Rhonda F. Butterfield

Rhonda Butterfield is a strong advocate for men’s rights.  She attended law school during an era when women constituted only 20% of her law school class, and were not part of the “good old boy” club.  Early in her career, she advocated for women’s equal rights in the workplace.  Her philosophy has come full-circle, and she now advocates for men’s equal rights in the family.  Her father was an important person in her upbringing.  Later, as a single parent raising a son and daughter, she came to appreciate the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears that parents give in order to raise their children.  She understands the single-parent life – it is the toughest job she has ever had.

Ms. Butterfield has had significant national and international experiences.  She lived in Australia for one year in high school as a Rotary Exchange Student.  Her college career included one year in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill as a political science intern.  She graduated from college early, with high honors, and received a scholarship to attend Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.  While there, she was on the staff of the Criminal Law Review.  After graduation in 1976, she came to Alaska for a one-year internship with Supreme Court Justice Jay A. Rabinowitz, and she knew before arriving that she would stay. She has lived and practiced in Fairbanks, Kenai, and Anchorage, as an Assistant District Attorney and Assistant Attorney General, prosecuting all manner of criminal cases, including domestic violence, assaults, and child sexual abuse.  She focused for several years on drug prosecutions, and helped re-write Alaska’s criminal drug laws in the early 1980’s.  She represented Alaska in the Western States Information Network, an information-sharing group focused on eliminating illegal drug trafficking from 5 western states.  She trained as a trial advocate, and became an instructor in trial advocacy.  While in the District Attorney’s Offices and the Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals (OSPA), she handled upwards of 150 jury trials, and dozens of appeals.  She traveled around the country in 1993 as the alternate member for Alaska House Speaker Ramona Barnes, a member of the President’s Commission on Model State Drug Laws.  From 1994 – 2001, she worked in the civil side of the state Attorney General’s Office, representing the Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED, now CSSD) in the Department of Revenue.  There, she gained a great deal of knowledge about the ins and outs of child support.   After retiring from the state, she entered private practice, and her entire focus has been on family law issues for the past 16 years.  She handles trials, settlements, administrative matters, and appeals with the knowledge, experience, and confidence of someone with 4 decades of legal experience in the Alaska court system.