Ms. Hallam’s family has a deep-rooted legacy in the law, and she was raised with a respect and reverence for our legal system and our Constitution. Ms. Hallam dedicated the first part of her career as an attorney to public service. She was incredibly proud to work with attorneys at the Maricopa County Public Defender’s office who tirelessly advocated on behalf of indigent clients. She is now a proud criminal defense lawyer in Scottsdale, Arizona.
PROFESSIONAL CAREER
AIOTLMs. Hallam has been on the front line of the criminal justice system throughout her career. She began working for the Public Defender’s office while still a law student in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After graduating law school, Ms. Hallam moved to Arizona and first joined the Maricopa County Public Defender’s office in 1997. After two years as a trial attorney at the Public Defender’s office, Ms. Hallam left to raise a family; however, she remained active in the legal community by volunteering as a supervising attorney at the Arizona Justice Project where she worked with teams of law students on Post-Conviction Relief Petitions for prisoners who were innocent or wrongfully convicted.
Upon returning to the full-time practice of law, Ms. Hallam rejoined the Maricopa Public Defender’s office as a Trial Attorney, where she first and second-chaired felony trials, ranging from drug sales to murders. Routinely managing a felony caseload representing more than 35 indigent defendants in active litigation, with charges that included sex crimes, manslaughter, murder, sex crimes against children, gang related crimes, child abuse, dangerous crimes, aggravated assaults, drug sales, domestic violence and trafficking. She has extensive experience handling trials, evidentiary hearings, plea negotiations, jury selection, and oral arguments; conducting discovery analysis, legal research, investigation, and witness interviews; and writing motions and other legal pleadings. Ms. Hallam was named Team Leader of her trial group, where she mentored and second-chaired new lawyers in court. While at the Public Defender’s Office, Ms. Hallam taught new attorney training classes and taught Continuing Legal Education classes at the Statewide Arizona Public Defender Association (APDA) Conference (2013,2014,2015,2016 and 2017).