GEORGETOWN LAW FALL 2023
& THE LAW and what it means for legal education & lawyers
PLUS: NEW FLAGSHIP BUILDING COMING TO CAMPUS, STREET LAW CELEBRATES 50 YEARS... AND CLASS NOTES
NEWS / CONVINCING EVIDENCE
GEORGETOWN LAW Fall 2023 ELIZABETH TERRY Editor BRENT FUTRELL Director of Design INES HILDE Associate Director of Design JUNE SHIH Executive Director of Communications CONTRIBUTORS Vince Beiser, Jaclyn Diaz, Merrie Leininger, Sara Piccini, Madeline Portilla, Ben Purse Vince Beiser is a journalist based in Vancouver, Canada. His work has appeared in Wired, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Guardian and elsewhere. He is the author of the books “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization” and the forthcoming “Power Metal.” PHOTOGRAPHY Front and back cover images: AI generated, Courtesy of Anna Cave, Jaclyn Diaz, Michelle Frankfurter, Brent Futrell, Ines Hilde, Sam Hollenshead, Bill Petros, Anthony Poff Photography, Melissa Ryan, Zoe Wen, Georgetown Law Library Special Collections, Getty Images. Renderings by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. MATTHEW F. CALISE Assistant Vice President of Alumni Engagement GENE FINN Assistant Dean of Development and Alumni Affairs WILLIAM M. TREANOR Dean and Executive Vice President Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair Contact: Editor, Georgetown Law Georgetown University Law Center 600 New Jersey Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 editor@law.georgetown.edu Address changes/additions/deletions: 202-687-1994 or e-mail addup@georgetown.edu Georgetown Law magazine is on the Law Center’s website at www.law.georgetown.edu
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Copyright © 2023, Georgetown University Law Center. All rights reserved.
12 / Feature: AI & the Law 20 / Campus 30 / Alumni 34 / Class Notes
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Georgetown Law
Photo Credit: Ines Hilde
INSIDE Incoming Georgetown Law 1Ls during the RISE pre-orientation in August
NEWS / THOUGHTS FROM THE DEAN \
Looking to the Future
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s this issue hits mailboxes, I’m still basking in the glow of our fall reunion weekend. It is always a joy to see our alumni returning to reconnect with old friends and to take in the newest developments on and around campus. If you haven’t been here in a few years, you’d probably be surprised to see how much construction has gone up in our neighborhood. Students have more options for nearby housing, and our cafeteria is facing stiff competition from new restaurants in the area. A big change is ahead for the heart of our campus as well. Daniel Tsai, L’79, has provided the naming gift for a new building that will offer high-tech classrooms, offices and conference roomsfor our clinics, multiple convening and more — all inside a green design with views of the U.S. Capitol. Daniel, chair of the Taiwanese financial firm Fubon Group, has never forgotten his experience as an LL.M. student at Georgetown Law and how it opened up his perspective on the world. His generosity will help inspire thousands of future students, and I’m very grateful. We are in the process of raising a total of $100 million to make the building a reality. Turn the page to learn more about the project, and please visit www. law.georgetown.edu/new-building for the latest updates. Our cover story focuses on an issue that all of us in the legal profession are grappling with — the advent of artificial intelligence, or AI. Our faculty are not only investigating how this new technology will affect all areas of law, but are also making sure we are integrating it into our classrooms appropriately and responsibly. And it should be no surprise to you that many of our alumni are also engaging with AI in their work — we spoke with some of you about how you are approaching this new challenge. Whether you’re excited about AI, are skeptical, or are not sure yet what to think, this article will help make sure you’re up on the current state of play. I’m on the road a great deal these days, talking to our alumni about our new building and all the other exciting things taking place at the Law Center. I hope to see you when I’m in your area — or better yet, come to D.C. and see for yourself! With all best wishes for you and yours,
William M. Treanor Dean and Executive Vice President Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair
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This page: Architect’s rendering of the new classroom building. Next pages, clockwise from far left: Main atrium and informal student gathering places, classroom with flexible seating, convening space with view of the U.S. Capitol, building facade, one of several terraces (also with Capitol views).
2023 Fall
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NEWS
ALUMNUS MAKES HISTORIC GIFT FOR NEW FLAGSHIP BUILDING
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DANIEL TSAI, L’79, chair of the Taiwanese firm Fubon Group, last summer donated $30 million — the largest capital gift in the history of Georgetown University — toward the construction of a new state-of-the-art academic building on the Georgetown Law campus. Tsai said his LL.M. in international trade was transformative to his business career and in expanding his perspective as a global citizen. “I hope that this gift and the educational endeavors it will make possible will provide similar inspiration to Georgetown Law students,” he said. The new 200,000 square foot building is being designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the firm founded by legendary architect I.M. Pei, who famously designed the East Building of the National Gallery of Art and the pyramid entrance to the Louvre in Paris. Highlights include flexible, high-tech classrooms; offices and conference rooms for the Law Center’s premier clinics; a 75-seat student moot courtroom; rooftop convening spaces with views of the U.S. Capitol; and green features such as solar panels and terrace gardens. “Daniel’s generosity will enable us to provide a world-class education in an even more inspirational setting,” said Dean William M. Treanor. Tsai’s naming gift will serve as the cornerstone of a $100 million fundraising campaign for the new building. For more information, including floor plans and the latest updates, visit www.law.georgetown.edu/new-building.
DANIEL TSAI, L’79, “ I KNEW I HAD TO GIVE BACK.” Daniel Tsai, L’79, along with his brother, Richard, built the insurance firm founded by their father into one of Taiwan’s largest businesses, the Fubon Group, encompassing banking, telecommunications and e-commerce properties. He has many fond memories of his year living in Washington as an LL.M. student, including the challenges of driving on the Beltway and the pleasure of trying pizza for the first time. But what left the greatest impression on him was the dedication he saw in his fellow students. It is important that the new building will facilitate student interaction in its classrooms and public areas alike, he says. “Legal work is about collaboration. You need to be able to share insights of how the law should be.” Tsai is also pleased that the terraces will provide prime views of the U.S. Capitol dome. “The capital of the U.S. is the greatest location to study law,” he says. Although his time at the Law Center was brief, he cherishes the connections he made, he says. “When I talk to people from Georgetown, I just flash back to my time there, and have an urge to reconnect with old friends. I knew I had to do something to give back.”
2023 Fall
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NEWS /
A CHALLENGING YEAR IN THE LEGAL MARKET
In January, the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law and the Thomson Reuters Institute issued its annual Report on the State of the Legal Market, forecasting an uncertain year for law firms. “After finding ways to endure and even thrive through the effects of the pandemic, law firms face a confluence of challenges,” said James W. Jones, a senior fellow at the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law and the report’s lead author. “Firms are being confronted with issues ranging from slowing demand to record-low productivity, all of which could have significant impacts on their economic and institutional health in 2023 and beyond.” According to the report, 2022 yielded reasonably good financial results for law firms but 2023 would likely involve multiple headwinds, such as slowing demand, less client spend optimism, higher expenses, falling productivity, weakening realization and inflation. In addition, client work may be shifting, threatening to reshuffle the hierarchy of the law firm market. To read the full report, download it from the press release in the News section of the Georgetown Law website.
“Who is building these algorithms? What are they building these algorithms for? Who do these algorithms actually serve?” Professor Amanda Levendowski, founding director of the Intellectual Property and Information Policy Clinic, in a Georgetown Law “Office Hours” explainer video on the complexities of AI-driven ChatGPT and copyright law. For more on how Georgetown Law faculty and alumni are beginning to engage with AI, turn to page 12 6
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APPOINTMENT In March, President Joe Biden appointed Victoria Nourse, the Ralph V. Whitworth Professor in Law, to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an independent federal agency, and in July, she was named the commission’s Vice-Chair. “The civil rights of all Americans are more critical than ever,” said Nourse. “I pledge to use this role to do all I can to preserve and advance them.”
HONOR After eight terms representing Vermont in the U.S. Senate, newly retired Sen. Patrick Leahy, L’64, H’94, returned to his alma mater in February to discuss his memoir, “The Road Taken,” and to receive the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Service from Dean William M. Treanor. Treanor presented Leahy with a framed collage of photos, including the head shot the future lawmaker included in his law school application.
LEADERSHIP Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin has been named co-faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, partnering with the institute’s founding faculty director, Professor Lawrence Gostin. “The O’Neill Institute has been one of the world’s major players in furthering discourse on equality and access in public health. And Larry has built his career with such deep sincerity and earnestness and integrity. I couldn’t be happier to be working with him and this amazing staff,” said Goodwin. “Michele is brilliant, engaged and socially active. She will be a huge asset to the school and the Institute, taking us all to new levels of excellence,” said Gostin.
