GW Law – Winter 2014 by Moire Marketing Partners

A Lucky Child | The Benefits of Cross-Disciplinary Education | Mastering Legal Writing The George Washington University Law School Magazine winter 2014

Crossroads

of the

World

A Lucky Child Professor Thomas Buergenthal emerged from the horrors of the Holocaust to become an architect of international human rights law.

Crossroads of the World

GW Law is quickly becoming a global hub, fueled by a strong international student body and a faculty of worldrenowned scholars.

Mastering Legal Writing GW’s outstanding Legal Research and Writing Program is yielding huge benefits for students and alumni alike.

Strategic Collaboration Interdisciplinary education and agility in working across multiple fields are key components of GW’s 10-year strategic plan.

a magazine for alumni and friends Editor: Jamie L. Freedman, MA ‘96 Contributing Editors: Claire Duggan, BA ‘98, JD ‘13 Danny Freedman, BA ‘01 Gina Harris, BA ’88, MA ’04 Ruth Steinhardt Interim Dean: Gregory E. Maggs Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing: Elizabeth H. Field

winter 2014

Vice President for External Relations: Lorraine Voles, BA ‘81

A Message From The Dean

Associate Vice President for Communications: Sarah Gegenheimer Baldassaro

Law In Action

Senior Editorial Director: Heather O. Milke, MBA ‘02

Law Briefs

design & production: Moiré Marketing Partners

12 business & C-LEAF

Contributing photographers: William Atkins, Jessica McConnell Burt, Jan Chayt, Claire Duggan, Chris Flynn, Nick Gingold, Doug Plummer, Dave Scavone, Andrew Snow, and Abdul El-Tayef GW Law magazine is published by the External Relations division: The George Washington University 512 Rice Hall Washington, D.C. 20052 202.994.6460 fax: 202.994.9025 magazine@gwu.edu Please send change-of address notices to: Alumni Records 2100 M St., NW Suite 315 Washington, D.C. 20052 or alumrecs@gwu.edu

cover illustraton by Jing Jing Tsong

contents

GW Law magazine is published twice a year and is mailed free of charge to GW Law alumni and friends of the university. Opinions expressed in these pages are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the university. The George Washington University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.

2 3 8

14 clinics 16 ENVIRONMENTAL & Energy 18 government contracts 20 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 22 international 26 LitIGation & dispute resolution 28 national security 30 public interest & pro bono

32 FACULTY SUCCESS 34 student SUCCESS

36 Oral Advocacy Roundup

59 faculty file

ALUMNI & Philanthropy

class notes

20th & H

76 88

a message from the dean

A New Look for GW Law Dear friends of GW LAW,

Our students have traveled the nation, winning competitions and doing valuable pro bono legal work. Our faculty continues to produce extraordinarily influential legal scholarship, while also assisting the U.S. government and international organizations in their important missions.

GW Law | winter 2014

We are very pleased to present you with the first issue of our newly redesigned GW Law magazine. You will see that we have updated the graphic style, changed the formatting to make the content easier to read, and added new sections to provide you with more in-depth coverage of topics of great interest to the Law School community. Our Strategic Communications team has truly devoted themselves to producing this splendid issue, which we believe is the largest in the entire history of this publication. While much is new, one thing remains the same: the magazine still serves first and foremost to connect you with GW Law. Your interest and support are highly valuable to us. We are delighted to share with you what GW Law students, alumni, faculty, and staff are doing and how they are affecting the world around them. In May 2013, the GW Board of Trustees unanimously approved a new strategic plan to keep the university moving forward. Called “Vision 2021,” the strategic plan emphasizes four themes: innovation through cross-disciplinary collaboration, globalization, governance and policy, and citizenship and leadership. You will be hearing much about this plan as the university approaches the two hundredth anniversary of its founding in 1821. In this issue of the magazine, we have focused on two ways in which the Law School is furthering the goals of the strategic plan. The story “Strategic Collaboration” highlights some of GW Law’s many interactions with other schools within the university. As you will see, our students and faculty are very fortunate to have such willing and able partners all across the GW campus. Globalization is the focus of the article “20th & H: Crossroads of the World.” Each fall, students from more than a quarter of the nations on earth make their way to study at the Law School. Once here, they are joined throughout the year by visiting foreign judges, government officials, and

scholars. Our location in Washington, the legal capital of the world, and our openness to new ideas and different perspectives, draws these guests to the law school and enriches everyone’s experience. You will see in these pages reports of many forms of success. Our students have traveled the nation, winning competitions and doing valuable pro bono legal work. Our faculty continues to produce extraordinarily influential legal scholarship, while also assisting the U.S. government and international organizations in their important missions. And no account of the success of GW Law would be complete without news from our loyal alumni. This issue provides a view of the wide range of their impressive activities. GW Law is going through important transitions. This fall, we have opened two new academic buildings, hired new faculty members, and begun the search for the next dean. We hope you will come to visit us, either at Reunion Weekend this June or Alumni Weekend next fall, to see for yourself how much we have grown while remaining true to our constant mission of providing a superb legal education for all of our students. Sincerely,

Gregory E. Maggs Interim Dean and Professor of Law

LAW IN ACTION in the nation’s capital

Advancing Political Law

Washington, D.C., has more lawyers specializing in political law than any other city in the nation and possibly the world. That makes the George Washington University Law School an ideal place to examine the intricacies of political law—from election law and lobbying to campaign finance and voting rights. To make the most of its host city, GW’s Political Law Studies Initiative, created in 2011, calls on the field’s top local practitioners and officials to help create a rich intellectual environment for faculty, alumni, and students. “The initiative brings together academics, practitioners, policymakers, and other leaders in the area of political law to advance the field, which is a particularly important function because currently practitioners, policymakers, and academics are largely siloed,” explains Professor Spencer

Overton, director of the Political Law Studies Initiative. Because there are partisan issues within political law that oftentimes divide lawyers, the Political Law Studies Initiative offers a neutral space for lawyers and policymakers to gather, discuss issues, and advance the political law field. “The Political Law Studies Initiative serves as a platform for all sides of the political law community to share their points of view on important issues, and in doing so, provides students with an opportunity to hear a diversity of viewpoints that will both challenge them and help them understand the complex issues faced by the political law community,” says William McGinley, JD ’97, partner at Patton Boggs LLP and chair of the initiative’s steering committee. Other law areas—such as antitrust, environmental, and criminal law—already have

vibrant communities working together; the Political Law Studies Initiative seeks to organize a coordinated effort to gather a bipartisan community around political law. GW’s wide range of political law courses covers campaign finance, voting rights, congressional investigation, and other specialized topics. Courses are taught by both law professors and adjunct faculty members

The initiative brings together academics, practitioners, policymakers, and other leaders in the area of political law to advance the field. who are leaders in their subspecialties and who offer students valuable perspectives on how political law issues play out in the real world. The initiative partners with the Political Law Society, a student group that helps law students connect with the many political law resources in D.C. “Students wanted to hear directly from leaders in the field about cuttingedge issues,” Professor Overton says.

Last November, students got their wish when the initiative hosted a symposium with the George Washington Law Review. “I believe it was one of the most significant political law symposiums in the history of our nation,” Professor Overton says. The symposium drew top leaders in the field, including policymakers on the Hill, federal election commissioners, White House counsels, lawyers, and members of advocacy groups. Speakers included Ken Goldstein, president of Campaign Media Analysis Group; Tom Perez, U.S. secretary of labor; Bob Bauer, general counsel for Obama for America; and Sean Cairncross, chief counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Audience questions and comments were extremely informed, Professor Overton reports, and academics had the opportunity to share their ideas with professionals who could implement them. “Part of this is directly sharing ideas in a formal way, but then another significant part is the intangible benefits of getting together and having informal conversations,” Professor Overton says. Students were able to meet people whose work they had read about. The initiative is already planning events for the coming year, Mr. McGinley says, that will include top practitioners in the field, faculty, and students coming together for meaningful discussion. In the future, Professor Overton sees opportunities for the Political Law Studies Initiative to work with other GW schools—such as the Graduate School of Political Management— to build and foster a thriving intellectual community around political law. — By Carrie Madren

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

LAW IN ACTION in the nation’s capital

Bringing the Court to Campus the Supreme Court has addressed some of the most important social issues of the day this past year, and by virtue of its placement at the center of D.C. culture, GW Law had the opportunity to host major panel discussions on two of them: affirmative action and same-sex marriage. In September 2012, as the court prepared to address Fisher v. University of Texas—in which GW, along with nine other universities, filed an amicus brief in support of the university’s consideration of race as a factor in admissions— Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Christopher Bracey moderated a panel on the case at GW’s Jack Morton Auditorium.

Affirmative action really has been a defining issue... of the post-civil rights era. At bottom it’s a problem of disparity and underrepresentation. — Christopher A. Bracey “This panel is an important example of the type of dialogue that should happen at a university,” said Provost Steve Lerman. “This is a place for critical inquiry, for exploring divergent views, and for understanding what the law has to say to us.” 4

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“Affirmative action really has been a defining issue… of the post-civil rights era,” Associate Dean Bracey said in his introduction. “At bottom it’s a problem of disparity and underrepresentation.” Eric Jaffe, a sole practitioner who represents the Asian American Legal Foundation, and Andrew Grossman, a National Heritage Foundation Fellow and partner at Baker Hostetler, argued in favor of the litigant; the university’s standards for considering race as a factor in admissions, they maintained, were too vague. Mr. Jaffe said that Grutter v. Bollinger—the seminal affirmative action case that many civil rights activists worried would be overruled by the decision in Fisher—set up “an incoherent and impossible test.” The “holistic” approach for admission taken by the University of Texas’ admissions team, which included race as well as many other factors beyond a student’s GPA and standardized test scores, could not, he argued, possibly meet the Grutter requirements. On the other side of the table, Joshua Civin, of the NAACP Legal Defense Educational Fund, and Deborah Archer, associate dean for academic affairs at NYU Law, maintained that there is an ongoing necessity for affirmative action policies and that a holistic approach is perhaps the best way to address that necessity. A

too-broad ruling against the University of Texas in this case could make it difficult for universities to advocate for a more diverse student body, exacerbating problems that already exist. Professor Archer, referring to studies showing that black male students with identical SAT scores did better at highly ranked colleges than at lower ranked ones, pointed out that the holistic approach to admissions is a necessity for the inclusion of such students. “Someone looked past those students’ SAT scores and GPAs and saw something in them—saw signs of determination, leadership, drive—and picked the right students to bring up to these more elite schools, and they were successful there,” she said. In March, the court faced two other major civil rights cases, this time on the topic of same-sex marriage: Hollingsworth v. Perry, which concerned California’s

Proposition 8 law amending the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to get married, and United States v. Windsor, which challenged the Defense of Marriage Act. Again, as it had for Fisher, GW Law brought the debate to campus. Paul Smith, partner at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., and a successful attorney in Lawrence v. Texas, and Edward Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, spoke with Associate Dean for Public Interest and Public Service Law Alan Morrison on the topic. Mr. Whelan, a conservative activist in the first Bush administration, maintained that marriage is defined as a heterosexual, procreative union and that a change in that definition would have dire consequences. To federally recognize gay marriage, he said, would be tantamount to saying that

FACULTY ON THE HILL:

INFLUENCING THE LAW

Associate Dean for Government Procurement Law Daniel I. Gordon testified in February before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee on the reform of federal information technology acquisition and management, including the provisions of the draft Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act bill.

Capitalizing on its location in the heart of Washington, GW Law hosted major panel discussions on affirmative action and same-sex marriage— two hotly contested issues on the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket last term.

“marriage isn’t the vehicle in which [Americans] should raise their children.” Marriage thus defined is the cornerstone of American culture, he said, and “we have millions and millions and millions of existing and potential victims of the collapse of our marriage culture…If we don’t restore that, this country is doomed.” The decision to recognize gay marriage, therefore, should in Mr. Whelan’s view be left to the states. “The democratic processes are… the proper forum for accommodating” America’s changing attitudes and demographics, not “judges who willy-nilly impose their own view and upset the central institution of American society.” Mr. Smith disagreed. “If you look at the way the principles of the Equal Protection Clause work,” he said, members of the LGBTQ community have as much right to invoke it as have women,

African Americans, and other disadvantaged groups. Characterizing the pro-equal marriage lobby as a powerful, moneyed Washingtonian force that could steamroll the will of the American majority, Mr. Smith added, is fundamentally misguided. “Say that to the people in states who have no protection from employment discrimination, housing discrimination, absolutely no recognition for their relationships or protections for their children that come from that recognition, and no real hope of having any of that change anytime soon. That is the reality of the situation if you go state by state. “It will be 50 years of people waiting to get basic equality,” he said. “And that is the reason why civil rights groups have the right to go to the Supreme Court and say, ‘This kind of discrimination should be taken off the table.’” — By Ruth Steinhardt

In May, Professor Sean Murphy briefed senior staffers working with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on “Treaties and U.S. Foreign Relations Law.”

Professor Spencer Overton testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice in July on “The Voting Rights Act after Shelby County,” encouraging Congress to update the Voting Rights Act.

Read and watch his testimony and his more extensive thoughts at http://spenceroverton.com/?page_id=376

Lyle T. Alverson Professor of Law Richard J. Pierce Jr. testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology in July on improving the FCC process.

You can watch video of the hearing at http://1.usa.gov/1c0iLcA

Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor of Law Orin Kerr testified twice before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations. On March 13, he testified on “Investigating and Prosecuting 21st-Century Cyber Threats.” The following week, he testified on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which regulates government access to Internet communications and records. Professor Kerr currently serves as the Law Library Scholar-inResidence for the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation Program on Demography, Technology, and Criminal Justice at the Library of Congress.

Learn more about his work and links to hearing videos by visiting http://1.usa.gov/12JFbIn

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

LAW IN ACTION in the nation’s capital

Leading the Way on Global Internet Freedom Since its launch more than 20 years ago, the World Wide Web has become an open-air cyber marketplace for exchanging ideas, viewpoints, and messages. But in light of the complex rights issues that arise with those freedoms, some companies and governments rein in what people can share and become overly reactive to controversial dialogue. To help defend Internet users’ privacy, human rights, and freedom of expression, GW Professors Arturo Carrillo and Dawn Nunziato created the Global Internet Freedom and Human Rights Speaker Series, which brings top experts to the Law School for timely presentations and discussions. “We have been able to turn GW Law into a focal point for high-level discussion in these areas,” Professor Carrillo says. Because of its rising profile in the international Internet freedom field, the Law School was officially accepted as an academic member of the Global Network Initiative, a coalition that helps companies defend privacy and freedom of expression rights in the face of government pressure. The initiative brings together tech companies from around the world, as well as academic institutions and individuals, to collaborate and 6

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advance freedoms of expression and privacy. “Because the Global Network Initiative’s corporate members include the largest and most influential ICT companies in the world— Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook—each of which has committed itself to selfregulation under the Global Network Initiative’s principles for protecting free speech and privacy, our membership in this organization offers us an opportunity to advance these important principles in an unprecedented way,” says Professor Nunziato. The acceptance also brought attention to the speaker series. The 2012-2013 Microsoft– GW Law Global Internet Freedom and Human Rights Speaker Series featured keynote discussions with international experts and informed question-and-answer sessions. “We addressed a number of very significant issues involving Internet freedom and free speech in particular,” says Professor Nunziato. Last fall, journalist/activist Rebecca MacKinnon and Professor Nunziato spoke on the ramifications of an anti-Muslim YouTube video, examining YouTube’s responsibility and the role of the First Amendment. The YouTube video caused great unrest in the Muslim world, leading to riots, injuries, and deaths,

and placing Google in a very difficult position as a guardian of free speech on the Internet worldwide, Professor Nunziato explains. “In this widely attended speaker series event, we were able to analyze the various principles at stake and offer a way forward for Google/YouTube in the face of similar conflicts.” January brought a

discussion with Howard Schmidt, former White House cybersecurity coordinator and chief security officer for Microsoft, who looked at developing an effective international cyberspace strategy. Strategy priorities included examining the economy and promoting international standards. “Yes, we’ve had disruptions and people who interfere

FACULTY ON THE HILL:

INFLUENCING THE LAW

J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law Robert L. Glicksman testified in February before the House Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law in a hearing titled “The Obama Administration’s Regulatory War on Jobs, the Economy, and America’s Global Competitiveness.”

ABOVE Howard A. Schmidt, former cybersecurity coordinator of the Obama administration and LEFT Vinton Cerf, vice president of Google were two of the featured speakers at last year’s Microsoft–GW Law Distinguished Speaker Series.

with things and commit crimes, but guess what, [the strategy] works every day,” he said in his presentation. He noted that the last major international enterpriselevel disruption was the MS Slammer worm that shut down corporate systems for days in August 2003. People are working for better cybersecurity and are learning more and improving more every year, he explained. “We have really smart people who can anticipate what the next scenario might be for threats, what platform they might be attacking,” he said. The following month, Vinton Cerf, vice president of Google, spoke on threats to Internet freedom and the challenges of preserving digital information. In March, the series

presented the Tech@State Internet Freedom Conference, in which speakers from the State Department, Microsoft, Google, and nongovernmental organizations explored the ways in which Internet technologies can be used to enhance and expand Internet freedoms. Previous events sponsored by the speaker series included the Transatlantic Conference on Global Online Freedom and Corporate Responsibility in May 2012. “The speaker series shows that the Law School is in the forefront of these timely and important issues and that we have generated space for discussion with high-level policymakers and others around these issues,” Professor Carrillo says. — By Carrie Madren

In June, Professor and Domestic Violence Clinic Director Joan Meier participated in the first-ever congressional briefing on the “hidden costs” of the Hague Convention, focusing on international civil abduction in regard to mothers and children fleeing abuse who are forced to return to their abusers by overzealous applications of the Hague Convention.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Lisa M. Schenck met with Senator Carl Levin (Mich.) to discuss sexual assault in the military services and proposed legislation that will take the chain of command out of the military justice process. Dean Schenck, along with retired female judge advocates and line officers, met with Senators Levin, Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Mark Warner (Va.), John Tester (Mont.), Jeff Chiesa (N.J.), John Thune (S.D.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), and Angus King (Maine) to discuss sexual assault in the military services and the role of the commander in the military justice process.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs Renovated Clinics Complex Opens Its Doors The Jacob Burns Community Legal Clinics made their much-anticipated return to the Law School campus this summer from temporary quarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. While the clinics’ location at the corner of 20th and G Streets, NW, is the same as it used to be, the look, size, and functionality of their new address at 650 20th Street is anything but. After almost two peripatetic years, the clinics have finally found permanence in a place they are proud to call home.

We wanted to create a modern, 21st-century complex that will be agile enough to adapt to changing technology and pedagogical techniques while maintaining the style and tradition found in the architecture of these wonderful structures.

— Hank Molinengo

“This new and improved space provides an important support to the clinics’ pedagogical and public service mission,” says Phyllis Goldfarb, Jacob Burns Foundation Professor of Clinical Law and associate dean of clinical affairs. “We deeply appreciate the commitment to clinical education at the Law School that this building represents, and we will honor that commitment 8

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as we build programmatically. Doing so in a building that is simultaneously new and historic links the clinics in a compelling way with both the past and the future.” The goal of the two-year Clinics Townhouse Project was to convert the turn-of-the-century townhouses at 2000, 2002, and 2004 G Street, NW—the first two of which the clinics formerly occupied and the third a fraternity house—into a single cohesive space appropriate for a large, urban clinical program. The new building is also the home of the Health Insurance Counseling Project, a legal services office affiliated with the Health Rights Law Clinic. In constructing the new physical plant, the exteriors of the townhouses were fully preserved and the interiors were enlarged, updated, and reconfigured to meet the clinics’ expanded needs. The result is a modern, 27,111-square-foot complex, purpose built for educating students and serving clients. The new facility features a spacious reception area; an elevator; offices for clinical faculty, fellows, and staff; and four interview rooms where clinicians and student–attorneys can meet with clients in a confidential environment. The building’s five classrooms are equipped with the latest audiovisual systems, including LCD screens. A newly renovated moot courtroom supplements those in the main Law School complex. Clinic students have designated work areas, and the building is equipped with a kitchen and an outdoor patio. While the purpose of the Clinics Townhouse Project was to support the expanded experiential learning opportunities that the clinics provide to GW Law

students, considerable thought was given to how the building would be constructed. In keeping with university objectives, the project’s architects sought and earned a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver rating. The LEED system is intended to promote design and construction practices that reduce the negative environmental impacts of buildings and improve occupant health and well-being.

Hamilton Named UNLV Law School Dean University of Nevada Las Vegas President Neal Smatresk named Daniel W. Hamilton, JD ’95, the third dean of the William S. Boyd School of Law. Dean Hamilton, previously associate dean for faculty development and professor of law and history at the University of Illinois College of Law, took the helm on July 1. His research focuses primarily on American property ideology and legal and constitutional issues during the Civil War.

