1990s Class Notes

1990

Peter B. Davidson ’90 was selected to be general counsel of the Department of Commerce. Davidson recently served as senior vice president for congressional relations at Verizon Communications, and prior to that, as general counsel to the U.S. trade representative.

Judithe (Linse) Little’s historical novel, “Wickwythe Hall,” was released Sept. 30 by Black Opal Books. One of the novel’s main characters was inspired by a Virginian who grew up in Greenwood, outside of Charlottesville. The novel takes place in a country house in England in 1940 just after the Germans invade France.

Catharina Min joined Covington & Burling’s Silicon Valley office as partner in the corporate group. She writes that she “is very excited with her great new platform and wonderful colleagues.”

1991

Terrence R. Graves was named to Super Lawyers Virginia for transportation/maritime. Graves is chairman of the coverage and casualty litigation group at Sands Anderson in Richmond.

Mark Hamer is a partner at Baker McKenzie in Washington, D.C., and chair of the firm’s North America antitrust and competition practice group. He joined Baker from the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division, where he received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award in 2016. He lives in McLean, Va., with his wife and two daughters.

Michael P. Routch was appointed chairman of the workers’ compensation section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. He is currently a shareholder in the Hollidaysburg, Pa., office of McQuaide Blasko.

Shari Robbins Routch was appointed interim director of admissions at Penn State Altoona. She has also served as the school’s director of university relations since 1996.

1992

Kay Lynn Brumbaugh joined GIACT Systems in Dallas as chief legal officer and secretary. GIACT is the industry leader in payment fraud reduction. Brumbaugh was most recently partner and chair of the antitrust practice group at Andrews Kurth Kenyon, where she practiced for more than 13 years. She has been in private practice for over 23 years and has a history of representing clients in the areas of antitrust litigation and counseling, class actions, and other complex commercial and business litigation matters. She has represented GIACT as outside counsel for the past nine years.

Natasha Perdew Silas was appointed co-dean of the National Criminal Defense College, which was founded in 1985 to provide intensive trial skills training to criminal defense attorneys throughout the United States. NCDC’s two-week Trial Practice Institute is the long-standing premier program of its kind in the country and has served as a model for the training of criminal defense attorneys in emerging democracies abroad. Silas takes up this post while remaining at the Federal Defender Program for the Northern District of Georgia, where she has been since 1994, and where she also works with her husband, Kendal D. Silas.

1993

Eric Balaban was named a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School for the 2017-18 term. He is a senior staff counsel with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, representing prisoners in class action lawsuits challenging unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Balaban is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

Mark Brazeal is the chief legal officer at Broadcom Ltd. in Irvine, Calif. Prior to his current role, he served as the chief legal officer and senior vice president, IP Licensing for SanDisk Corp., until it was acquired by Western Digital Corp. in 2016. Before joining SanDisk, Brazeal spent 15 years at Broadcom Corp. in various positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as the senior vice president and senior deputy general counsel in charge of all commercial, operational, IP licensing and litigation matters for the company. Broadcom is a leading designer, developer and global supplier of a broad range of digital and analog semiconductor connectivity solutions that serve the wired infrastructure, wireless communications, enterprise storage and industrial markets.

Todd Peppers’ latest book, “A Courageous Fool: Marie Deans and Her Struggle Against the Death Penalty,” was published this summer. The book examines the life and career of death penalty activist Marie Deans. For 20 years, Deans fought for the rights of death row inmates in Virginia. She filed lawsuits over prison conditions, found the inmates lawyers for their appeals, and stood “death watch” in the death house with 34 inmates. Thanks to Deans, three inmates received conditional or full pardons based on concerns about their factual innocence, including Earl Washington—a mentally handicapped inmate who came within eight days of being executed for a crime he did not commit. Peppers is the Henry H. & Trudye H. Fowler Professor in Public Affairs at Roanoke College. The book was co-authored with a former student.

1994

Zebulon D. Anderson was named in Chambers USA for his work in labor and employment law. Anderson practices with Smith Anderson in Raleigh, N.C.

Ethan Shenkman, former deputy general counsel at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, joined Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer’s environmental practice as a partner in the Washington, D.C., office. Shenkman served as deputy assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division from 2010 to 2014, and then as deputy general counsel at the EPA until earlier this year. Before joining the administration, Shenkman was a litigation partner in private practice and prior to that a career attorney at the ENRD. He is currently an adjunct professor of environmental law at Georgetown University Law Center.