2023 Fall
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NEWS /
Georgetown Law Journal Hosts U.S. Solicitor General U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar spoke at the 10th annual Georgetown Law Journal Alumni Banquet in May, attended by some 200 current and former GLJ editors. In conversation with outgoing editor-in-chief Maya Gandhi, SFS’19, L’23, Prelogar reflected on gender inequality in the Supreme Court Bar. “The arc of full equality is not always an unbroken line. There can be two steps forward and one step back,” said Prelogar. “There is no doubt that we are achieving progress.” The discussion also touched on the importance of public service. “It never gets old to stand up at the lectern in the Supreme Court of the United States and to think, ‘I am here on behalf of the United States of America,’” Prelogar said.
Top: Prelogar; middle: Prelogar and Gandhi; bottom: Past and current Editors-in-Chief 8 Georgetown Law
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Top: Street Law founders and leaders reunited: (L-R) David Wilmot, L’73, Jason Newman, Johnny Barnes, L’73, L’76, Charisma Howell, L’11, Adjunct Professor Richard Roe and May O’Brien, wife of the late Ed O’Brien, L’73; Middle: Current high schoolers at the gala; Below: Undated photo from the Street Law archives.
CELEBRATING
50 years and going strong! In April, alumni and friends gathered to toast Street Law, founded in 1972 with an innovative idea to have Georgetown Law students go to local high schools to teach teens how the legal system works and what lawyers do. Today, Street Law is not only still a popular clinic at the Law Center, but the model has also been adopted in law schools across the U.S. and in 45 countries. “It’s truly a high school to law pipeline,” said current director Charisma Howell, L’11. “The greatest joy is when somebody comes up to you and says, ‘I took Street Law and I’m now a lawyer,’” said Johnny Barnes, L’73, L’76, one of the program’s founders. “There’s no better feeling.”
2023 Fall 9
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SEEN ON CAMPUS
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L-R: Prof. Josh Chafetz, Dean William M. Treanor, Judge Guido Calabresi, Prof. David Wishnick, Prof. Neal Katyal
1. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., L’00, who stopped by Professor Julie O’Sullivan’s Federal White Collar Crime class in January; 2. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), guest at an April event hosted by the Institute for Technology Law and Policy; 3. Deborah Archer, ACLU President and Associate Dean and Professor of Clinical Law at NYU, who spoke at the March symposium “Promoting Justice: Advancing Racial Equity through Student Practice in Legal 10
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Clinics”; and 4. the Honorable Guido Calabresi, Senior Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale Law School, who in April presented the 2023 Thomas F. Ryan Lecture, “The Missing Buttress in the Cathedral: The Proper Role of Equality in Constitutional Adjudication” – and reunited with some of his former clerks who have since joined the Georgetown Law faculty.
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UKRAINIAN PROSECUTORS VISIT D.C.
Georgetown Law hosted a delegation of Ukrainian prosecutors and military analysts in June in its role as lead implementing organization for the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, coordinating U.S./U.K./E.U support for Ukraine’s war crimes investigations. The group met with officials at the FBI, State Department, Pentagon, Capitol Hill and more, as well as with other experts on everything from past international tribunals to current technology for documenting atrocities.
DEAN TREANOR RECEIVES KATZMANN AWARD In June, Dean William M. Treanor received the Burton Awards’ inaugural Robert A. Katzmann Award for Academic Excellence. The award’s namesake sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and previously taught at Georgetown Law and served on the Board of Visitors. Treanor and Katzmann were also longtime personal friends. In presenting the award, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking of Treanor’s career at the Justice Department and in academia, said, “In each position, Bill [Treanor] gave priority to… serving the public and justice. This focus was central to Bob Katzmann’s life.”
2023 Fall
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AI
FEATURE / AI AND THE LAW
& THE LAW and what it means for legal education & lawyers
BY VINCE BEISER
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Georgetown Law
AI AND THE LAW \ FEATURE
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rom ChatGPT to algorithms that ace the LSAT, artificial intelligence (AI) is roiling the legal world like perhaps no technology ever has — and this is just the beginning. Georgetown Law
students, faculty and alumni are on the frontlines of efforts to come to grips with the baffling range of potential benefits as well as dangers raised by this new era. “The launch of ChatGPT in November of 2022 was a moment as big as the introduction of the World Wide Web in the 1990s,” says Ed Walters, a Georgetown Law adjunct professor who has long taught a class on the ‘Law of Robots.’ Just as browsers and the Web made the Internet accessible to ordinary people who didn’t necessarily know much about computers, he says, ChatGPT, a “chatbot” tool, brought AI to the mainstream.“ It was the first time regular people could see artificial intelligence and relate to it in a way that they understood,” says Walters. Now the algorithmic floodgates have been flung wide open, leaving corporations, governments and practically every kind of institution scrambling to figure out how to adapt to the incoming tidal wave of AI. 2023 Fall 13
FEATURE / AI AND THE LAW
AI ENTERS THE ACADEMY
“I think the future is hybrid work produced by humans working with gen-AI.” Professor Frances DeLaurentis, director, Georgetown Law Writing Center
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AI AND THE LAW \ FEATURE
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aw schools are no exception. Last March, researchers showed that GPT-4, an upgraded version of the model that runs ChatGPT, could outperform most humans on the Uniform Bar Examination, sending a shiver through the ranks of administrators and educators tasked with evaluating students. In an effort to keep students from outsourcing their application essays or research papers to algorithms, some institutions such as the UC Berkeley School of Law have banned the use of generative AI models in exams and assignments. At Georgetown Law, “we considered a complete ban but so far, have decided that was too broad an approach,” says Professor Daniel Wilf-Townsend, who chairs a committee tasked with, essentially, figuring out how the school should deal with AI. “If you can do a Google search while working on an assignment, then why not be able to do a search on Microsoft Bing, even though it also uses ChatGPT? We want there to be a sense that generative AI resources, especially as they get better, can be used by students in contexts where they're already allowed to use whatever resources they find ready to hand. But that doesn't mean that it's no holds barred when it comes to exams, or plagiarism.” There’s certainly no shortage of interest in the subject: Georgetown Law currently offers at least 17 courses addressing different aspects of AI. Professor Paul Ohm, whose undergraduate degree is in computer science, is teaching two of them. At present, the Law Center is leaving it up to individual professors to set their own policies on whether and how students may use AI, while maintaining existing rules about plagiarism and exams. Some instructors are forbidding their first year students from using AI, figuring 1Ls need to learn the basics so that they will at least be able to tell if an AI-abetted paper is up to scratch.
Others are tentatively allowing some use of the technology. Wilf-Townsend plans to add at least one exercise to his upcoming seminar, ‘AI & the Law: Principles and Problems,’ in which students will use language models to respond to reading materials. And Professor Frances DeLaurentis, director of the Georgetown Law Writing Center, is launching an upper- level class in which students will experiment with using AI as a writing aid—playing with different prompts, taking turns writing and editing with the algorithms. “It can be really helpful for brainstorming topics, and with writing that first draft, especially for students whose first language isn’t English,” she says. “I think the future is hybrid work produced by humans working with gen-AI.” Alonzo Barber, L’06, who heads Microsoft’s U.S. Enterprise Commercial team, is already there. He had no teaching experience when he agreed last fall to lead a one-week course on ‘Legal Skills in an AI-Powered World’ as one of this year’s Week One offerings, so he turned to ChatGPT for help. “I was like, this is my first time doing this adjunct thing. I don't know what a curriculum should look like. So I type into ChatGPT, ‘Draft me a course description about the legal implications of AI and the law.’ It spit out three paragraphs and I was like, ‘This is pretty good!’” He reworked and refined that outline, of course, but says having that first draft done for him saved him hours of work. Some students may well use the technology to cheat, but at this point stopping them is difficult. Tools that claim to be able to spot AI-generated text are unreliable, says Wilf-Townsend . And in any case, students have always cheated; in a way, AI might even help level the playing field. “AI puts kids who don’t have an Uncle Alito to call for help with their take-home exam on an equal footing with those who do,” says DeLaurentis.
2023 Fall 15
FEATURE / AI AND THE LAW
AI JOINS A LAW FIRM 16
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AI AND THE LAW \ FEATURE
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eyond academia, Barber believes it’s crucial for legal professionals to not only learn how to use AI tools, but to understand them—how they are built, their strengths, their weaknesses, and the ways in which they can fail. Practically every lawyer in America has by now shuddered at the story of the ill-advised attorneys who had ChatGPT write a legal brief that they submitted to a New York federal court—only to find that the brief was filled with nonexistent case citations the bot had simply made up. AI systems of all types are often plagued with more subtle shortcomings. Many AI-powered face recognition systems, for instance, are more prone to misidentify people of color than they are white people. That’s often because the data sets those systems were trained on contained far more white faces. That imbalance makes those systems questionable tools for helping to make decisions about who to arrest or convict of a crime. Many other AI systems are similarly biased as a result of flaws in the data they were trained on.
