Executive Presentation -

Sean D. Reyes, Attorney General

Brian Tarbet, Chief Civil Deputy

Spence Austin, Chief Criminal Deputy

Bridget Romano, Solicitor General

Parker Douglas, Chief of Staff/Federal Solicitor

 

 

Sean D. Reyes

Sean Reyes is the 21st Attorney General for the State of Utah.  On December 30, 2013, at the age of 42, he was appointed by Governor Gary R. Herbert and took the oath of office. General Reyes was immediately faced with the challenge of restoring public trust in the Utah Attorney General’s Office (“AGO”), where accusations of wrongdoing and abuse of power beset his two predecessors.

 

After graduating summa cum laude from Brigham Young University in 1994, Reyes earned his law degree with honors from U.C. Berkeley in 1997. He practiced for nearly fourteen years at Parsons Behle & Latimer, the largest law firm in the State, where he became one of the first minority lawyers to make partner at a major Utah firm. While there, Reyes represented clients on some of the largest and most high profile litigation cases in the history of the State. He argued or briefed cases before state and federal courts throughout the country, including the Utah Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

During that time, Reyes was honored as the first-ever National Outstanding Young Lawyer by the American Bar Association and was recognized as the Utah Young Lawyer of the Year. After his distinguished career at Parsons Behle, Reyes continued to be recognized with awards and accolades for his legal skill and excellence in his role as General Counsel for a Utah media and technology company.

 

General Reyes has served on many boards and was a co-founder of nationally acclaimed Fraud College, to educate citizens on how to avoid scams. Reyes has diverse leadership experience and deep appreciation of Utah that has led him to devote thousands of hours to community and non-profit organizations and underserved individuals.

 

AG Reyes and his wife, Saysha, currently live in Cottonwood Heights and are the proud parents of 6 children between the ages of 4 and 16. In his free time, he enjoys playing morning basketball, coaching his kids in youth football, baseball, basketball, volleyball and soccer, taking walks or doing anything with Saysha, watching Sports Center, attending and speaking at Comic Cons, as well as cooking, shooting guns and watching mixed martial arts (now that his fighting days are over).

 

Brian Tarbet

Major General Brian L. Tarbet was appointed Chief Civil Deputy by Attorney General Sean D. Reyes.  Tarbet is a retired US Army Major General who commanded the Utah National Guard for 12 years of a 40 year military career. He offers over 20 years of legal experience and an in-depth knowledge of both local and state tax workings. General Tarbet previously served as General Counsel and Division Chief of Tax & Revenue in the Attorney General’s Office which included service as counsel to the Utah State Tax Commission. During his service he was honored as Tax Attorney of the Year in 1998 by the Utah State Bar.

 

Major General Tarbet earned his certificate as part of the National Security Fellowship from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  He graduated from The University of Utah with his Juris Doctorate and earned his B.A. in Political Science & Business from Utah State University.

 

Spencer Austin

Spencer Austin joins the Attorney General’s Office with nearly four decades of legal experience as a recognized leader in the Utah and national legal communities.  In 1979, he joined Parsons Behle & Latimer’s Litigation practice group where he concentrated on commercial litigation, environmental law, and white collar crime matters. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Austin was a deputy Salt Lake County attorney from 1975-1979. As deputy county attorney, he was assigned to the Career Criminal Prosecution Unit that specialized in prosecuting high profile cases within the state of Utah. Mr. Austin was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Utah College of Law in the Trial Advocacy Program from 1980 to 1993. He has also been a faculty member for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy in Tucson, Arizona. He has spoken at numerous conferences and seminars on environmental white collar crime and related topics.  He received his B.S. from the University of Utah in Psychology and is a graduate from the University Utah, S.J. Quinney School of Law.

 

Bridget Romano

Under the direction of Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, the office of Solicitor General has been elevated to join the attorney general’s leadership team.  Since July 2011, Bridget Romano has served as Utah Solicitor General/ Director, Civil Appeals Division.  In her new role, she will continue to oversee Civil Appeals along with the addition of Criminal Appeals.  Prior to becoming Solicitor General, she held the position of Assistant Attorney General, and represented the State’s interests before Utah’s state and federal appellate and trial courts and before various administrative agencies.  Bridget has been with Utah Attorney General’s Office since 1996, leaving for two short periods to work in private practice.  She currently serves as Chair of the Utah State Bar, Appellate Practice Section and is on the Utah Supreme Court’s Appellate Rules Advisory Committee. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science/Economics from the University of Utah where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and was a member of Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa Honor Societies.  She received her law degree from the University of Utah, S.J. Quinney School of Law.

 

Parker Douglas

Parker Douglas came to the Attorney General’s Office after serving in the Utah Federal Public Defender’s Office as an Assistant Federal Defender, handling both trials and appeals.  Before joining the Defender’s Office in 2008, he practiced both criminal and civil law at several law firms: Hatch, James and Dodge, Latham & Watkins’ Washington, D.C. office, and Parsons Behle & Latimer, where he primarily handled constitutional and statutory appellate litigation.

 

He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Tena Campbell of the United States District Court for the District of Utah, and the Honorable Michael W. McConnell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.  He is a graduate from the University Utah, S.J. Quinney School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Utah Law Review and Order of the Coif.  Prior to law school, he received his Ph.D in English with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara where he was a Regents’ Fellow.  He received his B.A. with a double major in English and History from Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges. He is a currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Utah Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, the local rules committee of the United States District Court for the District of Utah.