W&L Law Discovery - Summer 2022

Meet the New Dean

Melanie D. Wilson joined W&L Law as its dean on July 1. She will also hold the Roy L. Steinheimer Jr. Professorship in Law. In a wide-ranging conversation, she talks about her professional career, her hopes for W&L Law and what she likes to do in her downtime, among other topics.

Where are you from? Where did you go to college and law school?

When I was elementary-school age, my family moved around a bit. We lived in the Florida Panhandle; Georgetown, Texas; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Once I reached middle school, we settled on the Gulf Coast of Florida. After graduating from high school, I attended the University of Georgia in Athens for both my undergraduate work—in journalism and business—and for law school.

You were a member of the SEC Championship women’s golf team. How has the experience of competing at such a high level of collegiate sports impacted your professional career?

Golf has taught me so many important life lessons. Through golf, I learned self-discipline, focus, resilience, the importance of a good temperament, and the imperative of integrity. Playing competitively and on a team taught me the value and the benefits of working together, including that we make better decisions when we collaborate with others on a common goal. I also think that competition instilled in me a tenacity and determination to reach goals. I definitely have a competitive streak. What are some of the big lessons from your time as an AUSA and AAG?

My public service representing the United States and the State of Georgia as counsel was interesting and rewarding work. I was given significant responsibility from the first day in these offices. I worked with incredibly talented lawyers, and my job was to ensure that justice was done in every matter. I carry that ideal with me still. I certainly encourage all of my students to consider spending some time

in a governmental position. It is important work, and we need great young minds working for the public’s interest.

How has your practice career impacted your teaching and scholarship?

I practiced law for almost 15 years before beginning my academic career. You can see the influence of this practical legal experience in both my teaching and my scholarship. In my teaching, I ask my students to consider not only the legal theories and policies, but also to think about the real-life consequences of legal decisions and legal advice. I’m mindful that the vast majority of our students are going to practice law and advise clients, and I teach them to think about legal issues with those perspectives in mind. My scholarship is also informed by my experience trying cases, arguing motions and appeals, interviewing witnesses and victims, working with law enforcement, and advocating for my clients. I want my research and scholarship to have an influence on issues that matter to real people who are navigating the justice system.

Why W&L?

There are so many reasons. I’m attracted to the close-knit, collegial community. I’m impressed with the scholarly faculty who prioritize their teaching and students above other values. The students are incredibly well-credentialed and have a strong social conscience. I had the chance to talk to a number of students during the interview process. They care deeply about each other and about the community. The alumni are committed and supportive of the law school; the staff are loyal and hard-working. The University sits in an absolutely gorgeous area. I could go on and on. W&L is a special place, and this is a time of great opportunity.

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Brief Bio

Wilson served a five-year term as dean of the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2020 before stepping down to return to teaching. Under her leadership, the college achieved significant gains in fundraising, graduate employment and student recruitment; reduced graduate debt loads; increased entry-level faculty salaries; and raised faculty summer stipends. The college also created partnerships with other U.T. programs and campuses, added a semester-in-residence program for students in Nashville and established a Master of Legal Studies degree for professionals.

Wilson earned a J.D., magna cum laude and Order of the Coif, from the University of Georgia School of Law. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in business, also from the University of Georgia, where she was an Academic All-American and a member of the 1986 SEC Championship women’s golf team. She clerked for a federal district court judge and practiced for 13 years in both the private and public sectors, including six years as an assistant U.S. attorney and four years as an assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia.

Wilson joined the University of Kansas School of Law in 2011, serving as professor of law, associate dean for academic affairs and director of diversity and inclusion. She received the 2011 Howard M. and Susan Immel Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Kansas School of Law and was named Outstanding Woman Educator of 2015 by the University of Kansas. She has co-authored three books on criminal procedure and published articles and essays addressing the Fourth and Sixth Amendments, as well as prosecutorial ethics.

Wilson is also active in the profession, having served the Association of American Law Schools in numerous capacities, including current membership on its Executive and Audit & Investment Policy Committees. She is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the State Bar of Georgia.

“I would say that I’m focused on fostering excellence and building community.”

What are the greatest challenges facing legal education today?

Keeping student and graduate debt manageable is a major challenge, so is ensuring that we are preparing our students for an ever-changing world. On the first point, we want to attract outstanding students without regard to their socioeconomic status or ability to pay. But, law schools are expensive. It’s so important to be able to provide grants and scholarships to students, so that upon graduation, they have the option to choose not only high-paying corporate and law firm positions, but also work in non-profit organizations and in government agencies and other public interest work. We also are continuously challenged to adapt our curriculum to educate students on technology relevant to law practice and to ensure that students are equipped to represent a diverse array of clients. Part of the diversity challenge is ensuring that our community includes and retains voices from all backgrounds and cultures.

What are your plans for the Law School’s future?

I certainly have some ideas about how to build on the law school’s outstanding reputation and its upward trajectory. If I boiled those ideas down to core concepts, I would say that I’m focused on fostering excellence and building community. But it’s going to be important that I hear from all of the law school’s constituents before we chart a path for our future and set our goals. I certainly will continue to prioritize the hiring of exceptional faculty scholars who are great teachers, the recruitment of amazing students from a wide variety of backgrounds, and outreach to alumni and friends of the law school. We will continue to ensure that our students are well prepared for the practice of law upon

Scene on Campus

graduation and that they have options for their chosen career paths. Together, we will set ambitious goals, and then work with the entire W&L community to achieve them.

What book(s) would you hope every incoming law student would have read?

There are so many influential books. But for those who choose law school, I would urge them to read “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson. It’s easy to read, and the story is compelling. The book is based on Stevenson’s inspiring life and demonstrates how much one lawyer can accomplish when she commits to a worthy cause. Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. The organization has achieved a number of exonerations of death row inmates and has helped numerous other inmates obtain sentencing and other relief.

How do you spend your downtime?

I enjoy almost anything outdoors. I like nature walks, and I do some light hiking. I jog. I still enjoy golf. I embrace all sorts of exercise and recreation. I also like to read the (paper) newspaper on the weekends. I watch too much sports on television — any sport involving my (Georgia) Dawgs — and I like to watch legal dramas in the evenings to wind down.

I also have two giant dogs — Choden, a Great Dane, and Leaper, an English Mastiff. Most of my downtime is spent wiping up slobber.

Virginia Supreme Court Justice Cleo Powell delivers Smith Lecture.

Professor David Bruck delivers keynote for JCRSJ Symposium.

Northwestern Professor Susan Pearson delivers Hendricks Lecture.

NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray gives distinquished lecture.

HONORS AND AWARDS

Commencement 2022

THE W&L SCHOOL OF LAW CELEBRATED its 167th commencement on May 13, awarding 119 juris doctor degrees. The ceremony returned to the Colonnade lawn for the first time since the onset of COVID-19, and the impact of the pandemic on the graduating class loomed large in remarks by the official speakers.

“It has been three long years since we have been able to gather in our traditional fashion for this ceremony, and the sight does wonders for the soul,” said President Will Dudley as he welcomed students and family members.

“The experience of the class of ’22 has been historic,” he said. “Your time in law school has been like none before it. Yet you also share much with the law graduates who have preceded you. W&L has shaped you, as individuals and as a class. Together you have studied, argued, and developed the habits of mind that characterize good lawyers. You have made lasting friendships that will give you pleasure and support wherever you may go.”

Michelle Drumbl, interim dean of the Law School, addressed the ways in which the graduating class was impacted by the pandemic, but how they overcame its challenges. Reflecting on the remarks made during the annual “50 Days to Graduation” celebration that occurred earlier in the semester, Drumbl recalled how students spoke of their deep friendships and how they supported each other through difficult times and celebrated each other’s accomplishments.

“What struck me that night — and strikes me today as I look out at you — is that despite all the curveballs life threw at you over the last three years, you really did have a typical W&L Law experience,” she said.

After the graduates were awarded their degrees, Lizanne Thomas ’82L, a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, gave the commencement address. Thomas is the chair of corporate governance practice and partner-in-charge of the Southern U.S. region for Jones Day in Atlanta.

Thomas distilled in her remarks the wisdom of her many years as a governance lawyer, helping the graduates to see that they already possessed

PHILLIP S. HARMON

John W. Davis Prize for Law

highest cumulative grade point average

JAMES THOMAS DWYER IV

American Bankruptcy Institute Medal

excellence in study of bankruptcy law

HAYDEN J. DRISCOLL

Roy L. Steinheimer Jr. Commercial Law Award

excellence in commercial law

CARSON ALEXANDER COX

Virginia Trial Lawyers Association Award effective trial advocacy

RAVEN CHA’NEL BURKS

H. McLeod-Ross Malone Oral Advocacy Award distinction in oral advocacy

ANNA RENEE SCHROER AND TIMOTHY WANG

Frederic L. Kirgis Jr. International Law Award

excellence in international law

SHELDON VICTORIA EKIRCH

Virginia Bar Family Law Section Award

excellence in the area of family law

RYAN MICHAEL D’ERCOLE AND ELENA SCHIEFELE

Barry Sullivan Constitutional Law Award

excellence in constitutional law

the tools to be successful in legal practice — as she put it, “the how” rather than “the what.” She spoke about how grit, curiosity, resilience, optimism and gratitude can be employed for success in their professional endeavors.

“Almost every good thing in my professional and personal life ties in some way back to W&L — from my first job to clients, to mentors, to my husband, to cherished friends. And I am standing here today

AWARDS

ANDREW C. DAGEN AND KATRINA PEPPER JEDAMSKI

James W. H. Stewart Tax Law Award

excellence in tax law

JACOB B. LICHTENSTEIN AND ANGELO A. PAVONE

Thomas Carl Damewood Evidence Award

excellence in the area of evidence

LAUREN DAWN RODEWALD AND CLAIRE LINDSAY WILLIAMS

Criminal Law Award

excellence in courses of criminal law

ALISSA N. GARUFI

Business Law Award

excellence in courses of business law

LUIS F. INARRA ROJAS

Administrative Law Award

excellence in courses of administrative law

CHRISTOPHER SWOPE

Clinical Legal Education Association Award

outstanding clinical student

EVANTHEA HAMMER

Clinical Legal Education Association

Outstanding Externship Award

outstanding externship student

because in some small way I want to express my gratitude to those who went before all of us and made this happy day possible — for me and for you,” said Thomas.