“You really want to think about those things, because our profession touches pretty much every corner of society,” says Barber — from criminal justice to legal issues in bank lending and employment. “These technologies will be implemented in all those areas, which makes it important that we as a legal community understand them.” For some lawyers, the task is to not only understand the algorithms but to defend them in court. Bennett Borden, L’04, Chief Data Scientist at DLA Piper, is part of a team of lawyers and data scientists that helps the firm counsel most of the biggest generative AI companies. These unprecedented technologies are raising unprecedented legal questions. For example, generative AI companies have been sued by individuals who claim platforms produced defamatory statements about them. “These cases are really quite novel,” says Borden. “They raise fundamental questions, like ‘Can you even be defamed by a computer?’”
“Generative AI resources, especially as they get better, can be used by students... but that doesn't mean that it's no holds barred.” Associate Professor Daniel Wilf-Townsend, chair of a faculty committee on AI
2023 Fall 17
FEATURE / AI AND THE LAW
GEORGETOWN LAW PROFESSORS ENGAGING WITH AI IN TEACHING AND SCHOLARSHIP INCLUDE: COURSES • Erin Carroll, “Technology & the Free Press” • Frances DeLaurentis, “Advanced Legal Writing with Generative AI” • Laura Donohue, “National Security and Emerging Technologies” (co-taught with Wayne Chung, Chief Technology Officer for BlueVoyant and Technical Amicus Curiae for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) • Kristelia García, “Technology Law and Policy Colloquium: Content and Platforms” • Amanda Levendowski, director, Intellectual Property & Information Policy Clinic • Laura Moy, director, Communications & Technology Law Clinic • Paul Ohm, “Artificial Intelligence and the Law” and “The Law of Open Source Software” • Mitt Regan, L’85, “Artificial Intelligence and National Security: Law, Ethics, and Technology” • Tanina Rostain, “Professional Responsibility: The American Legal Profession in the 21st Century” • Neel Sukhatme, coordinator of AI roundtable series with Georgetown’s Center for Security & Emerging Technology • Kevin Tobia, “Philosophy of Law Seminar: Experimental Jurisprudence” • Daniel Wilf-Townsend, “AI and the Law Seminar: Principles and Problems” RESEARCH • Matt Blaze, ongoing research on cryptography and secure systems • Anupam Chander, editor, Data Sovereignty: From the Digital Silk Road to the Return of the State • Julie Cohen, Between Truth and Power: The Legal Constructions of Informational Capitalism • Brishen Rogers, Data and Democracy at Work: Advanced Information Technologies, Labor Law, and the New Working Class • David Vladeck, “Machines Without Principals: Liability Rules and Artificial Intelligence,” Washington Law Review
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AI COURSES TAUGHT BY ALUMNI AND ADJUNCT PROFESSORS • “Cyber Threat Landscape: Legal Considerations at the Crossroads of the Public and Private Sectors,” Kaylee Cox Bankston, partner in Goodwin’s Data, Privacy, & Cybersecurity practice • “Legal Skills in an AI-Powered World (Week One),”Alonzo Barber, L’06, director and managing counsel for Microsoft’s U.S. Enterprise Commercial business and Guillermo S. Christensen, SFS‘90, L’05, partner at K&L Gates • “Front Lines and Foreign Risk: National Security Through the Lens of CFIUS and Team Telecom,” Ian Brasure and Desiree Hansen, Office of General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security • “Federal Advocacy in Technology Law and Policy,” Hillary Brill, L’00, Senior Fellow at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy and David Goodfriend, L’96, President of The Goodfriend Group • “Video Games in the 21st Century: Creativity and Innovation in Action,” Ben Golant, L’92, Senior Director for Global Video Game Policy at Tencent America • “Constitutional Law: Federal Courts Tackle the Digital World (Week One),” Judge M. Margaret McKeown, L’75 • “The GDPR: Background, Development, and Consequences,” Marc Rotenberg, L’13, founder and president of the Center for AI and Digital Policy & Privacy and Eleni Kyriakides, Data Policy Manager for Meta • “Social Media Law,” Jenny Reich, Director of Emerging Technology Projects, Georgetown Law Center on National Security • “The Law and Ethics of Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics,” Gregory Scopino, Attorney-Adviser at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission • “Law of Robots,” Ed Walters, CEO and co-founder of Fastcase
AI AND THE LAW \ FEATURE
FRIEND OR FOE?
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n the other hand, such technology could also help ordinary people use the law to their advantage. Bots can make it easier than ever to, say, fight an unfair eviction notice or contest a firing. “Generative AI should have an amazing democratizing and leveling effect on the practice of law and the judicial system,” says Borden. “It will make the creation of legal products and services easier, and therefore less expensive. So people who previously could not afford to bring a case are going to be able to do that more. And it should boost the capacity of civil rights organizations and pro bono groups to help more people.” One of the biggest potential upsides to adding AI in to legal practice is that it could supercharge lawyers’ productivity. Algorithms can learn a company’s style and draft bespoke contracts in seconds, or summarize lengthy documents in the time it takes a human attorney to post a vacation shot on Instagram. Big firms are already integrating generative AI models into their practice — for example, London-based Allen & Overy has partnered with a startup on “Harvey,” a chatbot tool its staff can use to help with routine tasks like drafting memos and contracts. General purpose models like ChatGPT aren’t (yet) reliable enough for most kinds of legal work, but there are plenty of businesses offering AI tools specifically designed for legal professionals. In addition to his teaching at Georgetown, Ed Walters is an executive at one of those companies, vLex. Unlike models trained on the random cacophony of the whole Internet, vLex's "VincentAI" is trained on a database of some one billion legal documents. “You’re not getting answers from trolls on Reddit or comments on YouTube,” says Walters. Instead, he explains, users type in a natural language query and the tool provides an answer with links to relevant cases. You still need a lawyer to then go and read those cases and decide if that’s the best way to argue. But research that might have taken a week, you can now start while you’re on the phone with a client, and have the answer by the end of the call.” But if systems like VincentAI work as well as advertised, will companies even need paralegals any more? And if first year associates don’t get to learn under the tutelage of more experienced lawyers, how will they get the training they need to move up the career ladder? In short: Will lawyers lose their jobs to robots?
It’s a concern shared by many, and not just those in the legal field. (Freelance magazine writers, for instance!) Walters, at least, isn’t one of them. “Everyone was afraid e-discovery would put junior lawyers out of work," he said. But there are more lawyers than ever now. And they’re happier, because they’re no longer stuck reviewing boxes of documents.” THE JURY IS STILL OUT One thing is for sure: given all the ethical, social and legal perils AI presents, governments are going to have to get serious about regulating the technology. Miriam Vogel, L’01, President and CEO of the nonprofit EqualAI, sits on a committee that advises the Biden Administration on policy. She points out that existing laws do already provide some guardrails on how the technology is used. Race-based employment discrimination is illegal whether it’s perpetrated by a hiring manager or an algorithm, for instance. But AI raises all kinds of new issues that will require new rules. Legislators are starting to tackle that challenge. Several states have passed laws forbidding law enforcement from using face recognition, and California requires companies to let customers know if they are talking to a chatbot. The European Union is expected to soon enact a sweeping package of rules governing how AI is used. “We can expect much more regulation in the EU, and that will impact anyone doing business there,” says Vogel. And in late October, President Biden issued an expansive executive order that obliges major AI companies to share information on the potential risks of their products with the government, and directs federal agencies to set up safeguards around the technology. It’s a start. But the government, like the legal world and for that matter pretty much all of us, is still trying to catch up with a technology that is getting better and more powerful all the time. “We’re at the toddler stage of generative AI,” says Borden. “It’s like when your two-year-old takes his first steps. It’s amazing. But he’s still not very good at walking, compared to an Olympic runner. When these systems start to run, and jump, and fly — that idea fills me with excitement and optimism, but it’s also where things get really scary.”
