Alumni Notes

Class of 1962

John Norton Moore ’62 retired in January 2020 from the University of Virginia School of Law after 53 years on the faculty. From 1973 to 1976 he chaired the National Security Interagency Task Force on the Law of the Sea. The task force resulted in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, or the Law of the Sea Treaty), which is in force among 168 nations and the European Union and establishes rules governing all uses of oceans and their resources. He established and led the Center for Oceans Law and Policy at UVA that produced an article-by-article analysis of UNCLOS that is used in matters before the Law of the Sea Tribunal in Hamburg, Germany. John also pioneered the field of national security law, founding the Center for National Security Law at UVA, and worked with one of his former law professors, the late Robinson O. Everett LLM ’59, to establish the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke Law.

UVA reports that John is also a competitive weightlifter who has won numerous titles and honors. Among these: winning the 2019 world championship in the 70-and-up master’s category for the bench press; serving as an eight-time member of the United States National Powerlifting Team in the World Championships, winning one gold, one silver and three bronze medals; and serving as an eight-time member of the United States National Team in the North American and Pan American Championships, winning numerous gold medals. He holds two United States national records for the bench press.

Class of 1963

Julian Juergensmeyer, the Ben F. Johnson Jr. Chair in Law and director of the Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth at the Georgia State University College of Law, has retired after 21 years on the GSU Law faculty. Renowned nationally and internationally as an expert on impact fees, infrastructure financing, and other matters of land use regulation and law, he earlier was a professor of law, the Gerald A. Sohn Research Scholar, and affiliate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Florida. His career and scholarship are celebrated by the Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy in Festschrift II in Honor of Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer on the Occasion of His Retirement: International Perspectives on Urban Law and Policy.

Glenn Ketner, Jr. has been inducted into the North Carolina Bar Association 2020 Legal Practice Hall of Fame. He opened Ketner & Associates in Salisbury in 1972, where he continues to practice. Glenn is a former member of the NCBA Board of Governors, and a past chair of the Senior Lawyers Division.

---

Class of 1966

Richard Buhrman received a 2020 Outstanding Service Award for exemplary service to the community of Chattanooga from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He has practiced there with the Buhrman Law Firm since 1970.

---

Class of 1967

H. William (Bill) Constangy has authored Noncompete Law, Second Edition (LexisNexis/Matthew Bender, 2020), a national law book on covenants not to compete and related restrictive covenants, including non-solicitation of employees and customers and nondisclosure covenants. Bill, a retired North Carolina Superior Court judge, has also been selected for Marquis’ Who’s Who in America Lifetime Achievement Award and serves on the American Arbitration Association Employment, Judicial, Commercial, and Large and Complex Cases Arbitration Panels. He and his wife, Debbie, celebrated their 50th anniversary in April 2020. They live in Charlotte.

---

Class of 1968

Ron Shearin has been a participant, since 2012, in the Senior Lawyer Visiting Professors Program of the Center for International Legal Studies in Salzburg, Austria. He has completed eight short-term teaching assignments on the U.S. legal system at various faculties of law in Eastern Europe. His most recent teaching assignment was at Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, where he taught a seminar on U.S. constitutional law.

---

Class of 1971

Randy May has co-authored Modernizing Copyright Law for the Digital Age: Constitutional Foundations for Reform (Free State Foundation, 2020), which connects constitutional principles and historical insights to recommendations for updating U.S. copyright law to meet the challenges of the digital age.

Michael Richmond has retired from the Shepard Broad College of Law, Nova Southeastern University, where he served as professor of law for 42 years. He taught a wide variety of courses, most recently concentrated on torts, including advanced courses in the tort area. He also taught legal drafting and law and literature.

---

Class of 1972

Joseph McManus is president of newly launched Centinel Consulting, LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based construction consultancy. It is a subsidiary of the law firm Carlton Fields. Centinel assists public and private sector construction and real estate companies through all phases of construction projects, from contract drafting and administration to dispute resolution.

---

Class of 1973

Dan Blue, Jr. has received a 2020 Legal Legends of Color Award from the North Carolina Bar Association’s Minorities in the Profession Committee. Recipients are nominated by their peers to recognize significant impact to North Carolina legal practice. Dan, the founder of Blue LLP in Raleigh, has served in the N.C. General Assembly for more than 40 years. He was the first Black speaker of the N.C. House, the first Black president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the first Black chairman of the Duke University Board of Trustees.

