Send Us Your News
To submit a class note, email us or submit mail to UVA Lawyer, University of Virginia School of Law, 580 Massie Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Please send your submissions no later than Aug. 1 for inclusion in the next issue.
2000
Brian Kahn was appointed managing partner for McGuireWoods’ Charlotte, N.C., office. Kahn focuses on complex business litigation, class actions, financial services and real estate disputes. Outside of his law practice, Kahn is the father of four boys (including triplets) and a founder, writer and co-producer of “Charlotte Squawks,” an annual, critically acclaimed parody show poking fun at North Carolina culture, sports and politics, which returns for its 18th season in June.
Matt Wells, a Salt Lake City-based partner in Mayer Brown’s emerging companies and venture capital and mergers and acquisitions practices, has been selected by Best Lawyers as a lawyer of the year in venture capital law in Salt Lake City.
2001
Steven Klepper was recognized in Best Lawyers in America in the areas of appellate practice and insurance law. Klepper practices with Kramon & Graham in Baltimore.
Alumni Assume Federal Executive, Judicial Roles
In recent months, President Joe Biden chose several alumni to fill high-profile positions in the executive branch and in the courts, in roles that require Senate confirmations.
Robert Stewart Ballou ’87 (Col ’84) was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in March. He had served as a magistrate judge for the Western District of Virginia since 2011. Prior to joining the bench, Ballou was a partner at Johnson, Ayers & Matthews in Roanoke, Va., from 1992 to 2011.
M. Tia Johnson LL.M. ’02 was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in December — the first Black woman to serve on the court. She had been a professor of law and former director of the National Security Law LL.M. Program at Georgetown University Law Center, where she had taught since 2017. Johnson was also a visiting fellow at Georgetown’s Center on National Security and the Law, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for National Security Law at UVA. In 2002, she became the first Black woman to be selected to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
Peter D. Leary ’05 (Col ’00) was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia in December, after serving in acting and then interim capacities since 2020. Leary serves on two Attorney General Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys subcommittees: Violent Crime, and Cyber and Intellectual Property. He has worked for the Middle District of Georgia as a prosecutor since 2012 and as its first assistant U.S. attorney since 2018.
Vijay Shanker ’99 was confirmed to the D.C. Court of Appeals in December. He formerly served as deputy chief of the appellate section in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice since 2005. Shanker was previously counselor and acting deputy chief of staff to the assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division and senior litigation counsel in the Criminal Division’s fraud section at the DOJ. In 2017, Shanker won the Law School’s Shaping Justice conference award for prosecution.
Jamar Walker ’11 (Col ’08) was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in February, succeeding Judge Raymond A. Jackson ’73, for whom he clerked. Walker had served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia since 2015. From 2012-15, he was an associate at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. Walker is the first openly gay Article III judge to serve in Virginia.
—Mike Fox
2002
Afi Johnson-Parris was elected vice chair of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Division for the 2022-23 bar year. She will become chair-elect in 2023 and then serve as chair during the 2024-25 bar year. The division has over 25,000 members throughout the U.S., its territories and Canada. It provides practical education and resources to aid lawyers in the business of practicing law with a focus on marketing, management, technology and finance. As vice chair, Johnson-Parris will lead the strategy and planning committee, which oversees the development of the division’s strategic plan and assists the council with its implementation. Johnson-Parris is a partner with Fox Rothschild in Greensboro, N.C., with a focus on divorce and family law.
2004
Hunton Andrews Kurth partner Steven M. Haas has co-authored “Goolsby and Haas on Virginia Corporations,” with Allen C. Goolsby ’68. Goolsby was the principal author of the Virginia Stock Corporation Act. This seventh edition includes definitions, fees and forms while exploring in detail the state statutes and related case law on all aspects of the Act. Haas is co-head of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions team and is based in Richmond and Washington, D.C.
Meghan Oliver was named a 2022 Trailblazer in Litigation by the National Law Journal for her work leading novel class-action cases against government agencies exceeding granted authority. Oliver, a member of Motley Rice in Mount Pleasant, S.C., focuses her practice on securities class actions and consumer fraud protection. She also serves on several internal committees at the firm and often mentors younger attorneys.
Joseph McMullen was recognized as a co-runner-up litigator of the week by Law.com for the pretrial dismissal of federal criminal charges against his client and co-defendants in a Medicare-related fraud case. McMullen has a criminal defense and civil rights practice in San Diego.
2007
Norah Cooney and Chris Nasson reside in Winchester, Mass., with their three children. In March of 2022, Nasson was named managing partner of K&L Gates’ Boston office.
Alex Patterson’s business, Beat the Bomb, launched at its third location in February in Washington, D.C. The immersive-group experience provides participants with various one-hour “missions” where they suit up in hazmat gear, dodge lasers and crack codes as a team to disarm a paint bomb. For the less adventurous, there’s an arcade lounge and a bar. Beat the Bomb started in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood a few years ago and opened its second location in Atlanta in October.
2008
Christopher J. Cahill was promoted to counsel with Shipman & Goodwin in Hartford, Conn. His practice focuses on business and commercial litigation, where he represents clients in commercial disputes, antitrust litigation, class-action litigation defense and alternative dispute resolution, including international arbitration.
Chris Gaskill, executive vice president and chief legal officer of Summit Materials in Denver, was named governance professional of the year for small to mid-cap companies by Corporate Secretary magazine. As part of the celebration, he earned a prominent announcement on the Nasdaq Tower in New York’s Times Square.
T. Preston Lloyd Jr. was recognized in Virginia Business magazine as a “legal elite” in real estate land use law. Lloyd practices with Williams Mullen in Richmond.
Micah B. Schwartz joined the labor, employment and immigration section in Williams Mullen’s Charlottesville office. Schwartz is a commercial litigator who focuses on employment, workplace safety and education cases. He represents clients in state and federal courts at the trial and appellate levels and counsels clients on sensitive matters to keep them from maturing into litigation.