2023 Fall 19
ALUMNI
CAMPUS Human Rights Institute Partners With Nobel Laureate to Seek Justice for Yazidi Survivors In 2022-23, a dozen students in the Human Rights Institute (HRI)’s Human Rights Advocacy in Action Practicum had the opportunity to conduct international fieldwork in Iraq and in Europe, as they sought to understand the challenges Yazidi minority communities in northwestern Iraq still face nearly a decade after genocidal attacks perpetrated by the Islamic State. The practicum partnered with Nadia’s Initiative, an organization founded by 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad, who was one of some 6,000 young women taken captive and treated as sex slaves by ISIS militants. In keynote remarks at HRI’s 2023 Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights, Murad explained why she continues to share her story despite how painful it can be to remember the terrors she, her family and their community endured. “If people aren’t reminded of what occurred, then they won’t take action,” said Murad. Her words inspired the practicum students, who explored ways Nadia’s Initiative might use law and policy to further the Yazidis’ cause, from pursuing prosecutions in international courts, to securing development aid to rebuild their homeland, to protecting the rights of children born as a result of conflict-related sexual violence. Alexis Shanes, L’24, said of spending part of her winter break in Erbil, Iraq meeting with Yazidi community leaders, “It was the most astonishing experience, one I never thought I would be able to have in law school.” “The world needs passionate, innovative advocates,” said HRI’s Executive Director Elisa Massimino. “That’s why I came to Georgetown – to help prepare the next generation of human rights lawyers.”
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From top: Practicum students visiting the historic Citadel in Erbil, Iraq; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad giving keynote remarks at HRI’s 2023 Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights; Practicum students at the International Criminal Court in The Hague
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PRIZEWINNING POLICY PROPOSAL William Macci, L’24, and Sparsha Muralidhara, G’23, took home the top prize, a $3,000 scholarship, in the McCourt School’s 2023 Georgetown Public Policy Challenge. Their entry, E-Quality DC, focused on helping Washington, D.C. students who lack access to high-speed internet. Developing a proposal that could work in public schools and gain lawmakers’ support “was akin to a really advanced civics class,” said Macci.
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2023 Spring 21
ALUMNI
COMMENCEMENT
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22 Georgetown Law Georgetown Law
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2023 On May 21, Georgetown Law welcomed back Savannah Guthrie, L’02, H’23, to deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2023. The co-anchor of NBC News’ TODAY and NBC News chief legal correspondent advised the more than 1,200 J.D., LL.M. and S.J.D. graduates gathered on the historic Hilltop campus to take risks in launching their new careers – just as she had when leaving a local TV career behind to enroll in law school, and then again when deciding to return to television. “Don’t play it safe,” she said. “Comfortable is not where the action is.” The ceremony capped off a weekend of celebration on the Law Center campus. Congratulations to the newest members of the Georgetown Law alumni community!
2023 Spring 23
ALUMNI
NEW FACULTY Kristelia García Professor of Law Kristelia García took a “circuitous” path into academia. First
Michele Bratcher Goodwin Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law
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Aisha Saad
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technical advice in tax
staying to complete
in entertainment law
recently a Chancellor’s
of Law, comes to the
policy to more than
a doctorate. Her
during the music
Professor and
Law Center to launch
50 countries. She’d
dissertation was
industry’s “Wild West”
founding director
the newest clinic on
taught at Harvard
on corporate social
years of emerging
of the Center for
campus. Students
before joining the
responsibility, using
streaming platforms.
Biotechnology and
in the Civil Justice
IMF, then spent last
the example of the
After an intellectual
Global Health Policy
Clinic will represent
year at the Oxford
disastrous 1984
property fellowship
at the University of
low-wage workers
Center for Business
Union Carbide gas
at the George
California, Irvine.
trying to recoup back
Taxation – and found
leak in Bhopal, India.
Washington University
Goodwin is a prolific
pay from employers.
she wasn’t ready to
Now at Georgetown
Law School, she joined
author, a frequent
Recalling her own time
retire yet. She’s now
Law to teach torts,
the University of
media commentator
as a clinic student at
on the faculty for
environmental law and
Colorado Law School.
and host of the
Columbia Law School,
the Taxation LL.M.
corporate governance,
“I’m looking forward
podcast “On the
she says, “For much
program, and enjoying
she feels she has
to getting a chance to
Issues with Michele
of law school, you
the international mix
found something like
talk with policymakers
Goodwin.” “My
think of yourself as
of students and active
the interdisciplinary,
and be around
Georgetown Law
the person who’s in
campus life. “The
international
students who want
colleagues have
training. But when you
students are great,
atmosphere at Oxford.
to go into policy,” she
devoted crucial
get to clinic, suddenly
the faculty’s been
“Georgetown’s really
says of returning to
aspects of their
you are the lawyer.
incredibly welcoming
unique in embracing
the nation’s capital.
careers and important
I remember how
and there’s always
the core of what drew
parts of their lives to
transformative that
20 things going on. I
me to law – theory
thinking about how the
was for me.”
don’t have time to take
combined with
work they do impacts
advantage of all of it,”
practice. It seems like
the world,” she says.
she says.
a natural home,” she
“I feel very at home with that. And I’m very excited about it.” 24
Georgetown Law
says.
\ CAMPUS
Faculty Books Caroline Fredrickson La Cour suprême, le pouvoir suprême (Supreme Court, Supreme Power) (Editions L’Harmattan) Fredrickson, a Distinguished Visiting Professor from Practice, says of her first book written in French, “After spending much of my legal career trying to understand the U.S. Supreme Court, I know that it is complicated and often controversial. That is even more true for foreign observers. I wanted to give French readers a grounding in why certain rulings are met with so much joy or anger and what the current discussion of reforms would entail.”
Eun Hee Han, L’07, Michael J. Cedrone & Diana R. Donahoe, L’90, L’94 Gregory Shaffer Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of International Law
Austin Martin Williams
Gateway to U.S. Law Schools: Law, Culture, & Context
Professor of Law
This e-book, co-authored by three members of the Legal
In January, Austin
(Georgetown Law Library) Practice faculty, offers an introduction to U.S. law school culture. It is the third book produced by TeachingLaw.com, a site founded
As a new lawyer,
Martin Williams was
Gregory Shaffer
named Director of
worked in Paris, when
the Edward Bennett
the European Union
Williams Law Library
was taking shape and
and Professor of
the Iron Curtain had
Law. He was hired
just fallen. His insights
as deputy director
into international
in 2019 and became
trade became what
acting director in
he taught about in
summer 2020. Having
his first academic
shepherded the
jobs. President of the
library’s operations
Rogers, a former labor organizer turned Professor of Law,
American Society of
through the pandemic
explains how companies are increasingly relying on data-
International Law, he
campus shutdown,
driven surveillance technologies to supervise workers, and describes
comes to Georgetown
the North Carolina
legislative proposals that seek to better balance power in the employer-
from the University
native now turns
employee relationship. “These reforms would not ensure decent work
of California, Irvine,
to caring for our
or social equality on their own. But they would advance those goals by
where he was the
extensive collection
rendering technology and its governance more democratic,” he says.
Chancellor’s Professor
and keeping up with
of Law and Political
the latest advances in
Robert Thompson
Science. “It’s incredibly
digital resources. “I
A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court
exciting to be part of a
feel so honored to be
(Oxford University Press)
broader mission within
in this position,” says
a law school that is
Thompson, the Peter P. Weidenbruch, Jr. Professor of
Williams.
Business Law, says he and co-author A.C. Pritchard of the
committed to fostering the understanding of international law,” he says.
by Donahoe as a platform for affordable, interactive legal research and writing textbooks. “International LL.M. and J.D. students may need context for what they are learning in the classroom – explanations of cultural norms for office hours, definitions for idioms and historical background for founding documents and major cases in the U.S. legal system,” says Han.
Brishen Rogers Data and Democracy at Work: Advanced Information Technologies, Labor Law, and the New Working Class (MIT Press)
University of Michigan Law School “used the private papers of the justices to tell the story of securities law across 90 years – such as how the New Deal justices changed the Supreme Court’s view as to the administrative state, the expansiveness of the Warren Court and the counterrevolution of Lewis Powell.” 2023 Spring 25
ALUMNI
January 6 Attacks Continue to
Reverberate The January 6, 2021 siege on the U.S. Capitol was one of the most significant political and legal events of our time, whose consequences and lessons will take years to understand. In a pair of campus events last semester, Georgetown Law faculty and outside experts gathered to consider the aftermath of “J6.” The first, organized in partnership with Wayne State Law School’s Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, highlighted the innovation of the investigation and televised hearings carried out by the House Select Committee. In the second, hosted by the Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, staffers from that committee reunited to share what they’d discovered about the role of domestic extremist groups in planning and carrying out the attacks. Recordings of both panels are available on the Georgetown Law YouTube channel. During the first event, Kristin Amerling, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel of the January 6 Committee, praised the committee members’ willingness to put political differences aside and take a collaborative approach. “Democracy takes work, and this committee was willing to do that work,” she said. 26
Georgetown Law
Above: Panelists Kristin Amerling, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel of the January 6 Committee, Reginald Brown, partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Lisa Desjardins, PBS NewsHour correspondent discuss the January 6 Congressional hearings. Below: Prof. Mary McCord, L’90, moderating a panel of January 6 Committee investigators.
