November Lunches w/ Lawyers will take place Friday, November 4, from 12:15-1:15 in the Borchard Conference Room. The theme of this particular event is on Government careers and will feature Tad May, Attorney, Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, Special Victims Unit; Scott Cheney, Attorney, Utah Attorney General’s Office, Litigation Division; and Padma Veeru-Collings, Chief Salt Lake City Prosecutor, Salt Lake City Prosecutor’s Office. Business Casual Dress, please. Lunch will be provided. To RSVP, click HERE and select the attorney you’d like to have lunch with. PDO will confirm with the students who have submitted an RSVP once the spots have been filled. Please do not RSVP if you do not plan to attend.
Participant Bios:
Tad May, Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, Special Victims Unit
Thaddeus May graduated with the 2006 class of the S.J. Quinney School of Law at the University of Utah. Before earning his J.D. he went to BYU and obtained a history degree that provided him with many interesting facts but few bankable skills. After graduating from Law School Mr. May worked as a clerk for the Fourth District Court. He then did a six-month stint at the Utah County Attorney’s office. In August of 2007 he joined the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office and has been there ever since. Presently, he is assigned to the Special Victims Unit. Prior to joining the SVU he worked on the following teams: misdemeanor, juvenile, narcotics, and general felony.
Padma Veeru-Collings, Chief Salt Lake City Prosecutor
Padma Veeru-Collings serves the Salt Lake City community as the chief Salt Lake City Prosecutor, leading an office of 17 attorneys and associated support staff. The office prosecutes class A, B, and C misdemeanors and infraction offenses. This includes a variety of matters, ranging from class A misdemeanor negligent homicide cases to infraction school-zone speeding traffic matters. The office addresses approximately 24,000 cases at some stage of the criminal justice process each year. The office places special emphasis on domestic violence and “driving under the influence” offenses. A United States citizen, born in Malaysia of East-Indian ancestry, Padma Veeru-Collings has been with the Office of the Salt Lake City Prosecutor since 1998. She has had the opportunity to serve under, and learn from, former Chief City Prosecutors Cheryl D. Luke and Simarjit S. Gill. She has prosecuted misdemeanor criminal offenses for over a decade. During that time she has served at intervals as the domestic-violence specialist for her office and as chair of the Utah Domestic Violence Resource Prosecutor Committee. She has also prosecuted felony offenses as Special Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney. She has trained volunteers, prosecutors and law enforcement officers on domestic violence related issues and coordinated VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) funded grants in her office.
Padma is a 1994 graduate of Brigham Young University School of Law, Provo, Utah and is a member of the Utah State Bar. She also possesses a Masters in Public Administration and degrees in Organizational Development and Intercultural Communication.
Scott Cheney, Utah Attorney General’s Office, Litigation Division
Scott grew up in Logan, where he attended Utah State University and received a B.A. English in 1986 & M.A. English 1989. In 2002, he then attended law school at Cornell University. He worked his first career at Jones Waldo here in SLC, starting out in civil litigation and was practicing in the corporate governance and business transactions section when he left in 2001. He joined the Litigation Division of the Utah Attorney General’s Office in September 2001, and has worked in the Civil Rights section ever since. His section defends civil litigation damages suits on behalf of State employees, departments and agencies. He has also worked as the clerk recruiting coordinator for the AG’s Office, and is an adjunct instructor at Salt Lake Community College where he teaches Civil Litigation and Constitutional Law in the Paralegal Studies program.