The Student Bar Association Teacher of the Year and Staff Member of the Year award were also presented at the awards ceremony. Brandon Hasbrouck was named Teacher of the Year, and Alegra Steck won the staff award.

WILLIAM H. SMITH III

Charles V. Laughlin Award

outstanding contribution to moot court program

EMMA R. BURRI

Student Bar Association President Award

recognition for services as president of the Student Bar Association

EVANTHEA HAMMER AND CLAIR ELIZABETH WELCH

W&L Law Women’s Law Award

outstanding contribution to women in the law

SENURI THARINDHI RAUF

Calhoun Bond University Service Award

significant contribution to the University community

SABRINA MATLOCK, LAUREN R. ROBERSTON AND CHRISTOPHER E. WATTS

Randall P. Bezanson Award

outstanding contribution to diversity in the life of the Law School community

EMMA R. BURRI, HANNAH E. COFFMAN

POLK, MATTHEW DAVID KAMINER AND ALYSSA M. MATHEWS

Professionalism and Service Award

significant contribution of public service in the community

It has been a stellar year for employment, with both the Law Classes of 2021 and 2022 hitting near all-time highs in job outcomes.

96% 86% Class of 2021 Employed or in Grad School

Class of 2022 Employed or in Grad School

Behind the Numbers: Career Paths

ELENA SCHIEFELE ’22L graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 2019. She has been a research assistant for Professor Hasbrouck since her 1L summer and interned at the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Western District of Virginia during her 2L summer. Elena also served as a managing editor of the W&L Law Review. After graduation, she will work in Sanford Heisler Sharp’s D.C. office for one year before clerking for Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory in the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

“During the Fall 2021 semester, I externed for a magistrate judge in the Western District of North Carolina. That experience was one of my favorite things that I’ve done during law school and confirmed my decision to clerk. I loved the close, collaborative working relationship between the judge I externed for and his clerks. I also learned something new in every case that I worked on during the externship. My professors talked about their past clerkships in similar terms, and I am excited to keep learning during my clerkship with Judge Gregory.”

TREY SMITH ’22L is from St. John’s, Antigua. He received a B.A. in government from the University of Virginia. Prior to studying law at W&L, Smith worked as a real estate paralegal in Charlottesville. He spent his 1L summer working as a summer associate at MichieHamlett in Charlottesville and his 2L summer at Troutman Pepper in Richmond. Smith served as chair of the Moot Court executive board and president of the Black Law Students Association. He joined Troutman Pepper in Richmond in the firm’s white-collar litigation and investigations practice group.

“Having worked as a real estate paralegal, I knew that I enjoyed the intricacies of handling complex real estate transactions. However, during 2L, I took business associations and mergers and acquisitions, both with Professor Haan, and Uniform Commercial Code. Those courses sparked an interest in business law, so when I got to Troutman I took assignments from the corporate, multi-family housing, and white collar litigation practice groups. I really appreciated having the opportunity to sample such a wide variety of practice areas.”

Student Accolades

Kristin Barkemeyer ’22L and Max Blumenthal ’24L competed as a team in the Global Antitrust Institute Invitational Moot Court Competition, the only moot court competition in the U.S. devoted exclusively to antitrust law. Barkemeyer won the top award of Best Oralist. As a team, Barkemeyer and Blumenthal finished the competition as semifinalists, facing teams from the law schools at Harvard and the University of Missouri in the final rounds.

AINSLEY-BROOKE SATTERWHITE ’22L, is from Fredericksburg, Virginia. She received her B.A. from East Carolina University. While at W&L, she served as vice president of Veterans Affairs for the National Security and Military Law Society. After graduation, she entered the Army JAG Corps.

“I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army in September 2019. I grew up in a militaryentrenched family: my father, sister and brother-in-law are currently serving in the Navy. Although I knew I wanted to enter the JAG Corps, I wanted to experience it for myself and, in my 2L summer, I sought out two externships with different JAG offices. I was exceptionally fortunate to split my summer between Fort Bragg and Fort Eustis and experience different mission-sets within the Army. I won’t find out where I will be stationed until later in the application process nor do I know what type of law I’ll be practicing. During my externships, I thoroughly enjoyed working in military justice and trial defense service and hope to waive the Jolly Roger!”

LAUREN ROBERTSON ’22L is from Sarasota, Florida. She received a B.A. in English from Florida State University. Robertson spent her 1L summer as a judicial extern for the Hon. Julie Sneed of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida and her 2L summer working for Holland & Knight LLP in Tampa, Florida. As a 3L, she served as the editor-in-chief of the W&L Law Review and a Burks Scholar for Legal Writing. After graduation, she will join the litigation group at Holland & Knight LLP in the firm’s Tampa office.

“When I worked in commercial insurance before law school, I felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. As wonderful as the people I worked with were, I knew that it wasn’t the right career fit. It may sound a bit corny, but law school as a whole has validated that this is what I’m meant to do. I loved my classes. I loved my extracurriculars. I loved my job experiences. These past three years have only reinforced that being an attorney is my calling.”

The American Constitution Society selected Halley Townsend ’22L as the winner of the 2022 Constance Baker Motley National Student Writing Competition. Townsend won for her paper “Second Middle Passage: How Anti-Abortion Laws Perpetuate Structures of Slavery and the Case for Reproductive Justice.” She argues that Texas SB8, like its counterparts in the other former slaveholding states, perpetuates structures of slavery in the form of state control over the Black female body.

In addition to a monetary award, Townsend will be invited to publish her paper in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. The competition garnered entries from law students across the country. Seven finalists were selected, from which a distinguished and diverse panel of judges chose one winner and two runners-up. Among the finalists were students from the law schools at the University of Chicago, Duke University, the University of Texas and Yale University.

Law Professor and Students Win Pardon for Excessive Sentence

BY PETE JETTON RONALD

DAVIS IS GUILTY OF HIS crimes. And the sentence he received for them is legal. But did the punishment match the crime?

Professor Jon Shapiro, a criminal defense attorney of national renown, certainly didn’t think so when he heard about the case. Shapiro receives dozens of letters each year from inmates seeking his pro bono assistance. But there was something about Davis’ story that grabbed him.

“This was just one of those cases that seemed so outrageous, so unjust,” he said.

In 1997 at the age of 19, Davis was sent to prison for a series of armed robberies committed over the course of nine days in the Hampton Roads area. No one was hurt during the crimes, and Davis himself never held a gun. When he was arrested, Davis cooperated fully with investigators and plead guilty, expressing remorse for his participation in the crime spree, fueled by his addiction to drugs.

He received an 80-year sentence, roughly four times the typical amount for such a crime. Given his age and the fact that Virginia abolished parole in 1996, Davis would spend the rest of his life in jail.

What complicated matters for Davis was the fact that the crimes occurred in four different jurisdictions, and Davis was convicted and sentenced in each one. Under Virginia’s sentencing guidelines, any prior felony conviction compounds the sentence for subsequent convictions, so each conviction Davis received in one jurisdiction increased the suggested sentence in the following jurisdiction. He received 13 years at sentencing in Norfolk, 15 in Isle of Wight and 22 in Suffolk. By the time of his final sentencing, in Newport News, the recommended sentence was 30 years.

“Given the facts of the case, the sentence was grossly excessive,” said Shapiro. “And in Virginia, there is simply no other relief but a pardon for someone in this situation.”

Shapiro took on the case in 2017, and later enlisted the help of two law students, Daniel Carlisle ’19L and Jacob Robertson ’19L, to help research and assemble the pardon petition document. Carlisle recalled meeting Davis in prison and also visiting with more than a dozen of his family members who stood ready to support Davis should he be released.

“It was impressive that Ron had maintained such close ties with so many members of his family,” said Carlisle. “Most people in his situation can barely

find two people who they still have contact with outside of prison after so many years.”

The case Shapiro and the students assembled for parole was compelling. Davis had made the most of his time in prison, completing his GED and numerous skills education certificates, and had set his sights on becoming a paralegal. The parole petition contained letters from Virginia legislators who questioned the fairness of such a lengthy sentence for crimes that resulted in no injuries. One of the prosecutors in the case, Matthew Danielson of Newport News, wrote that he did not believe the sentence Davis received was just given the facts

After learning of the decision, an apoplectic Shapiro drove straight to Richmond and found the office building for the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Kelly Thomasson, whose job it is to recommend to the governor which pardon petitions to grant or deny. Shapiro was stopped in the lobby by a state trooper on guard who told him he didn’t think Thomasson was there. Shapiro convinced the trooper to send someone to her office to check, and while they waited, Shapiro told the trooper about Davis, the 80-year sentence, and the fight to have him released.

After no one came down to speak with Shapiro, the trooper took his number and said he would try to get someone to contact him. Shapiro returned to his car, and 30 minutes later received a call from the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

Sitting in his car on Broad Street in Richmond, Shapiro made his case anew, pleading for Thomasson to take another look at the file. There was a suspicion, she said, that Davis had been involved in a COVID-relief check scam that was running rampant in prisons around the country. Shapiro countered that federal authorities had investigated and decided not to prosecute. Thomasson agreed to reconsider the petition.

Just a few days later, Ronald Davis was granted a conditional pardon, with a release date of Dec. 1, 2023, over 40 years early.

of the case.

“If he were granted clemency today, he will have spent nearly twenty years…in prison. Mr. Davis has more than paid for his crimes. Justice has already been served,” wrote Danielson.