\ CAMPUS
Professor Itai Grinberg has returned to campus after a two-year stint at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Negotiations in the Office of Tax Policy, he helped achieve a top item on the United States’ international economic agenda: a first-ever global minimum corporate tax. “Try to get 137 people to agree on something. Now imagine getting 137 countries to agree on
Professor Itai Grinberg Completes International Corporate Tax Negotiations
something,” Grinberg said of the long months of international travel and negotiations with finance ministers. Once the deal was struck, Grinberg heard the classroom calling him home. “There’s not going to be another rodeo this big in corporate international tax for a while,” he said.
K-POP to G-LAW Gina Maeng, L’25, earned a scholarship from the Recording Academy as a runner-up in their 2023 Entertainment Law Initiative student writing competition for her paper on improving safety at live events. Her interest in entertainment law comes from her years as a singer and dancer in the massive South Korean “K-pop” music industry – experience she says trained her well for law school. “Being a recording artist requires tenacity and perseverance against the illogical and unexplainable nature of the business,” she said. “I love how at school, all your hard work pays off.” Left: Maeng on the red carpet at a Grammy Week event, right: Snapshots from Maeng’s performing days.
2023 Spring 27
ALUMNI
Five Faculty Members Honored with Chairs and Named Professorships Hope Babcock, a pioneer in environmental law and policy, was named the Reynolds Family Endowed Service Professor, created by Hope C. Reynolds, B’75, P’03 and Thomas A. Reynolds III, B’74, P’03. Dorothy Brown, L’83, whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of taxation and critical race theory, was named the Martin D. Ginsburg Chair in Taxation, endowed by Ross Perot in honor of the late Professor Martin D. Ginsburg. Anna Gelpern, an expert in international finance and sovereign debt, was named the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and International Finance, one of several professorships established by Scott K. Ginsburg, L’78. Robin Lenhardt, L’04, co-director of the Georgetown Racial Justice Institute and Georgetown Law Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion was named Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Race, Law and Justice; and Eloise Pasachoff, a scholar of administrative law and former Associate Dean for Careers, was named an Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Law. These professorships were established through a bequest from Agnes N. Williams, L’54. L-R: Professors Robin Lenhardt, Anna Gelpern, Dorothy Brown, Hope Babcock and Eloise Pasachoff with Dean William M. Treanor at the March celebration of their named professorships and chairs.
Georgetown Law Faculty Explore Experimental Jurisprudence Associate Professor Kevin Tobia is making an impact in the new and growing field of experimental jurisprudence, which draws on philosophy, psychology and linguistics. Founder of the Georgetown Lab for the Empirical Study of Law and Language, Tobia, along with an international team of collaborators, recently published an article, “Coordination and Expertise Foster Legal Textualism,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their survey asked people to interpret various laws, noting whether respondents focused more on the law’s text or its purpose. The answer? It depends on many factors – including whether the person surveyed has legal expertise. (Those participants tended to align more closely with the text.) The Law Center boasts a strong complement of professors in experimental jurisprudence: Greg Klass, John Mikhail and Victoria Nourse and main campus linguistics and computer science professor Nathan Schneider have also published in the field.
28
Georgetown Law
\ CAMPUS
A
fter graduating from Georgetown Law, Michael
Williams, SFS’98, L’01, went on to two clerkships, including one with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Those experiences were invaluable – but when he began as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, he realized he hadn’t yet learned many of the practical skills required of a litigator. “That presented a very steep learning curve,” he recalled. “I had to get smart really fast.” Williams, now a partner at his firm and current chair of the Law Center’s Board of Visitors, developed the Week One course “Questioning Witnesses In and Out of Court” to give today’s students a chance to interview witnesses, take depositions and conduct direct examinations and cross examinations through a series of mock scenarios. Since 2017, he’s spent a week every January teaching it – this year, fellow Hoya Lawya Jonathan Brightbill, L’02, a partner at Williams & Strawn, LLP, joined him as a co-teacher.
IN THIS ‘WEEK ONE’ EXPERIENTIAL CLASS, STUDENTS GET TO ASK THE
QUESTIONS
Marsha DuCille, L’25, said that after all the doctrinal courses of her 1L first semester, it was refreshing to get a sneak peek at lawyering in action. “I very much wanted to be reminded why I came to law school,” she said. “Trial litigation is more an art than a science,” said Williams. “I always enjoy seeing students approach witnesses in ways that I might not have anticipated.” Above: Students practicing their deposition skills. Below: Williams with his latest group of “Questioning Witnesses” students.
2023 Spring 29
ALUMNI
Sen. Mazie Hirono, L’78, Shares Life Lessons with Graduating Class Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), L’78, came to campus in April to present the annual lecture to soon-to-graduate students. In conversation with Dean William M. Treanor, she described her life’s journey, beginning with her mother’s decision to leave an abusive marriage in Japan and start over with her children in Hawaii. Hirono also spoke of becoming an antiwar activist in college, traveling all the way to Washington, D.C. for law school to take one of Georgetown Law’s famous clinics, persisting through the ups and downs of political campaigns and ultimately returning to the nation’s capital to represent her home state as a U.S. Representative and then Senator. Hirono said the example of her mother’s courage had helped guide her through her own challenging times. “There’s nothing in my life that I could do that would be as hard as what she did,” she said. “I learned some important things from her. One: one person can make a difference. And the second is to take risks in life. And that’s how you can really find out about your mettle.”
ALUMNI Above: Treanor and Hirono with Sarah Hart, L’23, who clerked in the Senator’s office. Below: Treanor and Hirono on stage.
30
Georgetown Law
\ CAMPUS
Q&A: Ali Zaidi, L’15, White House National Climate Advisor White House National Climate Advisor
ask yourself: What am I doing to make the
Ali Zaidi, L’15, spoke to us after his
world a better place?
presentation to the Georgetown Climate Center in February. While you were an evening student here, you were also serving as associate director for natural resources, energy and science at the Office of Management and Budget. What was that like? For a few hours each day, I could escape
How can lawyers have an impact on climate change? Figure out what you’re good at. If you’re a tremendous oral advocate, maybe you need to be in an appellate practice. If you’re attracted to administrative policy, we have a lot of rules of the road that need to be written.
into a classroom or the library and try
When I was teaching at Stanford, I
to pick up skills to use when I showed
created this Lawyers for a Sustainable
up at work. Not three years later, but
Economy initiative. There’s a whole
literally the next day, to see how I could
economy of clean energy startups, and
be sharper in the tools I brought to the
we brought pro bono legal services on
challenge.
the corporate side to tackle the climate
What did you learn here that you’ve gone
crisis.
on to use in your career?
What does public service mean to you?
My property professor, Peter Byrne, was
The opportunity to be a public servant
doing frontier work on the implications of
is really one of the most profound
a change of climate to property law. And
blessings. To be able to align your heart
Professor Anthony Cook was pushing
and soul with the way that you spend
students to think about how, regardless
your labor every day is just a treasure.
of what sector you end up in, you have to
2023 Spring 31
ALUMNI
Above Left: Johnson with his painting, “Colored People III,” top right: Johnson with student collaborators, lower right: Johnson’s “Soul Singers”
Living in Color, in Law and in Art LeRoi C. Johnson, L’74, who runs his own private practice in Buffalo, NY, began painting in high school – and never stopped. He was honored last November when an exhibition of his artwork, “LEROI: Living in Color,” opened at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State. According to Johnson, Georgetown Law in the 1970s was a challenging place for a Black student, but that only made him stronger. “Georgetown prepared me for the practice of law, but it also prepared me for life,” he said. A participant in the early days of the Law Center’s “Street Law” program, Johnson has continued to mentor young people. In addition to his own paintings, the exhibition included pieces created in his workshops with student arts groups in Buffalo. “Ultimately, my mission was to leave a legacy for the next generation of young artists, and my intent was to inspire them. But as it turned out, they really inspired me,” he said.