---

Class of 1974

Colin Brown, chairman of the board of JM Family Enterprises, Inc., was named an Association of Churchill Fellow, following nomination by the Board of Governors of America’s National Churchill Museum. The association is an honorary society recognizing leaders in industry, commerce, statecraft, and the arts and sciences. It is among the key organizations that support America’s National Churchill Museum, located on the campus of Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., the only museum in North America that commemorates the life and times of former British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and his legacy of leadership.

---

Class of 1976

Yvonne Mims Evans is a 2020 recipient of a Legal Legends of Color Award, presented annually by the North Carolina Bar Association’s Minorities in the Profession Committee. Recipients are nominated by their peers to recognize significant impact to North Carolina legal practice. Yvonne was the first Black female partner at a Charlotte law firm and first female chief district court judge in Mecklenburg County. She served on the Mecklenburg County Superior Court bench for 15 years before retiring in 2018.

---

Class of 1977

Jeffrey Davidson has joined the Washington, D.C. office of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton as counsel and a member of the environmental & product regulation team in the firm’s litigation department. Jeffrey previously was a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

Thomas Work has been reelected as chair of the board of Tower Health. He is a shareholder and co-chair of Stevens & Lee’s estate and trusts practice group, located in Reading, Pa. He is a member of the boards of the Reading Hospital Foundation and Alvernia University.

---

Class of 1978

Drew Goddard has been named board president, through 2022, of the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands. Drew has been a member of the board of directors since 2004 and previously served as first vice president. He is a partner at Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville, where he chairs the firm’s environmental practice group.

---

Class of 1979

Gary Jackson has been named a shareholder in the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin in Durham. He joined the firm in 2017.

James Williams, Jr. is the 2019-20 recipient of the John McNeill Smith Jr. Award presented by the Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities Section of the North Carolina Bar Association. James is currently of counsel attorney for The Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL). He joined the CDPL in 2018 following a distinguished career as chief public defender for Orange and Chatham counties, where he served from 1990-2017.

---

Class of 1980

Lisa Margaret Smith has been elected president of the Westchester Women’s Bar Association. She retired on Sept. 30 after more than 25 years as a United States magistrate judge for the Southern District of New York.

Richard Willstatter is serving a three-year term, ending in 2023, on the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is a partner at the Law Offices of Green & Willstatter, in White Plains, N.Y., and a past president of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

---

Class of 1981

Timothy Corrigan assumed the duties of chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Nov. 2, 2020. He was appointed to the federal court by President George W. Bush in 2002 after serving for six years as a U.S. magistrate judge.

John Yates, a partner at Morris Manning & Martin in Atlanta, has been named to lead The Woodruff Arts Center’s fundraising efforts. He serves as chair of its corporate campaign and as a member of its board of directors.

---

Class of 1982

Thomas Logue has been elected for a second six-year term as a judge on the Florida Third District Court of Appeal in Miami. He has taught Florida constitutional law as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law and St. Thomas University School of Law.

---

Class of 1983

Kirk Warner has authored Zone of Action: A JAG’s Journey Inside Operations Cobra II and Iraqi Freedom (Koehler Books, 2020), in which he recounts his war-theater observations as a judge advocate general at the highest levels of the Army and the Coalition throughout the liberation and occupation of Iraq. Following his service in Iraq, Kirk became deputy legal counsel to three chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and staff judge advocate to a national command. He is currently a partner in the Raleigh office of Smith Anderson.

---

Class of 1984

Doron Bard has served as a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State for more than 32 years. Last summer he completed service as the senior foreign policy advisor, U.S. Transportation Command, and was named the countrywide consular coordinator, U.S. Consulate General, Ho Chi Minh City, Socialist Republic of Vietnam. He has participated in seven overseas assignments and three tours at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Floyd McKissick, Jr. joined the North Carolina Utilities Commission in June, after being nominated for the post by Gov. Roy Cooper and confirmed by the General Assembly. The seven-member commission regulates companies that provide electricity, natural gas, and other services. Floyd had served in the N.C. Senate since 2007 as a Democrat representing Durham and practiced law at McKissick & McKissick in Durham.

---

Class of 1986

Janine Brown, partner in charge for Alston & Bird in Atlanta, has been named to Atlanta Magazine’s “2020 Atlanta 500: Professionals-Law.”

Brett Fallon has joined the Wilmington, Del., office of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath as a partner in the firm’s finance and restructuring group. He was previously a partner with Morris James.