The pardon petition was submitted in May 2019, though Shapiro knew it was likely that a decision would come only towards the end of Gov. Ralph Northam’s tenure, the customary time for governors to grant such requests.

A few days before this past Christmas, Davis and Shapiro learned the petition had been denied. For Dan Carlisle, what followed was as rare as it was expected.

“Most people would have been disappointed that the decision came down that way, and that would be the end of it,” he said. “I am grateful, and I know Ron is, that Prof. Shapiro is the one who had the case.”

Nearly three years removed from working on the petition, long enough to have spent two years as a prosecutor with the Bronx district attorney’s office and to make the transition to a law firm that handles malpractice litigation, Carlisle described himself as a “very invested spectator” on the outcome of the Davis case. It highlights, for him, the problems with the criminal justice system.

“This is not a question of innocence — he committed those crimes — but to throw him away and for it to take the sympathetic ear of a state trooper and a pleading law professor the day before Christmas to convince the one person in the Commonwealth who held the entire decision in her hands…. It should never come down to that.

“Professor Shapiro saved Ron’s life. He really did.”

For Shapiro’s part, he hopes his current and future students will take away one important lesson from his role in this outcome and what it means to be a zealous advocate for a client.

“You just don’t give up. You keep going.” Summer 2022 l aw.wlu.edu

New Publications

JOSH FAIRFIELD, “Governing the Interface Between Natural and Formal Language in Smart Contracts,” UCLA Journal of Law and Technology. Fairfield examines the governance of smart contracts and the point where the natural language of contract law crosses over into the formal language of computer code. “Much of the confusion about the proper regulation of smart contracts stems from the fact that both code and law are expressed in language. Natural (human) and formal (computer) languages are profoundly different, however. Natural language in the form of a true legal contract expresses human meaning and expectation. Code simply acts, and when code acts contrary to the understanding of the parties to a contract, courts must have a theoretical and legal basis in order to intervene — which this article provides.”

JILL FRALEY, “Against Court Packing, or a Plea to Formally Amend the Constitution,” Cardozo Law Review. Fraley explores arguments for and against packing the U.S. Supreme Court, using both current views and historical examples of the practice. “The original arguments against court packing carry less weight in the current social and constitutional era. Less weight, however, implies some validity to those concerns and within those arguments is an acknowledgement that court packing comes with some risk to governmental stability. Still, the original arguments against court packing cannot be categorized as strong in the current climate. A better argument against court packing is simply that it is unlikely to be effective for any long-term informal constitutional change that is responsive to key social issues. Informal constitutional change is more clearly stable when it involves structural change rather than rights-based change. In light of this, a goal of an enduring and publicly accepted statute is more promising than court packing. A better solution is re-learning how to formally amend the constitution.”

SARAH HAAN, “Corporate Governance and the Feminization of Capital,” Stanford Law Review. Haan explores the largely forgotten history women played as corporate shareholders and details their early fights for inclusion on corporate boards. “Corporate law scholarship has never before acknowledged that the early decades of the 20th century, a transformational era in corporate law and theory, coincided with a change in the gender composition of the shareholder class. Scholars have not considered the possibility that shareholders’ gender — which was being tracked internally at companies, disclosed in annual reports, and publicly reported in the press — might have influenced business leaders’ views about corporate organization and governance.”

BRANDON HASBROUCK, “The Antiracist Constitution,” Boston University Law Review. Hasbrouck argues that Congress and the courts can, and should, apply the Constitution as it was written and intended — to promote an antiracist vision of America — and explores what an antiracist Constitution would look like in practice. “The resulting framework demonstrates the doctrinal puissance of abolition constitutionalism. Where progressive constitutionalism often struggles to justify the rights-affirming results of the Warren Court and Roe v. Wade while excluding the possibility of a return to the Lochner era, abolition constitutionalism provides a robust basis to support civil rights, including reproductive rights, while rejecting the primacy of freedom of contract.”

JIM MOLITERNO, “Introducing Students to Ethics and Professionalism Challenges in Virtual Communication,” Tennessee Journal of Business Law. Moliterno and his co-authors present a variety of exercises that introduce students to client confidentiality, inadvertent disclosure and other ethical issues that often arise in the context of virtual communication during a transaction. “As the practice of law, and the conduct of business generally, focuses increasingly on virtual communication, the ethics and professionalism challenges inherent in email, videoconference, text and telephone communication continue to evolve. These challenges are particularly prevalent in transactional practice, which involves frequent communication with a variety of parties through a variety of communication channels. Exposing law students to these challenges through exercises and simulations contributes to the continued development of their professional identity as lawyers.”

KISH PARELLA, “Contractual Stakeholderism,” Boston University Law Review. Parella examines the corporate purpose debate through the lens of contract design and harm to third parties. “When corporations act in the world, the consequences of their actions do not fall only on the corporate leaders who made the decision or the shareholders whose investments may consequently rise or fall. Instead, corporate activity has a long reach, casting a shadow over a corporation’s many stakeholders, such as employees, consumers, communities, suppliers and more. The question is: ‘Whose interests should a corporation serve?”

Elon Musk and the SEC: A Collision Between an Unstoppable Force and an Immovable Object

After several weeks of dramatic activity this April, Elon Musk appeared poised to purchase Twitter, becoming the social media giant’s sole owner. Professor Karen Woody, a corporate law expert who studies the SEC and insider trading, breaks down some of the history behind Musk’s actions and the initial controversy surrounding the takeover, even as the future of the deal remains in doubt. Twitter and Elon Musk have a bit of a history when it comes to the SEC. Can you explain how this past may have impacted what has transpired these last few weeks?

I have been tracking Musk’s entanglements with the SEC for some time, and this is not Musk’s first SEC-related issue to involve Twitter. Many will recall that back in 2018, Musk announced on Twitter that he was going to take Tesla private, using the words “funding secured” along with an apparent marijuana reference of pricing the shares at $420. People were not quite sure what was going on but saying “funding secured” is a pretty clear statement of fact — it means, “We have the money and we’re going private.” Of course, his tweet had a big impact on Tesla’s stock price, and the SEC came after Musk for a Rule 10b-5 violation because Musk had made a material misstatement of fact on behalf the company.

This dispute was eventually settled with both Musk and the company having to pay significant fines to the SEC, but the other important outcome is that the settlement agreement required a change in the governance structure at Tesla, creating a committee to review Musk’s tweets before he could send them out. Even though Musk signed this agreement, he was clearly upset by this arrangement, saying his First Amendment rights were being curtailed. He continued to say controversial things on Twitter that violated the SEC settlement agreement, and just a few months ago asked a judge to change the terms of the settlement. The judge declined. So, in some ways, it feels like the stage was set for what happened next.

Musk made headlines when it was revealed he had purchased a major stake in Twitter. What was controversial about his initial disclosure?

When Musk amassed a stake in Twitter greater than 5%, he was required to communicate that fact to the SEC through a filing. Initially, he disclosed his purchase of stocks through Schedule 13G, which is the form you use if you are planning to be a passive investor who will not attempt to exert control over the company. Musk amended his

SEC filing to Schedule 13-D the next day — indicating that he was an activist investor intending to have some say in the operation of the company. This is what really got Twitter’s — and the world’s — attention.

Most controversial was the timing of the disclosure. The SEC gives an investor 10 days — a very long window — to make this disclosure, during which time an activist investor will buy as much stock as possible before the purchase becomes public and starts to impact stock prices. Musk waited an additional 11 days to notify the SEC, during which time he amassed over 9% of Twitter stock. When this became public, Twitter stock went up in price, and Musk immediately made millions, in part because he had an extra 11 days to buy stock at a lower price than it should have been. This is not a normal foot fault and given Musk’s history with the SEC, it is unlikely they will view this as an innocent mistake. The late filing was immediately labeled an attempt at stock manipulation, and Musk is currently the target of an insider trading lawsuit filed by a Twitter shareholder as a result.

After Musk’s ownership stake — and his plan to take over the company — was revealed, what did Twitter do to try to block Musk’s bid?

There is no question Musk is a major player on the platform with a lot to say about how he thinks it should work. So, Twitter first tried to keep him from amassing a bigger stake and to protect the company by giving him a seat on the board. That lasted one day. I think Musk realized he would be constrained by the fiduciary duties that come with board memberships — you can’t say bad things about the company that might harm its value if you are on the board. So, he resigned the board position and announced his intention to gain control of the company outright with a hostile takeover bid, making an above market-value offer on the company. This of course put the board in a tough spot. The directors are charged with protecting the company’s future but also with maximizing shareholder wealth. What grounds would they have to reject Musk’s offer if it would make shareholders a lot of money? On the other hand, I think the board had a pretty good defense that Musk’s mercurial

nature and his ability to manipulate markets just by tweeting constitutes a real threat to the stability of the company. Be that as it may, the board’s next response was a so-called “poison pill” defense, in this case flooding the market with Twitter shares to make it harder for anyone, including Musk, to buy enough shares to gain control of the company.

What ultimately compelled the board to accept Musk’s offer to buy the company?

I imagine the Twitter board realized they were not going to outrun Musk. He has limitless funds, and is not a typical, or even rational, buyer. He is used to getting what he wants even if he will overpay. There remains a viable argument that the direction he will take the company is not in its best interest, but it seems the board did not want to take on that likely endless fight.

Is there anything in the history of M&A or corporate takeovers that is comparable to what we are seeing with Twitter and Musk?

There are a few unique characteristics with this purchase. One is that Musk is buying the company individually. This implicates his position and role with Tesla, SpaceX and his other ventures because it begs the question about whether he will be able to take on the job at Twitter. In addition, the personal nature of the buyout is different from Musk’s peers when they have ventured into other areas. For example, when Jeff Bezos acquired The Washington Post, as well as Whole Foods, those were acquisitions done by Amazon, not Bezos personally. Another unique characteristic about this particular scenario is the fact that Twitter itself is fairly unique as one of the most popular social media platforms. There are implications for the millions of users, as well as intense ethical issues regarding access to information and free speech. There certainly were people who were concerned when Bezos bought a preeminent newspaper in Washington; buying Twitter is much bigger than the Washington Post. This seems like another example of an amount of money available to only a few individuals on the planet who nonetheless are able to control the activities of the masses.