1995

Christopher L. Bennett was named vice chair of the hospitality and gaming group at Eckert Seamans. Bennett is based in Washington, D.C., and joined the firm in 2015 after a 16-year tenure at Interstate Hotels & Resorts, where he served as chief administrative officer and general counsel. He oversaw the legal affairs of the global hotel management company, which includes more than 450 hotels across North America, Europe and Asia. While at Interstate, Bennett also oversaw Interstate’s human resources department with its 33,000 global associates, served as managing director of the company’s international portfolio, and oversaw the company’s public relations team.

Peter Vincent has made several appearances on MSNBC—discussing topics ranging from the firing of the FBI director to immigration and citizenship as an unreliable indicator of terrorist activity. Vincent was also featured on a Science Channel show about El Chapo.

1996

Morgan Burns was elected to the Faegre Baker Daniels firm management board in Minneapolis. Burns is a corporate partner focusing on capital markets transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance.

 

David Phillips joined Eversheds Sutherland as a partner in the firm’s Atlanta office. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, and private equity transactions. Phillips joins the firm from Axiall Corp., a publicly traded manufacturer of chemicals and building products, where he served as deputy general counsel and corporate secretary. His practice covers a broad range of corporate governance matters and complex business transactions.

1997

Jennifer Morgan Delmonico, the managing partner of Murtha Cullina, was named a recipient of the Women in Business Award from the Hartford Business Journal. Each year, this award recognizes women throughout Central Connecticut who hold leadership roles and make a difference in their organization and community. DelMonico is the incoming chair of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. She also serves on the executive committee of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, the board of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the executive committee of the Federal Practice Section of the Connecticut Bar Association. She is a James W. Cooper Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation. Prior to becoming the managing partner of Murtha Cullina in January 2015, DelMonico was chair of the firm’s litigation department.

Kevin W. Holt has assumed the role of president of the Roanoke Bar Association. Holt practices with Gentry Locke and focuses his practice on commercial, employment, Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and intellectual property litigation. He represents companies and individuals in business and contract disputes, including complex financial and real estate matters. Holt represents employers, insurance carriers and plan fiduciaries in defending ERISA claims involving life, health, accident and disability benefits. He also represents clients with cases involving intellectual property rights. Holt’s practice is primarily focused in federal court. He was named in the 2016 Best Lawyers in America in commercial litigation.

Lori D. Thompson was appointed as general counsel at LeClairRyan, where she is a shareholder and serves as the office leader of the firm’s Roanoke, Va., office. LeClairRyan has approximately 350 attorneys with offices in 16 states. For the third consecutive year, Thompson was named Best Lawyers’ Bankruptcy Lawyer of the Year for Roanoke for 2017 and one of Super Lawyers’ Top 50 Women Attorneys in Virginia. Thompson and her husband Mark reside in Roanoke with their two children, Sidney, 16, and Caleb, 13.

1999

Clarissa Kang was recognized in the 2017 Super Lawyers list for Northern California. Kang is a director in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act litigation group at Trucker Huss in San Francisco.

 

Jay Nanavati joined Kostelanetz & Fink as a partner and co-founder of the firm’s new Washington, D.C., office. His practice focuses on complex and sophisticated civil tax controversies, including sensitive audits, administrative appeals, and litigation in the U.S. Tax Court, federal district and appellate courts, and state tax tribunals; related tax advice, including advice on uncertain tax positions, financial reporting, claims for refund, amended returns, voluntary disclosures and internal investigations; and representation of individuals and institutions in white-collar and criminal tax investigations and prosecutions. Nanavati spent more than a decade as a federal and state prosecutor, most recently serving as an assistant chief in the Department of Justice’s Tax Division’s Criminal Enforcement Section for the Western Region.

Kirstjen Nielsen, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, was asked to serve under her boss again, as principal deputy chief of staff.

 

Anthony M. Russell was included in 2017 Virginia Super Lawyers. Russell practices personal injury and medical malpractice law with Gentry Locke in Roanoke, Va.

Alix Rosenthal is the vice president for compliance for Lyft in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Georgia State Rep. Bob Trammell was elected as house minority leader. Trammell has represented Georgia’s 132nd House District since 2015.

 

 

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