All materials used during construction— including pre-existing materials such as restored brick—have LEED recognition. Insulation is environmentally conscious and was selected for maximum energy efficiency. The building takes advantage of natural light to the extent possible, particularly in the new below-ground floor, which benefits from the use of skylights. New windows optimize energy

performance. LED lighting, motion-driven water faucets, a state-of-the-art water heater, and an HVAC system with controls in each room or area were installed with energy conservation in mind. “We wanted to create a modern, 21st-century complex that will be agile enough to adapt to changing technology and pedagogical techniques while maintaining the style and tradition found in the architecture of these wonderful structures,” says Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs Hank Molinengo. “We have kept faith with our commitment to the environment, our mission of providing the best in experiential legal education, and in preserving the rich heritage of Foggy Bottom. This is attributable to the hard work of everyone involved.” While the new complex is both beautiful and functional, it also serves to honor the legacy of the clinics’ namesake, the late Jacob Burns, LLB ’24, LLD (Hon.) ’70. The Jacob Burns Foundation has demonstrated generosity and dedication to legal education at GW in ways that are without parallel. The completion of the Clinics Townhouse Project represents a tribute to Jacob Burns and the foundation that bears his name while providing a fitting new home for a vibrant clinical program.

Symposium speaker and event organizer James F. Humphreys Professor of Complex Litigation and Civil Procedure Roger H. Trangsrud welcomes speakers and guests to campus.

GW Law Hosts Class Action Symposium Leading academics and practitioners participated in five panels in March discussing the many controversial issues surrounding modern class action litigation. The symposium was jointly sponsored by GW Law’s James F. Humphreys Complex Litigation Center, Public Justice Foundation, and COSAL, with additional support provided by Epiq Systems, Heffler Claims Administration, Huntington Bank, and Rust Consulting Inc. The George Washington University Law Review published papers from the event.

To watch video and read papers, visit bit.ly/19ilyhJ

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs

Alabama Courthouse Honors Charles Price President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili (right) presented the Presidential Order of Excellence to GW Law Professor Thomas Buergenthal, his former SJD adviser, on Sept. 28.

The courthouse in Montgomery County, Ala., was renamed to honor the Hon. Charles Price, JD ’72, presiding judge of the 15th Judicial Circuit. Judge Price, who has served as a Montgomery County Circuit judge since 1983, received national recognition in 1997 as the recipient of the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation. The award, presented annually to a public official who has withstood strong opposition to follow what the official believes is the right course of action, recognized “his devotion to the principles of the American Constitution and judicial integrity” for going against popular sentiment in a case involving the separation of church and state.

Elizabeth Moler Wins Belva Lockwood Award The GW Law Association for Women and the GW Law Alumni Association honored Elizabeth Moler, JD ’77, as this year’s recipient of the annual Belva Lockwood Award at a March luncheon. Ms. Moler was selected based on her inspiring and successful career in both the private and public sectors. Highlights of her career include serving as deputy secretary of the Energy Department, a director of Unicom, and a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. 10

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Thomas Buergenthal Honored with Two Prestigious Awards Professor Thomas Buergenthal received two high honors—the Presidential Order of Excellence and the Law School Dean’s Medallion—at the GW Law International Alumni Weekend Dinner on Sept. 28. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who studied at GW Law in the mid-1990s, presented Professor Buergenthal, his former SJD adviser, with the Presidential Order of Excellence in recognition of his achievements in the fields of international and human rights law. Interim Dean Gregory Maggs presented Professor Buergenthal with the inaugural Law School Dean’s Medallion, the Law School’s highest honor. GW Law alumni from more than 15 countries attended the awards ceremony, including many past Buergenthal Scholars who received scholarships to pursue an LLM at GW thanks in large part to the generosity of Professor Buergenthal and his wife, Peggy. Professor Buergenthal’s incredible life story is featured in this issue of GW Law (see page 38).

Legal History Research Grant The Jacob Burns Law Library’s 2013 Richard and Diana Cummins Legal History Research Grant was awarded to Dr. Emily Kadens of Northwestern University School of Law. The Cummins Grant provides a stipend to support short-term historical research using Special Collections at the Burns Library, which is noted for its continental historical legal collections. Dr. Kadens studied the library’s extensive collection of French customary law works and commentaries, consilia, early judicial decisions, and other materials to research her proposed project, “Custom in the Courts.”

The Big Bad Wolf Goes on Trial Spring Break once again brought fourth graders from Fairfax County’s Churchill Road Elementary School to campus for lessons on law and civics taught by GW Law students. The sixth annual Kids’ Mock Trial, run by Professor Jonathan Turley, saw the 2,000th local elementary school student come through GW Law’s doors for the popular event featuring lessons on what it is like to be a juror and how police investigate and solve crimes.

Gideon’s Promise president and founder Jonathan Rapping, JD ‘95, Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) founder Steve Bright, and U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Robert Wilkins at the SCHR’s 2010 Frederick Douglass Awards ceremony

Gideon’s Army

Irish Legal 100 Ireland’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Collins, presented 2012 Irish Legal 100 Awards to (left to right) J.B. and Maurice Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law Jonathan Turley, with wife Leslie Turley, and Katie Harrington-McBride, BA ‘91, JD ‘94, principal counsel who works on privacy and data security law and policy for the Walt Disney Co., with husband John McBride, BA ‘90, JD ‘93. The Irish Legal 100 is an annual list created by the Irish Voice newspaper to honor the Irish in the legal profession internationally.

Gideon’s Promise—an Atlantabased organization founded and led by Jonathan Rapping, JD ‘95, was spotlighted on HBO this summer in the award-winning documentary Gideon’s Army. Mr. Rapping’s organization is committed to building a generation of public defenders in the nation’s most broken systems to lead the effort to make equal justice a reality for all. The film follows a group of young public defenders supported by Gideon’s Promise in the Deep South where lawyers face particularly difficult challenges due to high bonds, minimum mandatory sentencing, and a culture that is traditionally “tough on crime.”

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / business & C-LEAF

Volcker Scholarship Established The Center for Law, Economics & Finance (C-LEAF) was honored this spring to announce the establishment of the Paul A. Volcker Scholarship Awards at GW—named for the 12th chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. Two Volcker scholarships will be presented each year to talented GW Law students from diverse backgrounds interested in pursuing public service careers in financial regulation. The recipients of the Volcker Scholarship Awards for the 2013-14 academic year are 3L Samuel G. John and 3L Alexander Kommatas. Chairman Volcker is “one of a group of select leaders who have decisively changed the course of our nation’s history for the better,” said Professor Arthur Wilmarth, executive director of C-LEAF, at the May 22 ceremony announcing the new scholarship. A highlight of the program was an interview with Chairman Volcker about his career and philosophy as a central banker conducted by Donald L. Kohn, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. During the interview, Chairman Volcker discussed key monetary policy actions taken by the Fed in fighting inflation during the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as his views on current financial reform efforts. Eugene A. Ludwig, chief executive officer of Promontory Financial Group LLC and former comptroller of the currency, and E. Gerald Corrigan, managing director of Goldman Sachs and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, served as co-chairmen of the fundraising campaign for the Volcker Scholarship Awards. Both offered remarks at the program, as well as at a luncheon for donors and invited guests. 12

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ABOVE Paul A. Volcker delivers remarks to donors and invited guests at the celebratory luncheon. LEFT Donald L. Kohn interviews Paul A. Volcker.

The Political Economy of Financial Regulation A distinguished group of legal scholars, regulators, judges, practitioners, economists, political theorists, and social scientists came together at GW Law to discuss the role of the political process in financial services regulation and the role of money in both. MIT Economics Professor Simon Johnson and Michigan Law School Professor Michael S. Barr (former assistant secretary of the treasury) delivered keynote addresses. The conference was supported by contributions from the Institute for Law and Economic Policy, the University of Connecticut School of Law,

MIT Economics Professor Simon Johnson delivered one of the two keynote addresses at GW Law’s conference on political economy and financial regulation.

the University of North Carolina Center for Banking and Finance, Better Markets, The Clearing House, and Poyner Spruill.

ABOVE SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro, JD ’80, delivered the keynote address at the regulatory reform symposium. BELOW C-LEAF Advisory Board member and Jones Day partner Chip McDonald; MIT Economics Professor Simon Johnson; C-LEAF Advisory Board member and Morrison & Foerster partner Anna Pinedo; financial analyst Karen Shaw Petrou; GW School of Business Professor Scheherazade Rehman, and C-LEAF Executive Director Arthur Wilmarth all participated in the panel discussion on potential causes of the next financial crisis.

Mary Schapiro Keynotes Regulatory Reform Symposium SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro, JD ’80, and former Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan delivered keynote addresses at C-LEAF’s Fourth Annual Regulatory Reform Symposium. The event, featuring panel discussions by leading analysts and practitioners, probed topics ranging from whether the

Dodd-Frank Act goes “too far or not far enough” in addressing potential causes of “the next financial crisis,” to trends in consumer financial protection. The conference was supported by contributions from BuckleySandler LLP, Jones Day, K&L Gates, Morrison & Foerster, and Promontory Financial Group.

Junior Faculty Workshop winning authors George Ringe, Elizabeth Pollman, Kathryn Judge, and Peter Conti-Brown received cash prizes for their top papers at the annual C-LEAF event.

2013 Junior Faculty Workshop C-LEAF Hosted its third annual Junior Faculty Business and Financial Law Workshop and Junior Faculty Scholarship Prizes in April. Organized and chaired by Professor Lisa Fairfax, the event supports and recognizes the work of young legal scholars in accounting, banking, bankruptcy, corporations, economics, finance, and securities. C-LEAF received more than 80 paper submissions for the workshop from junior scholars at law schools throughout the United States, as well as from several international law schools. Twelve papers were selected for presentation. At the conclusion of the workshop the authors of the top three papers received monetary prizes: Kathryn Judge ($3,000 prize), Elizabeth Pollman ($2,000 prize), and Peter ContiBrown and George Ringe ($1,000 prize each). The event was funded by a $25,000 grant from the law firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, thanks to the personal sponsorship of Advisory Board member John M. Pollack, JD ‘98. Schulte Roth & Zabel has pledged $125,000 to support five annual Junior Faculty Workshops, including two that will be held over the next two years.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / CLINICS

GW Law Hosts Naturalization Ceremony GW Law’s Jacob Burns Moot Court Room was the setting for an emotional naturalization ceremony in April, co-hosted by the Washington, D.C., District Office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and GW Law’s Immigration Law Association and Immigration Clinic. Twenty-five young people between the ages of 14 and 20, representing 24 countries, were sworn in as U.S. citizens at the ceremony. Soon after, Professor Alberto Benítez, director of the Immigration Clinic, received a letter from the mother of one of the new citizens expressing gratitude to him and his students for their involvement in the citizenship program. GW was “a perfect setting” for the event, she said, and “your students offered great insight and captured how difficult and glorious the day was for our new citizens. Hopefully these young adults will be able to become as well educated as your students.”

Goldfarb Named Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Law Review The board of editors of the Clinical Law Review selected Phyllis Goldfarb, Jacob Burns Foundation Professor of Clinical Law and associate dean for clinical affairs, as an editor-in chief. Associate Dean Goldfarb will serve a six-year term with two co-editors-inchief. The Clinical Law Review, a semiannual, peer-edited journal, is housed at NYU, which jointly sponsors the journal with the Association of American Law Schools and the Clinical Legal Education Association. For the past four years, Associate 14

GW Law | winter 2014

TOP Two new U.S. citizens, originally from Israel, are flanked by their proud parents. ABOVE Soon-to-be citizens listen attentively to a program presented by GW Law students.

Dean Goldfarb has served as an editor of the Clinical Law Review, as well as a member of the planning committee for the Clinical Writers’ Workshop, sponsored by the Clinical Law Review and held annually at NYU. Twenty years ago, she was asked by the founding editors of the Clinical Law Review to contribute an article to its inaugural issue. That article, “A Clinic Runs Through It,” helped launch the journal in spring 1994. As the journal’s newest editor-in-chief, Associate Dean Goldfarb states that her association with the Clinical Law Review “has now come full circle.” Through her editorial work, she will be helping on a national level to forge the future of clinical legal education and clinical legal scholarship.

Associate Dean Phyllis Goldfarb

ABOVE Anne Hoyer, pictured here with her father, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), spoke movingly about her exposure to judicial failures to protect children in her own case. LEFT Professor Joan Meier, with conference presenters (left to right) Garland Waller, Els Lucas, Damon Moelter, Michelle Ghetti, and Eileen King.

Battered Mothers’ Conference The 10th annual Battered Mothers’ Custody Conference was held at GW Law in May, co-hosted by the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project, founded and directed by Professor of Clinical Law Joan Meier. The conference was launched in upstate New York 10 years ago to bring together mothers who have faced unjust

and grueling court outcomes in custody litigation when trying to protect their children from abusive fathers. Conference attendees and planners were pleased to be hosted at GW and in the nation’s capital, where they could join other activists in lobbying Capitol Hill on these issues. Lynn Rosenthal, the White House adviser on violence against women, spoke

at the conference, stating that the issue is front and center both for her and for Vice President Biden. Professor Meier spoke about encouraging developments at the federal level, including the adoption of new provisions in the Violence Against Women Act and the launch of a federal interagency working group to address family courts’ failures.

Crimes Against Humanity

Immigration Clinic Receives CORO Award Professor and Immigration Clinic Director Alberto Benítez accepted the D.C. Courts’ CORO Award on behalf of the clinic from Chief Judge Lee F. Satterfield, JD ’83, Superior Court of the District of Columbia, and Associate Judge Marissa Dameo. The award recognizes outstanding service to the District’s Latino community.

In October, GW Law’s International Human Rights Clinic helped launch the report, “Comparative Law Study and Analysis of National Legislation Relating to Crimes Against Humanity and Extraterritorial Jurisdiction.” The report, written by the director of the International Human Rights Clinic, Professor Arturo Carrillo, and former clinic staff attorney Annalise Nelson, concludes that crimes against humanity are inadequately prevented by domestic legislation worldwide. Professor Carrillo and Ms. Nelson presented their findings at a panel discussion hosted by the clinic in partnership with the International Law Society, the International and Comparative Law Program, and the American Society of International Law. At the event, which was moderated by Associate Dean Susan Karamanian, GW Law Professors Sean D. Murphy and Michael J. Matheson also commented on the report and discussed related topics, such as the International Law Commission’s ongoing work on an international crimes against humanity convention.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / ENVIRONMENTAL & Energy

Energy Law Program Expanding With the revolution in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, growing concerns about energy security, and the rapid evolution in electricity generation, energy issues are now at the forefront of the national agenda. GW Law is taking a leadership role in teaching and research in this rapidly growing field, and its energy law program continues to expand to meet demand. Energy law is not new to GW; the GW Law curriculum has included energy law courses since the early 1980s, and today the school has one of the strongest energy law programs in the nation. GW Law is also fortunate to have Professor Richard Pierce, one of the nation’s leading experts on energy issues, on its faculty.

Energy Law course offerings Proliferate The Law School recently added three courses to its environmental and energy law curriculum. International Environmental Governance, taught by Scott Fulton, former general counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency, focuses on the implementation of environmental policies in other nations, with an emphasis on how procedural rules and institutional development facilitate the realization of substantive environmental norms. Oil and Gas Law, taught by Saritha Komatireddy Tice, an attorney formerly with Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, proved very popular in its first semester, enrolling nearly 50 students. 16

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Fall 2012 practicum students with Assistant Dean Robin Juni (center), one of the co-teachers of the course

Environmental and Energy Law Practicum Enters Second Year GW’s Environmental and Energy Law program’s thriving Environmental and Energy Policy Practicum is now in its second year. Students in the practicum gain hands-on experience by conducting in-depth, semester-long research projects on behalf of client organizations. In the practicum’s first year, GW Law students worked with a number of prominent organizations—from the United Nations Institute on Training and Research to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources.

Adjunct faculty member Saritha Komatireddy Tice is a Harvard Law School graduate who served on the staff of the BP Oil Spill Commission.

The seminar touches upon a wide range of topics, from the shift in legal focus from oil and gas production to a concern for safety and the environment to new regulatory complexities that have arisen due to expanded hydraulic fracturing and deep water offshore drilling. A seminar on Energy Commodities Regulation this fall focuses on the increasingly complex energy commodities market. The course is taught by Athena Eastwood, who practices at Cadwalader, and Peter Malyshev from Latham & Watkins.

GW Law Joins ACORE The Law School is now a member of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization dedicated to building a secure and prosperous America with clean, renewable energy. Membership in ACORE will help GW further expand the reach of its rapidly growing Energy Law Program. Last spring, Andrew Emerson (3L) worked with ACORE to produce a summary of state renewable energy developments in 2012 and to write a report on political and legislative efforts to repeal RPS standards in five states under the auspices of the Environmental and Energy Law Practicum.

James J. Hoecker, former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, now senior counsel and energy strategist at Husch Blackwell LLP; Marvin Griff of Husch Blackwell; Environmental Program Fellow Jessica Wentz; Associate Dean Lee Paddock, and Sarah Vail of Husch Blackwell

SHAPIRO CONFERENCE FOCUSES ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY “LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR A Sustainable Energy Future: Legal and Policy Challenges” was the subject of the 2013 J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Conference. The first of an anticipated series of meetings exploring the evolution of U.S. energy networks, the conference brought together leaders from academia, government, nonprofits, and the private sector to discuss the capital deployment, technology development, and public policy changes that are critically needed to produce a more sustainable energy

supply system by 2030. Byron Dorgan, former U.S. Senator (D-N.D.) and senior fellow, Bipartisan Policy Center, delivered the keynote address on the “Four Faces of Energy Sustainability: Law and Policy.” GW worked closely with the Husch Blackwell firm in organizing the event, which was supported by a $450,000 grant from the Constellation Energy Foundation. The Journal of Environmental and Energy Law, which is produced jointly by the Law School and the Environmental Law Institute, will publish a symposium edition based on the conference.

Professor Dinah Shelton

DINAH L. SHELTON RECEIVES BURHENNE AWARD PROFESSOR DINAH L. SHELTON received the 2012 Burhenne Award for her “extraordinary contributions to environmental law, and in particular, for her work on the International Covenant on Environment and Development; on the link of human rights and the environment; and on indigenous peoples’ rights.” She accepted the award at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress, held in September in Jeju, Korea.

WORLD BANK COLLABORATIONS THE LAW SCHOOL HAS FOR THE PAST two years partnered with the World Bank on the development of its Global Forum on Law, Justice, and Development. Associate Dean Lee Paddock serves as co-lead of the forum’s Thematic Working Group on Environment and Natural Resources. He also helped establish and serves as co-lead of the “Legal Aspects of Sustainable Energy for All” Communities of Practice, which focuses on ways the legal community can assist in the effort to provide access to energy for the 1.4 billion people in the world who do not have access to reliable energy sources. As part of the bank’s Law, Justice, and Development Week last December,

Donna Attanasio

Hernando de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, talks with guests including Professor Sean Murphy.

GW Law hosted a reception featuring Hernando de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, as guest speaker. In the spring, GW Law hosted a presentation on Courts, Rule of Law and the Environment.

WELCOME, DONNA ATTANASIO DONNA ATTANASIO JOINED THE Law School July 1 as senior adviser for energy law programs, a new position made possible by a $450,000 grant from the Constellation Energy Foundation. A 20-year veteran of the energy law field, she served as president of the Energy Bar Association and as a board member of the Energy Law Foundation. WINTER 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS The Intersection of Competition and Procurement

Government Contracts Moot Court Competition

GW Law’s moot court success continued at the final round of the 2013 McKenna Long & Aldridge “Gilbert A. Cuneo” Government Contracts Moot Court Competition. Twenty-two teams initially faced off, leading up to the final in which the two top teams argued before a bench that included Judges George W. Miller, Nancy B. Firestone, and Thomas C. Wheeler of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The team of Bradley Carroll, JD ’13, and Keith Lusby, JD ’13, prevailed in the competition and also won for best briefs. The team of Joshua Schmand, JD ’13, and Jeffrey Stricker, JD ’13, was named runner-up. Awards for overall excellence went to Stephanie Rohrer, JD ’13, Nina Rustgi, JD ’14, and Alex Weinstein, JD ’13, while awards for excellence in oral advocacy went to Allison Geewax, JD ’14, Julia Lippman, JD ’13, Michelle McCall, JD ’13, and LLM candidate Robert Wu, with George Petel, JD ’14, and Lauren Youngman, JD ’13, winning awards for excellence in written 18

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The Hon. Frank Kendall, under secretary of defense for acquisition technology, and logistics—the Department of Defense’s senior acquisition official— explained the department’s “Better Buying Power” initiative and responded to questions and comments during the event. The program also included three panel discussions. One panel, led by Professor Christopher Yukins, examined the nature of competition in procurement systems. The second panel, chaired by Professor Steven Schooner, looked at the impact of mergers and acquisitions, and the third panel, moderated by Professor William E. Kovacic, discussed the intersection of antitrust and procurement law. Keynote speaker Linda P. Hudson, president and CEO of BAE Systems Inc., addressed a large luncheon audience. Throughout the program, the discussions were enriched by the participation of individuals working in the executive and legislative branches, with contractors, and in academia, as well as a number of European experts who contributed complementary perspectives.