Bootleggers and Aliens

Phil Brown ’85L blends history and science fiction in his inaugural novel “It Gives You Strength.”

BY JEFF HANNA

fantasy” while another labeled it “Starman meets Boardwalk Empire.”

Even Brown can’t say exactly how he made the leap from the 19th Amendment to aliens.

“I wanted to make the book as historically accurate as I could, but I also wanted a unique hook of mixing historical facts with fictional characters,” he said. “Then I needed some literary device to mix it all together and landed on the alien rescue mission angle. I always loved science fiction, but I’m no expert of the genre.”

Clearly, Brown wanted to entertain his readers with the mobster shootouts and boxing matches. He also wanted to call attention to some of the more obscure history he’d uncovered. For example, he became intrigued by the Craig Colony for Epileptics and used the facility as the location where the alien princess was captive. Until he started his research, Brown had never heard of the Craig Colony but found its practices hard to imagine.

visiting an inmate on death row at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center.

“I was 24; he was 19 or 20. It was an astounding experience. It might have been the first client contact I’d ever had, and I’m on death row talking to this young guy who’s asking me questions and I’m doing my best to answer them,” Brown said. “I always thought back over my years of practice that having someone who’s handling his first criminal case in that situation was a real failure of our legal profession.”

From Richmond, Brown moved to Reid & Priest in New York City for six years before relocating to Hawaii in 1993. He worked at two of the biggest Honolulu firms before opening his office in 1997. He built a thriving practice that was still going strong when he closed up shop and moved to Colorado.

“We have four kids,” said Brown, “and we wanted to spend some time with them.”

SHORTLY AFTER PHIL BROWN ’85L retired from his successful boutique litigation practice in Honolulu, Hawaii, and moved to Durango, Colorado, he sat down to do something he’d always wanted to do — write a novel.

If Brown had followed the standard advice given to aspiring writers to write what they know, you might have expected him to pen a legal thriller à la John Grisham or Scott Turow. After all, he had 32 years’ worth of plot lines to choose from.

Even his wife wondered if that wouldn’t be the logical way to go.

“I told her that it’s like someone who’s come back from Vietnam, and they say, ’I don’t want to talk about it.’ That’s how I felt,” Brown said. “I was involved in some pretty horrible cases during my career, from a death penalty case in Richmond to some knock-down, drag-out trials in Hawaii. By the time I was done with my career, I was tired.”

Initially, Brown planned to write a history of bootlegging in upstate New York in the 1920’s. His grandfather had been a prominent bootlegger in that region and was, Brown said, something of a hero to his family. As he became immersed in the research, Brown kept stumbling across historical oddities that sent him off in tangents. Before long, his project morphed into a novel, which is equal parts historical fiction, science fiction and fantasy.

“It Gives You Strength” is set in New York during prohibition and features a cast of fictional characters who interact with such notable historical figures as mobster Jack “Legs” Diamond, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, and even World War I heroine Edith Cavell. Leading the cast of fictional characters and turning the novel on its head is an alien scientist on a rescue mission to earth. The alien winds up inhabiting the dying body of a bootlegger and lands in the middle of a turf war over the lucrative Canada to New York smuggling market.

One reviewer described Brown’s novel as a “rip-roaring blend of space opera, history, and

“It was about the time of the eugenics movement, and certain doctors decided that to protect people with seizures from bigotry they would create ‘safe havens’ for them,” Brown explained. “In fact, they were held like prisoners and the doctors didn’t have a good idea of how to control the seizures. I was determined to bring this history to light. Any time I’m asked to talk about the book, I tell people to Google the Craig Colony.”

Brown received his undergraduate degree in history and political science from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. His mother had put lawyering in his head when he was 11 or 12 years old. Brown said he was able to pursue that career because W&L offered him a generous scholarship.

“I came from modest means and would have never been able to go to law school without the unbelievable scholarship,” Brown said. “I never would have been able to do the things I’ve done in my life had it not been for that, and I’m grateful to Washington and Lee.”

Then COVID hit. His wife, Dr. Sarah Brown, a Harvard-trained physician specializing in internal medicine, was on the front lines of the pandemic battle in Durango. While she was at the hospital, Brown was locked down at home, where he

At W&L, Brown was a member of the Jessup International Moot Court Team, and he also performed in the University Theatre in W&L playwright Tom Zeigler’s play, “Love Poems”. He always intended to be a litigator. Though he won a book award for criminal law from Professor Bill Geimer and had a 4.0 in criminal procedure with Professor Roger Groot, his only experience in criminal law was at the outset of his career.

He had started with Hunton & Williams in Richmond after graduation and was volunteering with the Virginia Coalition Against the Death Penalty, where he had several memorable experiences. He can still recall many of the details of

immersed himself in the world he’d created full of aliens and bootleggers.

A year after “It Gives You Strength” appeared, Brown published his second novel, “Harvesting Earthlings for Fun and Profit,” and he’s now beginning a third, which would round out a planned trilogy. He has other projects in mind, and he hasn’t given up on writing about the law.

His first novel does include one brief but pointed reference to the legal profession. When a lawyer informs a gang of killers that they won’t be getting paid, they respond: “What do you expect from a lawyer? He’s a liar. You’re a liar!”

“I did want to show how absurdly lawyers are treated by a distrusting public,” said Brown, “even when that public is a gang of mass murderers.”

“I wanted to make the book as historically accurate as I could, but I also wanted a unique hook of mixing historical facts with fictional characters.”

Running to the Fire

As global head of litigation for 3M, Courtney Enloe ’97L is never bored. And that’s

way she likes it.

BY JEFF HANNA

they just never had them. I have been solicited. The head of 3M’s litigation has been solicited.”

Although N95 litigation began tapering off by early 2022, Enloe’s plate remained full. Indeed, she picked up additional responsibilities as reflected in her current title: senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief antitrust, environmental health and safety, labor and employment, litigation, and mergers and acquisitions counsel.

Clearly, she’s not going to be bored, which is a good thing since it’s why she chose the law in the first place. As a high school student in Nashville, Tennessee, she began to consider a career in law because she thought the fast pace would suit her.

“More than anything,” she said, “I hate to be bored. I hate it.”

She majored in political science and English literature at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama and was trying to choose between law school or working on Capitol Hill when she spent a summer working on the Hill. That experience caused her to give politics “a hard pass.” She chose W&L Law over multiple other schools.

Enloe clerked for Judge James E. Massey on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Atlanta before joining Holland & Knight in Atlanta, where she had the rare opportunity as a junior attorney to first-chair a pro bono product liability case. She credits the trial advocacy class she took at W&L with helping prepare her.

“To get up in front of random people you don’t know is one thing; doing that in front of your peers who are taking notes and critiquing you is really scary,” she said. “At the lunch we had with Justice Kennedy, he recommended to pour a glass of water before every presentation. He said if you can do that, you’ll be Oklahoma. I always pour a glass of water.”

COURTNEY ENLOE ’97L DOES NOT SHY away from a challenge.

“I lean pretty competitive,” said Enloe, a litigator for more than two decades. “There are many things you can do as a lawyer, and I suspect that personality plays into where you land. There are people who run to the fire and people who run away from the fire. You need both, but I think litigators run to the fire.”

Throughout her career, Enloe has fought plenty of fires in her role, perhaps none more widely publicized as her recent work as global head of litigation for the 3M Company.

Shortly after Enloe was recruited to 3M in 2017, the company became embroiled in the largest multi-district litigation in U.S. history over Combat Arms earplugs.

When COVID hit in 2020, the pandemic led to the sudden, urgent demand for 3M’s N95 respirators, generally considered to be the gold standard for protection against coronavirus. Predictably, that demand produced an outbreak of counterfeiters and scammers, which led, in turn, to litigation.

Enloe said that in the early days of the pandemic 3M began hearing about fraudulent schemes in which, for instance, a hospital procurement director might be offered millions of 3M respirators at exorbitant rates. The trouble was, the masks didn’t yet exist in the quantities that scammers were offering.

“We reached out to all the governors and all the state procurement officers to tell them how to spot fraud,” said Enloe, noting that some counterfeits, like those labeled “3N,” were easier to detect than others. But counterfeiters became more sophisticated and brazen as the pandemic progressed.

“It was absolutely appalling,” said Enloe. “Early on when nobody knew exactly what COVID was, health care workers were using respirators and assuming that they had the protection they needed. Absolute scoundrels were taking advantage of the situation. These people should be in jail.”

As Enloe told the New York Times, “The typical scheme is somebody will reach out and say we need $X million up front for Y stash of respirators, and

“Like a lot of people, I just fell in love with the place. I loved the setting. I loved the people. I loved the low student-faculty ratio. I loved everything,” she said. “I thought the smaller size would mean I’d get more focus, which turned out to be true.”

When she started at W&L, Enloe thought she might want to be a corporate lawyer. Competing in the Davis Moot Court Competition as a 2L was a turning point. The Moot Court case that year was based on the ongoing U.S. suit to force VMI to admit women. One of four finalists, she was assigned to argue in favor of allowing women. A sizeable number of VMI students were in attendance for the final argument.

“It was a little intimidating,” Enloe admitted. Enloe won the competition. The win came with a bonus: a classmate who knew Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy arranged for the Moot Court winners to hear the VMI case argued at the court.

“It was an amazing experience. We listened to the argument and had lunch with Justice Kennedy in his chambers,” said Enloe. “To the extent that I hadn’t already solidified my view that I wanted to be a litigator, that experience locked it in.”

Enloe, who served as chair of the Moot Court Board as a 3L, can’t choose a single class that stands out during her W&L career.