32
Georgetown Law
\ ALUMNI
2023 Women’s Forum Some 150 alumnae attended the latest Women’s Forum, held in March, where discussions swung between celebrating women’s achievements in the legal profession and contemplating the challenges they still face. The day began with a mindfulness exercise led by
Georgetown Law on the Road: New York City & the Dominican Republic Savannah Guthrie, L’02, H’23, co-anchor of TODAY and NBC News legal correspondent, was the featured speaker at the
Ananda Leeke, L’91, a former securities lawyer turned
2023 New York Alumni Luncheon in January. In conversation
wellness entrepreneur and artist. Professor Dorothy
with her network colleague and fellow graduate Pete
Brown, L’83, presented a keynote address about how she
Bevacqua, L’97, chairman of NBC Sports, she reminisced
has blazed new trails in her scholarship by incorporating
about her student days and shared stories from her media
both taxation and civil rights, followed by a plenary
career.
on leadership moderated by Professor Hillary Sale.
Dean William M. Treanor visited the Dominican Republic
Participants then chose between panels on mental health
in January to meet with alumni there, including José Ignacio
and well-being, career transitions and board readiness.
Paliza, L’06, Administrative Minister of the Presidency, Luis
In February 2024, the Georgetown Women’s Forum
Miguel De Camps García, L’02, Minister of Labor and Leon
will be a university-wide event. Visit womensforum.
Patino, L’14, who helped organize the trip. Professor Alvaro
georgetown.edu for the latest.
Santos also joined the group to speak about Georgetown Law’s Center for the Advancement of the Rule of Law in the
Above: The Women’s Forum offers many opportunities for networking. Below: Alumnae Award recipients Hon. Pamela K. Chen, L’86 of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Patricia Mullahy Fugere, C’81, L’84, co-founder and former executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and Michele Johnson, L’98, Global Chair of the Litigation & Trial Department at Latham & Watkins, with Dean William M. Treanor
Americas (CAROLA). Dean Treanor has a lot more travel planned in the year ahead – don’t miss an opportunity to reconnect with your Georgetown network when he comes to your city!
2023 Fall 33
ALUMNI / CLASS NOTES
CLASS NOTES 1973 In February, the Westchester County (New York) African American Advisory Board honored Charles Douglas Dixon as a 2023 Trailblazer, presenting him with the Vernon E. Jordan Award for Civic Engagement. A retired business and real estate lawyer, Dixon currently chairs the Arthur S. Dixon Family Foundation. Larry “Hank” Hankla is retired and lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, Judith Hammerschmidt. He remains active in Democratic politics and performs with several local musical organizations. He also serves as chair of the Dambach Peacebuilders Fellowship Founders’ Council at his undergraduate alma mater, Oklahoma State University.
1958 Gay Reddig Mayl, L’59, shared sad news of the passing of her husband, Jack Mayl. Before enrolling at Georgetown Law, he attended Notre Dame and went on to serve as a Navy lieutenant under Admiral William Callaghan in Japan. Following law school, he joined his father’s law firm, Murphy and Mayl, in Dayton, Ohio. The Mayls married in 1972 and lived in Florida after his retirement. “He had a marvelous life,” said Mrs. Mayl.
1974 In American Traitor: General James Wilkinson’s Betrayal of the Republic and Escape from Justice, Howard Cox, a former attorney in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, chronicles Wilkinson’s life and crimes as the highest ranking American official ever to be tried for treason.
Environmental Policy in Action Matthew Karanian (LL.M., ’01) is a law and policy specialist with Environmental Strategies International, a nonprofit humanitarian organization developing plans for safer water supplies in rural Bangladesh. Top, Karanian (center) with his team. Above, children in the village of Teriail watch while a team conducts arsenic testing of water from a community well.
34
Georgetown Law
CLASS NOTES \ ALUMNI
1975 Carol McCabe Booker has written The Waterman’s Widow, which tells the true story of a waterman’s murder on Maryland’s Solomons Island in 1900, the arrest of his widow amid a history of lynchings, and the trial in Baltimore.
1977 The Washington Post published a letter to the editor on Feb. 24 written by Robert Weintraub, which called on President Biden to invoke the Defense Production Act to expedite the delivery of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. Weintraub is a corporate litigator in New York. Hillary Zimmerman has announced her retirement from St. Louis-based McCormack Baron Salazar, a national developer/owner of affordable housing, where she served as general counsel and president of asset management.
ceremonies in May. Among his leadership roles, he served as board chairman of ION Media Networks and president of the Broadcast Education Association. Doug Ress was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers at its spring 2023 meeting. He currently chairs Pennsylvania’s Continuing Legal Education Board, is a trustee of the Queens College Foundation and is on the board of the JDog Foundation, a veterans support organization.
1981 In his new book The Devils Will Get No Rest: FDR, Churchill and the Plan That Won the War, James Conroy provides the first full account of the Casablanca Conference of 1943. New Yorker journalist Evan Osnos writes: “This is World War II gamesmanship at its most gripping.”
1982
Henry Fellows Jr. recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of the boutique business litigation firm he co-founded in Atlanta, Fellows LaBriola. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Rebecca Cook is the editor of Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives, which introduces new explanations of the multiple dimensions of gender equality. The volume also provides retrospectives on national and international struggles to eliminate gender discrimination.
1979
1984
Susan Smith Blakely has published the fifth book in her “Best Friends at the Bar” series, New Lawyer Launch: The Handbook for Young Lawyers. Blakely and her contributors offer foundational advice, from developing productive work habits to becoming comfortable promoting professional talents.
David Carr has been selected as a member of the American Bar Foundation Fellows, a global honorary society. He is a partner in Ice Miller’s Workplace Solutions Group and chairs the firm’s Employment Litigation Team.
1978
The University of Kentucky awarded an honorary degree to pioneering broadcaster and media broker W. Lawrence Patrick at commencement
Gatherings
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington honored Tim Mulligan at its annual Caritas! volunteer recognition event in April. Mulligan received the Newcomer Network Volunteer of the Year award.
Members of the Class of ’78 gathered in New York for a minireunion in May: (l-r) Harold Flegelman, Larry Katz, Joe Bianculli, Steve Patton, Linda Kleinbaum, Bill McErlean, Andy Lavin, Karen Milner and Gary Morgans. Not pictured: Scott Hayim and Howard Seife.
Frederick Nice (LL.M.), a partner at Barley Snyder in Reading, Pennsylvania, has been appointed to the board of directors of the Foundation for the Reading Public Museum.
1985 Douglas Mangel is a founding member of the new boutique law firm Werner Ahari Mangel in Washington, D.C. He focuses on the representation of insurers in complex insurance coverage disputes.
1987 Paul Leclair, founding partner of Adams Leclair, has been named a fellow of the New York Bar Foundation. Among his previous honors, Leclair was a recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the Monroe County Bar Foundation. E. Christopher Murray has joined Rivkin Radler as a partner in the Uniondale, New York, office. He is a member of the firm’s Commercial Litigation Practice Group.
1988 Robert Darwell produced and directed the award-winning documentary “The 90s Club,” which highlights the wisdom and vitality of a dozen individuals in their 90s, including actor Dick Van Dyke. The film is now available on Amazon Prime. Darwell, an entertainment lawyer, is currently head of global media at Sheppard Mullin in Los Angeles. Mark Mansour, SFS’79, has joined Butzel as a shareholder in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. His practice is focused on government relations, particularly involving the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission. Karen Morris is general counsel of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, providing legal advice and counsel to protect the retirement security of more than 33 million American workers, retirees and their families in private sector defined-benefit pension plans. 2023 Fall 35
ALUMNI / CLASS NOTES
Publications & Recordings Mary Strand, L’85, a lawyer turned novelist and singer-songwriterguitarist, published a trilogy of novels in 2022, starting with Sunsets on Catfish Bar. This June, she released her debut album, Golden Girl, with her son Jack Strand playing drums. The album is available on all streaming platforms.
Land Bank Twin Cities in Minneapolis, a nonprofit organization that works to break barriers to equitable real estate development, has appointed Thomas Streitz as interim executive director. Streitz was one of the bank’s founders and most recently served as its board chair.
1994 In June, Belinda Nixon was appointed vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Internet2, a nonprofit, advanced technology community founded by leading higher education institutions in 1996. Jeff Richardson is a partner in the New Orleans office of Adams and Reese. He also publishes iPhoneJD.com, the oldest and largest website for attorneys who use an iPhone or iPad, and recently released the 100th episode of his tech podcast “In the News.” Dawn Reddy Solowey was promoted to partner at Seyfarth Shaw. She practices labor and employment litigation and counseling, with a special focus on trials and appeals, in the firm’s Boston office.
1989 Carol Chen, who lives and works in Camden, Maine, has published Lobsters Without Borders, the first in a series of mysteries featuring rookie officer Jane Roberts of St. Frewin’s Island, Maine.
Wendy Walker has published her sixth thriller, What Remains. The novel follows the aftermath of a department store shooting and the police detective who took one life to save another.