 

---

Class of 1987

David Berger, litigation partner at Wilson, Sonsini in Palo Alto and San Francisco, has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute.

Wilson Freyermuth, the John D. Lawson Professor of Law and Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute.

Rob Harrington, a business litigator and litigation department chair at Robinson Bradshaw in Charlotte, has been named one of the state’s most influential business leaders by Business North Carolina in its annual Power 100 list. Rob has served as president of the Mecklenburg County Bar and is a member of the N.C. Bar Association’s Board of Governors and the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He has been an elected member of the American Law Institute since 1995.

Paul Nofer has stepped down, after 22 years, as chair or co-chair of the litigation practice at Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg in Philadelphia. He continues his practice as a litigator in both complex commercial and employment disputes.

Brian Rubin, a partner at Eversheds Sutherland in Washington, D.C., has been reelected to the National Society of Compliance Professionals (NSCP) board of directors. Brian is a longtime member of the NSCP, co-chair of its Broker-Dealer Forum, and a frequent writer for its journal, NSCP Currents, including recently authoring, “Not Dead Yet: Just Flesh Wounds, Suspensions, and Fines (SEC, CFTC, and FINRA Enforcement Actions in September 2020).”

---

Class of 1988

Joe Lucas has been elected as a trustee of the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, which supports education and the arts in the Triangle region and Duke University. Joe is an attorney at Pope Flynn in Charlotte.

Philip Nichols, the Joseph Kolodny Professor of Social Responsibility in Business and Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded the 2020 John Bonsignore Memorial Award for Exceptional Teaching of Legal Studies by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB). He also received the Hoeber Memorial Award at the 2020 ALSB Annual Conference for his article “Bribing the Machine: Protecting the Integrity of Algorithms as the Revolution Begins.” The award recognizes the outstanding article in the 2019-2020 volume year of the four issues of American Business Law Journal.

David Schwarz has joined the business trial litigation practice group in the Century City, Calif., office of Sheppard Mullin.

---

Class of 1989

Kim Brown, a partner in the business and tort litigation practice at Jones Day in Pittsburgh, has been named a 2020 Woman of Influence by the Pittsburgh Business Times. She is a past president and board member of the Allegheny County Bar Association.

Dominick Colangelo has been elected to the board of directors of Trevi Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. He has served as president and chief executive officer of Vericel since 2013.

Craig Fields has joined Blank Rome’s New York office, where he is co-chair of the tax, benefits, and private client group, and leads the national, state, and local tax practice. He was selected as a fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2019 and serves as an advisory board member for various professional organizations, publications, and centers. He previously was a partner at Morrison & Foerster.

Allen Nelson has joined, as counsel, the corporate practice of Taylor English Duma in Atlanta. Allen, a former general counsel with experience in both public and private companies, most recently served at the general counsel of 8 Rivers Capital, an early-stage company in the zero carbon emission energy space.

Matt Sawchak has joined the Research Triangle, N.C., litigation team at Robinson Bradshaw as a shareholder. Matt joins the firm after serving three years as North Carolina’s solicitor general.

---

Class of 1990

Peter Roberts has joined Cozen O’Connor’s bankruptcy, insolvency, and restructuring practice in the firm’s Chicago office. He previously was with Fox Rothschild.

 

Rhonda Tobin, litigation section co-chair of Robinson+Cole, was selected by the Hartford Business Journal for inclusion in its 2020 “Women in Business” recognition. She was among 15 honorees selected for demonstrating business success, confidence in themselves and their organizations, and a strong track record of professional leadership.

---

Class of 1992

Tiki Dare has been elected 2021 president and chair of the board of directors of the International Trademark Association. Tiki specializes in trademark and copyright law, and is assistant general counsel at Oracle Corporation in Redwood City, Calif.

---

Class of 1993

Keith Smith has joined the Charlotte office of Moore & Van Allen as a member of the firm’s health care team. Keith previously was executive vice president and general counsel at Atrium Health.

---

Class of 1994

Elizabeth Catlin has joined the board of directors of Girls on the Run International. The founder and current investment adviser of Bluestone Wealth Management in Keene, N.H., she is a coach and served on the board of Girls on the Run Vermont for 10 years, most recently as vice chair.

Paul Genender, a litigation partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and the leader of Weil’s litigation practice in Dallas, has been selected by the Dallas Women Lawyers Association to receive its James E. Coleman Jr. Her Champion Award in recognition of his support and dedication to advancing women in the legal profession.