After three years with Holland & Knight and three more with Alston & Bird, she was recruited for an in-house position, something she had never planned. In 2004, she joined EarthLink Internet as senior counsel and went to Georgia-Pacific LLC as senior litigation counsel in 2006. At Georgia-Pacific, she led the company’s successful appeal of an adverse decision by the Ninth Circuit to the Supreme Court. She has vivid memories of that experience, partly because the case was unfolding while she was pregnant with her second child.

“He was six weeks old when we went for oral arguments, and I had to go in an ill-fitting suit. But I wasn’t going to miss it,” she said, adding that winning the appeal in Georgia-Pacific West, Inc. v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center was one of the best moments of her legal career.

From Georgia-Pacific, Enloe went to San Francisco to join McKesson Corporation, the largest healthcare company in the nation. She hadn’t considered another move when 3M called. Plus, she had no intention of living in Minnesota.

“It seemed cold. It is cold,” she said. But the lure of such an iconic company like 3M was strong, and weather notwithstanding, she has not regretted the decision.

“3M has a little of everything. You’re never more than three feet away from any product we make, and I’ve come to love all the science that’s involved. I’m surrounded by science here,” she said. “I’m meeting with engineers and with scientists, and Nobel Prize winners are walking around the office. It’s incredible.”

In March, Enloe received recognition for her accomplishments as a leader in 3M when she was named a finalist in the Legal category for the WeQual Awards, which celebrate the achievements of women globally and tackle the need for diversity and equality in leadership positions in the world’s largest companies.

Enloe oversees a 50 to 60-person in-house team, and one of her goals is not to be “the office of no” and not always providing the most conservative answers while helping find the best path forward so the business can reach its goals.

“My husband, Chris ’93L (currently in compliance for Pentair) and I were talking about this recently and agreed that more than any one class, the overall quality of faculty is what stood out,” she said. She had special praise for healthcare classes she took with Emerita Professor Ann Massie, whom she considered a mentor. She loved a bankruptcy class because it was “part litigation, part transactional,” and applied for clerkships with bankruptcy judges thinking that might be her ultimate direction.

“There’s risk with everything,” she said, “but if you don’t take some risk, you’ll never leave your house, and you won’t grow as a company.”

Enloe knows about risk. Litigation is a high-risk, high-reward job, she said. And she loves it.

“One thing I always ask my team is this — ‘What excites you?’” said Enloe. “In the end I think you find yourself. You should do what you love.”

the

“If you don’t take some risk, you’ll never leave your house, and you won’t grow as a company.”

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Education Elevators

Allison McJunkin ’04L helps kids take flight through mentoring program.

BY JEFF HANNA

In 2007, she left her job to serve as constituency director for the Obama campaign in West Virginia. When she returned to Chicago, McJunkin opened her own firm, The McJunkin Law Firm, specializing in employment law and civil rights violations. She was also preparing to get a master’s degree in counseling.

“I was doing a lot of employment discrimination work, which I enjoyed,” she said. “But I often felt helpless because most of my clients didn’t have the war chest needed to go up against big employers.”

Her life and career took an unexpected turn in 2011 when her father died of cancer. During the four years he’d battled cancer, Tom McJunkin had enlisted his colleagues at Jackson Kelly to serve as mentors with students at Piedmont Elementary School, where he’d volunteered in the Read Aloud program for two decades. Working with the school principal, Tom McJunkin arranged for attorneys and staff from Jackson Kelly to work one-on-one with Piedmont students during lunch or other free time. He called it JKEEP — Jackson Kelly Education Elevators Program.

with nine schools and almost 100 kids, including some middle schoolers.

EE’s success is measured by more than the increase in participants, according to Jace Goins ’89, an attorney with Steptoe & Johnson PLLC. Goins has volunteered to mentor at-risk students at Mary C. Snow Elementary School since 2018. He’s also on the EE board.

“I think that the program’s impact is well-documented in terms of the positive effect it has on the children’s self-esteem, emotional health and academic performance,” said Goins ’89. “Many of these kids have no good role models at home, so having even limited interaction with an EE mentor is really helpful. For example, one of the first things I told my student, a sixth grader, this year was that when he meets someone, to greet him or her with a firm handshake and look him or her in the eye. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone had told him that before.”

McJunkin cited a litany of challenges the program’s students are facing.

ALLISON MCJUNKIN ’04L WAS IN A quandary. She’d graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1999 and was working as a paralegal for a civil rights law firm in Washington. She was loving the experience but couldn’t decide whether she loved it enough to make a career out of the law.

“I wanted to do something that made a difference. But I also wanted a family and was worried about juggling that with the long hours that most lawyers worked.”

As she wrestled with the decision, McJunkin turned to her lawyer/dad who promised her that law school would give her the confidence, competence and credibility to do anything she wanted in life.

So she took her father’s advice and followed in his footsteps by enrolling at the W&L School of Law. Her dad, the late Thomas N. McJunkin ’70, ’74L, was a distinguished W&L alumnus, a member of the university’s board of trustees, and an esteemed attorney with the Charleston, West Virginia, firm, Jackson Kelly P.L.L.C.

McJunkin thrived in the W&L environment. She loved everything: the classes, the professors, the camaraderie with classmates. She loved sitting in the front row of Professor Brian Murchison’s American Public Law class, listening to vivid descriptions of the Constitution being trampled. She loved small group sessions with Professor Emeritus Ann MacLean Massie who encouraged robust discussions about important topics.

“We had very diverse viewpoints on lots of issues in those small classes,” she said.

“I really enjoyed the healthy banter. We don’t get to do that very often these days. Now there’s just a lot of unhealthy banter. Or there’s no banter at all.”

At W&L, McJunkin was president of the Public Interest Law Students Association and staff writer for the Race and Ethnic Ancestry Law Journal. She represented the law school at the National Legal Aid and Defender Association Conference. For her commitment to issues impacting the public interest, she won the Calhoun Bond University Service Award, given to the graduating student who made the most significant contribution to the University Community.

Following graduation, she joined Lehrer & Redleaf, a public interest law firm in Chicago, then switched to a civil litigation defense firm, Rusin Maciorowski & Friedman, to gain more experience.

Although Allison McJunkin was aware of her father’s activities and of his passion for the role education plays in everyone’s life, she didn’t know all the details of what he’d created. Then, in the early fall of 2011, McJunkin traveled to Charleston from Denver where she and her husband, Ken, had moved and where she was still running her law firm.

“When his condition started to get worse, I flew home to visit my dad. I kept thinking about his passion for JKEEP and on a whim I googled it. A video popped up of these kids talking about how important the program was for them, and I thought, ‘Gosh, I should talk to my dad more about this,’ she said. “By the time I got there, he was in hospice and no longer able to speak.”

“West Virginia is the state with the highest number of kids going into the foster care system,” said McJunkin. “It has the highest number of grandparents or aunts or uncles raising kids. You have poverty on top of that, and then there is the opioid epidemic. Now we are dealing with Covid and its far reaching implications. These kids really need the kind of support the Elevators provide, just by sitting with them and reading a book or playing a game.

“If you can pique their curiosity, if you can get them excited about the future, if you can help them see that there is a future, then you have an opportunity to get them on the right track and keep them there.”

Tom McJunkin died on Oct. 8. He was 62. The visitation was held at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences of West Virginia where the crowd included dozens of students and teachers from Piedmont Elementary.

“The smiling faces of those kids stuck with me,” said McJunkin, who decided then she needed to keep the program alive and expand its reach.

With funds given in her father’s name, McJunkin established Education Elevators (EE) as a formal 501(c) (3), created a board of directors, and sought partnerships between other Charleston businesses and schools. In her 10 years as Executive Director, EE has grown from one business paired with one school and a few students to 10 businesses paired

McJunkin said her father deliberately chose “Elevators” rather than “mentors” because his goal was to elevate students’ aspirations.

“My dad saw this program, and we continue to see it, as helping lift kids up, helping them see the world from a different perspective,” said McJunkin. “His office was on the 18th floor of a building in downtown Charleston, and I always think about the perspective you see from the ground floor versus how it felt to take this elevator up and have a birds’ eye perspective. That’s what we provide.”

In 2016 McJunkin was named a “Woman on Mission” by Union Mission Ministries of West Virginia for consistently dedicating her time, resources, talents and heart to help others. McJunkin acknowledged that she is, indeed, on a mission — a mission to see that as many kids as possible have an Elevator and a mission to sustain her dad’s vision.

McJunkin continues to live in Denver with her husband and their daughter, McKenzie, 8. She administers the program with the help of five coordinators on the ground in Charleston. She’s able to maintain the relationships she’s established with the business partners and to pursue new partners to expand the program.

“I think my dad knew where law school would eventually lead me, even if I didn’t,” McJunkin said. “After all, he was my original Elevator.”

“West Virginia is the state with the highest number of kids going into the foster care system.”

CLASS UPDATES AND SUCCESS STORIES

Leading the Virginia Bar Association

The Virginia Bar Association is the state’s largest voluntary professional association, with a membership of over 4,000 lawyers, judges and law students. This year, the VBA is benefitting from the leadership of W&L Law graduates across its senior positions.

PAUL FLETCHER ’85L EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Fletcher was named executive director in 2021. Prior to his appointment with the VBA, Fletcher was publisher and editorin-chief of Virginia Lawyers Weekly, a role he has held since 1989.

“One of my main goals is to position the VBA for success in the post-COVID world of law practice. There have been many changes — from technology to client relations to how courts do business — and it’s important to keep up with those new twists and turns. I’m working on a big project that will help there — our Practice Management Advisor program. It covers many of the areas that lawyers in firms of all sizes can use some assistance — technology, HR and personnel, work-life balance, marketing and ethics.”