ABOVE Associate Dean Daniel I. Gordon, winning team members Bradley Carroll, JD ’13, and Keith Lusby, JD ’13, McKenna Long & Aldridge partners Allison Doyle and Fred Levy, and Professor Steve Schooner, LLM ’89. BELOW Jeffrey Stricker, JD ’13, (seated) and Joshua Schmand. JD ’13, argue before (l-r) Judges Thomas C. Wheeler, George W. Miller, and Nancy B. Firestone.

Daniel Cook is presented with the Macfarlan Award by NCMA President Russell Blaine at the NCMA World Congress in Nashville.

Daniel Cook, JD ’13, Wins NCMA Award

advocacy. The award for Best Overall Competitor went to Daniel Cook, JD ’13. The Law School is grateful to the law firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge for its ongoing sponsorship of and support for this competition.

Daniel Cook, JD ‘13, received the first place award in the W. Gregor Macfarlan Excellence in Contract Management Research and Writing Program. The contest focuses on theoretical and empirical papers relevant to the practice of contract management. Mr. Cook’s paper will be published in the Journal of Contract Management.

Master’s in Government Contracts Program Expanding

GC Program Abroad In September, Professor Christopher Yukins conducted a weeklong course on anti-corruption in procurement for the International Anti-Corruption Academy, located just outside Vienna, Austria. The course was coordinated with the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime and supported by funding from the Siemens Integrity Initiative. For nearly a decade, Professor Yukins was an expert adviser to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) on efforts to reform the UNCITRAL model procurement law, finalized in 2011–2012. Now the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has joined with UNCITRAL to use that model law as a benchmark for reform in post-Soviet nations. As part of that

Professor Yukins braves all to bring procurement reform to Kyrgyzstan. Credit: Larissa Kokareva, Crown Agents (Moscow)

initiative, Professor Yukins has assisted procurement officials with training and discussed best practices in procurement at programs in England (with officials from Georgia and Moldova), Ukraine, Armenia,w and Mongolia. Professor Yukins participated in a similar program for government officials in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, sponsored by the U.S. Commerce Department, with funding from the U.S. Department of State. In the days before the program, he visited the Ala-Archa National Park (see photo), where he visited a cemetery deep in the forest, dedicated to climbers—primarily Russians—who died climbing the peaks there, as well as to those who died trying to save stranded climbers.

LEFT David Laufman and Stuart W. Bowen Jr. RIGHT Associate Dean Daniel I. Gordon and Clark Kent Ervin

Reconstructing Iraq GW Law’s Government Procurement Law Program hosted a spring program featuring Stuart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR), who spoke about lessons learned from his nine years of service. The program, co-sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Public Contract Law’s Battle Space and Contingency Procurements Committee, also included remarks by David Laufman, former SIGIR associate general counsel, and Clark Kent Ervin, who served as inspector general at three different federal agencies.

With the adoption of GW’s new strategic plan, “Vision 2021,” GW Law joined with the School of Business to create an interdisciplinary graduate degree program, directly supporting one of the four pillars of the strategic plan: innovation through cross-disciplinary collaboration. Targeting government contracts professionals in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, the Master of Science in Government Contracts (MSGC) degree program was launched in fall 2012 and has now reached an enrollment of 35. The program is unique in pairing government procurement law courses taught at the Law School with core business courses taught at the School of Business. The two schools are now developing plans to expand the program’s reach beyond the Beltway and to bring the curriculum online in 2014. “Making the government procurement law curriculum available to MSGC students online means we could reach students outside the D.C. metro area,” says Associate Dean Daniel I. Gordon, “thus opening up the MSGC program to significantly more people around the country, and perhaps the world.” Overseeing the MSGC program is Neal J. Couture, director of the government procurement law and business programs, who works with the faculty, staff, and curriculum committees of both schools. Mr. Couture spent more than 30 years in the government contracts world with government, private industry, and nonprofits. His most recent position was executive director of the National Contract Management Association, the leading professional society for the government contracting profession. He is a certified professional contracts manager and certified association executive and is currently working toward a doctorate in human and organizational learning at GW.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

China’s Patent Regime One hundred IP professionals from around the world gathered at the Law School in January for the second annual GW Law and Fordham Law joint program on China. The topic of this year’s roundtable was “China’s Patent Regime and Its Quest to Become an Innovation Economy.” Keynote addresses were delivered by

Chief Judge Randall R. Rader, JD ’78, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and David Kappos, director of the USPTO. Participants discussed topics such as challenges facing China’s new leadership, the changing legislative scheme for patents and enforcement, and developments at the Patent Office.

Patent Reform in an Age of Software Academics, government officials, corporate representatives, and members of the bar met at GW Law in March to discuss the problems, protection, and solutions facing patents in an age of software. The event was co-hosted by Associate

Current Topics in Intellectual Property above Speakers attend a reception on the eve of the conference at the Dolley Madison House. Chief Judge Randall Rader, JD ‘78, graciously hosted guests at the beautiful, historic home, which adjoins the Federal Circuit. below Professor Jin Haijun from Renmin University makes a point.

GW Law | winter 2014

GW Law’s IP program and the law firms Pillsbury and Mayer Brown co-hosted a symposium in May on current topics in intellectual property. After welcoming remarks by Associate Dean John Whealan and Alan M. Grimaldi, co-leader of Mayer Brown’s IP practice, Bernard Knight, general counsel of the USPTO, delivered the keynote address. The first panel, moderated by Evan Finkel from Pillsbury, considered the state of the law post-Bilski. “Tips and Trends for Litigating Patent Cases in the Federal Courts” featured four acting judges: Marvin J. Garbis, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland; Thomas B. Pender, administrative law judge, U.S. International Trade Commission; Arthur J. Schwab, district judge, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and Leonard P. Stark, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Jack Barufka, leader of Pillsbury’s IP

ABOVE The Pedas Family Professor Martin Adelman reads a letter about the late Sid Katz from the Hon. Richard Linn.

ABOVE Associate Dean John Whealan and Former Commissioner of Patents Bob Stoll oversee conversation at “Patent Reform in an Age of Software.”

Dean John M. Whealan, University of Virginia Law Professor John F. Duffy, and Robert Stoll, former commissioner of patents and currently a partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

Keynote speaker Bernard Knight

practice and a longtime member of GW Law’s adjunct faculty, led a discussion on “The In-House Counsel Perspective: How Do Companies Assess the Threat of Litigation?” “America Invents Act: One Year Later—Post Grant Proceedings and Strategies” was moderated by Sharon A. Israel, first vice president of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and partner at Mayer Brown, and featured Bryan P. Collins, partner at Pillsbury; Q. Todd Dickinson, executive director of AIPLA; Janet Gongola, patent reform coordinator at the USPTO, and the Hon. James T. Moore, vice chief administrative patent judge at the USPTO.

LEFT Members of the late Sid Katz’s family—son Aaron, daughter Michele, wife Sheela, and daughter Julie—with Chief Judge James F. Holderman

Remembering A. Sidney Katz On April 16, family, friends, and colleagues joined the GW Law community to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of A. Sidney Katz, JD ’66, who died on Sept. 10, 2012. Mr. Katz was a giant in the patent bar and a giant in the many communities to which he belonged, including that of his alma mater. His unassuming geniality, gentle authority, legal acumen, and extraordinary generosity will be missed, but his contributions to the Law School and to the world will endure. The memorial program was followed by the spring 2013 A. Sidney Katz Lecture, which featured Chief Judge James F. Holderman, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, speaking on “A Proposal to Implement Intelligent Procedures to Improve Intellectual Property Jury Trials.”

Intellectual Property Panel Symposium

Michelle K. Lee, deputy under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and deputy director of the USPTO, keynoted the event.

GW Law held a panel symposium in San Francisco in March, taking advantage of Silicon Valley’s position as one of the most IP-intensive regions in the world. Michelle Lee, deputy under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and deputy director of the USPTO, and Chief Judge Randall Rader, JD ‘78, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, gave keynote addresses.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / international

India Initiative Update GW Law organized its annual trip to India last December under the auspices of its India Initiative. The delegation was led by Chief Judge Randall R. Rader, JD ’78, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Judge Kent Jordan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; and Federal Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. Practicing lawyers, including the principal organizer, Raj Dave, LLM ’03, of Pillsbury; corporate counsel; and GW Law Professors Paul Berman, William Kovacic, Jeffrey Manns, and Associate Dean Susan L. Karamanian, were part of the delegation. Events were held in cooperation with Gujarat National Law University, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, and U.S.India Business Council.

Dean Bimal Patel of Gujarat National Law University welcomed GW Law’s delegation of U.S. federal judges, academics, and practitioners to the university for a two-day conference on international intellectual property rights.

Indian Minister of Corporate Affairs Visits GW Law GW President Steven Knapp and GW Law Interim Dean Gregory E. Maggs welcomed India’s minister of corporate affairs, H.E. Sachin Pilot, to the university in July. At a meeting with GW faculty members and officials from India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Embassy of India, they discussed issues relating to corporate law and governance and extended a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and the Law School to continue collaboration between the two institutions. The IICA, established in 2008, focuses 22

GW Law | winter 2014

on research and capacity building within India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs and serves as a think tank on issues related to corporate governance and public policy, corporate law, competition law, corporate finance, and corporate social responsibility. GW Law has been involved with the IICA since its inception and has worked with IICA founders to identify areas of research and provide guidance regarding its structure. GW Law’s engagement with the IICA has been extensive. In the past five years, GW Law Professors Paul Berman, William Kovacic, Jeffrey Manns, Edward Swaine, and Chris Yukins, along with Associate

Dean Susan Karamanian, have participated in IICA conferences in New Delhi. The topics have included competition law, banking regulation, investment law, and anti-corruption. Also, GW Law has hosted various meetings with IICA officials at the Law School and co-hosted with IICA a student moot court competition in Delhi on international insolvency. According to Minister Pilot, the collaboration between GW Law and the IICA leverages the good work both institutions are performing. “International experiences covering the global business environment, corporate law, corporate governance, and competition law can be good learning for IICA,” he said. Both organizations expressed enthusiasm about continuing and broadening the relationship.

Murphy Elected to U.N. International Law Commission

Professor Sean Murphy (seated) was elected by the U.N. General Assembly to serve on the U.N. International Law Commission for 2012–2017. Four GW Law students spent the summer in Geneva working on ILC matters with Professor Murphy and other ILC members (l-r): Casey Rubinoff (working for the ILC member from Colombia, the Hon. Eduardo Valencia-Ospina), Anthony Kuhn (working for Professor Murphy), Josh Doherty (working for Professor Murphy), Marija Dordeska (working for the ILC member from Slovenia, the Hon. Ernest Petric).

Thanksgiving in Tokyo

In November Associate Dean Susan Karamanian and Professor Martin J. Adelman traveled to Japan for what has become a GW Law tradition—a Thanksgiving celebration to thank alumni and their guests for their ongoing friendship and support. The event was hosted by Yasuhiro Hagihara, MCL ‘68, and Takujiro Urabe, LLM ‘08.

Justice for Trafficking Victims Martina Vandenberg, Open Society Fellow and founder and president of the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center, visited the Law School last fall to discuss global human trafficking and the methods used to help victims and bring traffickers to justice.

The Hon. Donald C Pogue, chief judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade, presented the Shulman Foundation Lecture focusing on the work of the court.

Bridging the Public/Private Divide GW Law and the Federal Trade Commission co-hosted the American Society for International Law (ASIL) International Economic Law Interest Group’s Biennial Meeting, “Re-Conceptualizing International Economic Law: Bridging the Public/ Private Divide.” Speakers included Professor Ralph Steinhardt and Professor Steve Charnovitz. The annual Shulman Foundation Lecture was presented by Chief Judge Donald C. Pogue, U.S. Court of International Trade.

Professor Claire Kelly of Brooklyn Law School, Professor Ralph Steinhardt, Professor Sungjoon Koh of IIT Chicago-Kent Law School, and Professor Elizabeth Trujillo of Suffolk University Law School

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / international

World Bank Forum Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum

Professor Sean Murphy and World Bank General Counsel Ann-Marie Leroy with Hernando de Soto

GW Law hosted a December reception as part of the World Bank’s Law, Justice, and Development Forum, with remarks by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto. Mr. de Soto was chosen by Time magazine in 1999 as one of the five leading Latin American innovators of the century; Forbes magazine recognized him as one of “15 innovators who will reinvent your future.”

Three GW Law faculty members filed amicus briefs in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, a case that was reargued before the U.S. Supreme Court last fall. Above, Professor Bradford Clark (l), who submitted an amicus curiae brief for respondents, Paul Hoffman (center) of Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris Hoffman & Harrison, lead petitioners’ counsel, and Professor Ralph Steinhardt (r), who submitted an amicus curiae brief for petitioners, participate in a post-argument debriefing. Professor Thomas Schoenbaum, not present, filed a brief in support of the petitioner on his own behalf.

GW Hosts State Department Event

David Grigorian of the International Monetary Fund and H.E. Raffi Hovannisian

A Conversation on Armenia

GW Law hosted Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State Harold Koh (right) and members of the State Department’s Public International Law Advisory Committee at a public meeting last winter to discuss important and timely international legal issues. 24

GW Law | winter 2014

GW Law, the Elliott School for International Affairs, and Policy Forum Armenia hosted “A Conversation on Armenia” in June featuring Raffi Hovannisian, the first foreign minister of Armenia and the founding leader of that country’s Heritage Party.

Lawyers Without Rights

Live from L The ABA Section of International Law and GW Law presented the Third Annual “Live from L—International Lawyering for the U.S. Government in an Era of Smart Power: Emerging Issues for the Next Four Years” with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser. Audience members were able to join Legal Adviser Harold Hongju Koh, his team, and Associate Dean Susan Karamanian in person or online.

Moroccan Rule of Law Reforms

The Law School hosted an exhibition of stories about the Nazi mistreatment of Jewish lawyers in Germany under the Third Reich. The event was presented by the German Federal Bar in cooperation with the American Bar Association’s International Law Section.

Roundtable on U.S.-Japan Trade Relations GW Law Professors Thomas Schoenbaum and Steve Charnovitz convened a roundtable last fall on U.S.– Japan Trade Relations.

ABOVE Professor Thomas Schoenbaum and Professor Fabrizio Fracchia of Bocconi University, Milan, Italy. BELOW Professor Steve Charnovitz and retired Professor Mitsuo Matsushita of the University of Tokyo

GW Law and the Kingdom of Morocco hosted a June panel discussion with Delegate-Minister for Moroccans Living Abroad Abdellatif Mazouz; Moroccan Ambassador to the U.S. Rachad Bouhlal; Council for a Community of Democracies’ President Emeritus and Vice President of the board of directors of the Council for a Community of Democracies Richard C. Rowson; co-founder of Morocco World News Samir Bennis; and Moroccan-American lawyer Leila Hanafi, LLM ‘12. winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / Litigation & dispute resolution

Q&A With Ifeoma Ike, LLM ’10 Ifeoma Ike, LLM ’10, a recent graduate of the Litigation and Dispute Resolution LLM program, talks about her time at GW Law and how it helped advance her career. Q: What did you enjoy most about the LLM program at GW Law? A: The intensity of the mock trial and operating as real law firms. The experience not only sharpened my advocacy skills but it also deepened my knowledge about procedural strategies, courtroom etiquette, and how to collaborate with a team and opposing counsel.

Stay professional at all times, and always keep in mind that you may work with some of your colleagues and professors one day.

— Ifeoma Ike

Q: How has your time in the program helped advance your career? A: GW’s LLM program is led by instructors who have actually served in some of the most prestigious positions within the legal, policy, and political circles. Associate Dean Alfreda Robinson gave me helpful insight into possible avenues to get on Capitol Hill after I expressed interest in policy. Her advice led to two major opportunities: being selected as one of five researchers for the American Bar Association’s Collateral Consequences Project and being chosen for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s two-year congressional fellowship. During my fellowship I served as both a policy adviser to the late Rep. Donald M. Payne and as counsel for the House Committee on the Judiciary. None 26

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of that would have happened without my exposure to the LLM program. Q: What advice can you give incoming LLM candidates to take the greatest advantage of the program? A: Treat the LLM program like a law firm or business and your classes like business meetings. Stay professional at all times, and always keep in mind that you may work with some of your colleagues and professors one day. Q: What was one of your favorite courses? Why? A: American Jury, which was taught by Judge Ricardo Urbina and Judge John Mott. It was a fascinating experience to be taught by sitting judges. In addition

to really getting into the psychology of juries, it was a great advocacy class—the highly anticipated “Opening Statement” exercise was one of the highlights of my LLM experience. Q: What are your plans for the future now that you have graduated? A: I currently work in the policy arena and am an advocate with the Innocence Project in New York. I also serve as chief problem solver under my own company, Ike Professionals, LLC, assisting individuals, communities, and nonprofits with their policy and communication needs. GW Law remains connected to all my efforts, and has even been instrumental in hosting events about major domestic and social issues.

JAG Ryan Stormer, LLM ’13, and Sean Williams, LLM ’13, at the mock trial

Mock Trial LLM Litigation and Dispute Resolution students participated in a February mock trial before Captain Christian L. Reismeier, JAGC, USN, assistant judge advocate general of the Navy and chief judge of the Department of the Navy. In the case, the plaintiff law firm associate sued her former law firm and supervising partner under Title XII and state law, alleging gender discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and defamation. Students were divided into simulated law firms and assigned roles corresponding to the pretrial tasks lawyers routinely are called upon to perform, including conducting written and oral discovery, participating in depositions, pretrial conferences and the Rule 26(f) meeting of counsel, and filing and arguing discovery, Rule 12, and summary judgment motions.

Alfreda Robinson Appointed Chair of NBA Committee

Mock trial judge, the Hon. Captain Christian L. Reismeier, with JAG Jeffrey Fietzyk

National Bar Association (NBA) President Patricia Rosier appointed GW Law Associate Dean Alfreda Robinson, JD ’78, chair of the NBA’s Judicial Selection Standing Committee. As chair, Associate Dean Robinson leads a committee of nationally recognized jurists and lawyers who evaluate the qualifications of legal professionals seeking presidential appointments and recommend outstanding judges and lawyers for appointment to the federal bench. Associate Dean Robinson has served the NBA with extraordinary distinction over the years; she received appointments by six previous NBA presidents and was given the NBA’s highest honor, the C. Francis Stradford Award, among others.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / national security

GW Wins National Security Moot Court Competition Would a U.S. cyber “takedown” of an unwitting foreign host for terrorists require congressional approval under the War Powers Resolution, and can courts entertain this question? These were the issues that challenged 24 teams from law schools around the country competing in GW’s annual Harold H. Greene and Joyce Hens Green National Security Moot Court Competition. En route to the final round, the teams competed in preliminary and semifinal rounds before panels of public and private practitioners from across D.C.’s national security law community. The GW Law team of Bryce

Blum and Joshua Champagne emerged victorious in the final round. The competition represented countless hours of hard work by Student Chair Kyle Jones and Vice Chairs Madeline Cohen and Laura Duncan, along with Brianna Carbonneau, assistant director of advocacy programs, and Professor Peter RavenHansen, who served as faculty adviser. The GW team was ably coached by adjunct faculty member Stephen Cash, who also coached last year’s team. The competition, which was launched by GW Law students in 1992, is the only one of its kind in the nation.

Bryce Blum (third from right) and Joshua Champagne (second from right) won the Harold H. Greene and Joyce Hens Green National Security Law Moot Court Competition; Mr. Blum was selected as best oralist. Judges were Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (far right), Andrew Effron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (second from left), and David Delaney, a U.S. government attorney specializing in cybersecurity, infrastructure protection, and information sharing (far left). 28

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National Security Crisis Law Invitational War games are not conducted only by the Pentagon. A GW team took part in a two-day terrorism/national security simulation exercise in April hosted by Georgetown University Law Center to help train future national security lawyers. The GW team played the role of the Department of Defense (DOD), with Josh Champagne as the secretary of defense (SecDef), Alicia Stern-Mowad as the DOD general counsel, Jeremiah Stoddard as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), and Samuel East as the commander of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) and director of the NSA (DIRNSA). Other law school teams represented the National Security Council, White House, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Congress, and state governments. The teams were fed evolving facts (and rumors) of a terrorist scenario as it unfolded. Using their knowledge of their agency’s national security law and policy—gained from 10 weeks of intense preparation—they monitored and proposed solutions for an H5N1 flu outbreak in China, a prison riot on the Mexican border involving a drug cartel, a kidnapping and hostagetaking incident by the same cartel, and an Iranian cyber attack on California nuclear reactors resulting in a meltdown, among other crises. The GW team was coached by Professor Peter Raven-Hansen, who met with the team weekly in the lead-up to

Field Placements Open Doors

Principals meeting with the president (seated at the right end of the table). The GW SecDef Josh Champagne is at the president’s right, next to him is CJCS Jeremiah Stoddard, and behind them Commander of USCYBERCOM and DIRNSA Sam West. DOD General Counsel Alicia Stern-Mowad was not present at this meeting but worked continually behind the scenes rendering timely legal advice.

the simulation and who attended the simulation. As part of their training, GW team members also met with their reallife counterparts in the DOD, including the current legal adviser to the CJCS and former senior DOD lawyers. While no winning team is selected in this simulation, Professor Raven-Hansen reports that the GW team was “superb.“ “It may have started as a simulation,” he said, “but by the time we observed the last principals meeting with the president, everyone forgot that this was an exercise.”

