She has successfully represented multinational corporations across diverse industries, as well as assisted numerous startups, churches, colleges, and small and medium-sized businesses in securing the protection of their brands and property.

As a trusted professional in her community, Katrina is often called upon to share her expertise on topics such as black ownership, entrepreneurship, and empowering women. In January 2023, Katrina was named to the Birmingham Business Journal’s Top 40 under 40.

Yawanna McDonald

Campbell Partners, LLC

Yawanna graduated from Mississippi State University with both a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences and Masters of Science in Forrest Products with emphasis in Environmental Sciences. She attended Cumberland Law School and graduated with honors in 2013. She passed the Alabama State Bar exam in 2013 and the Mississippi Bar in 2015.

Yawanna has represented numerous clients in litigation matters involving trusts, estates, probate, wills, deeds, and heirship properties. Yawanna also represents clients in matters related to condemnation, corporate litigation, and business litigation.

She has been honored as a National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40, Super Lawyers Mid-South Rising Star from 2019 to the present and recognized as a B-Metro Top Women Attorney since 2018. Additionally, she was selected as a 2019 B-Metro Star of the Bar and featured as a distinguished attorney in 2018.

Diedra Mayes

Jefferson County Public Defender's Office

Deidra Mayes is a local attorney with over 10 years of experience in the legal field. She is currently a Trial Attorney for the Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office where she handles an array of cases from domestic violence to capital murders.

Prior to joining the Public Defender’s Office, Deidra worked as a law clerk and Associate Attorney for a small personal injury firm where she primarily handled car accident and wrongful death matters.

Deidra proudly holds degrees from Tuskegee University (B.A.) and Miles Law School (J.D.).

Lacey Danley

Wiggins Childs Pantazis Fisher Goldfarb

EDUCATION:
Samford University, Cumberland School of Law, J. D., 2012
University of North Alabama, M.B.A., 2011
University of Alabama, B.S., 2008

AREAS OF PRACTICE:
Business Litigation
Civil Rights
Class Action Cases
Consumer Rights
Dangerous or Defective Products
Employment Litigation
Personal Injury and Wrongful Death
Whistleblower and Qui Tam

BAR ADMISSIONS:
State of Alabama

COURTS:
Supreme Court of Alabama
US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama
US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS:
American Bar Association
Alabama State Bar Association
Birmingham Bar Association - various committees
National Employment Lawyers Association of Alabama

HONORS:
2018 SuperLawyers® Rising

Felicia Lee

Protective Life

Mary Turner Benoist

Regions Bank

Turner Benoist is the Legal Integration & Due Diligence Manager, Assistant General Counsel, and Senior Vice President for Regions Bank, the banking subsidiary of Regions Financial Corporation. In her current role, Ms. Benoist advises the Consumer Bank, Corporate Bank, and Wealth Management Groups as well as Corporate Development, M&A Integration, Corporate Communications, Corporate Marketing, Risk & Compliance, and other enterprise-wide functions. In addition to driving due diligence and integration for Legal for acquisitions, Ms. Benoist also serves as the Legal lead for department and bank-wide initiatives such as social media governance, resolution planning, and change management. Ms. Benoist received her Juris Doctorate from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University and her Bachelor of Science in Management (Accounting and Finance) from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University

Judge Patricia Stephens

Tenth Judicial Circuit Court of Alabama

Judge Stephens became a circuit court judge, Domestic Relations, in January of 2013. She is a graduate of Auburn University and the Miles College School of Law where she graduated Cum Laude. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Stephens served as a prosecuting attorney for the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office and with a general practice law firm, where she represented litigants in criminal and civil defense, family law and personal injury.

Judge Stephens is a member of the Alabama State Bar Association, the Birmingham Bar Association, the Magic City Bar Association, and the Birmingham Inns of Court.

Heather Fann

Gregory Fann turner Law LLC

Heather Fann is a founding partner of Gregory Fann Turner Law LLC, in Birmingham, Alabama, and 2006 graduate of The University of Alabama School of Law. Heather is a past Chair of the Family Law Section of the Alabama State Bar Association and teaches Advanced Domestic Relations at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham. In 2017, Heather was selected for the Leading Practitioner Award by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, for her work on marriage and parentage equality cases including marriage recognition and enforcement matters as local counsel for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (Strawser v. Strange) and the U.S. Supreme Court case of V.L. v E.L. confirming full faith and credit recognition of same-sex adoptions.

Heather is a member of the Family Law Institute of the LGBTQ+ Bar and serves on the board of the ACLU of Alabama and the Executive Board of Volunteer Lawyers Birmingham. She was appointed this year to the Alabama Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Child Support Guidelines and Enforcement and as Co-Chair of the Birmingham Bar Association’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and additionally serves on the Birmingham Bar Association’s Nominating Committee.

Caroline Douglas

Twala Grant Wallace

Volunteer Lawyers Birmingham

Attorney Twala Grant Wallace is a 1979 graduate of John Carroll Catholic High School in Birmingham, Alabama. She continued her studies at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia and then at Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia under the National Institutes of Health MARC program (Minority Access to Research Careers) where she earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology with emphasis in Environmental Toxicology. While at Morris Brown College she became a proud member of Gamma Gamma Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Incorporated and a charter member of the school’s Beta Beta Beta National Biology Honor Society.

Attorney Grant Wallace attended the Univeristy of Alabama School of Law.

Attorney Wallace was a solo practitioner for 26 years in both civil and criminal law. During her career she also worked as the first Coordinating Attorney for the Birmingham Division of Legal Services Alabama’s Disaster Relief Call Center, as well as served as an adjunct law professor at Miles College and Miles School of Law. She also served as an Interim Municipal Court Judge in the City of Bessemer, Alabama.

Attorney Grant Wallace began her career at Volunteer Lawyers Birmingham in 2019. She rapidly rose to the positions of Managing Attorney and Director of Programs and Partnerships. Attorney Grant Wallace was recently named the Interim Executive Director of Volunteer Lawyers Birmingham.

Heather Fann

Gregory Fann Turner