1971L

The Omicron Delta Kappa Society and Educational Foundation Board of Trustees (ODK) awarded the Hon. Paul Trible, the president of Christopher Newport University, the 2021 Laurel Crowned Circle Award, the highest honor bestowed by the national leadership honor society, in recognition of his being an outstanding American who exemplifies the society’s ideals of collaboration, inclusivity, integrity, scholarship and service.

1977L

After 15 years trying cases on the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, the Hon. Pamela J. White has retired from active service. In senior status, she will continue with certain civil docket assignments and service on statewide judiciary committees prioritizing access to justice initiatives. Pam and Susan are also planning multiple trips among national parks.

VICTOR CARDWELL ’87L PRESIDENT

This year, Cardwell was elected the 134th president of the VBA and the first Black lawyer to hold this position. He is principal and chair of the board of directors of Woods Rogers. He co-chairs of the firm’s law and employment Law section and practices labor and employment law throughout the U.S.

“My goal as president is to make the organization more accessible to as many lawyers as possible, no matter their background, practice field or location in Virginia. I have worked to staff the DEI committee with people who are committed to the VBA and to sharing their experience to a wider array of lawyers. Other programs, such as the Practice Management Advisor program and President-Elect Ben Leigh’s desire to increase the benefits to small firms, are other ways to appeal to lawyers who may not currently belong.”

RYAN SNOW ’01L CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Snow is an attorney at Crenshaw, Ware & Martin PLC in Norfolk, where he served as managing partner from 2012–20. He handles high-stakes litigation with a focus on complex business disputes. He successfully argued one of the seminal financial-tracing cases in the Virginia Supreme Court and was co-counsel in one of the largest patent trials in Norfolk federal court.

“Technically speaking, I preside at all meetings of the board of governors and work with the other board members to advance the goals of the VBA. Practically speaking, I support Victor and Paul. Their leadership is taking us to the next level. I’m really proud that all three of us took the same road through Lexington to get here.”

1979L

Peter Strasser is an anti-corruption consultant for the government of Mongolia.

1981L

Kathy Fenton Kronau retired from the Prosperity Group in Roanoke.

Charles W. Miller III has joined Hinshaw & Culbertson’s New Jersey and New York offices as a partner in the consumer financial services practice group.

Carolyn Saffold Wilson retired from Womble Bond Dickenson after 40 years of practice as a real estate and finance lawyer. She started as the first female lawyer at a small law firm in Atlanta, which later became a part of the regional firm Womble Carlyle, now Womble Bond Dickenson operating in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

1982L

Craig K. Morris retired from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Lizanne Thomas joined board of directors of RS&H’s, a national architecture, engineering, and environmental services consulting firm headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. Thomas is a partner at Jones Day in its Atlanta offices, where she leads the law firm’s global corporate governance practice.

1984L

R. Craig Wood retired from McGuire Woods at the end of 2021.

1990L

Jeanne A. Hamrick received the AARP New Mexico 2021 Andrus Award for Community Service. The award is given annually to the volunteer who, over the course of the year, best exemplifies the spirit of AARP’s founder Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus and her motto of “To serve, not to be served.”

1991L

Charles K. Grant, a shareholder in the Nashville office of Baker Donelson, has been appointed by the

Supreme Court of Tennessee to serve on its board of professional responsibility.

1992L

The Hon. Rama G. Elluru joined Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington, D.C., as senior director of research and analysis.

Christopher Hagenow joined Tuohy Bailey & Moore as a partner in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1993L

Indrajit B. Majumder joined Frost Brown Todd in Dallas as a partner.

Michael S. Roe joined International Flavors & Fragrances in New York as vice president of corporate legal.

1995L

Cathy Greenebaum Borten joined the facilities law group of the U.S. Postal Service.

William Toles (’92) joined Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr in Dallas as a partner and focuses on tort litigation,

ranging from negligence and transportation matters to complex premises liability, Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as commercial and contractual dispute litigation.

1996L

Michael H. Spencer was promoted to chief counsel and chief compliance officer at Rimini Street in Las Vegas.

1997L

Francis M. Hamilton III was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

John J. Louizos joined Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin & Kuriansky in Stamford, Connecticut, as a partner and focuses on commercial law, corporate and real estate.

1998L

Marc Nichols was appointed chief counsel of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration by President Joe Biden.

1999L

Matthew Young (’96) was promoted to partner at Pryor Cashman in New York City.

2000L

Benjamin Horowicz and Elizabeth Curtis Horowicz ’00L have relocated to Richmond Hill, Georgia, near Savannah. Beth continues to work for PayPal remotely, and Ben is a principal with Miles & Stockbridge working remotely, with occasional trips to District Of Columbia.

2001L

Ross S. Goldstein was promoted to assistant director at the U.S. Department of Justice, Consumer Protection Branch, in Washington, D.C.

2002L

Stacy Smith Gray joined Carolina Tractor and Equipment Co. in Charlotte, North Carolina, as vice president, general counsel and secretary.

Tara J. Mooney joined Ford & Richardson’s Northern Virginia office as an attorney and will focus on white collar criminal defense, civil litigation, employment law and workers’ compensation matters.

2003L

Anthony M. Briggs Jr. joined Accenture in Washington, D.C., as intellectual property counsel.

2004L

C. Daniel Atkinson formed the firm of Wilkes, Atkinson & Joyner in Spartanburg and Charleston, South Carolina. He is a litigator, practicing construction law, professional negligence defense, aviation law, business law and insurance law. He was reelected to a second term on the board of directors of the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association.

Michael L. Lawhead joined Nixon Peabody in Los Angeles as a corporate and securities partner.

F. Paul Pittman was promoted to partner with White & Case in Washington, D.C.

2005L

Luder F. Milton joined AppleCredit in San Francisco as general counsel and chief compliance officer. He works remotely from the Louisville, Kentucky, area.

Nathaniel C. Parker joined the Stam Law Firm in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area as counsel and focuses on land use and real estate litigation.

Luis E. Rivera II was appointed to Florida Gulf Coast University’s board of trustees by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Virginia E. Robinson joined Tlingit Haida Tribal Business

Corp. as deputy general counsel.

Meghan Morgan Ruel joined the Pilot Co. as head of privacy and legal retail operations in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Christopher Anthony Vrettos joined Cumberland Litigation in Nashville as an attorney.

Nathan C. Weinert joined Maynard Cooper & Gale in Birmingham as a shareholder in the real estate and financial services group.

2006L

Janssen E. Evelyn is of counsel with Baker Donelson in Baltimore.

Shannon Borromeo Goldsmith joined Experian in Omaha, Nebraska, as corporate counsel.

2007L

Brandon D. Almond was promoted to partner with Troutman Pepper in Washington, D.C.

Dawn M. Davison joined the Mortimer Caplin Public Service Center at the University of Virginia School of Law as a director of public service.

T.J. Maas serves as general counsel at MFO Group, of counsel at Odom & Des Roches, and partner at The Law Office of Thomas J. Maas in Chicago.

Yousri H. Omar was promoted to director and AGC – Business Conduct and Ethics at Amazon in Seattle.

2008L

G. Robert McCormick Jr. joined Moses & Stringer in New York City as a partner.

Erin A. Willoughby was promoted to managing attorney at Atlanta Legal Aid Society in Atlanta.

2009L

Nicholas V. Albu is the owner and chief litigation counsel at The Albu Law Offices in Leesburg, Virginia, where he represents privately held companies and individuals in high-stakes litigation.

Leigh Anne Faugust was promoted to managing attorney, Office of the General Counsel at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in Washington, D.C.

Karthik Nagarajan joined RTI International in Washington, D.C., as senior counsel and head of international affairs.

2010L

Brian L. Bell was promoted to staff director, U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Aviation Subcommittee, in Washington, D.C.

Joshua B. Cannon was promoted to assistant general counsel at DigiCert in Salt Lake City.

Victoria V. Corder was promoted to partner at Norton Rose Fulbright in New York. She focuses on complex commercial disputes involving

breaches of contract, fraud and business torts.

Brittani Nichols Cushman was named one of the High Times Top 100. She is senior vice president, general counsel and secretary at Turning Point Brands Inc.

Eli C. Gottlieb joined Kinsale Insurance in Richmond as claims counsel.

Meredith Brebner Haynes was promoted to partner with Williams Mullen in Richmond. She focuses on complex commercial litigation, government investigations and administrative proceedings.

Patrick T. O’Brien joined Capital Crypto Currency Law Center as a partner.

Elizabeth C. Roache joined Fenwick & West in New York City as knowledge management attorney, litigation.

John E. Thomas was promoted to partner at McGuireWoods in McLean, Virginia. He focuses on labor and employment.

2011L

Fadil Mamoun Bayyari joined Ice Miller as of counsel in Washington, D.C. He focuses on complex business transactions.

Amanda Streff Bonner was promoted to partner at Mayer Brown in Chicago.

Christina O. Hud is an assistant U.S. attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of New Jersey. She specializes in health care fraud investigations and prosecutions. She has also served on the Office’s Intern Committee for several years, through which she has retained and worked with numerous W&L Law students as interns over the years.

Jennifer Nguyen Lee was promoted to managing counsel, intellectual property and asset development and delivery at McKinsey & Company in New York City.

Rachel Vargo Rosetti was promoted to director, legal and counsel at Ultimate Kronos Group in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Lindsay Hitz Thomas was promoted to partner at King & Spalding in Washington, D.C.

Robert M. Vrana was promoted to partner at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor in Wilmington, Deleware.

2012L

Avalon J. Frey joined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., as a partner.

2013L

Joseph D. Antel joined Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hamilton as an antitrust attorney in Washington, D.C. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Cristina Becker joined the Federal Defender’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia as an assistant federal public defender.

Michael P. Bombace serves as general counsel for Jet

ON THE RUN

Several alumni participated in W&L’s Generally Fit virtual 5K run/walk.

Submit a class note: colonnadeconnections. wlu.edu or lawweb@wlu.edu

Michael A. Gould ’84L on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Whit Rayner ’86L and his daughter, Martha, in Madison, Mississippi.