Andrea Nelson Meigs has joined United Talent Agency as a partner after 14 years at ICM Partners.

Sterling Spainhour has been named senior vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer of Atlanta-based Georgia Power, where he oversees corporate compliance, risk management, and security and legal services functions. Sterling previously served as the senior vice president and general counsel for partner utility Southern Company Services and maintains his responsibilities for the corporate, energy regulation, and technology functions there.

---

Class of 1995

Jeannine Jacobson has joined Maynard Cooper & Gale, opening the firm’s new Miami office. Jeannine is a trial and appellate lawyer, and joins the firm’s insurance and managed care litigation practice groups as a shareholder. She previously was counsel at Robinson+Cole.

Eugene Lao has been named general counsel of Reltio, a software as a service (SaaS) company. Prior to Reltio, he served as vice president and general counsel at DocuSign, Auction.com, and Zynga, and vice president and regional general counsel, Asia-Pacific at Yahoo! Inc.

Jacinda Townsend served as the Rachel Rivers-Coffey Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at Appalachian State University during the fall 2020 semester after serving as the Appalachian Writer in Residence at Berea College during the spring 2020 semester. She is the author of Saint Monkey, a novel set in 1950’s Eastern Kentucky which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction.

---

Class of 1996

Erik Moses has been named president, by Dover Motorsports, Inc., of the Nashville Superspeedway, as NASCAR returns to middle Tennessee in 2021. Erik is a longtime leader in mid-Atlantic sports and entertainment circles, and most recently served as the founding president of the XFL’s DC Defenders. (Read profile.)

---

Class of 1997

Diana Semel Allen, vice president and general counsel at ChannelAdvisor, was a recipient of a 2020 C-Suite Award from Triangle Business Journal. The annual recognition honors exceptional executive leaders in the Research Triangle (N.C.) who have made significant contributions to their respective industries and the community.

Brian Bouffard is serving as a supervisory trial defense attorney (GS-15) at the United States Military Commissions Defense Organization in Washington, D.C. He previously maintained a criminal and military law practice in Fort Worth, Texas.

---

Class of 1998

Lafayette Crump became the City of Milwaukee Commissioner of City Development in July after being appointed by Mayor Tom Barrett and unanimously approved by the city’s Common Council. He previously served as deputy chief of staff and chief diversity, vendor, and engagement officer for the Milwaukee 2020 Host Committee of the Democratic National Convention and as chief operating officer of Prism Technical Management & Marketing Services. Lafayette also is an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School.

Fred Ebrahemi has been promoted to chief operating officer at Clearlake Capital Group, where he remains a partner and general counsel. His expanded role includes assisting the managing partners with strategy and management of the firm’s growing operations, as well as continued oversight of the legal and compliance functions. He joined Clearlake in 2014.

Trent McKenna has been promoted to chief operating officer of Comfort Systems USA, Inc., a provider of commercial, industrial, and institutional heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and electrical contracting services.  He joined the company in 2004, and has held a number of positions, most recently senior vice president and vice president-region 4.

Sarah Solum has joined Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as one of seven founding partners of the firm’s new Silicon Valley office, where she is the managing partner and head of U.S. capital markets. She previously was a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Talley Wells has joined the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities as executive director. He is also a member, appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper, of the N.C. Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice. Talley previously led the Georgia Appleseed Center of Law and Justice and the Disability Integration Project at the Atlanta Legal Aid Society.

Miranda Zolot has joined human resources start-up Oyster as general counsel. She oversees employment and regulatory requirements, as well as the company’s overarching legal platform strategy. She previously served as vice president and associate general counsel at TriNet.

---

Class of 1999

David Bowsher has joined Balch & Bingham as a partner focused on corporate, energy, and corporate finance and securities in the firm’s Houston and Birmingham offices. He previously was partner in charge of Adams and Reese in Birmingham.

John Simpkins has been named president of MDC, a Durham-based nonprofit which was spun off, in 1967, from North Carolina Gov. Terry Sanford’s landmark anti-poverty program, the North Carolina Fund, that equips Southern leaders, institutions, and communities to improve economic mobility and advance equity. John most recently served as vice president of Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute.

Zephyr Teachout has authored Break ‘Em Up: Recovering our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech and Big Money (Macmillan Publishers, 2020), which features a foreword by Sen. Bernie Sanders. Zephyr is an associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, where she has taught since 2009.

