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1980s Class Notes
1980
Marc J. Goldstein, a partner in Hodgson Russ’s International/ Cross-Border Practice Group, was a featured speaker at the second annual “Emerging Issues in Cross-Border Commercial Litigation” seminar, held recently in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. Goldstein presented “ADR in the International Context,” which addressed key issues related to crossing the common law-civil law divide in international arbitration.
Mr. Goldstein has devoted his 26-year career to complex commercial litigation and arbitration. He has acted as counsel in numerous international arbitrations, many of them involving foreign state-owned companies and before arbitration panels constituted by the International Chamber of Commerce, the American Arbitration Association, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, and others. He is listed in the Guide to the World’s Leading Experts in Commercial Arbitration.
Transportation Security Administration Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley was quoted in a CNN.com story in August about the Transportation Service Authority banning passengers from carrying liquids, gels, and lotions past security checkpoint and onto airplanes.
Darryl Jackson was named president and CEO of EcoQuest International, a Greeneville, Tenn. manufacturing and marketing company. The Greenville Sun recognized Jackson’s success in an article on their website. Under this new position, he will be responsible for operations, customer service, finances, sales and marketing, and strategic planning. Prior to EcoQuest, Jackson worked at his own executive services consulting company, Jackson Enterprises, located in Norcross, Ga.
Dan Mackesey was recently inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Before gaining his reputation as “a top commercial real estate lawyer” and managing member of Womble Carlyle’s Northern Virginia office, Mackesey played lacrosse for Cornell University, his alma mater, where he led the team to the National Championships in both 1976 and 1977. He earned a silver medal in the 1979 World Games, where he played for the U.S. National Team.
W. David Paxton of the Roanoke, Virginia based firm Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore has been named to The Best Lawyers in America list for 2007.
Richard J. Pocker has been honored as a patron of the Nevada Law Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing legal related services to the poor, victims of domestic violence, and children protected by or in need of the protection of the juvenile court. He is the administrative partner for the Las Vegas office of Boies, Schiller and Flexner.
Paul Terpak was listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the area of condemnation and eminent domain. Terpak practices with Blankingship & Keith and lives with his two children in McLean, Va.
Bonnie K. Wachtel, Vice President and General Counsel of Wachtel & Co., was selected by Acies Corporation, a financial services company in New York, N.Y., to serve as an independent member of the company’s board of directors.
1981
Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt appointed A. Jeffery Bird as shareholder. Before joining the firm, Bird was a partner at Garvey Schubert Barer in Portland, Ore. Bird specializes in three practice areas: business law; corporate finance and securities law; and mergers and acquisitions. He is involved in numerous professional organizations.
Paul Brickfield continues to practice criminal defense at his firm in Northern New Jersey. He was recently elected a trustee of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey and also received certification by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a criminal trial lawyer.
James Browning was recently selected by Lawdragon as one of the 500 leading judges in America, stating, “The newcomer to New Mexico’s federal bench has already become a judicial star.” Also, the May-June 2005 issue of Judicature provides biographical sketches of 23 recent Bush appointees, including Browning, as “representative of the high-quality nominees confirmed by the 108th Congress.”
David P. Ferretti has been elected for another two-year term as Member in Charge of Lawyer Administration at Spilman Thomas & Battle in Charleston, W.Va. This is the third term for Ferretti in this position, where he is in charge of attorney matters and oversight of legal work at the firm. His primary areas of practice encompass corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, and public finance.
Karen Henize Geiger is back in the working world coordinating the Georgia Legal Services Program’s legal representation of low income family violence survivors. She was “sorry to miss the 25th class reunion!”
Blaine A. Lucas of Babst, Calland, Clements and Zomnir in Pittsburgh, was named to The Best Lawyers in America 2007 for land use and zoning law, and municipal law. Lucas was also named a 2006 Pennsylvania Super Lawyer — a distinction only five percent of Pennsylvania lawyers achieve. Lucas will be acknowledged in the Pennsylvania Super Lawyers publication as well as in Philadelphia Magazine.
Barbara Ann Williams left the position of Bar Counsel at the Virginia State Bar on January 31, to rejoin McGuireWoods in Richmond, Va., as Deputy General Counsel and Ethics Counsel.