Nathan Weinert ’05L in Birmingham, Alabama.

Protocol, a firm building a decentralized borrowing and lending protocol on the Solana Blockchain. He taught the E-commerce Practicum for Professor Josh Fairfield in the spring of 2022; additionally, he will teach a seminar in the fall of 2022, The Law of Financial Technology.

Christopher Edwards joined Coinbase in Washington, D.C. as public policy counsel.

Jennifer M. Hendricks joined Stryker in San Diego as senior manager legal counsel in employment.

Kellen S. Lavin joined Capital One in New York City as director and assistant general counsel.

Brandt H. Stitzer was promoted to partner at Hirschler Fleischer in Richmond.

2014L

R. Patrick Bolling was promoted to principal with Woods Rogers in Lynchburg. He focuses on labor and employment and e-discovery. Bolling served as an adjunct professor at the W&L Law teaching E-Discovery this past spring.

Maigreade B. Burrus was promoted to partner at Bailey Glasser in Charleston, West Virginia.

Michael Carrah Jr. was promoted to manager, legal and risk, at Naval Federal

Financial Group in Washington, D.C.

Kyle A. Dolinsky joined Troutman Pepper in Philadelphia as a health sciences attorney.

David S. Freeman joined Lighthouse Lab Services in Charlotte, North Carolina, as senior legal counsel.

Candice Lanez Furnald joined Akerman in New York City as a real estate associate.

David A. Hurst joined Divvy Homes in Phoenix as capital markets attorney.

Amy T. Johnson was promoted to partner with Lewis Brisbois in Denver. She focuses on litigation defense for the transportation and trucking industries.

Narges Kahvazadeh joined Morrison & Foerster in San Diego as an associate in the national security practice group.

Christopher J. McDonald joined Williams Mullen in Richmond as director of government relations.

Chrishon A. McManus joined Allspring Global Investments, a spinoff of Wells Fargo Asset Management, as counsel in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Kathryn E. Peterson was named a 2021 Top Lobbyist by the National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics. She serves as partner and general counsel at Merchant McIntyre & Associates in Washington, D.C.

Honorable Mentions

Virginia Lane Stitzer was promoted to partner at Troutman Sanders in Richmond.

2015L

Henry A. Andrews was listed in “Best Lawyer: Ones to Watch” in the areas of commercial litigation and construction litigation in the 2022 edition of The Best Lawyers in America.

Jonathan L. Caulder joined Capital One in Richmond as a senior manager, senior counsel.

Sarah E. Curry was promoted to partner, capital markets group, at Kirkland & Ellis in New York City.

Elizabeth J. Flachsbart was promoted to partner with Balch & Bingham in Birmingham, Alabama. Her practice focuses on general commercial litigation.

Zachary D. Furnald joined Lowenstein Sandler in New York City as an investment management attorney.

Ashley Hart joined Flora Pettit in Charlottesville as a litigation associate.

Risa Katz-Albert joined Old Dominion Freight Lines as counsel, privacy and contracts, in Roanoke.

Jessica Girvan Marfut joined Paul Hastings in Washington, D.C., as an associate.

Danny R. Nappier was promoted to partner with Kirkland & Ellis in Dallas.

Jasmine Brooks Redd joined Texas Tech University System in Lubbock, Texas, as an equal employment opportunity compliance associate.

Sean T. Twomey joined DLA Piper in New York City as an associate in its structured finance group.

2016L

Ashley N. Barendse joined Robbins Law Group in Washington, D.C., as an attorney.

Scott W. Burton joined the labor and employment practice group at Hunton Andrews Kurth in Washington, D.C., as an associate.

Jacob J. Ventura joined Ropes & Gray in Boston as an associate in the private capital transactions practice group.

2017L

Christian B. Addison started Addison Sports & Entertainment in Charleston, South Carolina, providing representation throughout sports, entertainment and NIL.

Maureen A. Edobor joined the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, as counsel.

Carl Krausnick III joined Baker Donelson in Memphis as an associate.

Amanda Lyons-Archambault joined Krasner Law as a law clerk. Her practice focuses on family law.

William C. Simmerson joined Eversheds Sutherland in Washington, D.C., as an associate, with a focus on energy law.

2018L

W. Watts Burks IV joined Woods Rogers in Roanoke as an associate attorney.

Matthew C. Donahue joined Shook Hardy & Bacon in San Francisco as an associate attorney.

Thomas W. Griffin III joined McAfee and Taft in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, as an associate attorney.

Anna R. Moir joined the National Association of College and University Attorneys in Washington, D.C., as assistant director of legal resources.

Ben S. Nye joined Bressler, Amery & Ross in Birmingham, Alabama, as an associate.

Taylor D. Rafaly was promoted to trial counsel with the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Michael S. Brown joined the Air Force as an assistant staff judge advocate in Charleston, South Carolina.

Several alumni joined Joseph S. Michael ’91L for his investiture as associate judge for the Circuit Court of Washington County, Maryland. From l. to r.: John E. McCann ’91L, J. Amy G. Dillard ’91L, the Hon. Joseph S. Michael ’91L, the Hon. M. Kenneth Long Jr. ’69, Loren R. Villa ’02L, the Hon. R. Noel Spence ’56, the Hon. John H Tisdale ’74L and the Hon. Richard Sandy ’89L.

From l. to r.: Conrad Garcia ’97L, Chuck James ’99L and Matt Cheek ’99L have gone on to build successful careers together at Williams Mullen law firm, along with 20 fellow W&L Law alumni who have also joined the Williams Mullen family. Chuck is on the firm’s board of directors and is chair of the AOC Initiative; Conrad is chair of the firm’s tax & estates section and is on the board of directors; Matt is chair of the firm’s financial services & real estate section.

Elizabeth Garcia ’98L was sworn in as the chief clerk of the Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Jill Coffindaffer McCook ’07L was sworn in as a U.S. magistrate judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

2019L

J. Travers Clark joined Akerman in Washington, D.C., as an associate.

Zachary T. Crawford-Pechukas joined the Innocence Project in New Orleans as a staff attorney.

Timur R. Dikec joined national litigation firm Hawkins Parnell & Young in Charleston, West Virginia. He defends companies in complex products liability and toxic tort litigation.

Alex W. Shoaf joined Haltzman Law Firm in Fort Collins, Colorado, as an attorney, with a focus on criminal defense.

Maj. J. David Thompson moved to Stuttgart, Germany, to work on U.S. humanitarian and civil-military strategy for Africa. He also teaches a virtual master’s of arts course at University of Kansas titled Humanitarian Action – Law & Policy, which explores international humanitarian law, U.S. law and U.S. policies toward humanitarian assistance, refugees and the law of armed conflict.

2020L

Andrew S. Aitken joined Fidelity National Financial in Jacksonville, Florida, as associate claims counsel.

Austin K. Cano joined the Frederick County attorney’s office in Rockville, Maryland, as assistant county attorney.

Luke S. Charette joined Gunderson Dettmer as an associate in Boston.

John A. Dorsey joined Blankingship & Keith in Fairfax as an associate.

Ashley E. Duckworth joined Avelino Law in Morristown, New Jersey, as an associate.

Robert Luke Graham joined Tittle Law Group in Dallas/

Fort Worth as an associate attorney.

Mahalia S. Hall joined Hawkins Parnell & Young in Atlanta as an associate.

Courtney T. Iverson joined Paduano & Weintraub in New York City as an associate.

George J. Y. Liang joined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles as an associate attorney.

Jordan T. Lusk joined Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in Washington, D.C., as a fund finance attorney.

Madison Peace Nye joined the Supreme Court of Alabama as a law clerk.

Giancarlos Rodriguez joined WilmerHale in Washington, D.C., as an associate attorney.

Jesse Sharp joined Troutman Pepper in Charlotte, North Carolina, as an associate with the real estate practice group.

Kasia J. Wiggins joined the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission in Portsmouth, Virginia, as an assistant public defender.

2021L

Christian F. Reese joined Shearman & Sterling in New York City as an associate.

Haley D. Santos joined Gentry Locke in Roanoke as an associate. She is working in the firm’s insurance practice.

WEDDINGS

Stephen R. Halpin III ’15L to Kathleen Nisbet on July 31, 2021, at Hilton Head, South Carolina. The couple live in New York City, where Steve is an associate with Ford O’Brien and Katie is pursuing her MBA at NYU’s Stern School of Business.

Remembrance Day

On Nov. 14, 2021, the village of Kimbolton, England, honored Paul G. Cavaliere ’48L during its Remembrance Day ceremonies with a wreath at the memorial for the 379th Bomb Squadron of the Eighth Air Force. Cavaliere, a B-17 navigator, was stationed at that base for several months during 1945. His son Robert ’74 reported that although his father died in 1984, the family didn’t discover his uniforms, medals,

BIRTHS

Jill Morris Bustamante ’09, ’12L and Travis Bustamante ’11L , a boy, Brooks Hamilton, on Oct. 25, 2021. He joins sisters, Lucy and Laine.

Whitney Pulliam Loughran ’15L and her husband, Shaun, a son, Malcolm Jude Hemings, on Aug. 3, 2021. Whitney and Shaun are thankful his big brother Era is watching over him from above. The family live in Richmond.

Maj. J. David Thompson ’19L and his wife, Teresa, a son, Jordan Luitpold, on Dec. 10, 2021.

OBITS

David W. Foerster ’45, ’51L , of Jacksonville, Florida, died Nov. 20, 2021. He served in the Navy. He practiced law in Jacksonville, throughout Florida and the Southeast for over 60 years. He was grandfather to Bose Bratton ’07 and Mac Lyerly ’22. He belonged to Phi Delta Theta. John M. Blume ’54, ’56L of Sarasota, Florida, died Sept. 20, 2020. He built his own practice, Blume Forte Fried Zerres & Molinari. He belonged to Zeta Beta Tau. Noel P. Copen ’57L , of Huntington, West Virginia, died April 23, 2022. He served in the Marine Corps, where he was stationed in Okinawa. He worked for Fitzpatrick, Huddleston and Bolen.