---

Class of 2001

Rodney Bullard, vice president of corporate social responsibility for Chick-fil-A and executive director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation, has been named to Atlanta Magazine’s “2020 Atlanta 500: Professionals-Nonprofit Organizations.”

Rawn James, Jr. has authored a third book, The Truman Court: Law and the Limits of Loyalty (University of Missouri Press, 2021), which explores how the four justices Harry Truman named to the Supreme Court changed American law and politics. Rawn is a senior civilian attorney in the Department of the Navy, serving as counsel to the auditor general.

Rina Kim’s translation of Kwon Yeo-sun’s “The Aunt” has won the Fiction Commendation Award in the Korea Times 51st Translation Awards.

Pamela Hoefer Lialias has joined the board of the nonprofit organization, Homeopaths Without Borders – North America. Pamela currently runs a private homeopathic practice in Leader, Texas. Her company, 10 TO 15, also has a line of homeopathic products.

Stephen Martin has been appointed vice president and general counsel of Kaman Distribution Group, a distributor of bearings, power transmission, automation, and fluid power products, in Bloomfield, Conn. Most recently, he served as general counsel and corporate secretary for Accuride Corporation.

---

Class of 2002

David Boles has joined the London office of Cooley as a partner in the firm’s capital markets practice. He formerly was a partner at Latham & Watkins.

Natalie Lamarque has been appointed general counsel of New York Life, and joined its executive management committee. She previously served as deputy general counsel and chaired the company’s privacy working group. She joined New York Life in 2014 as an associate general counsel in the litigation group.

Heather Stewart has been promoted to partner in the Portland, Ore., office of Stoel Rives. She is a member of the firm’s corporate practice group and its energy and natural resources industry group.

---

Class of 2003

Jaime Klima joined NYSE Group, in January 2021, as chief regulatory officer. In that capacity she oversees the work of its independent regulatory unit NYSE Regulation. She most recently served as chief of staff and chief operating officer of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

James Pelletier has been named senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary of Barnes Group, Inc., a global provider of highly engineered products and services used in many applications, including aerospace, transportation, manufacturing, automation, health care, and packaging. Jim joined the company in 2015, and most recently was deputy general counsel and segment general counsel of Barnes Aerospace.

Michael Stafford has been elected partner and chair of the labor and employment departments at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor in Wilmington, Del. Mike represents public and private schools in a variety of student and employment matters, including special education disputes, student rights and discipline, collective bargaining, and staff termination issues.

Nicole Williams has joined Thompson Coburn as the managing partner of the firm’s new Dallas office. A trial lawyer who represents clients in matters involving antitrust, advertising, fraud investigations and litigation, RICO, and class actions, Nicole previously was a partner at Thompson & Knight.

---

Class of 2004

Jonathan Krause has been named co-chair of the litigation practice at Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg in Philadelphia. An employment litigator, he represents employers in all aspects of employment and labor law, with an emphasis on trade secret/non-compete, whistleblower issues, wage and hour, and discrimination/harassment matters.

Jennifer Tenney has opened Tenney Law, PLLC in her hometown of Marco Island, Fla. The firm focuses on real estate, elder law, wills and trusts, probate, guardianship, association law, loan documentation, and business law.

Walter Wood has been named a shareholder in the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin, located in Durham. He joined the firm in 2017.

---

Class of 2005

Jessica Bohrer and her father, Sandy Bohrer, have authored the children’s book, Your Voice is your Super Power! A Beginner’s Guide to Freedom of Speech (and the First Amendment) (Simon & Shuster, 2020). Jessica is vice president and editorial counsel in the newsroom at Forbes. She serves on the Leadership Council of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit which promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.

---

Class of 2006

Kristin Blazewicz has joined Coty, Inc., based in Amsterdam, as chief legal officer, general counsel, and corporate secretary. She previously was vice president and assistant general counsel at Keurig Dr Pepper.

Mark Chorazak has joined the New York office of Shearman & Sterling as a partner in the global financial institutions advisory & financial regulatory practice. He provides bank regulatory advice to domestic and foreign banks, non-bank financial institutions, and financial technology firms. Mark previously was a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and counsel at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

John Lomas has joined Eversheds Sutherland as an international arbitration partner in the Washington, D.C. office. John previously practiced at Dentons.

Krista Patterson has been elected partner at the New York City office of Robinson+Cole, where she is a member of the firm’s real estate and development group.

