Kentucky Trial Lawyer Goes International
JAMES G. APPLE ’62, former Kentucky trial lawyer, could spend his time enjoying days of leisure and travel as part of retired life. Instead, his frequent visits to Europe or Latin America are not conventional vacations but rather an international commute as he works and travels as President of the International Judicial Academy, a growing institute he co-founded in 1999.
Apple’s Academy is the first of its kind to extend juridical education to international judges and court officers, using the United States judicial system as a model. Based out of Washington, DC and with a Latin American office in Buenos Aires, the International Judicial Academy is an example of Apple’s interest in all things international. However, the beginning of Apple’s career would not indicate his future impact on international court systems.
“To understand my reasons for beginning the Academy, you really have to start with how I felt in the late 80s,” Apple explains. “I was a trial lawyer in Kentucky and I was getting burned out.” Having spent 25 years in trial law, he felt it was time to take a leave of absence to pursue his unfulfilled desire to study international law. He went to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and received his Masters of Law Degree in International Comparative Law. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1990, Apple remembers thinking, “there is no going back to the farm!” He settled in Washington, DC, and began running the international programs for the Federal Judicial Center.
Apple’s ideas for the Academy developed from his work with the FJC. For nine years he conducted or coordinated over 50 seminars for foreign judges, assisted in a series of FJC seminars which educated 225 Russian judges, and briefed over 3000 visiting judges from 150 countries. As his involvement with international judges increased, he realized he could provide assistance beyond what the FJC could offer, and his dream for the start of the IJA began.
Eligible for retirement from the FJC in 1999, Apple instead took just a brief vacation. “I decided if the Academy were to be established, I had to do it then. I wasn’t getting any younger.” As a result, only eight days after leaving the FJC, Apple opened the IJA’s first office in Washington, DC with just “$300 and a dream.” In its first year, the IJA conducted three programs with 44 participants. Today, the Academy has taught more than 1400 participants in 34 separate programs.
The variety of courts in the Washington area provides an incomparable setting for studying America’s judicial system. Argentine judges evidently find the IJA’s Washington programs especially helpful, because the Academy continues to draw considerable student interest in IJA programs. Recognizing this strong interest, Apple expanded the IJA by opening a second office in Buenos Aries.
Through the Latin American program, the IJA sponsored a series of seminars on scientific evidence, pointing to the Supreme Court Daubert rulings as an example. The IJA event was highly publicized in speeches, magazine articles, and television interviews and drew over 500 judges from throughout South America. It has already produced results. “One of the provinces adopted the Daubert standard this fall,” said Apple. “This was most gratifying because it marked a major change as a result of IJA’s efforts.”
In 2005 the IJA held its first annual Sir Richard May Seminar on International Law and International Courts, a program held at The Hague, Netherlands for American judges. The program honors the late Sir Richard May, a close friend of Apple’s from Edinburgh and the first British representative on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. “The seminar was tremendously successful,” boasts Apple. It received excellent reviews, with one participant commenting, “I came curious, and I left intrigued and determined to follow the work of the courts. The best part: people of substance and obvious capacity were all committed.” Apple has already received a private grant to continue the Sir Richard May Seminar again next fall and plans on turning this into an annual event.
As for the future of the IJA, Apple will continue seeking new areas to offer specialized services. With characteristic humility he simply explains, “We are just marching along and looking for different subjects to teach.”
1960
At the recent West Virginia Bar Association’s 119th Annual Meeting, G. Thomas Battle was presented the prestigious Award of Merit for “outstanding lifetime of distinguished service to the legal profession and/or the judiciary in West Virginia.” Battle is a member of Spilman Thomas & Battle in Charleston.
1961 
Robert Montague III became a life member of the Virginia Bar Association in July and has retired from the active practice of law. His son, R. L. Montague IV ’97, became a partner at Hogan & Hartson in Washington, DC in December 2004.
1962
Frank C. Galloway is listed in the 2006 Best Lawyers in America for his focus on real estate law at Hand Arendall in Birmingham, Ala.