1982 
The Metro Atlanta YMCA named Keith Cowan as its 2006 Volunteer of the Year. Cowan is chief field operations of BellSouth Corporation in Atlanta and an active member of the Metro Atlanta YMCA board of directors. He joined the Y board in 1998 and currently serves as a member of the financial development and brand management committees as well as vice chairman of the executive committee. The YMCA board consists of 52 volunteer, community leaders who oversee the nonprofit association and its $75 million annual operating budget.
Dennis P. Duffy joined the international law firm Baker Botts as a partner in its Houston, Tex. home office. Duffy is a labor and employment lawyer. Prior to joining Baker Botts, he was vice president and associate general counsel for Time Warner Inc. He also served as general counsel for the University of Houston System and the UH main campus, and as the first general counsel of the U.S. Office of Compliance in Washington, D.C., where he was responsible for enforcing several labor and employment laws that applied to employment with the U.S. Congress and legislative branch of the federal government.
1983
After a stint in private practice, Catherine Banerjee Rojko moved to the Environmental Enforcement Section of the Department of Justice, where she enforces the nation’s environmental laws. Since graduation, she has gone horse trekking in Mongolia, and hiked the Milford trek in New Zealand, the Indian Himalaya in Kashmir, and the Inca Trail to Macchu Pichu. She writes that her most important adventure, however, has been getting married to her husband Sunoy, which she did four years ago.
Phil Beeson’s daughter, Brett, is a freshman at Virginia Episcopal School. She was also a regional finalist in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Jeff Horner, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani in Houston, was recently elected to the board of directors of the Vanderbilt University Alumni Association. He will serve a four year term.
Bob Latham was elected chairman of USA Rugby—the national governing body of the sport of rugby in the United States.
Jeffrey E. Oleynik of Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard in Greensboro, N.C. was ranked #1 in Antitrust and #3 in Litigation: General Commercial, in the North Carolina rankings of the legal guide, Chambers USA, America’s Leading Business Lawyers.
In an article entitled “Settling for More” from IP Law and Business’ May 2006 edition, John Osborn is featured for his new approach to patent litigation in regards to pharmaceutical companies. As general counsel for pharmaceutical company, Cephalon, Osborn has worked to negotiate with generic drugmakers in order to bypass extensive litigation.
Andrew Sleigh (LL.M.) is a senior partner in Burness, one of Scotland’s top corporate law firms with offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh. He specializes in private company mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance work and is lead external counsel to the Scottish Football Association. He is currently a member of Royal Troon Golf Club.
Carol E. Summers was the Human Resources Attorney for the office of the City Attorney in Virginia Beach. In 2001 she joined the department of human resources for Virginia Beach City Public Schools as an employee relations specialist. Recently, she was appointed Acting Director of Employee Relations.
Gordon S. Vincent has been elected by the Virginia General Assembly to serve as a General District Court Judge for a six-year term. He will be the only General District Judge serving District 2-A, which includes Accomack and Northampton Counties on the Eastern Shore. Before becoming a judge, Vincent was a partner in the firm Vincent Northam & Lewis in Accomac. He lives in Onley, Va. with his wife, Carol, and their two teenage children.
The Arizona Senate has confirmed the reappointment of Nicholas J. Wallwork, a partner in the litigation department of Steptoe & Johnson in Phoenix, to the Arizona Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund Advisory Board. Wallwork, who was nominated to the board by Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, was also recently elected the board’s vice chairman. The board oversees the operation and activities of the Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund established by the State of Arizona in 1986 to conduct remedial actions at state groundwater contamination sites. Wallwork is a past president of the State Bar of Arizona and a member of the National Association of Bar Presidents. He served two terms as a member of the Arizona Judicial Council, the administrative oversight body of the Arizona Court system chaired by the Chief Justices of the Arizona Supreme Court. He is editor-in-chief of the Arizona Environmental Law Manual. He also presents and publishes widely in other publications on a range of topics related to the environment, technology, and the practice of law.
1984
David Champoux, a partner at Pierce Atwood in Portland, Maine, has been ranked among the best attorneys in the nation by Chambers and Partners, an independent British legal research firm that publishes rankings of the leading global law firms based on client interviews.
Jory Hingson Fisher (second from left) and her daughter, Brett Elena, (far left), visited Marguerite Lloyd at her home in D.C. while Brett was competing as a regional finalist in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Lloyd’s daughter, Cooper, (far right) is in her first year at Stanford University, and Hingson Fisher’s daughter has started her freshman year at Virginia Episcopal School.
David Quittmeyer of Hand Arendall has been included in The Best Lawyers of America list for 2007 for his work in intellectual property law.