Two Grads Join U.S. Air Force JAG Corps Brittany Haglund and Michelle “Elle” Ross, 2013 graduates of GW’s National Security and U.S. Foreign Relations LLM program, have been selected for highly competitive positions in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Both women came to GW with hopes of finding a career in government service. Ms. Ross, who grew up in Long Island, N.Y., was deeply affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and wanted to couple service to her nation with her legal education. She participated in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps while earning her JD. She says that “while

GW Law’s Field Placement Program provides unique opportunities for National Security and U.S. Foreign Relations Law LLM candidates to work in federal agencies for academic credit. During their externships, students are able to make contacts and, in some cases, to secure permanent positions in their host agencies. Timothy Weston, LLM ’12, initially worked as an extern in the International Law Division, Office of the Chief Counsel, Transportation Security Agency (TSA), U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Upon graduation, he was hired as an attorney– adviser in that agency’s Administrative Litigation Division. According to Mr. Weston, GW’s program “provided an in-depth educational experience that exceeded all of my expectations. I would highly recommend pursuing a field placement while in the program, as it provides the practical component to the practice of national security law needed to transition to government service.” Philip Mervis, LLM ’13, served as an extern in TSA’s International and Operational Law Division and upon graduation was hired as an attorney–adviser in that office. “The Field Placement Program provided me with an excellent opportunity to display my knowledge base in both national security and U.S. foreign relations law, while at the same time expanding my expertise in these two areas,” he says. “This

finishing ROTC and law school, I explored options to further my career goals in national security/national service and found GW’s LLM program. I truly believe it was a critical factor in my acceptance into the AF JAG corps.” Ms. Haglund decided to pursue military service to fulfill a family legacy, “to serve out of respect for the sacrifices of our veterans, and because of the type of dynamic and diverse practice that only the Air Force can offer.” While studying at GW, she served as an extern at nearby Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. She described the JAG officers she assisted there as “a group of highly motivated attorneys seeking to serve our country and do the right thing.” Her GW Law experience, she adds, allowed her “to stand out among

Timothy Weston, LLM ‘12 and Philip Mervis, LLM ‘13

externship was pivotal in the employment opportunity that developed at the Office of Chief Counsel.” Bonnie Dragotto, LLM ’12, recommends that degree candidates “take advantage of all available opportunities while at GW, especially the Field Placement Program—it’s the best way to get your foot in the door, demonstrate a strong work ethic, take initiative on projects, and network within the agency.” She served as an extern at the International Law, Legislation, and Regulations Division, Office of the Chief Counsel, Federal Aviation Administration. She was subsequently hired as a part-time employee and upon graduation became a full-time attorney in the same office, where she continued to assist with issues related to the integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system and potential privacy implications.

Elle Ross and Brittany Haglund

such a large group of qualified candidates. The program provided access to experienced full- and part-time faculty members—many of whom had been successful JAG officers—who provided instrumental advice and mentorship throughout the application process.”

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / public interest & pro bono

Public Service on Display For the fourth year in a row, a group of 90 incoming GW Law students received an intensive introduction to the world of public service and pro bono prior to the beginning of classes. As part of the three-day program, participants visited D.C. Superior Court, where they watched trials. While at the court, Judge J. Michael Ryan, JD ’82, welcomed them into the study of law and law clerks Sam Cowin, JD ’12, and Katie Kern, JD ’12, reflected on their recent studies and their work at the court. The new students also visited the D.C. Court of Appeals where they heard from Judge Phyllis Thompson, JD ’81, and the D.C. Office of Administrative Hearings, where several administrative law judges described their role in the legal system.

Students then split into smaller groups. Some visited the Arlington County Detention Facility, where they received a glimpse of how society deals with those accused and convicted of crimes. Others visited the D.C. City Council, where they heard from Jonathan Willingham, JD ’06, chief of staff for council member Mary Cheh, a GW Law professor and mother of a recent

GW Law graduate. A final group of students visited the United States Marshals Service where they toured a U.S. Marshal Mobile headquarters and met bomb detecting canines (pictured). The program concluded with a community service project for the National Park Service in Franklin Park, where students painted benches and lamps and cleaned up the park.

New Pro Bono Requirement for New York Bar The New York Bar will require anyone admitted by examination after Jan. 1, 2015, to document that they have performed 50 hours of pro bono service, including clinics, externships, and some paid opportunities. The rule may also

Associate Dean Alan Morrison and Assistant Dean David Johnson have taken leading roles in the lobbying effort to correct several problems with the current draft of the rule. 30

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have an impact on recent alumni, since New York allows admission on motion if the applicant has actively practiced law for five of the previous seven years. Associate Dean Alan Morrison and Assistant Dean David Johnson have taken leading roles in the lobbying effort to correct several problems with the current draft of the rule. One issue involves pro bono work for the federal government. The rule currently requires that the student’s attorney–supervisor be licensed to practice in the jurisdiction where the services are performed, and many lawyers who work for the federal government are not barred in the jurisdiction in which they are domiciled. This is particularly true for individuals who

work in the District of Columbia but live in a nearby jurisdiction. The requirement presents an even greater challenge for students working outside of the United States in jurisdictions without formal licensing requirements. The rule does, however, allow applicants to do their pro bono work after graduation as well as before, which will help international LLM students who will only be at GW for a year, as well as recent alumni who might decide a few years after graduation that they want to become members of the New York bar. Other states, such as California, New Jersey, and Montana, are rumored to be crafting their own pro bono requirements as well.

One of the Nationals’ “Racing Presidents,” George Washington himself, hams it up with Pro Bono Program graduates.

Class of 2013 Sets Pro Bono Record A record 120 members of GW Law’s Class of 2013 were recognized for volunteering 22,459 pro bono hours— the largest-ever contribution from a graduating class. Graduating JD students who complete 60 hours or more of pro bono legal services and LLM students contributing 20 or more hours are recognized by the school with a Pro Bono Recognition Ceremony at Nationals Park. Graduates

are invited to lunch, a certificate ceremony, and a major league baseball game. Interim Dean Gregory Maggs, Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest/ Public Service Law Alan Morrison, and Assistant Dean for Public Interest/Public Service Law David Johnson presided over the ceremony. The Washington Nationals are owned by the Lerner family, which also endowed Associate Dean Alan Morrison’s position.

GW Cancer Pro Bono Project The Law School has partnered with the university’s Cancer Institute to create the GW Cancer Pro Bono Project. The project, which connects patients with GW Law students who work under the supervision of attorneys, helps cancer patients with basic legal issues relating to advance directives and power of attorney, employment, health insurance, Social Security, and wills. The service is aimed primarily at patients with few assets and no dependent children, and referrals are available for patients with significant assets. The GW Cancer Pro Bono Project is the latest in a long line of projects created by Associate Dean Alan Morrison, Assistant Dean David Johnson, and GW Law students. Other projects created by the group over the past three years include the District Record Sealing Service, Domestic Violence Pro Bono Project, Homeless Pro Bono Project, Innocence Project, and Office of Administrative Hearings Pro Bono Project.

Prizewinning Paper Addresses Youth Unemployment Howard Rudge, JD ‘64, retired senior vice president of DuPont Corp., awarded a cash prize of $5,000 to Caitlin Clarke, JD ‘13, for her paper on reducing youth unemployment. The Howard J. Rudge “Creative Solutions” Competition called for papers highlighting a creative solution to a serious societal problem in the United States in which conventional solutions are failing. Ms. Clarke’s paper proposes the “implementation of apprenticeship programs in the private sector coupled with a generous federal tax credit to businesses hiring into such programs” to reduce youth unemployment while also creating “self-perpetuating opportunities for growth.” In order to carry out her solution, she creates the “Leading Employment through Apprenticeship Program” (LEAP), which “grants a significant tax credit to employers taking on LEAP Apprentices, while also offering below-market labor rates and the opportunity to train future employees intensively.”

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / FACULTY SUCCESS

GW Law Names Four Endowed Professors The Law School recently announced the appointments of Naomi Cahn as the Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, Orin Kerr and F. Scott Kieff as Fred C. Stevenson Research Professors of Law, and Jonathan Siegel as the F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Research Professor of Law. Naomi R. Cahn has been named the Harold H. Greene Professor of Law. Previously the John Theodore Fey Research Professor of Law, Professor Cahn has written numerous law review articles on family law, feminist jurisprudence, and reproductive technology. She is the author of several books, including The New Kinship (2012) and Test Tube Families: Why the Fertility Market Needs Legal Regulation (2009). The Greene Professorship was endowed in honor of Judge Harold H. Greene, JD ’52, who presided over the landmark 1982 AT&T antitrust case, and is awarded to individuals who embody the same personal characteristics for which Judge Greene was renowned: integrity, compassion, and commitment to the dignity of individuals and the rule of law. The chair was established in 2000 by an endowment gift of $1.5 million from entrepreneurs David and Maria Wiegand of Orange County, Calif., and was previously held by Professor Emeritus and former Dean Jerome A. Barron. Jonathan R. Siegel has been named the Elwood P. Davis Research Professor of Law. Professor Siegel’s research and teaching interests encompass civil procedure, federal jurisdiction, administrative law, and intellectual property. Professor Siegel joined the Law School in 1995, following four years as a member 32

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Naomi R. Cahn

Jonathan R. Siegel

Orin Kerr

F. Scott Kieff

of the Appellate Staff, Civil Division, of the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to that, he served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Patricia M. Wald of the District of Columbia Circuit. The F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Professorship was established through an endowment from the Davis family. A native of Washington, D.C., Elwood P. Davis, JD ’43, co-founded the law firm of Reasoner, Davis & Vinson, served as general counsel to the George Washington University, and worked extensively on the issue of Home Rule for Washington, D.C. He passed away last year at the age of 96. Orin Kerr and F. Scott Kieff have been named Fred C. Stevenson Research Professors of Law. Orin Kerr is a nationally recognized scholar in the fields of criminal procedure and computer crime law. His articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, and many other top journals. Professor Kerr’s

scholarship has been cited in over 70 judicial opinions, including decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and all of the regional U.S. Courts of Appeals. In a recent study, he ranked seventh among criminal law and procedure scholars in the United States for citations in academic journals. F. Scott Kieff became a professor at the Law School in 2009 and also serves as the Ray and Louis Knowles Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. There he directs the Project on Commercializing Innovation and serves on Hoover’s Property Rights Task Force. Professor Kieff is a faculty member of the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center at Germany’s Max Planck Institute and previously served as a visiting professor at the law schools at Northwestern, Chicago, and Stanford, as well as a faculty fellow in the Olin Program on Law and Economics at Harvard. He recently was nominated by President Obama to serve on the U.S. International Trade Commission.

GW Law Faculty is No. 2 Most Downloaded on SSRN

Professor Jerome A. Barron (front right) and Alberto Benítez (back right) and their guests Janice Benítez, Carol Williams, nominator Marla Spindel, JD ’93, co-founder of the D.C. Volunteer Lawyers Project, and Myra Barron enjoy the Beckman Awards Gala in Atlanta.

Professors Honored for Inspiring Students GW Law Professors Jerome A. Barron and Alberto Benítez were honored in November 2012 with Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Awards for inspiring former students to make significant contributions to society. They joined 20 distinguished professors from universities around the United States who received the award, a $25,000 prize from the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award Trust, at a ceremony held in Atlanta. Professor Barron was nominated for inspiring Marla Spindel, JD ’93, to co-found the D.C. Volunteer Lawyers Project—a nonprofit organization that provides high-quality, free legal services to low-income D.C. residents in family law cases. Professor Benítez was nominated for inspiring University of Arkansas School of Law Professor Elizabeth Young, JD ’04, to help create and launch an immigration law clinic.

A recent report from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), an online depository for scholarly articles and research papers, shows George Washington University Law School faculty papers are among the most downloaded publications in the legal world. The SSRN list of 350 top law schools is led by Harvard Law School, with GW not far behind in the second position. The two schools have the most downloads for both last year and all time. The 1,188 SSRN papers authored by GW Law faculty have combined to receive 568,676 alltime downloads, 90,281 of which came within the past 12 months. Interim Dean of GW Law Gregory Maggs attributes the popularity of the school’s articles to the hard work of its faculty members. “The SSRN statistics provide one measure of the scholarly impact of the research and analysis done at GW Law,” says Dean Maggs. “It is gratifying to know that so many scholars from around the world are interested in reading articles written by our faculty members. The authors are truly interested in advancing knowledge and improving legal policies and practices.”

Advancing Animal Law The American Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee’s “Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award” was presented to Professor Joan Schaffner at the ABA Annual Meeting in August in San Francisco. The award recognizes exceptional work by an Animal Law Committee member who, through commitment and leadership, has advanced the humane treatment of animals through the law. Professor Schaffner’s work with GW Law students in the Animal Law Program includes moving forward the practice of animal law via legislation, scholarship, and advocacy.

Jeffrey Rosen Wins Golden Pen Award

Professor Joan Schaffner with Spirit, her animal companion that doubles as the GW Animal Law Program’s mascot

GW Law Professor Jeffrey Rosen received the 2013 Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute during the American Association of Law Schools’ Annual Meeting in New Orleans. A prolific writer and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic, Professor Rosen received the award for his “extraordinary contributions to the cause of better legal writing.”

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

law briefs / student SUCCESS Student Organizations Recognized

GW Law Welcomes Eighth Scholarly Journal

GW Law is now home to the Federal Communications Law Journal (FCLJ) of the Federal Communications Bar Association—expanding the school’s list of student-operated scholarly journals to eight. When petitioning to host the FCLJ in 2011, GW Law’s Student Bar Association and the Cyberlaw Students Association highlighted the school’s reputation for excellence in the national legal community and its energetic and committed students. “The FCLJ saw in our school what we

FCLJ Editor in Chief Dennis Holmes, JD ’13, welcomes FCBA members and other guests at a reception in February.

3L Publishes ‘A mazon’ Taxes Article

retailers such as Amazon. Mr. Yu published the paper during his final year at GW Law. Many states attempt to obtain taxes from online purchases by asking their residents to include online taxes on their tax returns, he says in the paper. However, consumers rarely report these online purchases, making it difficult for states to enforce and track these taxes. This creates a loss of billions of dollars in tax revenue nationally.

In his article “Formulation and Enforcement of ‘Amazon’ Taxes,” published in the Feb. 4 issue of State Tax Notes, Gordon Yu, JD, MBA ’13, discusses the laws that states can choose to pursue in order to recoup taxes from online 34

GW Law | winter 2014

students already knew: Each day, GW students leave the classroom to put the law in action at the forefront of national discourse. It’s why we came to GW,” said former SBA President Nick Nikic, JD ’12. Visit the FCLJ’s new website at www.fclj.org

Each year GW’s Student Bar Association, with the assistance of the Dean of Students office, honors student groups and members for their events and programming. This year’s Best Student Organization Award went to District Record Sealing Service—a pro bono project started by students (with help from the D.C. Public Defenders Service and Assistant Dean David Johnson) that helps clients seal their criminal records and allows students to provide real assistance to people in need.

Academic All-American This spring as Patrick Rigney, JD ’13, was wrapping up his law school studies, he was named by Inside Lacrosse as a 2013 Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association Academic All-American. Mr. Rigney played for the George Washington University’s lacrosse team as a defensive midfielder; he was the only law student on the Colonials team and the only player to receive the Academic All-American title. “Being selected as an Academic All-American is both an honor and a privilege,” says Mr. Rigney, who now works for the Montgomery County (Md.) State’s Attorney’s Office. “I am thankful to have been able to wear the buff and blue as a representative of GW Law.”

Digital Assets Estate Planning

Diversity Networking

Melinda Dudley, JD ’13, served as a research assistant for Harold H. Greene Professor of Law Naomi R. Cahn during her final year of law school, working on issues such as the laws behind our digital assets—an emerging area in which Professor Cahn’s work is at the forefront. Among other work, Ms. Dudley was co-author with Professor Cahn of an article titled “The Virtual Estate: Part I: Planning for a Client’s Digital Assets” which was published this summer in Wolters Kluwer’s The ElderLaw Report (Volume XXV, Number 1, July/August 2013).

Lambda Law, with the support of the Career Center, hosted its annual diversity networking reception in March. The event filled the first floor of Lerner and Stockton Halls with students, faculty, and practitioners.

Patricia Roberts Harris Awards Banquet

Professor Robert L. Glicksman, Andrea Huber, Dr. Gerold Grodsky, Joel Meister, Interim Dean Gregory Maggs, and Associate Dean Lee Paddock. The Grodsky Prize was funded by a generous gift from Dr. Gerold Grodsky in his daughter’s memory.

Meister Wins 2013 Jamie Grodsky Prize Joel Meister, a part-time JD student, received the 2013 Jamie Grodsky Prize for Environmental Law Scholarship for his paper on financing solar energy. The prize is presented each year for the best paper written by a GW Law JD, LLM, or SJD student in the field of environmental law. Mr. Meister’s paper, “Sunny Dispositions: Modernizing Investment Tax Credit Recapture Rules for Solar Energy Project Finance After the Stimulus,” examines how solar project developers will

grapple with the transition from the recently expired Section 1603 Treasury Grant Program to the Investment Tax Credit (ITC). The ITC requires “recapture” of tax beneﬁts if a company sells or transfers its solar system within ﬁve years of installation. Now in its third year, the Grodsky Prize was established to honor the late Professor Grodsky’s legacy of leading-edge environmental scholarship by encouraging students to produce papers on important environmental issues.

GW Law celebrated the 35th anniversary of its annual Patricia Roberts Harris Awards Banquet in May. One of GW Law’s most distinguished alumni, the Hon. Patricia Roberts Harris, JD ’60, graduated first in her class and was the first African American woman to represent the United States as an ambassador and to serve as a cabinet secretary. She served the GW Law community as a professor and ardent supporter until her untimely death from breast cancer. In honor and recognition of her storied career and support of GW Law, the Black Law Student Association (BLSA) holds the Patricia Roberts Harris Banquet at the end of each academic year. The event brings together the GW and D.C. legal communities, recognizes BLSA’s graduating students and supporters of the chapter, and honors the legacy of Patricia Roberts Harris.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

Oral Advocacy Roundup GW Law students scored impressive victories in 2012–2013 in the following major advocacy competitions across the nation and around the globe.

Bryce Blum and Joshua Champagne won the Harold H. Greene and Joyce Hens Green National Security Law Moot Court Competition, and Mr. Blum was selected best oralist. The team was coached by adjunct faculty member Steven Cash. The finals were before the Hon. Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Hon. Andrew Effron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and David Delaney, a U.S. government

Kelsey Zorzi and Elizabeth Goodall won the National Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition.

attorney specializing in cybersecurity, infrastructure protection, and information sharing. Held annually at GW Law, this year’s competition was made possible by the hard work of Professor Peter Raven‑Hansen, Student Chair Kyle Jones, and Student Vice Chairs Laura Duncan and Madeline Cohen.

Priyam Bhargava, Elizabeth Dalmut, Anika Patterson, and Jacqueline Powers advanced to the Sweet 16 at the Willem Vis International Arbitration Competition in Hong Kong, China, finishing 12th out of 93 teams. Ms. Powers, Ms. Patterson, and Ms. Bhargava all received honorable mentions for best oralist, with Ms. Bhargava selected as the fourth best oralist in the competition. The team was coached by adjunct faculty members and alumni Alex Canizares and Faris Ghareeb. Abhinav Goel and Nicolas Endre made it to the Sweet 16 at the Frankfurt Investment Arbitration Moot Court Competition GW Law | winter 2014

Durham of the Utah State Supreme Court, and Walter Weber of the American Center for Legal Justice. The competition was a great success due to the efforts of Professors Bob Tuttle and Chip Lupu as well as Student Competition Chairs Carly Sessions and Clayton Preece.

Bryce Blum (left) and Josh Champagne (right) won the Harold H. Greene and Joyce Hens Green National Security Law Moot Court Competition.

Fria Kermani and Saurabh Prabhakar won second best brief and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Giles Rich Intellectual Property Moot Court Regional Competition in Silicon Valley, Calif. John Whealan, associate dean for intellectual property studies, was their coach.

In addition to hosting the largest National Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition ever with 26 teams from 18 different schools, GW won for the first time. Elizabeth Goodall and Kelsey Zorzi were victorious, and Ms. Goodall was selected as best oral advocate. The team was coached by adjunct faculty member and alumna Melissa Colangelo. The finals were before Jennifer Elrod of the Fifth Circuit, Christine

in Germany. The team was coached by Luisa Torres and Allan Moore, both attorneys at Covington & Burling. The competition was funded through the generosity of Covington & Burling. Peter Ormerod and Madeline Cohen finished second in the National Animal Law Moot Court Competition in Portland, Ore. They were coached by adjunct faculty member and alumna Lynn Deavers. Ryan Hutzler and Ryan Graham advanced to the semifinals and won third best brief at the Mardi Gras Sports Law Invitational Competition at Tulane University in New Orleans in February. Rachel Kleinpeter and Benjamin Burningham advanced to the semifinals of the Bryant Moore Invitational Moot Court Competition, which was held at Howard University in February. Their coach was Associate Dean Alan Morrison.