Amy Yeung has joined Lotame, an unstacked data solution company, as general counsel and chief privacy officer. She previously was deputy general counsel of Comscore. She received the Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2020 Jonathan S. Silber Outstanding Network Member of the Year Award after being nominated by the Law Department Management Network.

---

Class of 2007

Rebecca Dixon is executive director of the National Employment Law Project, a leader in federal workers’ rights advocacy. She was a guest speaker in the Dec. 14 Washington Post Live program entitled “The Future Reset: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap.”

---

Class of 2008

Jay Caiafa has been promoted to chief operating officer, Americas at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). He joined IHG in 2013 and has held multiple leadership roles with the company, most recently as senior vice president, hotel lifecycle and growth. In his new role, he will continue as IHG’s representative on the Metro Atlanta Chamber Board of Directors in the home of the company’s Americas headquarters.

Scott Skinner-Thompson has authored Privacy at the Margins (Cambridge University Press, 2021), in which he demonstrates how limited legal protections for privacy lead directly to concrete, material harms for many marginalized communities, including discrimination, harassment, and violence. He explains how privacy can serve as a form of expressive resistance to surveillance regimes, furthering equality goals for these groups, and entitling privacy to protection under the First Amendment and related equality provisions. An associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School, Scott’s research focuses on constitutional law, civil rights, and privacy law, with a particular focus on LGBTQ and HIV issues. His book was a co-recipient of the 2020 Gamm Justice Award, given annually by Colorado Law for outstanding scholarship addressing critical issues in justice.

 

Michael Sopko graduated from Air Force Officer Training School in October. He has been assigned to Patrick AFB in Florida as a judge advocate general. Mike continues his civilian job at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals in Washington, D.C.

---

Class of 2009

Daniel Akinmade Emejulu, program manager at Microsoft in Geneva, has joined Microsoft’s United Nations affairs team.

Matt Calabria won election, in November, for a third term as a member of the Wake County (N.C.) Board of Commissioners and was elected unanimously by his fellow commissioners to serve a one-year term as chair.

Melvin Hines and the Austin, Texas-based education tech company he co-founded and leads as CEO, Upswing International Inc., were among the inaugural class of the Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders program. During the virtual three-month program, Upswing, which provides a technology-powered platform designed to help non-traditional and online college students achieve success, and 11 other Black-led startups — chosen from a pool of about 300 applicants — gained technical and business development expertise from Google specialists and industry experts.

Blake Johnson has been named partner in the Cincinnati office of Taft, Stettinus & Johnson, where he focuses his practice on corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, securities, and emerging companies.

 

T.J. Mascia has been appointed director at Davey Mitigation for the Davey Resource Group (DRG), part of the Davey Tree Expert Co. T.J. is responsible for developing mitigation clients and working with Davey offices that provide environmental consulting and mitigation services. Before joining Davey, T.J. maintained an environmental law practice focused on Clean Water Act compliance and mitigation. He is a past chair of the Environmental and Energy Law Section for the Richmond Bar Association.

Phillip Stoup has been promoted to partner in the San Francisco office of Latham & Watkins. He is a member of the corporate department who focuses on capital markets matters, representing investment banks, private equity firms, and companies in public and private equity and debt offerings, acquisition financing, and liability management transactions.

Dan Van Fleet has been promoted to partner in the San Francisco office of Latham & Watkins. He is a member of the finance department who represents borrowers and lenders/investors, as well as venture capital and private equity sponsors with respect to debt financings, particularly those involving growth companies.

---

Class of 2010

Brian Kappel has been named a partner at Lightfoot, Franklin & White, where he specializes in business and commercial litigation in the Birmingham, Ala., office.

Venus Liles has authored Luna Stays Home, a picture book that helps children to better understand the coronavirus pandemic and cope with quarantine requirements, such as being socially distant from friends and grandparents and the importance of handwashing. Venus read from and discussed the book in a family friendly program during the Law School’s virtual reunion in October. She is the principal at Liles Law in Raleigh, where she focuses on startup law, business, IT, and intellectual property law.

Joshua Mayer has been promoted to partner at Shipman & Goodwin in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, where he practices in the areas of civil litigation, insurance, and reinsurance, focusing on product liability and tort matters.

Adam Sanders has been elected a shareholder in the Chattanooga, Tenn., office of Baker Donelson, where he is a member of the business litigation group, primarily focusing on complex condemnation defense.