Richard R. Duncan ’58L , of Winchester, Virginia, died Oct. 16, 2020. He taught at Ohio State, the University of Richmond and Georgetown University.

The Hon. Henry C. Morgan Jr. ’57, ’60L , of Virginia Beach, Virginia, died May 1, 2022. He was nominated in 1991 to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division, by President George H.W. Bush. Morgan received the Distinguished Alumni Award

in 2022. He belonged to Sigma Nu.

Dr. Jordan M. Smith ’57, 60L , of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, died March 21, 2021. He belonged to Phi Gamma Delta.

E. John Dinkel III ’61, 64L , of Lexington, died Feb. 6, 2022. He was an attorney with Alley, Rock & Dinkel. He belonged to Beta Theta Pi.

The Hon. Samuel J. Smith ’64L , of Mission Viejo, California, died Jan. 16, 2022. He served as a U.S. administrative law judge with the Social Security Administration, Interstate Commerce Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor. He was also the chief administrative appeals judge of the Benefits Review Board during President Jimmy Carter’s administration. At W&L, he helped establish the Black Lung Clinic at W&L Law and received W&L Law’s 2009 Outstanding Law Alumnus Award for exceptional contributions to the legal profession, his community and his alma mater. He belonged to Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

John O. Culley ’63, ’67L , of Grand Detour, Illinois, died March 29, 2022. He worked in the insurance industry. He is father to Anne C. Wise ’91. He belonged to Sigma Phi Epsilon.

George M. Fisher ’65, ’68L , of Camden Wyoming, Delaware, died Jan. 17, 2021. He spent three years in Army intelligence during the Vietnam War. He worked for Delaware Trust, retiring as senior vice president. He belonged to Phi Gamma Delta.

Thomas W. Houser ’70L , of Easton, Pennsylvania, died Feb. 20, 2022. He ran his own practice and was a solicitor to Williams Township.

Stuart Kennon Scott ’73L , of Annapolis, Maryland, died

commendations, photographs and navigational tools and charts until the death of his mother in 2019.

Cavaliere’s family decided to donate their father’s World War II items to The Kimbolton School, which maintains historical displays of the operations that occurred in the town during the war. Christopher Bates, deputy head academic of Kimbolton, wrote to Robert: “Absolutely speechless over what you have

on April 20, 2022. He belonged to Pi Kappa Alpha.

William A. Simon Jr. ’73L , of Shaker Heights, Ohio, died Feb. 12, 2022. He practiced environmental and labor law and was the announcer for the Shaker Heights High School hockey team.

Thomas Lee Brown Jr. ’74L , of Richmond, died Dec. 4, 2021. He was an attorney with Parker, Pollard and Brown. He belonged to Phi Delta Theta.

Robert L. Taylor ’74L , of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, died April 28, 2022. He practiced law for 40 years in Stone Harbor, New Jersey and served as the municipal prosecutor in Middle, West Cape May and Lower Township. He was the father of Tracy Taylor Hague ’97L.

Franklin P. Slavin Jr. ’75L , of North Chesterfield, Virginia, died April 18, 2022. He served in the Army, as an assistant judge for the Virginia General District Courts and as commisioner of accounts for Wythe County.

Virginia K. Boever ’80L , of Alexandria, New Mexico, died Jan. 7, 2022. She was a public defender for nearly 30 years.

Peter F. Matera ’85L , of West Park, New York, died Nov. 25, 2021. He formed a private law practice, worked for the public defender’s office and then was a part-time assistant district attorney. He was cousin to Rosemarie Matera ’80L.

Paul Griffiths ’86L , of Lantana, Florida, died in October 2021. He retired in 2019 after a 33-year career as in-house counsel for several large corporations.

Jeremiah D. Gibson ’02L , of Norton, Virginia, died Nov. 20, 2021. He worked for Latham and Watkins in Washington, D.C.

sent. Too nervous to take the uniforms out of the cases/covers to look properly. Stunning condition, and it set the imagination running over how to best display them with the artifacts, instruments, medals and so on.”

Robert and his sister Joan traveled to England to participate in the day’s ceremony and visit the display.

Robert Cavaliere ’74 and his sister Joan laid a wreath at the memorial for the 379th Bomb Squadron of the Eighth Air Force.

A photo of Paul G. Cavaliere ’48L is part of The Kimbolton School’s World War II display.

American Moms: Ellen Owen ’85L and Susan Winstead ’79L

BY RIWAJ SHRESTHA ’22

I first met Ellen Owen and Susan Winstead on a fine July afternoon, as they had come back to their alma mater to attend Alumni College. Little did I know then that my summer job working as an RA for the Alumni College would lead to a strong friendship with these two incredible humans who have helped me in more ways I can express. I am proud to call them my American moms.

I don’t have any family in America, and except for W&L, no home either. So the times when campus closed and everyone went home for break were especially tough for me. But I am so grateful to have Ellen and Susan because they always looked out for me and did so much to make me feel welcomed in this country. From having me at their home to celebrate American holidays, getting me school supplies and snacks, and going apartment hunting with me in a new city, the list of ways they helped me in the past three years goes on and on. The

Law Alumni Weekend: April 8–10

crazy thing is after all that they have never asked for anything in return. Not a thing.

Above all, their most notable gift to me is their friendship. The isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic was taxing. I could not hang out with my friends, and, in those grim times, talking to Ellen and Susan gave me much-needed solace. I know that even when I graduate, our friendship will continue. No matter where I end up, Susan and Ellen will continue supporting me and offering advice when needed. Moreover, their mentorship has inspired me to help students in any way I can when I become an alumnus.

My mother knows very few English words, but whenever I tell her about Ellen and Susan, she folds her hands, looks to the sky, and calls them ‘godmothers.’ I don’t know what that word means, but to me, they are forms of both gods and mothers, and they always will be.

MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED W&L LAW school alumni and guests returned for this year’s reunion celebration, held April 8–10 in Lexington.

The 2022 Outstanding Alumus/a Award went to Bobby Hatten ’72L , a pioneer and national leader in the field of asbestos litigation. He is a partner with Patten, Wornom, Hatten & Diamonstein in Newport News, where he served as managing partner for 28 years.

The 2022 Volunteer of the Year Award was presented to Jim Seevers ’97L , a partner with Hunton Andrews Kurth in Richmond. He focuses on fund formation and other alternative asset investment and management transactions. Over the years, Seevers volunteered on several reunion committees and as a law firm liaison.

The 2022 Young Volunteer of the Year Award was presented to Bo Mahr ’17L . A member of

W&L’s Young Alumni Council, he has wholeheartedly accepted the call to assist W&L Law recruiting prospective students and has advised students on jobs and careers. He is an associate with Husch Blackwell in Kansas City, focusing on energy and natural resources.

For full story visit go.wlu.edu/lawreunion2022

Bobby Hatten ’72L was named Outstanding Law Alumnus for 2022.

The law school’s newest legal legacies, members of the Law Class of 1972, celebrate their 50th Reunion.

Female W&L Law judges at the Reunion: Jill Coffindaffer McCook ’07L, Dandrea Ruhlmann ’87L, Danielle Moseley ’92L, Christine Antoun ’97L, and Pam White ’77L.

Alumni enjoyed dinner and dancing under the tent.

Incoming Law Council president Kristin Ray ’96L receives the gavel from classmate and outgoing LC president Michael Spencer ’96L.

Michelle Drumbl presents Bo Mahr ’17L with the Young Volunteer of the Year Award.

Reunion Volunteers present gift check to the Dean.

Discovery

Student Podcast Wins Award for Excellence in Communication

“CLASSROOM INSIDERS,” A PODCAST produced by W&L Law professor Karen Woody and her students, has been honored by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts with a 2022 Communicator Award in the category of Individual Episodes-Crime and Justice.

The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program recognizing excellence and innovation in communication across a spectrum of industries. Founded nearly three decades ago, The Communicator Awards receives almost 5,000 entries from companies, agencies, studios, and boutique shops of all sizes, making it, globally, one of the largest award shows of its kind.

“I’m thrilled that the hard work of the students and an innovative approach to law teaching has been recognized by this award,” said Woody.

The Communicator Awards is sanctioned and judged by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, an invitation-only group consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms. AIVA members include executives from organizations like Amazon, Big Spaceship, Chelsea Pictures, Conde Nast, Critical Mass, Disney, ESPN, GE Digital, IBM, The Nation of Artists, Nextdoor, Spotify, Time, Inc., the Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones and Wired.

“Classroom Insiders,” features Woody in conversation with students about insider trading and regulation. Seven episodes are available in all, including episodes that focus on the corporate law jurisprudence U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell ’27, ’31L.

In her episode with Woody, Lidia Kurganova ’23L discussed how Powell gradually loosened the SEC’s hold on insider trading regulation, which was regulated by states up until the 1960s when President Kennedy appointed Chair William Cary

of Columbia Law to expand the regulatory power of the SEC. This was Kurganova’s first experience producing a podcast, and she sees it as an innovative way to teach complex material in a manner that is also fun for the students.

“Professor Woody is a natural podcast host and managed to turn a very technical topic of business law into a thought-provoking and fun conversation with her students,” said Kurganova. “Moreover, my friends and classmates who were not in our insider trading seminar enjoyed listening to the podcast and learning about a subject they never thought would interest them.”

Woody is a frequent guest on the corporate law podcast “Everything Compliance” and developed a podcast in conjunction with her insider trading seminar as an assessment tool.

“This format has proved to be a great way for students to explain what they know,” said Woody. “I can really tell if they ‘get it’ during these conversations.”

“Classroom Insiders” is available through a variety of streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music.

Lidia Kurganova ’23L

THE