DTW Conveners

The Conveners are judges who have water litigation before them.

Hon. Kate Appleby, Executive Chair, joined the Conveners in 2017, after she started organizing water law programs for the Utah judiciary.  She joined Dividing the Waters in 2012, when she was the trial judge for the Jordan River/Utah Lake general stream adjudication, which had been filed in 1936.  Utah Gov. Gary Herbert appointed her to the Utah Court of Appeals in 2014.  After she retired in 2020, she continued serving as a Senior Judge and accepted more responsibility for Dividing the Waters. The Conveners elected her Executive Chair in 2024.  Appleby graduated from the University of Maryland Law School in 1991, and started her legal career in Maryland, but returned to Utah for private practice.  In 1996, she joined the Utah State Bar’s Office of Professional Conduct, where she served until her appointment to the Third District Court in 2006.  

Hon. C. Shannon Bacon joined the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2019, after serving on the Second Judicial District Court since 2000 and as the Presiding Civil Judge.  She served as Chief Justice until spring 2024.  While serving on the district court, Justice Bacon presided over thousands of cases spanning complex civil litigation, class actions, adult guardianship and conservatorship cases, real estate and contract disputes, election issues, domestic and children’s court cases and appeals. Justice Bacon served as the Bernalillo County Water Judge and Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District Judge.  Prior to taking the bench, Justice Bacon worked in private practice, focused on complex litigation and appeals. She began her legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable A. Joseph Alarid at the New Mexico Court of Appeals.  Justice Bacon earned a Bachelor’s Degree in History and her law degree at Creighton University. Upon completion of her education, Justice Bacon returned to Albuquerque, New Mexico where she was raised, to begin her professional career. 

Honorable Maria E. Berkenkotter joined the Colorado Supreme Court in 2022.  She had served as a District Court Judge for 11 years, including 4 years as Chief Judge.  After “retiring” in 2017, she continued serving Colorado as a “judicial coach,” for Judicial Arbiter Group, until Gov. Polis appointed her to the Supreme Court.  She started her career as a law clerk for one of her predecessors and practiced in a firm, before joining the CO Attorney General’s Office in 1990.  As First Assistant AG, she led the Antitrust, Consumer Protection, and Tobacco Litigation Units.  She obtained a BA from Western Michigan University, and then a JD from the University of Denver. 

Hon. Ronald Robie has served on the California Third District Court of Appeal since 2001 and as a Dividing the Waters Convener since 2004. Prior to his long service as an appellate and trial court judge, Robie enjoyed a distinguished career as a California water leader, starting as the first State Assembly committee consultant on water. He went on to serve as a member of the State Water Resources Control Board and director of the Department of Water Resources. Robie has taught and written about water law for much of his career as a jurist. 

Hon. John ‘JP’ Schlegelmilch was born in Brooklyn, NY and moved to Lake Tahoe at 14. He graduated from the University of Nevada, with a dual degree in Speech Communication and Political Science. He got his JD from Willamette University College of Law. He began his legal career as a Lyon County (NV) Deputy District Attorney in 1991 and started a private practice a decade later in Yerington, Nevada. A true rural practitioner, he traveled rural Nevada representing a vast variety of clients in litigation related matters.  Judge Schlegelmilch was elected to Department I of the Third Judicial District Court and took office in January 2015. 

Hon. Debra J. Stephens joined the Conveners after hosting the 2015 Dividing the Waters conference in her hometown of Spokane. As a Washington State Supreme Court justice, she advocates for greater judicial understanding of science, as the Washington State Chair of ASTAR (Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center), and co-chair of the National Advisory Board of the National Courts Science Institute. In recent years, she has participated in several critical water decisions, on topics from municipal water law (Lummi/2010) to instream flows (Swinomish/2013) and tribal water rights (Aquavella/2013). Before joining the Supreme Court, Stephens served on the Court of Appeals in Spokane, appointed in 2007. She previously practiced appellate law, and received both her undergraduate and law degrees from Gonzaga University. 

Hon. John Thorson, Founder, co-founded Dividing the Waters in 1993, when he was the special master for the Arizona general stream adjudications.  Thorson later served as assistant chief administrative law judge for the California Public Utilities Commission, and now serves as Federal Water Master for the U.S. District Court (E.D. Wash.). He has more than 35 years’ experience as a water attorney, writer, and consultant, and has published numerous books and articles. 

Hon. Eric Wildman serves as the presiding water judge for the state of Idaho Snake River Basin Adjudication (SRBA) court following his gubernatorial appointment in 2010. The court is dedicated to resolving and defining water rights ownership and entitlement claims. Previously, Wildman was in private practice before joining the SRBA as a staff attorney. The SRBA is the largest water adjudication in the history of the state of Idaho, covering all the water that begins in Yellowstone National Park, stretches west to the Oregon border and north to Clearwater County. Since completion of the SRBA in 2014, Wildman continues to handle SRBA conflicts and similar general stream adjudications throughout Idaho, including in the Coeur d’Alene Basin.