Edward M. Payne III was recently elected as Chairman of the Board for City National Bank. Payne is of counsel at File Payne Scherer & File in Beckley, W.V.
1963
Michael A. Bander is pleased to be joined as a Law School alumnus by his daughter Deborah Rose Bander ’05. Deborah is clerking for the Honorable Ursula Ungaro-Benages of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
William T. Wilson has been elected chair of the Senior Lawyers Conference of the Virginia State Bar. He will lead the conference as it addresses social issues that affect seniors—issues that include nursing home and assisted-living care and hospital-acquired infections. Wilson is a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates. He practices with the firm Wilson, Updike & Nicely in Covington, Va.
1964
After 10 years of recognition in Best Lawyers in America, Graham D. Holding, Jr., was again selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2006 edition for his work in trusts and estates at Robinson, Bradshaw, & Hinson in Charlotte, N.C.
John Riggs retired from the practice of law as a partner at White & Case in Paris on March 31, 2005. Shortly thereafter, he was elected chairman of the Board of Governors of the American Hospital of Paris, which celebrates its centennial in 2006. The hospital has 200 beds, 350 accredited doctors, and 780 employees.
1965
Eric B. Rudolph is still very active with lacrosse. He was inducted into the Georgia Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2005.
1966
G.W. Birkhead will retire this year after 36 years at Vandeventer Black in Norfolk, Va. He will still have an office and do a little work until his daughter leaves for college in September. Then he plans to head to hideaways in West Virginia and Florida.
William Moran is still working in a small practice doing mostly wills, estates and elder law. Retirement is not even a consideration at the moment. In fact he is now breaking out into another field by building a 20,000 square foot office building on property that he already owns. Although he looks forward to the rental income, he is less interested in being a landlord.
Guy K. Tower joined the staff of the Virginia Bar Association in September. He succeeds Charles B. Arrington Jr. ’61, who served as VBA’s vice president since 1991 and worked with Tower during a transition period before stepping down in February. VBA President James Meath comments, “Guy is highly respected by the bench and bar, and brings a wealth of experience in many areas to this position. We are truly fortunate to have found a new executive leader who is already so familiar with the VBA, its members and its various areas of responsibility.”
1967
Former Virginia Governor Gerald L. Baliles was named the fifth director of the University’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, the leading nonpartisan institution dedicated to studying American national and international policy, with a special emphasis on the American presidency. UVA President John Casteen wrote, “All of us look forward to supporting the center as yet another distinguished leader takes its helm, especially so as the importance of its work becomes increasingly visible.”
Irving Brand was selected for listing in Marquis Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. Brand is Vice President of Staff Labor Relations at NBC, Inc.
Stuart Falk has joined Homestore, Inc. as Strategic Sales Manager with management responsibility for the sale of cross media, online, and print advertising programs to major national consumer marketers seeking to reach new movers and new homeowners before, during, and after the move. Falk, who underwent a successful liver transplant in 2001, remains deeply involved with organizations supporting organ donation and has been recognized for his major gift fundraising efforts on behalf of the transplant program of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
As part of an approach to make the University of Virginia one of the world’s leading educational institutions, former University Rector Gordon F. Rainey, Jr., was appointed to spearhead the University’s $3 billion capital campaign. University President John T. Casteen III said that Rainey “is a born leader whose judgment and level of aspiration for the University are exactly what one seeks in a campaign chair.”
1968
Henry Blackiston has joined Seyfarth Shaw as the lead New York employee benefits partner.
Maj. Gen. Andrew M. Egeland, Jr. USAF (Ret.) was named President and CEO of the Association of Military Banks of America. AMBA is a not-for-profit association of banks operating on military installations and includes community banks and larger multinational financial institutions.
Donald C. Greenman with Ober/Kaler, was recognized in Best Lawyers in America 2006, for his expertise in the Maryland maritime law section. He continues work with a focus on admiralty matters, general litigation, commercial transactions, and international law issues.
1969
J. Hodge Alves III of Hand Arendall in Mobile, Ala. was included in the 2006 Best Lawyers in America for his specialty in maritime law.
