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1971
Richard Martin Rogers died July 8. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he attended Fordham University in New York City before coming to the Law School. He met his wife, Regina, in 1963, and they were married in 1969. After law school, Rogers entered the U.S. Army, serving as a defense counsel and prosecutor, and later chief of military justice, at Fort Hood, Texas. In the summer of 1974, Rogers transferred to the Pentagon to serve as an attorney in the Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Army.
After the Army, Rogers served with the U.S. Department of Justice for 36 years. He served from 1975-78 as deputy director, Office of Privacy and Information, Office of the Deputy Attorney General; from 1978-99 as deputy counsel, Office of Professional Responsibility; and from 1999 until retirement in 2011 in the criminal division as senior counsel to the assistant attorney general.
Despite his obligations to the Justice Department and the country, Rogers always prioritized family over career, his family reports. He, Regina and their sons, Rich and Terry, enjoyed many family vacations throughout the Northeast and in Eastern Canada, as well as other destinations.
He served as his sons’ scoutmaster in Fairfax, Va., where he guided many Scouts through the ranks on their way to Eagle. Every Scout who stayed in the troop from the beginning to end of his eligibility, and overlapped with Richard’s time as scoutmaster, earned the rank of Eagle Scout.
“He devoted a tremendous amount of time and personal resources to this endeavor, making sure the Scouting experience for his sons and their troop was the best it could possibly be,” a member of his family said. “He believed in letting Scouts find their own way in most matters, guiding rather than commanding, setting valuable life lessons for them and helping them learn leadership and socialization skills that would serve them for the rest of their lives.” Rogers and his wife enjoyed traveling around the world. Among the many places they visited were Iceland, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Russia, the Baltic States, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand and Alaska.
1972
Howard E. Gordon was recognized in Chambers USA 2019 for real estate, band 2. Gordon practices with Williams Mullen in Norfolk, Va.
Douglas P. Rucker Jr. was recognized in 2019 Super Lawyers for defending professional liability cases. Rucker practices with Sands Anderson in Richmond, Va.
1973
Gus Epps joined Williams Mullen as a partner in the Richmond, Va., office. Epps concentrates his practice on bankruptcy and insolvency matters. Although his primary focus has been on representation of creditors, he also has represented debtors in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and trustees in Chapter 7 cases. In addition, he has served as a Chapter 11 trustee.
H. Wise Kelly Ill passed away June 1 at his home in Rileyville, Va. A lifelong Virginian, Kelly attended Randolph-Macon Academy in Front Royal, and Washington and Lee University in Lexington, graduating in 1970 not only with a degree in economics but also with lifelong friends. He married Virginia Weiskittel and moved to Charlottesville to attend the Law School. After graduating, he entered private practice in Fairfax.
During his career, Kelly served as chairman of the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board and substitute judge for the 19th Judicial District in Fairfax County, and was a frequent lecturer on professionalism and ethics.
“His colleagues considered him to be one of the brightest attorneys they had ever dealt with—professional and honest, with a great sense of humor to boot,” according to his obituary. “His clients loved him. No one who ever dealt with Kelly forgot him.”
He retired in 2004 and spent his time caring for his home and garden, woodworking and expanding his knowledge of the Civil War. He traversed back roads throughout Virginia, often listening to Motown along the way, to reach battlefields and obscure historic sites, stomping around with wonder and enthusiasm for the most minute details. He was thrilled to spend his days as he saw fit, usually capped off with cold beer and peanuts, his obituary said.
In recent years, Allen Saville has been very active as a volunteer firefighter with the Boulder Mountain (Colo.) Fire Protection District. Saville is qualified as an engineer (drives and operates big fire engines), a wildland firefighter, an Emergency Medical Technician, and as an incident commander. Since becoming fully qualified in 2012, Saville has responded to about 900 incidents — about half of which were medical.
Saville also coordinates the department’s rookie program “designed to convert normal everyday people,” he said, into full-fledged firefighters. Saville received the prestigious Firefighter of the Year award in both 2016 and 2017, and Member of the Year award in 2018.
Boulder Mountain Fire is an “all-hazard department” serving a mountainous area. The department responds to structure fires, wildland fires, floods, search and rescue, medical emergencies, motor vehicle accidents, paraglider crashes and all other types of 911 incidents—and Saville responds to all of these types of emergencies.
1974
Johnnie Jackson writes that he and his wife, Ellen, recently had the pleasure of visiting Grounds. “It was our first visit in over 30 years.” The Jacksons walked the Lawn and spent time at Clark Hall, where Jackson’s class was the last to graduate from the Law School’s former home. The Coast Guard veteran writes, “Our class was a group that was older than most, with many somewhat irreverent Vietnam-era veterans. We were also a group that happily saw that diversity was finally taking hold with an impressive number (at the time) of women in our class.”
The couple also enjoyed seeing the “new” home of the Law School.
“Time travel back to the early ’70s — that’s what it was. I could hardly recognize Charlottesville — so many changes — but I left confident that Mr. Jefferson’s Academic Village and the Law School are in good hands.”
John A.C. Keith was named in the 2019 Virginia and Washington, D.C., Super Lawyers for business litigation. Keith practices with Blankingship & Keith in Fairfax, Va.
James C. Shannon retired his practice with Midkiff, Muncie and Ross in Richmond, Va., in May. He continues to serve on the faculty of the Virginia State Bar’s Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Course.
1975
Christine “Tina” Swent Byrd continues as a superior court trial judge in Los Angeles. In 2018 she was re-elected for a six-year term.