1990 Nino Coviello (LL.M.) was recently elected co-managing member of Saiber LLC in Florham Park, New Jersey. He has been a member of the firm for more than 20 years and leads its Business Services Practice Group. Darrell Miller has been appointed managing partner at Fox Rothschild’s Los Angeles office. The founding chair of the firm’s Entertainment & Sports Law Department, and a former singer and performer, he is consistently listed among Hollywood’s top dealmakers by national industry publications such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. 36
Georgetown Law
Tobey M. Daluz, co-leader of the Bankruptcy and Restructuring Practice Group at Ballard Spahr in Wilmington, Delaware, was inducted into the American College of Bankruptcy as a fellow in March.
1992 Jennifer Manner (LL.M.) has produced and directed a documentary, When Wire Was King: The Transformation of Telecommunications, which has been syndicated by American Public Television for PBS.
1995 Beth Miller (LL.M.) was promoted to partner at Fox Rothschild in the firm’s Wilmington, Delaware office. She focuses her practice on federal, state and local taxation and estate planning and administration.
1996 Mission Hill Hospitality, a leading select service and extended stay hotel investor, has appointed Catherine Hance as general counsel. She joins Mission Hill from Davis Graham & Stubbs in Denver, where she was a partner in the firm’s real estate group for more than 20 years.
1997 Kenzo Kawanabe has contributed a chapter to the book How to Be a Lawyer: The Path from Law School to Success (Wiley, 2022) focused specifically on how to be a trial lawyer. He is a partner at Davis Graham & Stubbs and a fellow and Colorado state chair of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
1998 Maja Hazell reported: “After seven years at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City, then turning to my passion for talent management and diversity, I have pivoted to the finance and tech space. I am currently a managing director of D.E. Shaw & Co. and head of diversity, equity and inclusion for the D.E. Shaw Group. However, my most joyful role is mom to a 19-year-old.” Michael Lentz has joined Maryland-based firm Tydings & Rosenberg as a partner in the firm’s litigation and business departments as well as its estates and trusts practice group. Stacey Rufe, C’93, is a founding partner of the new boutique law firm Werner Ahari Mangel in Washington, D.C. She represents insurers in complex disputes arising under directors and officers and other professional liability policies.
1999 Scott Haenni (JD/MBA) has been named chief executive officer of Sterling Capital Management, following eight years as chief operating officer. Jim Yu, recognized as a Northern California Super Lawyer, represents seriously injured pedestrians and bicyclists. He started his own law practice in 2013 in the Bay Area and recently opened a new office in Sacramento.
CLASS NOTES \ ALUMNI
2000
2003
Christian Perrucci, a partner with Florio Perrucci Steinhardt Cappelli Tipton & Taylor in Easton, Pennsylvania, has joined the Greater Easton Development Partnership board of directors.
Qwendolyn Brown (LL.M.) has joined Lerch Early as a principal in the firm’s real estate practice. She previously served as associate general counsel at American University and as in-house counsel to the D.C. Housing Authority.
2001 Stephen Osborn has been appointed managing member in Mintz’s San Francisco office. He advises life sciences, tech, digital health and consumer products companies of all sizes. Karen Stemland has been promoted to principal at Woods Rogers Vandeventer Black in the firm’s Charlottesville, Virginia, office. She focuses on civil litigation, construction, real estate, energy and commercial matters. Ralph Winnie, Jr. (LL.M.), an international legal and business strategist, is working with the Center for Estate Administration Reform (CEAR), a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to preventing guardianship abuse and fraud.
2002 Michelle Lipkowitz has been appointed managing member of Mintz’s Washington, D.C., office. Her practice spans commercial litigation, white-collar defense and government investigations. Eric Parnes has joined Blank Rome’s International Trade practice group in Washington, D.C., as a partner. He advises clients in international trade disputes and other high-stakes government-facing matters, including internal and government investigations and False Claims Act litigation. Amy Schrader has been elected shareholder at Baker Donelson in the Tallahassee, Florida, office. A member of the firm’s Health Law Group, she focuses her practice on assisting clients in their dealings with Florida regulatory agencies.
Eric Hildenbrand has been promoted to chief strategy officer at McLane, a national supply chain services company in the areas of grocery and food service. Joshua Kastenberg (LL.M.), a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, has been awarded tenure. He is the author of Goldwater v. Carter: Foreign Policy, China, and the Resurgence of Executive Branch Primacy. Liljana Sekerinska sent in the following: “After spending the last four years in Buenos Aires, Argentina, my family, and I are returning to Washington, D.C. I continue to work in the World Bank, focusing on transport infrastructure modernization.”
Awards Kevin Ryan, L’92, father of current student Liam Ryan, C’15, L’25, won a 2023 Tony Award for co-producing the revival of Parade on Broadway. He received three other Tony nominations for co-producing Into the Woods, The Piano Lesson and The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.
Samantha Timmons (LL.M.) has joined the business law firm HunterMaclean in Savannah, Georgia, as a member of the firm’s Corporate Practice Group.
2004 Guillaume Pitron (LL.M.), a Paris-based journalist, recently published his second book. The Dark Cloud: How the Digital World is Costing the Earth focuses on the underappreciated scale of the virtual world’s energy use.
2005
Recognitions
Josh Hsu has joined Jenner & Block as a partner in the firm’s Government Controversies and Public Policy Litigation Practice. He previously served as counsel to Vice President Kamala Harris, where he led matters related to congressional oversight, litigation and investigation. He also provided counsel on key policy issues, including the historic nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Johanna Bond, L’01 (LL.M.), has been appointed the new dean of Rutgers Law School. She previously served as the Sydney and Francis Lewis Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University, where her scholarship focused on global women’s rights. In the early 2000s, Bond was executive director of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at Georgetown Law.
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Recognitions Chad Higgins, a shareholder with Bernstein Shur, worked with the New England Innocence Project to successfully overturn the wrongful conviction of Keyon Sprinkle, (pictured, right). On Feb. 3, Higgins and his daughter traveled to Boston to celebrate the first Keyon Sprinkle Day and receive a certificate of recognition from Mayor Michelle Wu, (pictured, left).
Alison Morrissey has been promoted to partner at McCarter & English in the firm’s Philadelphia office. She represents clients in complex commercial litigation and mass tort pharmaceutical product liability litigation.
Gabriel Rubin of the nationwide employment law firm Jackson Lewis has been elevated to principal. He is an attorney in the firm’s San Francisco office. Gloria Shepherd (LL.M.) was appointed executive director of the Federal Highway Administration within the U.S. Department of Transportation, the first woman and first African American to hold that position.
2006 Christopher Dolan, a partner in the Minneapolis office of Faegre Drinker, has been appointed a deputy practice group leader of the firm’s product liability and mass torts practice. He focuses his practice on complex environmental litigation.
2007 Elizabeth Matos was recently tapped by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell to become the office’s Civil Rights Division chief and senior advisor. She previously served as executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts. 38
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The Arts Council of the Brazos Valley has named Jeremy Osborne the recipient of its 2023 DA “Andy” Anderson Award for lifetime achievement. Osborne is a founding partner of Sago Capital in College Station, Texas.
2008 Sam Josephs, a partner at the boutique firm Spertus, Landes & Josephs in Los Angeles, recently obtained an acquittal for Carlos Martinez, a defendant in the FIFA bribery trial in the Eastern District of New York. The acquittal received extensive press coverage in the New York Times and other national media outlets.
2009 Margo Bailey was elected partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher’s Washington, D.C., office, where she is a member of the Corporate & Financial Services Department. She previously served as special counsel to the Office of Commissioner Brian Quintenz of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Andrew Ebersbach has been promoted to special counsel in the New York office of Fried Frank. He is a member of the firm’s Corporate Real Estate Group. James Fitzmaurice was elected partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York. His practice focuses on insurance litigation and other complex commercial disputes. Alex Livshits was elected partner at Fried Frank in New York. He is a member of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group.
2010 Matthew Barkan was elected partner at Pryor Cashman in January. Based in the firm’s New York office, he is a member of the Litigation, Financial Technology, and Media + Entertainment Groups. Earth Island Institute, an international environmental organization, has named Sumona Majumdar as its new executive director. She previously served as the organization’s general counsel.
Susan K. Nieto, C’04, a member of Reed Smith’s Global Corporate Group, has been promoted to partner in the firm’s Philadelphia office. Her practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, joint ventures and cross-border transactions across multiple industries. James Perkins has been named a member of Cole Schotz in the firm’s Dallas office. His practice focuses primarily on representing patent owners in complex patent litigation in federal courts across the nation.