Jonathan S. Spaeth recently joined Raytheon Company as Senior Counsel of Washington Operations.
1985
Kris Gledhill (LL.M.) is currently combining an appellate litigation practice in London, UK with Ph.D. study on mental health law in Auckland, New Zealand, and part-time teaching at the University of Auckland Law School. He has just co-authored International Human Rights and Comparative Mental Disability Law (Carolina Academic Press) and had recently started to edit and publish the Mental Health Law Reports and the Prison Law Reports in the United Kingdom (Southside Legal Publishing, www.southsidepublishing.co.uk.
Umit Herguner (LL.M.) and Burcak Unsal (LL.M.) ’03 established the University of Virginia Turkish Association in Istanbul, where they are also serving on the board. The association promotes the University, guides applicants for undergraduate and graduate education, and actively recruits eligible candidates for the Law School.
1986
David Baldacci’s newest novel, The Collectors, made its debut in October. While working on this novel and others throughout 2006, Baldacci also delivered the commencement address at the Law School.
Karen S. Elliott has recently joined Keeler Obenshain’s employment and employee benefits group, located in Richmond, Va. Her practice focuses on counseling and trial work, particularly in the labor and employment area. She also serves as legislative director for the Virginia Society for Human Resource Management State Council, is Secretary of NOVA of Virginia Aquatics, Inc., and is a member of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce Committee on Management Relations.
Diane Gordon purchased a commercial kitchen facility in Upper Manhattan for her catering company, Entertaining Ideas. Clients include Apple Computer, Macy’s Herald Square, and many law firms.
William M. Ragland Jr., a partner with the law firm of Hunton & Williams in its Atlanta office, has been appointed to serve on the National Board of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum and research complex. Encompassing 18 museums, the National Zoo and several research facilities around the world, the Smithsonian Institution houses more than 136 million objects covering science, history, and the arts. Ragland recently served as President of the Atlanta Bar Association, the largest voluntary bar association in the Southeast. He is included in The Best Lawyers in America, Atlantamagazine’s list of Georgia Super Lawyers, Georgia Trend magazine’s Legal Elite, Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Who’s Who of Law and Accounting and Chambers USA directory of leading lawyers for business. The focus of his legal practice is complex litigation, intellectual property, and technology matters
Erin Toll was featured in a Denver Business Journal article entitled: “Erin Toll Picked to Lead State Division.” Toll is director of the Colorado Division of Real Estate where she oversees the insurance and real estate divisions. Before her appointment to this position, she was deputy commissioner of compliance and market regulation for the state Division of Insurance.
1987
Connie Renee Clay Woodard announces the debut of the Christian women’s magazine, Alberta Katherine. Woodard’s website states, “The magazine is for women who refuse to be ordinary and who have decided to rise to the level of excellence celebrated in Proverbs 31:10-31. The magazine is for every woman, whether single, married, widowed, or divorced.” Alberta Katherine covers a variety of topics including health and wellness, financial empowerment, the Christian faith, and entertainment. Clay Woodard is both the founder and the editor in chief of Alberta Katherine. For more information please visit AlbertaKatherine.com.
Jean E. Minarick joined the Division of Investment Management of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a Senior Counsel in November 2005.
Ridge Schuyler was featured in an article in Charlottesville’s The Hook entitled “Water Man” that focuses on his recent contributions to the Rivanna River conservation. A member of the Rivanna River Basin Commission, Schuyler helped to raise enough funds for Albemarle County to protect the Piedmont’s watershed.
Melvin White of McDermott Will & Emery in Washington, D.C. has been elected President of the D.C. Bar, the nation’s second largest bar after California. White is only the second Law School alum to serve as D.C. Bar President, the first being E. Barrett Prettyman ’53, who was the D.C. Bar’s first President.
1988
Thomas Burack has been appointed by the Governor as New Hampshire’s Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Services. Burack began his new post in November. Burack is a partner at Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green in Manchester, where he specializes in environmental, real estate, and corporate law. From 1988 to 1989, Burack served as a law clerk for then- Associate New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice David Souter. From 1982 to 1984, he served as legislative assistant for environmental matters for U.S. Senator Gordon Humphrey.
