Arlaine Rockey

Arlaine Rockey is a trial attorney who practices both civil and criminal law.  She represents clients nationally in complex child custody cases involving issues of child abuse, domestic violence and mental illness.  Arlaine has been working on getting the U.S. Equal Rights Amendment (“ERA”) published as the 28th Amendment in a new US Constitution. It was fully ratified on 27 January 2020. Despite a mandatory law requiring that all ratified Amendments be immediately published, the Trump administration illegally blocked a new Constitution from being published with the 28th Amendment in it. Arlaine represented 80 Amici (friends of the court, including SAG-AFTRA) in the federal Equal Means Equal ERA case. She also represented ERA-NC Alliance in the Dobbs case, filing a Motion for Leave to file a brief arguing that the Supreme Court must consider the entire Constitution, including the ERA BECAUSE IT PROTECTS REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, before it overturned Roe v. Wade, because the ERA became legally effective on 27 January 2022, but the Court refused to accept their motion. See Arlaine’s Equal Rights for Women blog for more about the efforts to publish the ERA.

Arlaine graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a B.A. in English, and received her J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law.  Arlaine completed, and received a Certificate from, the UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting.

Arlaine began writing screenplays with adapting her novel, Ocean Court.  She has written six original screenplays:  Elizabeth Cady Stanton - The First Suffragist (an historical biopic), Purrfect (an animated children's comedy), My Dead BFF (a teen romantic comedy), Ocean Pearl (a sequel to Ocean Court), Madness & Lies (a coming of age psychological thriller) and Stent (an epic thriller inspired by true events).  Elizabeth Cady Stanton - The First Suffragist made it to the top 20% in the 2018 Nicholl Fellowship Screenplay Competition and made it to the second round (top 15%) in the drama genre in the 2018 and 2016 Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competitions.  Purrfect made it to the second round (top 15%) in the comedy genre in the 2016 Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition.  My Dead BFF made it to the second round (top 15%) in the comedy genre in the 2019 and 2015 Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competitions.  Earlier drafts of Madness & Lies twice placed in the top 15% in the Nicholl Fellowship competition, in 2012 and in 2010.  See the screenplays page for loglines, professional readers' comments, and more information.  Read more about Arlaine's effort to produce Elizabeth Cady Stanton - The First Suffragist #ECS here.

Consistently, Arlaine has received praise for her vivid, realistic and engaging Courtroom Scenes and her depiction of Legal Cases. She has written six screenplays and one novel that include courtroom scenes and other legal issues involving families and lawyers as well as how legal cases affect people. Arlaine has done trials and legal cases throughout the country. She has experience questioning witnesses from abused children and battered mothers to forensic psychologists. She has dealt with some barracuda and underhanded lawyers, tough judges, and unrelenting prosecutors. Arlaine has also handled appeals, and her screenplay, Stent, has a vibrant sequence in the U.S. Supreme Court, of which she is a member of the bar. She can find comic relief in legal cases, sometimes with ironic or sardonic humor. Yet, Arlaine has empathy for her characters and can draw out the emotion both inside and outside the courtroom. Arlaine Rockey is available for writing jobs as well as working as a consultant for films depicting legal issues.

Arlaine's late father, Dr. Arthur George Rockey, was the first inventor of the balloon-expandable stent, which he invented in the 1970's and which became, in the 1990's, the routine method for treating blocked arteries.  Arlaine's screenplay, Stent, is a fictionalized account of her family's legal effort to market and enforce her father's balloon-expandable stent patent.  Read the Rockeys' United States Supreme Court Cert Petition here.

If you wish to read her screenplays, please contact her at ArlaineRockey@gmail.com to request a pdf.

Text or Call 828-279-6735