2011 Allie Petrova was elected chair of the Tax Section of the North Carolina Bar Association for 202223. She is the founder of Petrova Law, a boutique business law firm focused on tax and corporate law issues. Natalie I. Uhlemann has been elevated to counsel at Fox Rothschild in the firm’s Minneapolis office. She represents clients in all stages of commercial and intellectual property litigation. Greg Zlotnick has been appointed visiting clinical assistant professor and supervising attorney for the Housing Rights Project at the Center for Legal and Social Justice at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio.
CLASS NOTES \ ALUMNI
2012 Karen Bennett Bianco received the Arthur S. Flemming Award for her work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the General Counsel, establishing a comprehensive new EPA program to phase down U.S. production and consumption of climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 85% over the next 15 years.
Thomas McKay has become a partner at Morvillo Abramowitz following a career in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, most recently as co-chief of the Public Corruption Unit. Among his high-profile cases, McKay led the prosecution of Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to then-President Donald Trump.
2013 Joza AlRasheed is the first-ever female managing partner of a major global law firm in Saudi Arabia, Herbert Smith Freehills. AlRasheed also serves on Georgetown Law’s Middle Eastern & North African (MENA) Law Alumni Advisory Board. John Paul “J.P.” Bratcher (LL.M.) has joined the Private Client Services Section of GrayRobinson as a shareholder, where he focuses on estate planning and administration. He also serves on the board of the Georgetown Club of Naples, Florida.
Catherine Lyons reported: “I’m currently an associate in the corporate restructuring practice at Wilson Sonsini in its Wilmington office. My husband, Garrett, and I became parents to our now rambunctious toddler, Rhett, in December 2021!”
Pierre Denizot-Heller reported: “After spending 5+ years as a tax associate, I worked two years for
Gretchen Blauvelt-Marquez has been named partner at Day Pitney in the firm’s New Jersey office. She counsels clients in public and private offerings of debt and equity securities. Dave Lewis has been promoted to director at Goulston & Storrs. He is a real estate attorney in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
2018
Arthur Kim sent in the following update: “Since last reunion, I have gone in-house from Hogan Lovells to Medtronic, but am still in the D.C. area and practicing in the FDA space and advising on medical device regulation.”
Lilianna Anh Townsend has joined Potter Anderson & Corroon in Wilmington, Delaware, as counsel. She focuses on corporate and commercial litigation in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
the French luxury group LVMH. I am now with the Swiss building solutions group Holcim. On a personal note, my wife and I welcomed Jeanne to our family in 2021 and triplets Léon, Albane and Apolline in June.” The firm of Fried Frank in New York has elevated two members of the Class of 2013. Thomas Lee was elected partner and Colum Weiden was promoted to special counsel. Both are members of the M&A and Private Equity Practice Group. Rachel Shapiro has joined Morgan, Brown & Joy as an associate. She is an employment litigator and former Massachusetts assistant attorney general in the Trial Division.
2014 Jessica Wang has been elevated to partner at Hinckley Allen in Providence, Rhode Island. She is a member of the firm’s Real Estate Group.
2015 Liza Magley has been elected a partner at Bond, Schoeneck & King. She is a litigator based in the firm’s Syracuse, New York, office.
2016 Sevawn Foster Holt (LL.M.), who represents clients on employee benefits and executive compensation matters, has been elected partner at Kutak Rock in Little Rock, Arkansas. Leo Unzeitig was promoted to shareholder at Chamberlain Hrdlicka. He is a member of the firm’s Tax Controversy and Litigation Section in San Antonio.
2017 Taylor Weaver is president and CEO of LNG Electric. The company is currently deploying a large number of electric vehicle charging stations at hotels, with the aim of becoming one of the top three owner-operators of EV charging stations in the U.S. by 2028. Brooke Pinto, member of the D.C. Council representing Ward 2, and Meryl Chertoff co-taught a Week One in January, “D.C. Policy and Law for the Capital City.” Chertoff is director of the Georgetown Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law.
Damon Porter, an associate at Latham & Watkins specializing in antitrust and white collar law, married Laura Powell this past March. He was recently admitted to the Supreme Court Bar, sponsored by Professor Irving Gornstein.
2019 Isaac Hoenig has joined Fox Rothschild in New York as an associate in the Taxation & Wealth Planning Department. He is a former trial attorney in the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
2020 Alexander Keyser has joined Fox Rothschild’s Washington, D.C., office as an associate in the Corporate Department. Philip Land (LL.M.) co-authored the recent article “FDI Oversight: Dawn of a New Era?” in the National Security Law Journal. A business lawyer, he is a shareholder at Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd in Greensboro, North Carolina.
2021 Brendan Hobbs, LL.M.’22, has joined Dean Mead as an associate in the firm’s Corporate and Tax Department in Orlando, Florida. Prior to joining the firm, he served as a law clerk for the U.S. Tax Court.
2022 Chance Brooks has joined Snell & Wilmer as a real estate associate in the firm’s Los Angeles office.
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In Memoriam The Hon. Sylvia A. Bacon, L’59
Recognitions Jane Stine, L’07, and Ahmed Mousa, L’09, were named to the 2023 class of Presidential Leadership Scholars. The program is a collaboration among the presidential centers of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson. Stine is managing director of Loop Abroad and CELA Belize, pre-veterinary study abroad programs, and Mousa is chief business officer and general counsel at Pieris Pharmaceuticals.
Sylvia Bacon died in April at the age of 91. A member of one of the first Harvard Law School classes to include women, she came to Washington to clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews – and simultaneously earned an LL.M. at Georgetown Law. A distinguished career in the Department of Justice followed, and in 1970, President Nixon appointed her as one of the inaugural judges on the D.C. Superior Court. Presidents Nixon and Reagan both considered her as a Supreme Court nominee. After retiring, Bacon was a team leader with the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA). Daniel Toomey, L’67, who taught with her, recalls, “Sylvia did not stand on ceremony, expecting neither faculty nor participants to show deference to her. She received rave reviews from our participants.” Bacon also served as a Distinguished Lecturer at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law for many years.
Dana Hyde, L’96 Dana Hyde, who had an extensive career in both the public and private sectors, died in March at the age of 55. During the Obama administration, she served as CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Associate Director at the Office of Management and Budget and Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of State. She was also Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, during the Clinton Administration was Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General, and practiced law at WilmerHale and Zuckerman Spaeder. In an article about her death, the Washington Post quoted her husband, Jonathan Chambers, L’96: “Her desire to help people was evident in her career choices… Dana was the best person I ever knew.”
Jake Eigner, L’21, and Arsalan Malik, L’15, were featured on the cover of the June 2023 edition of 401(k) Specialist Magazine and profiled as rising stars in the ERISA law space. They are both associates at Groom Law Group.
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Sylvia Bacon L’1959
Woodie Johnson C’1982, L’1985
James Proctor L’1966
Harold Bardonille L’1981
John Kenny L’1963
William Schief L’1960
Dennis Barnes L’1965
David Lauritzen L’1978
Hubert Schlosberg L’1956
Michael Burke C’1970, L’1973
John Mackey L’1965
George Schwind L’1957
Frederick Cadman L’1985
Fred Mascolo L’1953
William Sennett L’1955
Michael Cavanaugh L’1960
Jack Mayl L’1958
Neal Smith L’1969
Dean Dickie L’1969
Ronnie Menor L’1980
Marvin Turner L’1998
W. P. Flynn L’1954
Barry Morewitz L’1971
Thomas Whalen L’1963
Alexander Haig C’1974, L’1977
Jerome Murphy L’1973
Simone Woung L’1997
Arnold Hammer L’1967
Michael Noone F’1955, L’1957, L’1962
Dana Hyde L’1996
Dona Nutini L’1982
TREASURES FROM THE GEORGETOWN LAW LIBRARY Announcing Women’s Admissions, 1951
I
n 1951, with little fanfare, Georgetown Law opened its doors to women. This understated notice announcing Georgetown’s intent to “break with tradition and to accept women students” was found years later, bound into the Law Center’s Annual Bulletin for that year. Not much is known about where or how it was disseminated. The news made its way somehow to Mary Rhomberg, L’56, who recalled in 2001, “Every year [the Bulletin] said, ‘women not accepted.’ One year it said, ‘Women accepted.’ My husband wrote to ask if that was a mistake. It wasn’t, so I immediately applied.” Eight women matriculated in 1951. “There were 50
million [men], it looked to me, and there was not another woman to be seen,” recalled Helen Chambers Toomie of walking into her first law school class. Agnes Neill Williams, L’54, remembered another challenge of being “first”: “They forgot to create a ladies’ room… I used to go across the street to a department store to use the ladies’ lounge.” But Williams felt the struggle was worth it. “I wanted to get my teeth into something that I really liked… It didn’t take me very many weeks of law school to realize that I had found the right something,” she said.
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