Experienced Professionals

Fred has built his career on significant courtroom experience, high-stakes federal practice, and a depth of knowledge in areas that few attorneys can match.

Fred’s practice focuses on white collar and regulatory defense, and he has spent decades representing clients in complex, consequential matters. He also has extensive experience representing Native American Tribal Governments, particularly on questions of gaming rights, government-to-government consultation, and federal legislative issues. Governmental bodies have retained him as a special prosecutor in criminal and regulatory matters as well.

Fred’s path reflects the kind of career that only comes from doing the hard work at every level. After graduating with distinction from the University of Arizona School of Law, he clerked for Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank X. Gordon, Jr., an experience that put him at the center of one of Arizona’s most dramatic legal moments: the 1988 impeachment trial of Governor Evan Mecham. From there he joined Lewis and Roca before taking his talents to the federal government, serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Districts of Arizona and Oregon. In Oregon, he became Chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force. He returned to Lewis and Roca in 2000 as a partner in its special litigation section, and was a founding partner of Petti and Briones, PLLC, before joining Berry Riddell. 

One case worth highlighting involves Fred’s representation of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe in Texas, where he successfully argued that the Tribe had the right to offer gaming on its tribal lands under a plain language reading of its federal Restoration Act. The United States Supreme Court later adopted that very argument, ruling that both the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe and the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo could legally offer bingo gaming under their Restoration Acts. 

Fred is recognized in Best Lawyers in America and Southwest Super Lawyers, and is admitted to the State Bars of Arizona, Oregon, and Texas.