In the final rankings for moot court programs for the 2011‑2012 academic year, GW Law finished No. 11. Because GW finished in the top 16—for the third straight year—we were again invited to compete in the Moot Court National Championship Competition at the University of Houston in January 2013. There, Kyle Singhal was recognized as best oralist. Mr. Singhal and his teammate Jim Gross advanced to the semifinals, and Nicole Durkin was the brief writer. Adjunct faculty member and alumnus Eric Klein served as coach. Ann Porter won the National Animal Law Legislative Drafting and Lobbying Competition in Portland, Ore. She was coached by adjunct faculty member and alumna Lynn Deavers.

Best Oral Advocate Kyle Singhal (left), pictured with Interim Dean Gregory Maggs, received the award for best oral advocate at the Moot Court National Championship Competition in Houston.

Trent Buatte, Adam Gutbezahl, Kyle Jones, Beverley Mbu, and Tara Umbrino won best memorial at the Philip C. Jessup Mid‑Atlantic International Law Super Regional Moot Court Competition. While the memorial was the work of the entire team, Mr. Jones served as the brief writer. Mr. Buatte was named third best oralist and Ms. Umbrino was 10th best oralist. The team made it to the quarterfinals and was the top seed going into that round. Susan Karamanian, associate dean for international and comparative legal studies, was their coach. GW annually hosts the competition in conjunction with the International Law Students Association.

GW Launches Puerto Rico Competition GW Law and Estrella LLC co-hosted the first annual Estrella Trial Advocacy Competition in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in April. Estrella LLC is one of the oldest law firms in Puerto Rico. Alberto Estrella, managing partner of the firm, is a graduate of GW Law. Early in 2012, he contacted David Johnson, assistant dean for pro bono and advocacy programs, about creating the competition to both honor his father William Estrella, the firm’s founder, and provide a learning opportunity for law students in Puerto Rico and around the country. The only civil litigation competition in Puerto Rico, it featured a case similar to the work Estrella LLC regularly engages in, specifically a commercial establishment’s premises liability case. The

Alberto Estrella, JD ‘94 (left), and renowned Puerto Rican attorney William Estrella (right) pose with winners of the first Estrella Trial Advocacy Competition.

case was drafted by three GW Law students, who also served as competition chairs: Meredith Dempsey, Patrick DePoy, and Melissa Woods. Their work was supervised by adjunct faculty member Thomas Simeone. Each team consisted of four law students, with each student acting as an attorney for the plaintiff or defendant as well as a witness on the other side of the case. Sitting judges and attorneys evaluated the

students’ trial advocacy skills, particularly their ability to open or close, conduct direct and cross, handle exhibits, and make objections. Teams competed once for each party on April 13 at the Nazario Clemente Federal Courthouse in San Juan’s Hato Rey sector. After the two preliminary rounds, there was an evening reception overlooking the San Juan harbor at the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce to announce

the four advancing teams. On April 14, the semifinal and final rounds were held at the historic José V. Toledo Federal Courthouse in Old San Juan. Fourteen universities participated. Even more schools applied, but space was limited. The competition is the newest addition to GW Law’s Advocacy Programs, which now annually hosts 15 competitions in the areas of alternative dispute resolution, mock trials, and moot court.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

The word “lucky” is rarely uttered in the same breath as Auschwitz. But GW Law Professor Thomas Buergenthal, one of the youngest survivors of the notorious concentration camp, indeed considers himself a lucky man.

Lucky

Child

GW Law Professor Thomas Buergenthal rose from the ashes of the Holocaust to become an architect of international human rights law. by Jamie L. Freedman

GW Law | winter 2014

Defying death countless times, he emerged from the horrors of the Holocaust at the age of 10 to become one of the world’s leading experts on international and human rights law. His remarkable story was the subject of a student-designed exhibit that opened in April at GW’s Gelman Library. It is “only natural” that he opted to dedicate his life to preventing human rights abuses, says Professor Buergenthal, who returned to GW as an endowed professor in 2010 after serving for a decade as the American judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague. “I grew up in the camps—I knew no other life—and my sole objective was to stay alive, from hour to hour, from day to day,” he explains in the preface to his powerful memoir, A Lucky Child, published in 2007. “It equipped me to be a better human rights lawyer, if only because I understood, not only intellectually but also emotionally, what it is like to be a victim of human rights violations. I could, after all, feel it in my bones.”

A Child of the Holocaust By the time 10-year-old “Tommy” Buergenthal was sent to Auschwitz in August 1944, he already knew all the tricks of survival. On the run with his mother, Gerda, a German Jew, and father, Mundek, a Polish Jew, since the age of four, he had witnessed unimaginable atrocities in his young life. The nightmare began in 1938, when the local fascist party confiscated the Buergenthal family’s hotel in Lubochna, Czechoslovakia. They fled to Poland, where they eventually acquired prized visas to enter England as political refugees. On Sept. 1, 1939, the day they were scheduled to depart for England, Hitler invaded Poland. The Buergenthals boarded a train headed for the Balkans, but jumped off when German planes began dropping bombs overhead. For the next several years, they were confined to the Jewish ghetto of Kielce, Poland, where residents suffered frequent Nazi raids and beatings. After the ghetto was liquidated in August 1942—and the majority of its 20,000 inhabitants massacred at Treblinka—the

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“I was lucky to get into Auschwitz. Most people who arrived at the Auschwitz-Birkenau rail platform had to undergo a so-called selection, where the children, elderly, and invalids were taken directly to the gas chambers.”

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Buergenthals spent two years in labor camps before being deported to Auschwitz in August 1944. “I was lucky to get into Auschwitz,” Professor Buergenthal reflected during a July interview in his GW office overlooking the Law School Quad. “Most people who arrived at the AuschwitzBirkenau rail platform had to undergo a so-called selection,” he explains, “where the children, elderly, and invalids were taken directly to the gas chambers.” Incredibly, there was no selection process when his train pulled in because the SS officers assumed that since they were coming from a work camp, all the children had already been eliminated. “Had there been a selection, I would have been killed before ever making it into the camp.” His memoir details the chilling experiences he endured, such as being assigned to a barracks so close to the gas chambers at Auschwitz that his sleep was frequently interrupted by screams and pleas for help. To cope, he would tell himself that it was only a nightmare. In another heartbreaking passage, he recounts how he was torn away from his father in October 1944 during one of the frequent “selections” the Nazis performed; that was the last time they saw each other. Cheating death time and time again, he remained at Auschwitz until January 1945, when the Nazis—on the edge of defeat—evacuated the camp, forcing the “half-starved and dying” prisoners to endure a horrific three-day “death march” through the frozen Polish countryside. The march, he says, was worse than anything he could have imagined. “The roads were covered with snow and ice,” he recalls, “and those who could not go on…were shot by the SS guards, who kicked their bodies into a nearby ditch.” One of three children to survive the march, he was next herded with other prisoners onto open freight cars, without food or water, for a frigid 10-day journey to Germany, and, ultimately, Sachsenhausen concentration camp. “As the train moved slowly

Eleven-year-old Thomas Buergenthal, six months after his liberation, with the soldier who helped find him a place in a Jewish orphanage

through Czechoslovakia, men, women and children standing on bridges threw us loaves of bread,” he says. “Had it not been for that Czech bread, we would have starved to death.” By the time he arrived at Sachsenhausen, he was suffering from such severe frostbite that two of his toes were amputated. Finally, in April 1945, the camp was liberated by Polish and Russian troops and he was free. “A Polish army company took me with them as their ‘mascot’ because I had nowhere else to go,” he says. “They made me a small uniform and gave me a pair of shoes, a pistol, and a pony. I had a wonderful time with them, filled with adventures.” Upon discovering that the 11-year-old was Jewish, one of the soldiers found a place for him at a Jewish orphanage, which, he says, served as “a halfway point from one life to another.” A year after arriving at the orphanage, he received the miraculous news that his mother was alive and had tracked him down. After nearly two and a half years apart, mother and son were reunited in December 1946 and settled in Goettinger, Germany, his mother’s hometown. His father, sadly, was executed by the Nazis at Buchenwald in the final days of the war. “Somehow, I knew that she had survived and that she would find me,” he says. Gerda Buergenthal was equally certain that her son was alive, despite the fact that her friends tried to convince her there was no way such a young child could have survived Auschwitz. “She refused to give up hope,” Professor Buergenthal says. One of the things that kept her going was the prediction of a fortuneteller she’d visited in Poland just before the war started. “She told my mother that terrible things would happen to our family, but that her son was a “lucky child” who would emerge unscathed from the future that awaited us.” Six decades later, that phrase became the title of his book. Once the two were reunited, he turned his attention to making

up for the many yeas of education he’d lost. “When I arrived at the orphanage, I did not know how to read or write,” he says. He was tutored privately for a year before beginning his formal education in seventh grade. “I always tell my daughters-in-law not to worry if the children miss a few days of school, because I lost seven years of school and it didn’t stop me from becoming a lawyer,” he says.

Protecting Human Rights Internationally In 1951, at the age of 17, he set sail for America in search of greater academic opportunities. After finishing high school in New Jersey, where he lived with his uncle and aunt, he attended Bethany College in West Virginia on a full scholarship, graduating summa cum laude. He applied to law school “partly because my father had attended law school in Poland and partly because I realized I would never become a doctor or scientist,” he says. After earning his JD at New York University Law School and LLM and SJD degrees in international law at Harvard Law School, he turned his attention to the fledgling field of international human rights law. “When I was a child, there was no such thing as international protection of human rights,” he says. “I have always believed that if some of today’s international organizations and laws were in place in the 1930s, we could have prevented many of the terrible things Hitler did from happening. I knew what it was to be a victim of human rights violations and wanted to work for a world in which the rights and dignity of human beings everywhere would be protected.” One of the pioneering members of the Costa Rica-based InterAmerican Court of Justice, Professor Buergenthal took great pride in helping to lay the foundation for the groundbreaking Latin American human rights tribunal. “I look back on the court with

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“It was a dream come true to help establish a new court dedicated to strengthening the protection of human rights. We all felt like John Marshall!” special sentiment,” says Professor Buergenthal, who served for the maximum two terms and was the only U.S. judge ever to sit on the court. “It was a dream come true to help establish a new court dedicated to strengthening the protection of human rights. We all felt like John Marshall!” With Professor Buergenthal at the helm as president, the court rendered a landmark decision in 1988—ordering the government of Honduras to compensate the families of “forced disappearance” victims kidnapped and murdered by government forces during that country’s civil war. “It was very satisfying work,” he says. “We had the sense that we had really achieved something.” After Professor Buergenthal completed his service on the Inter-American Court, the secretary-general of the United Nations appointed him to the three-member United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, charged with investigating the massive human rights abuses committed during that country’s 12-year civil war. Memories of his past came pouring back as he “interviewed witnesses, heard their stories, and inspected the killing fields,” he says. “We interviewed the sole survivor of the El Mozote Massacre, in which 500 women and children were killed, and after the first few minutes of her testimony, I realized that I could have finished her story.” Professor Buergenthal’s emotions were also stirred while serving as vice chairman of the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland in 1999 to 2000. The tribunal was established to identify the owners or heirs of unclaimed secret Holocaust-era Swiss bank accounts opened before the war by victims seeking to hide their assets. “I enjoyed helping to get the money into the hands of its rightful owners,” he says, noting that more than $1 billion was ultimately distributed to Holocaust survivors and victims’ heirs. “A case I’ll never forget concerned a hidden account claimed by a man and woman in their 70s, one living in Poland and the other in Israel, who each contended that they were the sole survivor of their family,” he says. After investigating, the tribunal concluded that they were siblings who each believed that the other had perished in the Holocaust. Their excitement at the prospect of reuniting the brother and sister quickly turned to sorrow when they phoned the brother’s home and were told he had just passed away. The capstone of Professor Buergenthal’s judicial career was serving from 2000 to 2010 as the American judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The principal judicial organ of the United Nations with jurisdiction over disputes between states, the court determines “what is and what is not international law,” Professor Buergenthal says. “It is a dream court for international lawyers—comparable to serving on the Supreme Court of the United States.” As much as he enjoyed his work on the court, he decided to 42

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return to academia in 2010, primarily because he and he his wife, Peggy, wanted to live closer to their children and nine grandchildren. “I could have served another five years on the court, but we wanted to enjoy our grandchildren and for them to know us,” he explains. He was delighted to return to his former chair at GW Law as the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence. “I taught at GW for 10 years before my appointment to the International Court of Justice and liked it very much, so there was no reason to go anywhere else,” he says. When he first joined GW Law in 1989, the now thriving international law program was in its infancy. “It is exciting to see how many professors are now teaching international law here,” he says. “There are very few law schools in the country that have as large an international law program as we do.” Sean Murphy, GW’s Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law, calls his longtime international law colleague a complete treasure. “I doubt most of our students know there is only one school in our entire country that boasts a full-time faculty member who is a former ICJ judge, and that school is in Foggy Bottom,” he says. “Tom has been a centerpiece of our international law program for more than two decades. Even before he served on the International Court of Justice, he brought into the classroom an enormous range of scholarly and practical achievement. “Tom’s professional career is inseparable from the emergence after World War II of the new field of human rights law,” Professor Murphy adds. “He directly experienced its absence as a child; he helped build the system in the post-war years as a scholar, practitioner, and judge; and, as he approaches his retirement years, he can look with satisfaction on durable human rights structures—or at least strong scaffolding—in most parts of the world. There will always be more work to be done, but without people like Tom, we would still be in the Dark Ages.” A quick scan of his résumé reveals many additional contributions to institutions around the globe. He served as the first U.S.

LEFT GW Law Professor Thomas Buergenthal studies the student-designed exhibit on his life at GW’s Gelman Library. ABOVE Thomas Buergenthal returned to Auschwitz in 1995—50 years after being evacuated from the camp.

envoy to the U.N. Human Rights Committee and as president of the administrative tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank. He was the first permanent chairman of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He launched the international law program at American University’s Washington College of Law, where he served as dean from 1980 to 1985, and worked closely with former President Jimmy Carter as the director of the Human Rights Program at the Carter Center of Emory University from 1985 to 1989. A prolific author, he has written more than a dozen books on international and human rights law, many of which are now staples in classrooms across the country. He co-authored the first American casebook on international human rights law, International Protection of Human Rights, with Louis B. Sohn, his professor and mentor at Harvard Law School who eventually joined him at GW. The pivotal text, published in 1973, introduced human rights law into the curricula of law schools nationwide. Professor Buergenthal also co-authored the landmark books International Human Rights in a Nutshell, with Dinah Shelton and David Stewart, and Public International Law in a Nutshell, with Sean Murphy. And since its publication in 2007, his Holocaust memoir, A Lucky Child, has moved audiences across the globe. Why did he wait nearly six decades to write it? “I always knew I was going to write the book, but it was a question of finding the time,” he explains. “I was busy raising a family, teaching, and working in the human rights field. Finally, one day I realized I wasn’t immortal and that I better get started, so I spent a summer in The Hague writing, and the book just flowed out of me.” First published in Germany, A Lucky Child—which Professor Buergenthal wrote in English—has already been translated into 14 languages. “It has been published in all the major European countries, as well as Japan, Brazil, and Indonesia,” he says. Ironically, it took him two years to persuade an English-language publisher to

sign on. “Publishers in both the United States and England told me that Holocaust books don’t sell,” he explains. He quickly proved them wrong. The German edition of the book earned a spot on Germany’s bestseller list for weeks and the English paperback edition has been reprinted 15 times. He is now working on a sequel to the book incorporating the wealth of material that has surfaced in recent years documenting his mother’s two-year search for him. Early this year, when GW Professor Walter Reich approached him with the request to create a student-designed museum exhibit detailing his life for his Holocaust Memory course, Professor Buergenthal responded with an enthusiastic yes. “I was tremendously impressed with the idea; it’s a wonderful pedagogic method,” he says. The exhibit, which ran from April to October, filled four glass display cases on the top floor of GW’s Gelman Library. “It’s a little strange to see yourself exhibited and even stranger to realize that you are one of the few survivors still alive,” Professor Buergenthal says. “But it’s a great way of bringing to life for the students what the Holocaust was like for my family and me, and I was extremely impressed by what they produced.” Creating the exhibit was a “real high point” for his international affairs students, says Professor Reich, who serves as GW’s Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior and is a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Museum. “The exhibit itself allowed them to document his life within the context of the murder of the Jews of Europe by a power that represented the antithesis of justice and humanity. And it allowed them to show how he was able to focus his life, his teaching, his writing, and his judicial efforts to create a better world—one that could better protect humanity, society, decency, and the finest values of civilization.” “It was an honor for all of us that Professor Buergenthal gave unstintingly of his time, efforts, and passion to help the students understand the darkest—and brightest—possibilities of humanity,” Professor Reich adds. “He’s a rare treasure for GW and the world.”

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20th & H

Crossroads of the By Laura Hambleton

Illustrations by Jing Jing Tsong

GW Law’s reputation as a global hub is quickly expanding. Last year, when Olivia Radics, LLM, ’13, looked around her classrooms, she saw peers from Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Pakistan, Germany, Israel, France, and the United States. When she listened to them, she heard the most creative thinking about how to address climate change, environmental treaties, and energy policies in the poorest countries. The Hungarian student treasured those discussions in her courses on international environmental law, international climate change, and trade and sustainable development. Her fellow students, she says, always surprised her.

World “While our nationality necessarily influenced what we said, coming from a developed or developing country didn’t predetermine anyone’s opinion,” she says. “It was always a very open discussion, more like sharing experiences and insight into the background of a policy decision in a country.” Many classmates “voiced critical assessments of their own countries,” she adds. In Hungary, Ms. Radics says, the conversation would have been very different. “The debate would be much more one-sided and less nuanced,” she explains. “There are issues, opinions, and experiences that would be lost or not heard if there weren’t people who represented them in the classroom.” These types of discussions in the Law School are helping define the entire GW experience. The university is putting in place a new strategic plan, “Vision 2021: A Strategic Plan for the Third Century of the George Washington University,” which mirrors some of Ms. Radics’ experiences. According to the new strategic plan, the world is becoming a place where “ideas, people, and capital circulate more extensively than ever before. Problems afflicting one part of the world will inevitably affect other parts of the world.” GW Law has been a center of global issues and perspectives for years and has “helped set the agenda for the strategic plan,” says Donna Scarboro, associate provost for international programs. “The Law School has to be commended for its leadership in focusing on longrange international commitments, not those that last for a week, a month, or a year.” In many ways, this outward viewpoint is not new. GW offered a course in international law in the late 19th century. The subject was taught by Justice John Harlan, Justice David Brewer, and John Brown Scott. In the 20th century, GW Law became a leader in educating students from the United States and abroad to respond to a world where issues and problems jump borders and time zones, and lawyers work across multiple legal jurisdictions. The school itself is geographically located near organizations with global influence, just blocks from the U.S. Department of State, the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organization of American States, not to mention scores of foreign embassies. “International law has gone from being a separate field of law, a boutique corner of the

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“

International law has gone from being a separate field of law, a boutique corner of the law school curriculum, to being an aspect of every field of law.” Ralph Steinhardt law school curriculum, to being an aspect of every field of law,” says Ralph Steinhardt, the Arthur Selwyn Miller Research Professor of Law. Professor Steinhardt is the co-director of the Oxford-GW Program in International Human Rights and has been at GW since 1986. “No course in contemporary law can fully ignore international standards and practices. Anyone who thinks American law stops at the border today is doing a potential disservice to students and clients alike.” With that in mind, the school has built a faculty of worldrenowned scholars and practitioners in disciplines that range from human rights and immigration to international trade and Chinese law. Faculty members include leading international lawyer Thomas Buergenthal, a former member of the International Court of Justice and former president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; Dinah Shelton, the past chair of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; Sean Murphy, a member of the U.N. International Law Commission; and members of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law, including Professors Buergenthal, Shelton, Murphy, Steve Charnovitz, and Michael Matheson. Most law professors have had extensive careers in the international arena outside of GW. For example, John Andrew Spanogle Jr., the William Wallace Kirkpatrick Research Professor of Law, has helped Poland, Eritrea, and Trinidad and Tobago write commercial financing and consumer laws. He co-authored one of the most extensively read casebooks in its field, International Business Transactions. Karen Brown, the Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law, knows the ins and outs of international taxation. Law students work with professors on international projects located in foreign countries, and study in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, and at Oxford University in England. In turn, law students from more than 45 countries attend GW; the largest numbers come from China, South Korea, India, Japan, Brazil, and several European countries. “These students add immensely to the intellectual life of the Law School,” says Susan Karamanian, associate dean for international and comparative legal studies. That is precisely the point Ms. Radics, the student from Hungary, makes about her GW peers. “The topics we discuss include cross-cutting issues,” she says. For example, “while we consider climate change an environmental law problem, it raises human rights and public international law issues. Rising sea levels will affect the status of certain islands—they might cease to be an island. So we discussed the same issue from several approaches. Since many of the professors teaching courses are leading professionals who teach in addition to their full-time jobs, we get the benefit of both worlds: practice and theory.” In practical terms, the Law School offers more than 50 courses in international and comparative law. JD students are encouraged to get a firm grounding in core U.S. laws and not to specialize. But “a student who intends to work in corporate matters should probably be well-versed in the law of the European Union and the law of China, international business and international trade, international

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banking, and foreign direct investment,” Associate Dean Karamanian says. “A student who intends to work for a government or international organization should have a solid grounding in public international law, U.S. foreign relations law, human rights law, and the law of international organizations.” Students could eventually represent clients not based in the United States, where the law to resolve a client’s problem is not U.S. law, she adds. “In fact, our own graduates are likely to be practicing outside of the United States. And if a matter goes before a tribunal for resolution, there is a good chance that the body will be situated in a foreign country.” Mark de Barros, JD ’12, came to GW to be a human rights lawyer. He studied with professors such as Dinah Shelton, the first woman appointed by the United States to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and Michael Matheson, who helped establish the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the U.N. Compensation Commission for the Gulf War. Mr. de Barros was an editor for the journal International Law in Domestic Courts and spent a summer studying human rights at the Oxford-GW Human Rights Program. But he says his most influential experiences came while he was a student attorney with the International Human Rights Clinic, run by Professor of Clinical Law Arturo Carrillo. Mr. de Barros, who is American and Brazilian, was part of the legal team that represented Colombian journalist Richard Vélez. The journalist was abused by the Colombian government, as well as its armed forces, and forced into exile. “Working on the case and the brief, and having contact with the victim and his family, put everything in context of real life and brought to life the work I was doing on the weekend, at the clinic, or at home,” Mr. de Barros says. “Working with Professor Carrillo taught me how to be a lawyer.” The case ended in the journalist’s favor in 2012. After years of litigation, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Colombia was directly responsible for persecuting and threatening Mr. Vélez and his wife, Sara Román. The court ordered Colombia to pay $250,000 in damages. “The International Human Rights (IHR) Clinic offers students a chance to practice law in an international setting, and exposes them to the dynamics of legal advocacy in a globalized environment,” says Professor Carrillo. In 2004 he founded the IHR Clinic, which takes domestic and international cases pro bono. Before entering academia, Professor Carrillo served as a legal adviser in the Human Rights Division of the United Nations Observer Mission to El Salvador. “The IHR Clinic is a natural complement to GW’s nationally ranked international law program.” Mr. de Barros assisted in another high-profile case after his second year of law school: working on the Muammar Gaddafi Arrest Warrants case while a law clerk in the chambers of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. The clerkship spanned April to October, which meant Mr. de

Mark de Barros, JD ‘12 (left) and colleagues outside of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he worked as a law clerk for six months after his second year at GW Law.