Hunter Carter reports that he is still a member of Arent Fox, practicing in their New York City office. He has been with the firm for over 16 years, and is the leader of their real estate litigation section as well as the New York Loss Prevention Partner. He has also just been named chair of the committee on professional ethics of the New York Intellectual Property Law Association. “On the personal front, I moved to New York from Washington, D.C. in 2000. New York has had its share of excitement for me: I was evacuated from Battery Park (where our apartment was) on 9/11, but was not injured. My partner (of over six years now) is Cesar Augusto Zapata, a designer of museum and other exhibitions. We have traveled quite a bit together, including many places in Colombia, where he comes from.”
American University School of Public Affairs Professor Daniel Dreisbach was awarded a prestigious fellowships from the Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University for the academic year 2006-2007. Only six nationally competitive fellowships are awarded each year by the program.
Dreisbach, a professor of justice, law and society in the Department of Justice, Law and Society, is a William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and Public Life at Princeton University. Dreisbach’s principal research interests include American constitutional law and history, First Amendment law, church-state relations, and criminal procedure. He has authored or edited six books, including Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (2002), and numerous articles in scholarly journals. Among the courses that he teaches are American Legal Culture, Issues in Civil Justice, Civil Justice Systems and the Constitution, and The Constitution and Criminal Procedure.
La Fonte Nesbitt, a partner in Holland & Knight’s Real Estate Section, has been named one of the Fifty Influential Minorities in Business by the Minority Business & Professionals Network. Nesbitt, the first attorney in private practice to be listed, was recognized during MBPN’s eighth annual awards gala on Friday, July 21, 2006 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. The event honors diverse, dynamic business professionals who have demonstrated strong leadership in their industry and share a commitment to their community, business growth, and professional excellence.
Nesbitt practices in the commercial real estate development and finance area, with a particular focus on affordable housing and community development, and public-private partnerships and privatization initiatives. He was Holland & Knight’s first Diversity Partner and currently serves as Executive Partner of the firm’s Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and Bethesda, Md. offices. Nesbitt serves as a Board Member of Street Law, Inc., and is a member of the Law Firm Pro Bono Project Advisory Committee, Pro Bono Institute. His past community involvement includes: member of the Leadership Greater Washington Class of 2003, Alexandria, Virginia School Board, Alexandria Economic Opportunities Commission, and the Board of Trustees of Hopkins House Association in Alexandria.
Carol Warren Simon writes she’s enjoying life in Denver, where she is very busy raising two lovely daughters, Isabel (10), and Mia (7), and practicing part-time as “counsel” to a boutique commercial litigation firm. She’s happy to be “home” in the Rocky Mountain west, where both she and her husband, John, have roots.
1989
Maine Today reported that Ella Brown has been appointed to the board of trustees of the Opportunity Farm for Boys to Girls, located in New Gloucester, Maine. She is currently an employment litigator and partner at Pierce Atwood’s Portland office and lives in Falmouth with her husband and four children.
David N. Cohan has joined Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore in Roanoke, Va., and will work with the Firm’s Business and Real Estate Groups. Mr. Cohan most recently served as Assistant General Counsel for Boyd Corporation, a real estate developer/builder based in Virginia Beach, and has previously served as Chief Administrative Officer and inhouse counsel for Wilderness Adventure at Eagle Landing, a corporation in the hospitality and recreation industry.
Last month the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce published a new book, Customs & International Trade Law written by Avigdor Dorot (LL.M.) The 750-page textbook covers the WTO, customs laws and administration, and other topics. Dorot heads the indirect taxation and international trade department at Sadot & Co. in Israel. He represents the firm’s clients before the tax authority in customs issues, such as classification of goods for customs purposes, valuation of goods, seizure of goods and offences relating to importation, and also in disputes relating to value added tax (civil assessments and criminal offences).
Sharon M. Kelly, a partner in Hodgson Russ’s Nonprofit Law and Health Law Practice Groups, was a featured co-speaker at a United Way Emerging Leaders Society seminar as part of the organization’s Board Leadership Series. The United Way Emerging Leaders Society provides educational and networking opportunities for leadership donors under 45, including management seminars, board leadership training, and other workshops and events. Kelly focuses on not-for-profit law, with particular emphasis on tax exemption issues such as unrelated business income tax, use of joint ventures and subsidiaries, intermediate sanctions, private foundation rules, corporate formation and restructuring, board governance, and cross-border charity issues.
Michael Schiumo reports that this past year his wife Kristin and he welcomed their first child, a boy named Michael. Also, Schiumo was recently appointed the Assistant Dean for Alumni Affairs at Fordham Law School in New York City. The family resides in Manhasset, N.Y.
