In October of 2013, Joel DeVore was appointed by Governor Kitzhaber to serve as a Judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals.
Publications & Presentations
Joel has been a regular contributor to articles in professional publications. He has also been a periodic speaker at legal seminars on matters of auto insurance coverage. He has written for four bar practice handbooks on topics of torts, insurance, civil procedure and appeals.
Hailing from Alaska where he served as the Municipality of Anchorage’s first Citizen’s Ombudsman, Joel later clerked for the Oregon Court of Appeals and then tried a variety of cases in and around Pendleton, Oregon. He joined Luvaas Cobb in 1988, and handled countless appeals in matters across the spectrum of civil litigation.
While with Luvaas Cobb, Joel’s practice covered appellate work, personal injury defense, insurance law and school law. He assisted in litigation in trial courts, evaluated insurance coverage, and advised individuals, employers and schools. He was routinely engaged by Oregon’s legal malpractice insurer as “repair counsel” to assist attorneys or their clients with troubled cases or to remedy unfavorable results in trial and appellate courts. Joel is a firm believer that “The best strategy for a litigant is to pick your battles, have a realistic goal, and put all your heart into winning for the right reasons.”
During his time with the firm, Joel was admitted to practice in all Oregon state and federal courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Federal Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. He was a member of the Oregon State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, a past president of the Lane County Bar Association, and a past member of the board of directors of the Oregon Association of Defense Counsel.
Joel has two grown sons. Friends say that Joel’s love of landscapes show up in his e-mailed snapshots. As a “hobby,” Joel drafted proposed repair legislation on auto insurance in 1997. His first set of repairs passed, making improvements in Oregon’s uninsured motorist coverage for the benefit of insurers and policyholders alike (1997 Oregon Laws Chapter 808). In 2003 and 2005, Joel worked with proposals through the Oregon Law Commission that fixed other flaws in Oregon’s auto insurance law.