Barros had to take final exams early at the end of his second year and miss significant class time in his third year. “No student had really made this kind of request before—to leave early and return really late, but Dean DeVigne worked with me to make it happen,” Mr. de Barros says. “It was an unforgettable experience.” After receiving his law degree, he worked for Human Rights Watch on another prominent case against the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré. He is now a professor of law and Fulbright Scholar at Panthéon-Assas law school in Paris. Time spent on actual law cases is formative, says Alberto Benítez, professor of clinical law and director of the Immigration Clinic. Each semester Immigration Clinic students do the hands-on, real-world work of a lawyer, from the mundane tasks of filling out paperwork to the more heady experience of representing clients in court. Students learn courts do not stop for clients who don’t show up or for briefs filed late. “I am a classroom professor,” Professor Benítez says. “Students sit down; I talk; they ask questions. Then everyone goes his or her own

way. In the Immigration Clinic we represent real people with real problems. Clients are not from the United States; they probably don’t speak English.” In his last year of law school, Cleveland Fairchild, JD ’13, won asylum for a man who was a client at the Immigration Clinic. Mr. Fairchild argued before the Arlington Asylum Office that his client was continually harassed and threatened in his home country in Africa for speaking out against the government. He said the man would never find a moment of peace there. The court agreed. “I really wanted to experience the ins and outs of immigration— how to file a motion, how to keep an organized file, how to return calls,” Mr. Fairchild says. “The clinic gave me all those skills. Now I have a job lined up as a presidential management fellow with the U.S. Department of Labor.” GW Law professors continually create opportunities for students to put theory into practice. For example, the United Nations General Assembly in 2011 elected Professor Sean Murphy to the International Law Commission (ILC), which meets during the

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In my capacity as a senator or legislator of the Parliament of Ghana, my knowledge in procurement has a bearing on governance and the fight by government against corruption.” Sarah Adwoa Safo summer in Geneva. Last fall he advertised for research assistants, and 20 students applied. This summer two GW students—Anthony Kuhn, JD/MA ’15, and Josh Doherty, JD/MA ’14—were hired to assist him, while two others—Casey Rubinoff, JD ’14, and Marija Dordeska, LLM, ’13—were placed by Professor Murphy with ILC members from Colombia and Slovenia. The commission’s mandate is to codify and progressively develop international law. Professor Murphy, who is the Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law at GW, has argued cases before the International Court of Justice in The Hague and represented the U.S. government before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. This summer he is proposing that the commission draft a multilateral treaty on crimes against humanity. “I want students to know that one person can make a difference,” he says. “It’s easy to feel like you are in this huge world and there isn’t anything that one person can do to affect it all. As a lawyer on a commission such as this, one or two people can carry the day. You can change the world.” In her corner in Africa, Sarah Adwoa Safo, LLM ’05, is trying to alter how government and industry do business in Ghana. She was the youngest Ghanaian admitted to the bar in 2004. She founded her own law firm in 2009 and now is a member of parliament and a ranking member of the foreign affairs committee. She says she learned to challenge the norm in part from her GW peers in the classroom. “I was surprised by the candid presentations and discussion, especially from the U.S. students,” she says. “Where I come from, it was traditionally wrong to dispute an assertion by an elderly person. But, with the U.S students, they were bold in putting forward diverse and in some cases contrary ideas to that of their professors.” At GW, she specialized in government procurement, which helped her earn “a job as the first legal officer of the Public Procurement Authority of Ghana, which had just been established in 2006,” she says. “I own my own law firm that specializes in government procurement and offers legal support to government agencies and private contractors. In my capacity as a senator or legislator of the Parliament of Ghana, my knowledge in procurement has a bearing on governance and the fight by government against corruption.” Daniel I. Gordon, associate dean for government procurement law studies, teaches how good practices with government contracts can make or break a company, domestic or international. One bribery or breech of privacy scandal can end a firm’s ability to win government contracts. “Governance issues are very hot right now,” he says, what with domestic and foreign bribery scandals as well as ongoing questions about contractors and their behavior. If the U.S. awards about $500 billion in contracts, “how are those half a trillion dollars of tax dollars going to be spent?” He believes government procurement is the “intersection of law, public policy, and business.” He worked for 17 years in the Office of General Counsel for the Government Accountability Office. He

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currently collaborates with a wide range of participants, from U.S. government agencies to industry groups, and with institutions around the world, including the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, and the World Bank Group. For his recent seminar on procurement comparative law, one student compared how the United States and Tanzania handle bidders’ complaints. Another wrote a paper, a version of which is now being published, comparing anti-bribery legislation with comparable laws in the U.S. His students find work in government and the private sector. “The job market is tough, even in the world of government contracts,” Associate Dean Gordon says. “But procurement lawyers get jobs with the military services and civilian agencies, as well as with law firms. GAO just hires government procurement lawyers. They have to have them; the work is not disappearing.” If a good business climate needs good practices, it also thrives from competition and antitrust laws, says William E. Kovacic, director of GW’s Competition Law Center. He and his students are researching and tracking which countries have antitrust laws and how those laws work. They’ve stored their findings in a database accessible to the world. “A good competition policy system can generate tremendous improvement in economic performance in a country,” says Professor Kovacic, who was recently appointed a non-executive director of the Competition and Markets Authority Board in the United Kingdom. “More hospitals, better roads, better airports, and better infrastructure boost the economic well-being.” When he graduated from law school in 1978, fewer than 15 countries had antitrust laws. “Today the number is over 120,” he says. And he predicts 10 more countries will have laws on the books by the end of the decade. Professor Kovacic asks each of his students to give him a résumé at the beginning of the semester. Every time he is amazed by how many have either studied or worked overseas. At least half of his students have a good command of a language other than English, he says. One of his students, who had spent a year translating for doctors in the Andes mountains, spoke such good Spanish that Professor Kovacic invited him to attend a seminar on competition law in Mexico this past spring. Learning is often two ways. “One example that stands out for me is a Fulbright scholar from China,” he says. “I was his sponsor and adviser at the Law School. We met for a one-hour, one-on-one conversation. It was a tutorial for me about how the system worked in China. He knows so much about actual practice and told me things that do not appear in print.” Adding to the depth of expertise in international antitrust, public international law, foreign relations law, and contracts, Professor Edward Swaine keeps a foot in the State Department. He worked there as a counselor of international law before coming to GW in 2005. Now he is on the Advisory Committee on Public International Law at the State Department. He writes widely about these areas for many law journals and consults on treaty

A dozen members of GW Law’s Immigration Law Association spent their spring break on the Arizona/Mexico border exploring immigration issues and performing pro bono work for a human rights nonprofit organization. Highlights of the week-long program included crossing the border fence into Nogales, Mexico, to talk with Mexicans about the impact of U.S. immigration laws on their lives; meeting with former immigrant detainees; talking with legal service providers about the challenges of representing those in immigrant detention; touring the border fence with Border Patrol agents; and attending a vigil for illegal immigrants who died or went missing in the desert.

law, antitrust, intellectual property, and international litigation and arbitration. Every year Donald Clarke, the David Weaver Research Professor of Law, has seen enrollment in his Chinese law classes grow with students from the U.S. and overseas. While many have solid backgrounds in the language and the region, he says, “they are surprised by the thing that is most different about the Chinese legal system. It is very deliberately designed not to be independent of political forces. Students then jump to the conclusion, therefore, that the law doesn’t matter. One has to know more than the written law.” Energy is perhaps the most rapidly evolving industry in the country, according to Lee Paddock, associate dean of environmental law studies. The Law School recognized this and more than five years ago began to expand its energy law program. “The number of students interested in energy law at GW has grown significantly over the past few years, and we are in a great position to provide them with a full range of classroom and practice opportunities,” he says. “We like to say that we work at the intersection of environment and energy. Every energy source has its environmental impacts. We want to graduate students interested in energy law who understand the environmental impacts of energy and environmental lawyers who understand the energy field.” Associate Dean Paddock wants his students to have a good understanding of energy issues both in the United States and in other countries. Toward that goal, he has forged a relationship with the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Fundação Getulio Vargas, a university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These relationships have allowed students from all three universities to compare how their countries address energy issues such as emissions trading, carbon capture and storage, deep-water drilling, and regulation of hydraulic fracturing. One aspect of the law that is truly not bound by borders is intellectual property. “Every pharmaceutical company, Google, and chip company has global strategies,” says John Whealan, associate dean for intellectual property law studies. “Money flows, and intellectual property flows. If you are a patent lawyer, you need to know something about international patent law as well.

Most technology companies manufacture and sell their products throughout the world. As a result, they need global IP protection.” For a world view of intellectual property, the Law School linked up with distinguished German institutions, such as the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law, to establish the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center a decade ago. Munich is known as the center for European IP law, and one of the premier centers for European science and technology, Associate Dean Whealan says. Associate Dean Susan Karamanian is ever watchful of these legal trends, hiring adjunct faculty members when needed to fill a niche of growing interest. A case in point: Islamic finance. She helped recruit Ayman Khaleq, LLM ’94, who is a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in Dubai. A few times a semester, he flies in from the Middle East to teach the course. “The growth of the faculty over the past decade or so has been the result of a focused effort to identify trends and areas of need and recruit the most highly qualified individuals,” Associate Dean Karamanian says. That attention to hiring just the right professors with the depth of international expertise and admitting students from around the world shows up in the multidimensional and vibrant discussions generated in the Law School’s classrooms. One of the most popular classrooms is the comparative constitutional law class taught by Professor David Fontana. The class is based on the discussion of constitutional issues from a comparative perspective, exploring U.S. constitutional law and the constitutional laws of other countries. The class examined abortion, for instance, and how Roe v. Wade compared with a German decision on abortion. And when a new constitutional issue crops up, as it did with gay marriage this past spring, the students turned their attention to the constitutional law of marriage around the world. “One of the best and worst things about a legal education is how constraining it is,” Professor Fontana says. “What I try to do in my class is to enable students to think outside of the box within those constraints, to think differently, to think creatively. This is about solving problems that come up in the law. The class also allows law students both domestic and foreign to dissect and discuss fundamental constitutional issues that arise in many countries around the world.”

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

Fast Track to Success on the

Mastering by LAURA HAMBLETON illustration by DaN Page

GW Law | winter 2014

Legal Writing Ryan Rambudhan’s first assignment as a summer intern in 2011 at the Nassau County District Court in New York was to write a decision for a DWI case. The presiding judge gave him no further direction. ¶ But Mr. Rambudhan, JD ’13, dived right in. The judge

largely accepted his draft, and published the verdict. Mr. Rambudhan felt a huge sense of accomplishment. ¶ He says he was helped greatly by a first-year class, Legal Research and Writing (LRW), “which is the hardest class you can take at GW,” says Mr. Rambudhan, now an associate with First Point Law Group in Fairfax, Va. “It takes the most time. But I learned organization, structure, and how to break things down. I’ll never forget the three rudimentary words of advice that my professor repeated on a weekly basis: clear, concise, and succinct.” ¶

That mantra and hands-on instruction are the hallmark of the Legal Research and Writing Program. From the first-year course to scholarly writing and legal drafting, students work closely with professors and peer mentors as they transition from writing college papers to crafting analytical and persuasive legal documents. When students need additional help, they often go to the Writing Center, which is directed by Iselin Gambert, associate professor of legal research and writing, and staffed by 45 upper-level students trained to help with outlines, structure, and legal analysis. The tutors—called Writing Fellows—are picked through a competitive process, along with the peer mentors, known as Dean’s Fellows. Each section of the first-year writing class has about 12 students and is mostly taught by adjunct faculty members who are strong writers. The class introduces students to the particular writing method known as TREAT: thesis, rule, explanation, application, and thesis. What sets this method apart from other legal writing structures is that it’s more “nuanced,” says Christy DeSanctis, director of the Legal Research and Writing Program and co-author of Legal Writing and Analysis and Advanced Legal Writing and Oral Advocacy. “There is considerable emphasis placed on the ‘E’—the need to explain the articulated rule with examples from like situations where the rule has been applied.” Exactly, says Lissa Percopo, JD ’07, an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., who has taught the first-year

Writing Center Director Iselin Gambert with attorney and first-year legal research and writing instructor Lissa Percopo, JD ’07

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

“

Do your first draft, get all your stuff out, and then cut a third from it. The best writers take a first good draft and cut a third out of it. ” Lissa Percopo

writing class at GW and has read a lot of writing by young lawyers at her firm. “I have found that when law students think about not only stating but also explaining a rule before they begin to apply it, they internalize it better and conduct a more thorough analysis. I think the ‘E’ is what is most often overlooked, yet it is the foundation for the strong ‘A’ that everyone knows is important.” Writing and analyzing, Ms. Percopo says, are the girders on which lawyers must build their careers. “If you can write a good paper, you can be a good lawyer,” she says. When she teaches, Ms. Percopo stresses “multiple drafts,” she says. “Do your first draft, get all your stuff out, and then cut a third from it. The best writers take a first good draft and cut a third out of it.” Jake Berdine, a second-year law student, remembers his first writing assignment for the class. “I went into GW knowing nothing about legal writing,” he says. “My first assignment was due in midOctober. We started writing it in early September. The issue at stake was whether you can use someone’s likeness in advertising.” The paper was supposed to be a five-page analysis. Mr. Berdine’s first draft was “a 12-page fluffed-up paper. It didn’t have the structure of a legal paper at all,” he says. Fifteen drafts later, he whittled his paper into a concise analysis. He learned the value of editing. “I developed a drafting technique,” he explains. With each new draft, Mr. Berdine combed through the paper looking for one specific wrong, such as the passive voice or using too many words. His next assignment took him 200 hours, but this time he received one of the highest grades. This year Mr. Berdine earned a spot on the GW Law Review, based in part on his writing skills. His writing abilities also secured him a job this past summer 52

GW Law | winter 2014

While clerking for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Mark Taticchi, JD ‘10 (center), conducted a backstage tour of the court for Legal Research and Writing students (left to right) Nathan Castellano, Ramon González, and Bandar Altunisi, and their professor, Karen Thornton.

with the patent litigation group at Apple. “Apple offered me one of two internship positions based on the legal writing skills I gained at GW,” Mr. Berdine says. “At Apple, writing is everything. I write all day, every day.” Phil Schuster, JD ’13, spent a lot of time in the Writing Center his first two semesters of law school. “I really had no experience with legal terminology,” he says. “It was very overwhelming and just hard to grasp, especially with the time constraints. The Writing Center was a great resource for students who don’t quite get what is going on in the classroom setting. Writing classes are fundamental to anything that came after the first semester.” The following year Mr. Schuster was himself a fellow in the Writing Center, as “a mentor for 1L students struggling with the same new legal writing concepts that I struggled with a year before,” he says. His mastery of legal writing caught the eye of Senior Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., after Mr. Schuster’s first year of law school and of a Swiss law firm in Zurich, Switzerland, the following summer, he says. For both jobs, Mr. Schuster, who is now an associate for Sullivan & Cromwell in Frankfurt, Germany, drew upon the lessons he learned in his first-year classes and as a Writing Fellow. In the second year of law school, students have the opportunity

PHoto BY Jessica Mcconell Burt

to try their hand at scholarly writing by working on one of the eight journals housed at GW: the George Washington Law Review, the George Washington International Law Review, the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal, Federal Circuit Bar Journal, Federal Communications Law Journal, International Law in Domestic Courts, The Public Contract Law Journal, and the Journal of Energy and Environmental Law. Each journal has about five groups of nine students writing notes or articles under the guidance of adjunct faculty members, who are either former editors of the publications or experts in the field. All second-year students who work on a journal enroll in a subject-specific section of scholarly writing; the classes meet six times a year as students research a 30- to- 35 page scholarly paper. Karen Thornton, associate professor of legal research and writing, serves as coordinator of the scholarly writing program. “The program provides the infrastructure and support system to get through that process and produces something meaningful enough to be published,” Professor DeSanctis says. “It has been very successful. More students are publishing notes.” Class sizes are intentionally small, she adds, since GW has access to so many qualified adjunct faculty members. “We are in D.C.,” she says, “and they are real lawyers practicing in the real world. That makes our program very unique and novel.” What Kirk Anderson, JD ’12, an associate at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in New York City, remembers best about being an editor of the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal was gaining the confidence and ease in writing 10,000- to 15,000-word legal documents. In his second year of law school he was on staff at the publication and by his third year he was one of the board members. Mark Taticchi, JD ’10, submitted his law review article with his application to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and before that for a job with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. “Good writing was one of the main things Judge Kennedy and the lawyers at Covington looked for,” he says. “My grades and a scholarly paper of substantial length that was well researched and rigorously analyzed got positive feedback.” Since that article was published and now that Mr. Taticchi has worked for a Supreme Court justice, a circuit court judge, and a law firm, he believes his writing style has evolved. “I have loosened up,” he says. “I can be more narrative, much more strategic about my writing, more persuasive. I am using different styles and approaches based on what results I want to achieve and that means sometimes you want to use the passive voice, especially defending a client. You want to say the college was broken into, instead of who is actually responsible.” The class that unexpectedly piqued Mr. Rambudhan’s interest in an entirely different kind of writing was Law and Literature taught by Professor DeSanctis. He read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Merchant of Venice, The Scarlet Letter, Billy Budd, The Trial, and his favorite, Native Son. “It was an extremely eye-opening class, and probably my favorite at GW,” Mr. Rambudhan says. “This class was the intersection between morality and law. Even people who majored in English in undergrad looked at the books in a totally different light, with a totally different perspective on what is right and wrong. While reading To Kill a Mockingbird in law school you understand better why Atticus Finch defended that man. Everyone is entitled to a fair defense.”

Christy DeSanctis, director of GW’s Legal Research and Writing Program

From Legal Briefs to Literature

Christy DeSanctis, the director of GW’s Legal Research and Writing Program, has a deep appreciation for all aspects of every kind of writing, from legal briefs to linguistics and literature. As an undergraduate at Duke University, she majored in English and considered pursuing a PhD. But she followed another interest and went to law school at New York University instead. All the while, she thought about literature. “I never gave up the idea of maybe doing both,” she says, “and friends of mine from 1L year, including my now husband, remind me how often I said so to the question ‘what do you want to do?’ I want to teach a Law and Literature class.” In 2004, Professor DeSanctis finished a master’s in English at the University of Maryland and started course work toward a PhD. At the same time, she taught legal writing part time at GW and practiced law for the firms Steptoe & Johnson LLP and Collier Shannon Scott PLLC in Washington, D.C. She became director of the writing program in 2004. She taught literature classes at the University of Maryland during a leave of absence in 2008, and now teaches the Law and Literature class at GW. She team teaches To Kill a Mockingbird with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. “I love engaging with students on matters of language and meaning,” Professor DeSanctis says. “In Law and Literature we focus on extracting meaning from close textual readings. Though students might not realize it, in LRW we focus on imparting meaning through making conscious choices in writing.”