John A. Eckstein practices as a corporate transactions and securities regulatory lawyer, with an emphasis on complex municipal finance, with Fairfield and Woods in Denver. Eckstein has stepped off the board of directors of several state and community groups but continues on the boards of Paltown Development Foundation and Water for People. He writes that he “plans to continue to see friends get elected to public office at all levels and, since Ledy Garcia, my spouse of 47 years, recently retired from economic development activities for the city and county of Denver, we expect to travel more often.”
Gonzaga Law School and its dean, Jacob Rooksby ’07, hosted John Charles Thomas ’75 as the school’s jurist-in-residence through its Center for Civil and Human Rights in March. Thomas taught a one-credit course, Civil Rights Lawyering, and also delivered the William O. Douglas Lecture, an annual lecture on a topic involving the First Amendment. Thomas joins a storied list of jurists who have delivered that lecture, including Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Byron White, as well as prominent citizens such as Anita Hill.
1976
Peter E. Broadbent Jr. has been inducted into the Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association’s Hall of Fame. The honor recognizes his distinguished career in the state’s cable industry. Broadbent is a partner at Christian & Barton in Richmond. In addition to telecommunications law, his legal practice includes intellectual property and business law, and governmental relations.
Peggy O’Neal, president of the Richmond Football Club in Australia, was recognized in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List — a special honor for Australians who have made significant contributions to the community. O’Neal has been made an Officer of the Order for her distinguished service to Australian rules football, to superannuation and finance law, and to the advancement of women in leadership roles.
Henry Parr was recognized in Chambers USA 2019 for general commercial litigation. Parr practices with Wyche in Greenville, S.C.
1977
Gary Feulner has been semiretired in Dubai since 2010, after nearly 20 years as general counsel to SHUAA Capital, a prominent regional investment banking company. He initially rejoined the Dubai office of Chadbourne & Parke, which first sent him to Arabia in 1982, but following Chadbourne’s merger into Norton Rose Fulbright, he has been affiliated with International Counsels Advocates and Legal Consultants, a small Dubai firm with an active local dispute resolution practice.
On his own time, Feulner has expanded on and published the results of more than three decades of wideranging exploration and natural history studies in the United Arab Emirates and neighboring Oman. Those have included definitive surveys of the local freshwater fish, freshwater snails, land snails and dragonflies, as well as the flora of the mountains of the Musandam Peninsula and of the geologically unusual environment of the mountains of the eastern UAE. Most recently, Feulner co-authored an introductory catalogue of UAE spiders. He is currently completing, as lead author, a comprehensive account of the butterflies of the UAE.
Feulner is also the founding sponsor of GN English Boarding School, an Englishmedium private school in the hill country of Nepal, six hours east of Kathmandu. The school is now in its eighth academic year with an enrollment of 175 students in nursery to ninth grade, including 75 boarding students. Approximately 30% of the students are on scholarships. Feulner spends two months or more at the school each year and was there during the 2015 earthquakes. The years since then have seen the coming of electricity and direct road access, as well as the construction and soundproofing of additional classrooms and improved dining and dormitory facilities.
President Donald Trump appointed James S. Gilmore III as permanent representative to the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Gilmore was sworn in June 25 as ambassador, having been confirmed by the Senate. In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 9, Gilmore called the OSCE “an indispensable pillar of the security architecture that has served the United States well for generations.” During his swearing-in ceremony, Gilmore pledged “to maintain our strong U.S. leadership across the OSCE’s political, economic and environmental, and human dimensions.” He added that he “will work to promote that enduring principle of freedom that our Founding Fathers sought to secure, and which remains a beacon of peace and security to the countries that join together in the OSCE.”
1978
Christopher D’Angelo was the moderator and a speaker for “GDPR: Nine Months Later — The Impact in the EU on Enforcement and Compliance” and in “U.S. on Discovery,” at the midyear meeting of the International Association of Defense Counsel in Santa Barbara, Calif., in February.
D’Angelo is chair of the business disputes and products liability practice and the chair of the international practice at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads in its Philadelphia and New York offices.
Hal K. Litchford, a shareholder in the Orlando, Fla., office of Baker Donelson, was ranked as a leading business practitioner in Chambers USA 2019.
Bruce L. Mertens was listed in 2019 Super Lawyers for estate and probate. Mertens practices with Sands Anderson in Richmond, Va.
1979
Peter S. Everett was named in the 2019 Virginia and Washington, D.C., Super Lawyers for his work on behalf of plaintiffs in personal injury cases. Everett practices with Blankingship & Keith in Fairfax, Va.
H. Aubrey Ford was inducted into the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, which is limited to 500 fellows in the United States. Ford is one of the only 10 Virginia litigators who have been inducted into both the American College of Trial Lawyers as well as the IATL.
Anne Kleindienst, of counsel with Polsinelli in Phoenix, was selected for inclusion in 2019 Southwest Super Lawyers in business and corporate law.
David Nassif was appointed chief financial officer of Axovant Gene Therapies, a clinical-stage company developing innovative gene therapies. Nassif has more than 25 years of life sciences industry experience in executive financial management roles in development-stage, commercial-stage, public and private companies.
Three UVA Law alumni who have spent their careers in Connecticut were recognized by the Connecticut Law Tribune and presented with Lifetime Achievement Awards in May: Chuck Howard ’75 of Shipman & Goodman; Jim Wade ’62 of Robinson & Cole; and Rick Silver ’60 of Silver, Golub & Teitell.