Benjamin Wilson has been named partner in the Boston office of Ropes & Gray, where he provides transactional, strategic, and regulatory advice to clients throughout the health care industry.

Adam Zwecker and his wife, Jennifer, welcomed a son, Henry, on March 27, 2020. Adam is a real estate partner with Akerman in Miami.

---

Class of 2011

Adrian Broderick has been elected partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, resident in the firm’s Wilmington, Del., office. She maintains a multidisciplinary practice centered around Delaware corporate law.

Tingfei Fan has been promoted to counsel in the Hong Kong office of Latham & Watkins. She is a member of the corporate department who represents Chinese and U.S. corporations and financial institutions in connection with a range of corporate transactions, with a focus on capital markets matters.

Daniel Kronberg has been named a shareholder in the St. Louis office of the Polsinelli law firm, where his practice focuses on transactional real estate services.

Sharika Shropshire, in-house counsel at Wells Fargo, was honored by the Charlotte Business Journal as the 2020 winner of its annual Corporate Counsel Award for “Outstanding Pro Bono Service.”

 

---

Class of 2012

Jennifer Swenson was appointed to the Polk County, Fla., county court bench in May, and elevated to the Florida 10th Judicial Circuit in September. She will hold the seat until 2022, when she will have the option to seek election to a six-year term. Jennifer previously was a prosecutor and chief of the felony division in the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit.

---

Class of 2013

Tim Capria has been elected partner in the Nashville office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings where he is a member of the intellectual property practice group. His practice focuses on acquiring IP, patent opinion practice, and enforcing IP rights.

Alan Lovett has been elected partner in the Birmingham office of Balch & Bingham, where he is a member of the firm’s energy practice.

Serena Rwejuna, an associate in the energy practice of Jones Day, has been selection for inclusion by The National Black Lawyers “Top 40 Under 40 Lawyers in Washington, D.C.”

---

Class of 2014

Isabella Bellera Landa was selected as a 2020 Fellow of the New York City Bar Associate Leadership Institute. Fellows participate in a series of high-level development trainings. Isabella is an associate in the international arbitration practice and commercial litigation groups at White & Case.

Chris Bryant is a political law group associate at Perkins Coie in Washington, D.C. He previously was with Yarborough Applegate in Charleston, S.C. Chris married Shampa Panda on Oct. 17, 2020 in the garden of the federal courthouse in Charleston. Judge Richard Gergel ’79 of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, for whom Chris clerked, officiated.

Sean Spence was selected as a 2020 Fellow of the New York City Bar Associate Leadership Institute. Fellows participate in a series of high-level development trainings. Sean is an associate in the corporate department and a member of the private funds group at Proskauer Rose.

---

Class of 2015

Chelsea Glover has joined the Dallas office of Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal as a labor and employment and commercial litigation associate. She joins the firm from Gibson Dunn’s Dallas office.

Jamie Greenwood has joined the insurance fraud practice group of Rivkin Radler in New York. She previously served for five years as an assistant district attorney in the Suffolk County (N.Y.) District Attorney’s Office.

---

Class of 2016

Gaia Barcilon has founded EOS Social Responsibility Solutions SA, based in Lugano, Switzerland. The firm offers consulting services to companies and institutions to better integrate corporate social responsibility laws, standards, and best standards in their businesses.

J. Michelle Childs, a judge of the U.S. District Court in Columbia, S.C., was named chair of the American Bar Association’s Judicial Division at its annual meeting in August. The Judicial Division is the ABA’s home to judges, lawyers, tribal members, court administrators, academics and students interested in the courts and the justice system. Judge Childs’ theme for the year is “One Judiciary: Access to and for Judges.”

Brian Lagesse has joined the North Carolina Eminent Domain Law Firm, a division of the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin in Durham.

Johnnie Rawlinson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute.

---

Class of 2018

Ann Scott Timmer, vice chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, was included in the list of AZ Business and AZRE magazines of the Most Influential Women in Arizona for 2020.

---

Class of 2019

Steven Beale is a litigation associate at Perkins Coie in Seattle.

---

Class of 2020

Ginary Gutierrez Robledo has received one of the inaugural Jim Rubin International Fellowships from the Environmental Law Institute. The fellowships support rising environmental lawyers who are committed to building the next generation of environmental protection law and policy. Ginary previously worked as attorney at the Inspector Attorney General Office in Colombia.