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

GW Law | winter 2014

THE BENEFITS OF CROSS-DISCIPLINARY education

n o i t a r o b a l l o C c i g e t a r t S By Ari Kaplan

he George Washington University will celebrate its 200th birthday in 2021, and its march toward that remarkable milestone is sure to be an exciting one given the dramatically changing nature of higher education. GW’s board of trustees, therefore, recently approved a 10-year strategic plan, “Vision 2021,” comprising four themes dedicated to providing students with a distinct educational experience: innovation through cross-disciplinary collaboration, globalization, governance and policy, and citizenship and leadership. “The strategic planning process allowed us to emphasize themes and initiatives we have been working toward for some time,” says Steven Lerman, GW’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, who spearheaded the 18-month planning and development process. GW Law is hard at work advancing all four of the plan’s components as it looks ahead to training the legal community’s next generation. Agility in working across the disciplines is a key strategy for both the Law School and the university at large. “The major issues and problems out in the world don’t lend themselves to being solved by focus on one discipline,” Dr. Lerman explains, citing health care, economic policy, and government as illustrations. “I am a strong proponent of interdisciplinary education,” says J. Richard Knop, JD ’69, a member of the board of trustees’ Committee on Academic Affairs and GW Law’s Dean’s Board of Advisors who was involved in the development and approval of the new strategic plan. He is the co-founder of FedCap Partners LLC, a McLean, Va.-based private equity group focused on investing in small and middle-market companies in the federal contracting industry. “We want law students to understand how to work across disciplinary boundaries and not to see everything as a legal problem,” Dr. Lerman adds.

illustration by MICHAEL AUSTIN

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

“We want law students to understand how to work across disciplinary boundaries and not to see everything as a legal problem.” Steven Lerman

studying aCross the DisciplinEs That ability to broadly evaluate key issues is now essential given how competitive the legal market has become. According to The Employment Report and Salary Survey for the Class of 2012, which NALP (the Association for Legal Career Professionals) released in June, the employment rate for new law school graduates fell to 84.7 percent, down from 85.6 percent in 2011 and 91.9 percent in 2007 (a 24-year high). It marks the fifth straight annual decline since 2008, and there have only been two classes with an overall employment rate below 84.7 percent: 83.5 percent in 1992 and 83.4 percent in 1993. While 50.7 percent of employed graduates from the Class of 2012 obtained a job in private practice, up from 49.5 percent for the Class of 2011, the report highlights that for most of the 39 years for which the organization has collected employment information, the share of graduates securing law firm employment has generally been between 55 percent and 58 percent, dipping below 50 percent only once in 1975. “In this job market, if you signal any uncertainty about yourself or your future, you are doing so to your own detriment,” says J. Zoë Beckerman, JD ’05, a partner at Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell LLP in Washington, D.C. She recommends that students determine what they want to pursue early in their careers so that they can tailor their law school training to suit their goals. Ironically, Ms. Beckerman was not even planning to go to law school. She was a theater major at the University of WisconsinMadison, and then pursued a master’s degree in public health at the University of Michigan before becoming a Presidential Management Fellow at the National Institutes of Health. She went on to work at a foundation focusing on health care. “I was particularly interested in women’s health and realized that I wasn’t able to make enough of an impact, so I went to law school,” she says. In addition to her law degree, she earned a certificate in health law and policy from GW’s School of Public Health and Health Services. “Certificate programs get you out of your home school and into other parts of the university so that things are not siloed,” she says. That background is instrumental in her work helping nonprofit organizations ensure regulatory compliance for federal grants. “Completing a dual degree, certificate, or course work is so important because the world is not compartmentalized or departmentalized the way academia is. “Real life isn’t just law, public health, international affairs, or politics; the interesting issues of our time are at the intersection of these different pieces,” she says, noting that the strongest graduates are those who come out with some knowledge in numerous disciplines. 56

GW Law | winter 2014

In fact, in a competitive market, there is no other option. “I have always thought that attorneys are at such a huge disadvantage if they don’t understand the financial aspects of the documents they are preparing,” says E. Taylor Woodbury, a director and treasurer of Woodbury Corp. in Salt Lake City, and a 2009 JD/MBA recipient. “I really feel as if I have been promoted faster because I had both areas of study.” During his first year of law school, Mr. Woodbury realized that he was also interested in business and finance, so he enrolled jointly in the GW School of Business the following year. He was pleased to discover that the law and business school classes complemented each other. “It really balanced out the schedule,” he says. “The discussions and interactions I had with my business school classmates offered a new way of looking at key issues; it was very empowering.” That empowerment is often the result of a holistic education that helps students solve problems and address issues more creatively. “Our students are training to be lawyers; most of them will need to know more than just law and legal analysis,” says GW Law Interim Dean Gregory Maggs. “To represent their private and government clients effectively, they need to know more about the subject of their clients’ business.” Shandanette Molnar, a December 2013 JD/MPH candidate focusing on maternal and child health, recognized this early in her career. She was interested in becoming a midwife but wanted to influence public policy on the future of health care. “The dualdegree experience provides a different lens for looking at the law, and I can now see how law informs policymakers,” she says. “It allows me to see beyond the abstract.” In addition to the course work, “I have established some important connections with organizations to whom I’d love to dedicate my professional time,” says Ms. Molnar. “Most people with whom I have networked express enthusiasm about what I want to do, particularly because I also serve as a doula and lactation educator within the community.” Despite the additional expense, scheduling challenges, and summer classes, “the joint degrees will be great tools to increase my resourcefulness no matter where I end up.”

The Practical Impact of the Plan Of course, the educational paths available to students often determine the trajectory of their careers. As a result, part of the mission of the new strategic plan is to create a unified undergraduate educational experience by admitting undergraduates to the university as a whole rather than to individual schools. This process is likely to include designing a new core curriculum, expanding the global aspects of the course offerings, increasing the

“The dual-degree experience provides a different lens for looking at the law, and I can now see how law informs policymakers. It allows me to see beyond the abstract.” Shandanette Molnar

number of students from outside the U.S., and enhancing postgraduation opportunities, among others. Dr. Lerman reports that some of the graduate programs could begin offering certificates that encompass three- to five-course sequences in a particular specialty. “While more expansive education is the wave of the future, we still need the rigor and history of established disciplines,” he cautions. “Ultimately, more classroom time will be spent doing things, rather than talking about them in a lecture style, including capstone and experiential service-based learning,” he predicts. The university also expects to create eight to 12 cross-disciplinary institutes, hire 50 to 100 new faculty members in specific research fields, improve its infrastructure, and encourage policy research that addresses societal problems. Professor Christopher Bracey, GW Law’s senior associate dean for academic affairs, who served on the university president’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion during the strategic planning process, reports that the Law School will strive to enhance opportunities that already exist, as well as explore new ideas. “In the near term, you will begin to see the fruits of our efforts at the Law School to promote cross-disciplinary interaction,” he says. As the Law School develops its own blueprint for the future, further changes are sure to come. “It is useful that the university has an approved strategic plan that can inform the Law School going forward given that we share the same vision,” he adds.

Building on a Strong Tradition of Holistic Education In fact, while the Law School has always permitted students to enroll in courses taught by other departments on campus, the university’s new mandate is motivating a shift based on both student interest and market conditions. “What was previously just permissible is now being encouraged,” says Professor Bracey. GW Law professors have always focused on interdisciplinary scholarship, he adds. For example, Robert Tuttle teaches an undergraduate religion course, Stephen Saltzburg teaches in the University Honors Program, and Robert Cottrol has an appointment in the university’s history department. “The contribution to the world of ideas made by our faculty is often interdisciplinary in nature,” he says. Professor Bracey notes that the various formal joint-degree programs, e.g., JD/MPH, JD/MBA, JD/MA, and JD/MPA, as well as the relationship between the Law School and other schools on campus, reflect a long-standing commitment. “It is emblematic

of the cross-disciplinary approach envisioned by the provost and the plan itself,” he adds. The Law School, of course, has a rich history in this area, with its government contracts and cybersecurity programs serving as successful examples universitywide. “Cross-college collaboration is important for the Law School for the same reasons that it is important for all of the schools in the university,” says Interim Dean Maggs. “Looking at issues from more than one perspective, and with insights of experts from more than one field, tends to produce more informed and complete analyses.” Mr. Knop led the effort to endow the Nash & Cibinic Professor of Government Procurement Law currently occupied by Professor Steven Schooner, and cites the university’s newly launched MS degree in government contracting as a true interdisciplinary partnership between the law and business schools. He also leads a new cybersecurity initiative to unify the university’s various efforts in this area, i.e., the Law School’s LLM in national security (which may soon offer a specialization in cybersecurity). Along with maintaining existing cybersecurity-related courses, such as Law in Cyberspace, the Law School plans to develop courses that address the confluence of cybersecurity and government contracts and that incorporate aspects of the business school’s MBA in cybersecurity, the school of engineering’s MS in cybersecurity, and the school of education’s courses focused on the workforce of the future. “With all that is happening at the university, we want to be a catalyst as a neutral player to help forge public policy solutions,” Mr. Knop says. It is those solutions that will usher in a new era of influence by the Law School’s students, alumni, and faculty. As they broaden their perspectives in their individual fields, they will enhance their ability to address unanticipated problems. Given the growing complexity of modern disputes and global challenges, this diverse aptitude has the potential to solidify GW Law’s position in the legal community while providing its students and alumni with unique advantages. From government contracts to cybersecurity and from patents to international affairs, “recognizing the interdisciplinary aspects of the subject enriches your educational experience and makes you much more valuable in today’s world,” Mr. Knop says. “Graduates with an interdisciplinary education will have an easier time finding jobs.” In addition to its dynamic curriculum, the Law School jointly sponsored a panel discussion in March 2013 with the GW Cybersecurity Initiative titled “International Challenges and Opportunities: Law and Policy on Cybersecurity.” And GW Law’s new health law program provides students with a broad view of administration and public policy in light of the Affordable Care Act. “These are cross-disciplinary collaborations that accrue to the benefit of the students first and foremost,” says Professor Bracey. “The artificial barriers that have been erected between disciplines are breaking down because students want a deeper understanding of the

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

“Real life isn’t just law, public health, international affairs, or politics; the interesting issues of our time are at the intersection of these different pieces.” J. Zoë Beckerman

issues they are studying,” he says, noting that universities across the country are trying to innovate and provide students with a comparative advantage. GW Law has a particularly strong history of offering its students an edge. Its location in the nation’s capital gives them access to myriad opportunities not available to peers at other schools. In addition, its assorted clinical offerings and distinguished faculty provide a level of experience and perspective that is often unmatched. With alumni in leadership positions around the world in both government and private institutions, the degree abounds with benefit.

The Future of Collaborative Education Deans across GW are moving toward expanding cross-disciplinary collaboration in their respective schools. “We want to encourage students to supplement their learning in disciplines that are outside of business, be passionate about it, and go deep in it,” says D. Christopher Kayes, interim dean of the School of Business. “Cross-disciplinary education pushes students to think more critically and with an open mind toward new ideas.” While the business school confers the MS in government contracts, half of the curriculum is based in the Law School. “Part of the appeal of government procurement law is that it straddles many disciplines,” says Daniel I. Gordon, associate dean for government procurement law studies, who served as the administrator for federal procurement policy under President Obama. “It is at the crossroads of law, public policy, and business.” “When we teach Formation of Government Contracts this fall, we will have in that class something like 60 combined JD and LLM students, as well as 15 or 20 from the School of Business,” he adds, noting that interdisciplinary collaboration improves the classroom experience as well as success at securing coveted internships. GW’s strategic plan helps spur decisions universitywide about resource allocation—a priority also occurring at every level within

the legal community. In-house counsel are pressuring law firms to devote an unprecedented amount of attention to project management and staffing efficiency; partners expect higher quality work in less time from associates; and courts, as well as regulatory bodies, have less patience for uncertainty in a technology-centric information age. Those lawyers who can combine their unique insights with a broad understanding of the concerns of their clients and adversaries will earn greater credibility. “Interdisciplinary education should be a no-brainer,” says Associate Dean Gordon. “While some people may be reluctant to embrace it, I have found that my colleagues at GW Law are very supportive of it because it reflects our engagement in the real world, which is multidisciplinary.” Ultimately, success requires that real-world understanding since on-the-job teaching is receiving less time and tolerance. Many corporate clients even reject bills that reflect time spent by first-year associates on items perceived as training exercises at their expense. Those who can demonstrate their value and understanding, however, typically make a more positive impression. “Students have multidisciplinary interests, and the universities that are successful in creating an organization that works across disciplines rather than solely within them will thrive,” Dr. Lerman says. As GW begins to implement the vision its leadership set forth, there will be more programmatic options as well. For example, GW’s new minor in sustainability may expand to become a major subject. Since sustainability is a combination of disciplines, five faculty members from five different schools teach the core foundational course. “The strategic plan must be more of a guide for the next decade and has to be a living document as the world changes, rather than a rigid blueprint,” Dr. Lerman says. “The key is to adapt the plan for what happens over time; you have to be humble and be able to pivot.” Law students and lawyers who can shift quickly will be better prepared in a period of borderless transactions and digital communication. As the pace of change accelerates, the value of a multifaceted educational experience increases and the importance of implementing the new strategic plan grows.

“recognizing the interdisciplinary aspects of the subject enriches your educational experience and makes you much more valuable in today’s world.” J. Richard knop

GW Law | winter 2014

faculty file news briefs

Publications Jerome A. Barron published the eighth edition of Barron and Dienes, Constitutional Law in a Nutshell (with C. Thomas Dienes) (Thompson Reuters/ West 2013). Francesca Bignami published a chapter, “Comparative Administrative Law,” in The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Law (Mauro Bussani and Ugo Mattei eds., Cambridge University Press 2012). Christopher A. Bracey is presently conducting interviews for his forthcoming book, The Fetish for Authentic Race in American Law. Donald Braman published “The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks” (with Dan M. Kahan, Ellen Peters, Maggie Wittlin, Paul Slovic, Lisa Ouelette, and Gred Mandel), 2 Nature Climate Change 732, (2012); “Judicial Backlash or Just Backlash? Evidence From a National Experiment” (with David Fontana) 112 Columbia Law Review (2012); and “‘They Saw a Protest’: Cognitive Illiberalism and the SpeechConduct Distinction” (with Dan Kahan, David Hoffman, Danieli Evans, and Jeffrey Rachlinski), 64 Stanford Law Review (2012). Neil H. Buchanan published three articles analyzing the constitutional options available to the president if Congress fails to increase the debt ceiling: “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Debt

2013 as part of the Harvard Business School U.S. Competitiveness Project. Bradford Clark published “The Law of Nations as Constitutional Law,” Virginia Law Review, and “General Law in Federal Court” (with A.J. Bellia), William and Mary Law Review.

Ceiling: When Negotiating Over Spending and Tax Laws, Congress and the President Should Consider the Debt Ceiling a Dead Letter” (with Michael C. Dorf), 113 Columbia Law Review Sidebar 32 (March 5, 2013); “Nullifying the Debt Ceiling Threat Once and for All: Why the President Should Embrace the Least Unconstitutional Option” (with Michael C. Dorf), 112 Columbia Law Review Sidebar 237 (Dec. 21, 2012); and “How to Choose the Least Unconstitutional Option: Lessons for the President (and Others) from the Debt Ceiling Standoff” (with Michael C. Dorf), 112 Columbia Law Review 1175 (2012). Naomi Cahn’s book, The New Kinship: Constructing DonorConceived Families, was published in 2013. W. Burlette Carter published “The ‘Federal Law of Marriage’: Deference, Deviation, and DOMA,” American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law, in June 2013.

Steve Charnovitz published “US–Tyres: Upholding a WTO Accession Contract—Imposing Pain for Little Gain” (with Bernard Hoekman), World Trade Review, April 2013, pp. 273-96, and “Environmental Sustainability and Competitiveness: Policy Imperative and Corporate Opportunity” (with Daniel C. Esty), released in March

Jessica Clark published the second edition of Scholarly Writing: Ideas, Examples, and Execution (with Kristen Murray) (Carolina Academic Press 2012) with a new foreword by Steven L. Schooner.

Federal, Criminal, and Appellate Clinic, titled Can Fiction Impede Conviction: Addressing Claims of a “CSI Effect” in the Criminal Courtroom, was accepted for publication in the Mississippi Law Journal.

Roger Fairfax’s “Batson’s Grand Jury DNA” was published in the Iowa Law Review. His article titled “The ‘Smart on Crime’ Prosecutor” was published in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.

Robert Glicksman published Modern Public Land Law in a Nutshell (West fourth ed. 2012), and two book chapters, “Governance of Public Lands, Public Agencies, and Natural Resources,” in The Law of Adaptation to Climate Change: U.S. and International Aspects (M. Gerrard and K. Kuh, eds.) (ABA 2012), and “The Justifications for Nondegradation Programs in U.S. Environmental Law,” in Le Principe de Non-Régression en Droit de l’Environnement (M. Prieur and G. Sozzo, eds.) (Bruylant 2012). He published two law review articles, “Improving Water Quality Antidegradation Policies,” 4 Journal of Energy and Environmental Law 1 (with S. Zellmer) (2013) and “Solar Energy Development on the Federal Public Lands: Environmental Trade-Offs on the Road to a Lower-Carbon Future,” 3 San Diego Journal of Energy and Climate Law 107 (2011–2012). He was co-author of two Center for Progressive Reform white papers: “Letting Nature Work in the Pacific Northwest: A Manual for Protecting Ecosystem Services Under Existing Law” (with Robert W. Adler, Dan Rohlf, Robert R. M. Verchick, and Ling-Yee Huang), No.1304 (April 2013); and “No Profit in Pollution: A Comparison of Key Chesapeake Bay State Water Pollution Penalty Policies” (with Aimee Simpson), No.1305 (April 2013).

The LLM thesis of Wyatt Feeler, a Friedman Fellow in the

Phyllis Goldfarb published “Back to the Future of Clinical

Charles Craver published Skills and Values: Alternative Dispute Resolution (with John Garvey) (LEXIS 2013), his 14th book. He published “The Impact of Gender on Negotiation Performance,” Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution) (2013); “The Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution Techniques to Resolve Public Sector Bargaining Disputes,” Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution (2013); and “The Benefits to Be Derived From Post-Negotiation Assessments,” Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution (2012). His report, “The Right to Strike and its Possible Conflict With Other Fundamental Rights in the U.S.,” was published in the Proceedings of the XX World Congress of the International Society for Labor and Social Security Law. He published the 2013 Supplements to Labor Relations Law (with Theodore J. St. Antoine and Marion G. Crain) (LEXIS), Employment Discrimination Law (LEXIS), and Employment Law Treatise (Thomson/West).

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Legal Education,” 32 Boston College Journal of Law and Social Justice 279-308 (2012). Daniel I. Gordon’s empirical research, “Bid Protests: The Costs are Real, but the Benefits Outweigh Them,” appeared in the Spring 2013 Public Contract Law Journal and, as a reflection of the community’s interest in his conclusions, was abridged and republished in two consecutive issues of Contract Management magazine (September and October 2013).

Susan Jones published “Innovative Approaches to Public Service Through Institutionalized Action Research: Reflections From Law and Social Work” (with Shirley J. Jones), 33 University of Arkansas Law Review 377 (2011), and a book chapter, “The Importance of Microenterprise Development in Community Economic Development Law” (Susan D. Bennett, et al), in Community Economic Development Law: A Text for Engaged Learning (Carolina Academic Press 2012). Susan Karamanian published “The Place of Human Rights in Investor-State Arbitration,” 17 Lewis and Clark Law Review 423 (2013). Orin Kerr published articles that appeared in the Supreme Court Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. In addition to articles on patentable subject matter and on how remedies for patent infringement can be used in the context of standard-setting organizations, F. Scott Kieff 60

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completed a new, sixth edition of the widely used textbook and treatise Principles of Patent Law (with Pauline Newman, Herbert F. Schwartz, and Henry Smith) (Foundation Press). Laird Kirkpatrick submitted the manuscript for the fourth edition of his five-volume treatise Federal Evidence (with Christopher B. Mueller) (Thomson/West and on Westlaw); also with Mueller, he completed the 2013 supplement for the treatise Evidence: Practice Under the Rules. In addition, Professor Kirkpatrick published the sixth edition of his treatise Oregon Evidence (LexisNexis 2013) and contributed an article to the National Law Journal titled “An Unnecessary Hearsay Amendment.” Laurie Kohn’s article “What’s so Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding? Restorative Justice as a New Paradigm for Domestic Violence Intervention” appeared in the 2012 edition of Women and the Law, Tracy A. Thomas (West 2012).

