Ben Norris:
Benjamin R. Norris is an Assistant Attorney General in the Agency Counsel Section of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. He began his legal career at the Phoenix, Arizona office of what was then Brown & Bain, now Perkins Coie LLP. In 1989, he joined the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served in Washington, D.C. as a trial attorney in the Civil Tax Division until 1993. From 1993 to 2008, Mr. Norris was an associate and then a partner with the Phoenix office of Quarles & Brady, LLP, in the Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights Group. From 2008 through 2014, he served as a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge. Mr. Norris received his B.A. in Political Science from Yale University in 1983 and was a member of the Law Review at the Northwestern University School of Law, where he received his J.D. in 1986.
Charles A. Grube:
Chuck is a 1980 graduate of the Harvard Law School and has a B.A. with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Rising from humble beginnings as a junior litigation associate in a large Midwestern law firm, he has been a big firm lawyer, a medium-firm lawyer and a small-firm lawyer, as well as a bank lawyer and, for the last twenty years, an assistant attorney general for the State of Arizona. Currently he is senior agency counsel for the Agency Counsel Section, the section that represents the Arizona Department of Administration and its State Procurement Office (along with over sixty other agencies, boards, commissions, courts and elected officials.) He has defended and prosecuted contract and procurement cases at every administrative and judicial level, including the Arizona Supreme Court. He also advises State agencies and officials on a broad range of topics, including constitutional law, public monies, Open Meeting Law compliance, conflicts of interest, statutory interpretation and many more. He is a member of the state bars of Arizona and Wisconsin, and is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, various Federal Courts of Appeals, and the United States District Courts for Arizona and Wisconsin. A member of many conservation and wildlife preservation organizations, Chuck is an avid fly-fisherman, a decent cook and a certified pistol instructor. He is also a frequent speaker on contract law, procurement, commercial disputes and other legal topics.
Daniel Schaack:
Daniel P. Schaack is an Assistant Attorney General in the Liability Management Section of the Attorney General’s Office. He has spent his entire legal career in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1986, he became an associate in the mid-sized firm of Warner, Angle, Roper & Hallam, where he practiced in civil litigation and appeals. In 1989, he became a staff attorney in Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals. In that position he reviewed the briefs, prepared draft decisions, and participated in court conferences in civil appeals (and a small number of criminal appeals). He also did several stints as the civil motions attorney, reviewing motions, making recommendations, and drafting orders for the motions panel judges. In 1999, he joined the small firm of Logan & Geotas, where he again practiced in civil litigation and appeals. He joined the Arizona Attorney General’s Office in January, 2001 as the appellate attorney in the Liability Management and the Employment Law Sections. In that position, he reviews—in conjunction with the Solicitor General’s Office—the appellate briefs and dispositive motions produced by the attorneys in those sections, and he participates in moot courts to prepare attorneys for their oral arguments. He also carries a load of his own cases: he has prepared and filed briefs and participated in oral arguments in both divisions of the Arizona Court of Appeals, in the Arizona Supreme Court, and in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and he has prepared and filed briefs in the United States Supreme Court. He writes the “CourtWatch” column for the Maricopa Lawyer, the monthly publication of the Maricopa County Bar Association. He received his B.A. with honors and high distinction from the University of Iowa in 1981, with a major in Spanish and minor in Latin American Studies. During law school, he interned with the National Wildlife Federation’s legal team in Washington, D.C. He received his J.D. from the University of Michigan in 1984.