Cynthia Lee’s article, “Making Race Salient: Trayvon Martin and Implicit Bias in a Not Yet Post-Racial Society,” is forthcoming in volume 91 of the North Carolina Law Review. The third edition of her Criminal Law casebook with West Publishing Co. will be published in 2014. Renée Lettow Lerner published the article “The Rise of Directed Verdict: Jury Power in Civil Cases Before the Federal Rules of 1938,” 81 George Washington Law Review 448 (2013). Ira C. Lupu published “Teaching United States v. O’Brien:

Three Conversations and the Wisdom of John Hart Ely,” 16 Green Bag 2nd (Spring 2013). Jeffrey Manns published “The Merger Agreement Myth,” Cornell Law Review (2013); “Downgrading Rating Agency Reform” (with Robert Anderson IV), George Washington Law Review (2013); and “Insuring Against a Derivative Disaster,” Iowa Law Review (2013). He also published an opinion piece, “Break Up the Ratings Oligopoly,” in Bloomberg, on Feb. 18, 2013. Michael Matheson published International Civil Tribunals and Armed Conflict (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2012). Sean Murphy published Litigating War: Arbitration of Civil Injury by the EritreaEthiopia Claims Commission (with Kidane and Snider) (Oxford University Press 2013) and Principles of International Law (second ed., West 2012). He also published “The Crime of Aggression,” in Oxford Handbook on the Prohibition on the Use of Force in International Law (Marc Weller, ed.) (Oxford University Press 2013); “The Expulsion of Aliens and Other Topics: The Sixty-Fourth Session of the International Law Commission,” 107 American Journal of International Law 164 (2013); and “Jus ad Bellum, Values, and the Contemporary Structure of International Law,” 41 Journal of Religious Ethics 20 (2012). Lee C. Paddock published “Stepping Up to Sustainability,” 81 University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review 359 (Winter 2012); “Multi-Layered Environmental Governance in the United States” (with Bowmar), and ”Water Management and Protection in the United States” (with Colasuonno), Environmental Protection in Multi-Layered Systems:

Comparative Lessons from the Water Sector 291-315 (Martinus Nijhoff 2012); “Minimizing Species Disputes in Energy Facilities Siting: Utilizing Natural Heritage Inventories” (with Colusanno), 87 University of North Dakota Law Review 603 (2012); and “Beyond Deterrence: Enforcement and Compliance in the Context of Sustainable Development,” 42 Environmental Law Reporter 10622 (July 2012). Richard Pierce published “Natural Gas Fracking Addresses All of Our Major Problems” in Journal of Energy and Environmental Law; “District Court Review of Findings of Fact Proposed by Magistrates” in George Washington Law Review, “Legal Disputes Related to Climate Change Will Continue for a Century” in Environmental Law; “Natural Gas: a Long Bridge to a Promising Destination” in Utah Environmental Law Review; “Rulemaking Ossification Is Real” in George Washington Law Review, and “A Primer on Demand Response and a Critique of FERC Order 745” in Journal of Energy and Environmental Law. He also published an annual supplement to his Administrative Law Treatise and a new edition of Administrative Law and Process. Peter Raven-Hansen has completed and submitted the manuscripts for Understanding Civil Procedure (with Charles Gardner Geyh and Gene R. Shreve) (fifth ed. LexisNexis) and for a California edition of the same treatise (with Charles Gardner Geyh, Walter W. Heiser, and Gene R. Shreve), which are in production. Joan Schaffner published “Animal Cruelty and the Law: Permitted Conduct” in Animal Cruelty: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding (Carolina Academic Press 2013).

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Funding, Public Housing: The Devil in the Details, accepted for publication in the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law.

Lisa M. Schenck published “From Start to Finish: A Historical Review of Nuclear Arms Control Treaties and Starting Over with the New Start” (with Robert A. Youmans), 20 Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 399-435 (2012). Thomas J. Schoenbaum published The Age of Austerity: The Global Financial Crisis and the Return to Economic Growth (Cheltenham, U.K. and Northhampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar 2012) and International Trade Law: Cases and Problems (with Dan Chow) (New York: Aspen Pub. 2012) with Teachers’ Guide and Documentary Supplement. He also published the articles “The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Context of the Public International Law Regimes for the Protection of the Marine Environment,” 25 University of San Francisco Maritime Law Journal 1-36 (2012), reprinted in 29 Nihon University (Japan) Comparative Law 57 (2012) and “What the Chinese Investor Needs to Know to Enter the United States Market,” 99(6) China Law 81 (2012). Steven L. Schooner published the fourth edition of the Government Contracts Reference Book (with Ralph C. Nash Jr. and Karen O’BrianDebakey, 2013). Jonathan R. Siegel published “The REINS Act and the Struggle to Control Agency Rulemaking,” in the New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy. Anne Smetak, a Friedman Fellow in the Neighborhood Law and Policy Clinic, has had her LLM thesis, Private

Daniel Solove published “Privacy Self-Management and the Consent Dilemma,” 126 Harvard Law Review 1880 (2013). He published the second edition of Privacy Law Fundamentals (2013). Ralph Steinhardt has four articles or chapters and one book coming out in 2013: “Kiobel and the Weakening of Precedent: A Long Walk for a Short Drink,” 107 American Journal of International Law (October 2013); “What Kind of Human Rights Claims ‘Touch and Concern’ the United States?,” 89 Notre Dame Law Review; “Multinational Corporations and Their Responsibilities Under International Law,” in Corporate Accountability for Adverse Human Rights Impacts: New Paradigms and Expectations (American Bar Association, in press); and “Weapons and the Human Rights Responsibilities of Multinational Corporations” in Weapons Under International Human Rights Law (Cambridge University Press, 2013). With his former student and research assistant, Ben Teich, Professor Steinhardt wrote “You Can’t Argue Like That”: A Case-Based Approach to Jurisprudence and Rhetoric, to be published by West Publishing. Arthur Wilmarth published “Narrow Banking: An Overdue Reform That Could Solve the Too-Big-to-Fail Problem and Align U.S. and U.K. Regulation of Financial Conglomerates,” in Banking and Financial Services Policy Report. His forthcoming article “Turning a Blind Eye: Why Washington Keeps Giving In to Wall Street,” will be published in the University of Cincinnati Law Review.

Solove Named “Thought Leader” Last fall, John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law Daniel Solove was named one of LinkedIn’s 150 “influential thought leaders” for his contribution of essays to the professional networking site. You can join Professor Solove’s 149,000 followers and read his thoughts on privacy and other legal issues at www.linkedin.com/in/danielsolove. He also was named co-reporter of the ALI’s forthcoming Restatement of Information Privacy Principles.

Activities John Banzhaf helped score major legal victories, including more porta potties at the presidential inauguration in January; corrective advertising in a RICO case; rights for nonsmokers, but none for smokers, in Canada; a Norwegian smoking ruling following his analysis; and expanded restroom rights for women in Canada. The 50 percent smoker surcharge he lobbied for under Obamacare is going into effect, and his crusade to use broadcast law against the racially charged term “Redskins” is now supported by the former FCC chairman, as well as several former commissioners and other experts. He helped teach a universitywide food

course; put on a multidisciplinary seminar on the “Banzhaf Index,” and worked with Ken Burns on a new documentary about cancer. His work was the subject of two major pieces in the Wall Street Journal, and he appeared frequently on Al Jazeera, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and Fox News, among other television networks.

Paul Schiff Berman’s recent book Global Legal Pluralism, A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders was the subject of an

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Cunningham Publishes Three Books in One Year Lawrence A. Cunningham, Henry St. George Tucker III Research Professor of Law, published three books this past year and traveled around the country for various book talks. In order, he released Contracts in the Real World: Stories of Popular Contracts and Why They Matter, The AIG Story, and the third edition of Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America. His talks took him to his alma mater, Cardozo Law School, in New York City, and to Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting, among other places.

To learn more about his new books, please visit the GW Law website http://bit.ly/11eeZrE

“Author Meets Readers” panel at the annual meeting of the International Law Society Association, held in May.

Aid Regulation: Actors and Institutions” at the biennial meeting of the European Union Studies Association in May 2013.

Francesca Bignami presented her paper “Rediscovering European Law: Direct Effect, Supremacy, and the Comparative Method” at faculty workshops at GW Law in September 2012 and Georgetown Law Center in April 2013. She gave presentations on the legal aspects of the Euro crisis at the State Department in September 2012 and on comparative administrative law at the Transatlantic Law Forum at George Mason Law in February 2013. She was a panelist on comparative privacy law at the 16th Annual Symposium on Antitrust Law at George Mason and on “The Globalization of European Privacy Law” at the annual meeting of the AALS. She served as a commentator on “Morten Rasmussen, Towards a New History of EU Law” at American University in November 2012. She was on a panel discussing “EU Competition Law and State

In October 2012 Christopher A. Bracey moderated a universitywide forum on Fisher v. University of Texas, a case involving the use of race preferences in student admissions at the University of Texas that was pending before the United States Supreme Court. In December, he was a panelist at “Today’s War on Drugs: Prohibition Now and Then,” a discussion of the constitutional history of prohibition and current laws governing the use of marijuana, hosted by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

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Neil H. Buchanan taught as the PricewaterhouseCoopers Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Business and Economics in Vienna, Austria, in May 2013. Naomi Cahn was appointed as the reporter for a new Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act by the Uniform Law Commission.

In May 2013 W. Burlette Carter led a sports law panel on the impact of NBA star Jeremy Lin on perceptions of Asian Americans in American sports. The panel, sponsored by Fried Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, was part of an internal educational program for Asian American– Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Steven Charnovitz was a discussant on the panel “Prospects for the Constitutionalization of the WTO,” part of a conference on “Multilateral Trading System in the 21st Century” hosted by GW’s Elliott School for International Affairs Institute for International Economic Policy on April 5. He also moderated an ABA Section on International Law on “Trade and Environment Returns: Managing a New Generation of Disputes and Their Implication” on April 25. Bradford Clark and Notre Dame Law Professor A.J. Bellia filed an amicus brief in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell in the Supreme Court of the United States. Professor Clark also presented “The Law of Nations in United States Courts” at George Mason University School of Law, and participated in a panel hosted by the American Society of International Law titled “Customary International Law: What Is Its Role in the U.S. Legal System?” Jessica Clark was invited as one of four Citation Scholars to contribute to the forthcoming second edition of The ALWD Companion, a citation exercise book. She serves as the reporter to the Standing Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions, Maryland State Bar Association, facilitating the forthcoming fifth edition. She presented on her various scholarly research projects: “LRW Grades: Using Data to Drive Change

in Legal Education” at the Capital Area Legal Writing Conference held at American University Washington College of Law in March; “The Scholarly Way: Staying the Course” at the Legal Writing Institute One-Day Conference hosted by the George Washington University Law School on Nov. 30, 2012; and “Drinking the Blue(book) Kool-Aid” at the Fifteenth Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, in Palm Desert, Calif., on June 1, 2012. Charlie Craver made presentations on effective legal negotiation to various groups around the country. Lawrence Cunningham presented faculty workshops on his paper “Deferred Prosecution and Corporate Governance” at various New York law schools. He gave the keynote address to the Annual Business Law Scholars Conference at the Ohio State University.

Roger Fairfax served as a senior legislative fellow with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, working on criminal justice legislation and policy. He was a panelist at the American Constitution Society Supreme Court Review for the 2011–2012 term, and addressed the plenary session of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section’s fall meeting. Professor Fairfax presented papers at workshops and symposiums at a number of law schools, including Emory, Fordham, Georgetown, and Yale. He was elected a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and was appointed a senior fellow at the Harvard Law School Charles Hamilton Houston Institute.

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Robert Glicksman made several presentations, including on wild and scenic rivers at the University of Montana and on coercive and cooperative enforcement at an EPA conference on next-generation compliance. In June 2012, Phyllis Goldfarb presented “Future Trends in Experiential Learning,” at the AALS Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers, Washington, D.C. In addition, Associate Dean Goldfarb is one of the lawyers featured in a new book titled Breaking Barriers: The Unfinished Work of Women Lawyers and Judges in Massachusetts (2012). The book details “the extraordinary accomplishments of some of the most impressive members of the Massachusetts bar.” All proceeds from the sales of the book support continuing legal education scholarships for legal services attorneys, private lawyers who accept pro bono cases, and other deserving lawyers with financial need. Daniel I. Gordon serves on the World Bank’s International Advisory Group on Procurement, and has been working, along with Christopher R. Yukins and Steven L. Schooner, on various public procurement efforts at the World Bank. Associate Dean Gordon spoke at a conference held by Government Contracts Advisory Board member Siemens titled “Siemens Federal Symposium: The Federal Market View.” In April he and Professor Schooner discussed understanding and reporting on government contractsrelated issues at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers spring conference. He co-facilitated a special session of the Procurement Round Table at GW Law. He and Professor Schooner played leading roles in a regional conference in Casablanca, Morocco, on best practices and good governance in public procurement. Associate Dean Gordon, along

with Professors William E. Kovacic, Steven Schooner, and Christopher Yukins, hosted a unique international program that investigated the intersection of competition policy and procurement law at GW. Jeff Gutman is serving the second year of his term on the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governments. Professor Gutman and his students in the Public Justice Advocacy Clinic recently won a Freedom of Information Act case brought on behalf of Professor Brian Biles of the GW School of Public Health and Health Services for data relating to the Medicare Advantage Program. The data will inform Professor Biles’ research and public understanding of the economics of the multibillion-dollar program. David Johnson made a presentation on “Reshaping Law School Pro Bono—Discussion of the Impact of New York’s 50 Hour Pro Bono Requirement” at the 2013 Equal Justice Conference, which was sponsored by the American Bar Association Center for Pro Bono and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association in May. In April he spoke on “Replicating the GW Law Cancer Pro Bono Project” at the University of Baltimore School of Law. In November 2012 he spoke on “Models of Delivery: The GW Law Cancer Pro Bono Project” at the National Cancer Legal Services Network Conference in New York City. In May Susan Jones made a presentation to the Mayor’s Task Force on Regulatory Reform, part of a clinic action research/ service learning initiative to improve business regulation in the District of Columbia. Susan Karamanian gave a presentation on “Human Rights in U.S. Courts After Kiobel” at a conference on “Regulation and the Common Law” at the University of Montreal Law Faculty in May.

In June 2013 Chief Justice Roberts appointed Orin Kerr to serve a three-year term on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Laurie Kohn moderated a panel on the District of Columbia’s effort to address LGBTQ issues at D.C. Superior Court’s Family Court Annual Training in October 2012. In January 2013 she trained the judges of D.C. Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Unit on domestic violence law and practice in the District. In May she presented a paper on low-income fatherhood and the law at the annual Law and Society conference. Cynthia Lee was invited by the Southwestern University Law Review in Los Angeles to speak about emerging issues in criminal justice at its February 2013 symposium on LGBT issues. She presented a paper on the Trayvon Martin case in April 2013 at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. She has been invited to present papers at the University of Iowa College of Law and at Santa Clara University School of Law this fall. She will be visiting at UC Hastings College of Law in 2013–14.

In April 2013 Renée Lettow Lerner organized a meeting of the D.C. Area Legal History Roundtable at GW. The meeting featured prominent legal historians, including Professor Robert Cottrol of the GW Law faculty, presenting and discussing their work. The roundtable was

established at GW in 2006 and meets twice a year, rotating among area law schools and federal agencies. Sean Murphy attended the May–July 2013 session of the U.N. International Law Commission in Geneva. He lectured on “The Work of the International Law Commission” at the Tufts University summer program in Talloires, France, in May; “Unarticulated Premises in the International Court’s 2012 Jurisprudence,” at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in April; “Deconstructing Fragmentation: Koskenniemi’s 2006 ILC Project” at Temple Law School in April; “Techniques for Inter-State Dispute Resolution” at Korea University in Seoul in March; and “Peace and Security in East Asia” at the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Korea Society of International Law in Seoul in March. Dawn Nunziato serves, with GW Law colleague Arturo Carrillo, as co-director of the Global Internet Freedom Project. In March 2013 the project co-hosted with the Department of State’s Office of e-Diplomacy the two-day “Tech@State: Internet Freedom Conference,” which was attended by more than 500 participants. Professor Nunziato served as chair and moderator of the plenary panel for the conference, entitled “Technologies of Freedom, Technologies of Repression.” In February 2013 Professor Nunziato was invited by Dunja Mijatovic, representative on freedom of the media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), to deliver the keynote speech at the OSCE’s first Internet Freedom Conference in Vienna, Austria. In June 2013 she presented a paper, “The New Equilibrium for Balancing Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Information, and the Right to Informational Privacy,” at the Conference of Experts on the Protection of Information and the Right to Privacy, organized

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by the UNESCO chair in information and computer ethics at the European University Institute in Fiesole, Italy.

re-elected to the Board of the National Bar Association and as chair of the Law Professors’ Division.

Lee Paddock was asked by ABA President-Elect James Silkenet to serve on a 20-member ABA task force on sustainable development. Peter Raven-Hansen represented plaintiffs in civil actions under the Anti-Terrorism Act, successfully arguing for dismissal of a defendant’s interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and on a variety of dispositive motions in the trial courts. Last January at the Judicial Council Annual Meeting of the National Bar Association in Nassau, Bahamas, Alfreda Robinson, JD ‘78, served as the moderator and convener of two panels, one on the ethical implications of Citizens United on judicial elections and the other on the highly anticipated Fischer Supreme Court decision and post-decision judicial implementation and compliance. In November 2012 (with adjunct faculty member Judge Marion Horn and Henri Hammond, LLM ‘08), she taught a seminar on the U.S. judicial and legal systems and the role of women in the field of law in the United States to female attorneys from Saudi Arabia. In October 2012 she hosted and led a roundtable discussion with a group of supreme court justices from 10 African nations who were participating in a special initiative by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In September 2012 she hosted a panel on the “Black Male Experience in the United States,” which included members of Congress, nationally recognized television and radio hosts, public intellectuals, authors, and community organizers. In August 2012 she was 64

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Joan Schaffner hosted the fifth annual No Kill Conference July 13–14, 2013, at GW Law. With attendance of more than 400 individuals from the U.S. and abroad, the conference convened experts in the animal sheltering, veterinary, and legal fields to discuss saving the lives of millions of companion animals from death in shelters each year. Steven L. Schooner gave the luncheon presentation at the Army JAG Corps Mid-Atlantic Region conference on Federal Government Contracts at Camp Dawson, W. Va. He discussed “After the Binge: The New Realities in Federal Procurement” at the NCMA Washington, D.C., chapter’s 32nd Annual Fellows Night. He presented a keynote address to open the Greater Washington Society of CPAs annual government contracts conference. He spoke to graduate students at the University of Turin, Italy; his participation concluded a cycle that began with instruction in Turin by Christopher R. Yukins and Daniel I. Gordon. Professors Schooner and Yukins also discussed international contracting on a plenary panel of the National Contract Management Association World Congress in Nashville. Jonathan R. Siegel submitted a report (co-written with Emily S. Bremer) to the Administrative Conference of the United States on the subject of 28 U.S.C. § 1500, a statute concerning the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Based on the report, the conference adopted a recommendation

Maggs and Schenck Publish Military Justice Case Book Law School Interim Dean Gregory E. Maggs and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Lisa M. Schenck together wrote the book Modern Military Justice: Cases and Materials (West 2012). The text comprehensively covers the modern military justice system under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and includes materials from every service within the armed forces. Deans Maggs and Schenck show how the military justice system addresses all criminal offenses, ranging from minor infractions to serious offenses such as the misconduct of soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.

that the statute be changed. The American Bar Association House of Delegates passed a resolution calling on Congress to implement the recommendation. Congress made a change in the federal venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1391, that was inspired by Professor Siegel’s article “What Statutory Drafting Errors Teach Us About Statutory Interpretation,” George Washington Law Review. Professor Siegel addressed a symposium on standing law at the University of Alabama Law School on the topic “What if the Injury-in-Fact Test Is Normative?” Daniel Solove was co-organizer of the sixth annual Privacy Law Scholars Conference at Berkeley Law School in June and co-organizer of the second annual Higher Ed Privacy and Information Management Forum at GW Law in May. He was a panelist at a conference on “Big Data, Small Data, Apps, and Analytics: Can We Transform Education Without Sacrificing Privacy?” at the U.S. Department of Education in May; gave a talk on his book Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security at American University in March; served as faculty adviser to the Harvard Law Review Symposium on Privacy Law; and was a panelist at a conference on “Privacy SelfManagement and the Consent Paradox” at Harvard University in November 2012.

Ralph Steinhardt gave a number of talks on the human rights responsibilities of multinational corporations and his work in the Supreme Court’s Kiobel litigation. These include “Kiobel and the Future of Alien Tort Litigation,” at Duke Law School, Northwestern Law School, and the Canadian Bar Association. He also delivered the keynote address at two conferences: the 2012 Biennial Meeting of the American Society of International Law Interest Group in International Economic Law and the 2012 Annual International and Comparative Law Symposium at the University of Maryland School of Law. He appeared, with his former student and research assistant, Arin Brenner, as counsel amicus curiae for International Law Scholars, in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, (U.S.S.C. 2013) on two issues: (i) the civil liability of multinational corporations under the Alien Tort Statute for human rights violations and (ii) the extraterritorial reach of the Alien Tort Statute.

Jessica Tillipman became a senior editor of the FCPA Blog (FCPABlog.com). She also presented on Foreign Corrupt

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Slavery, Race, and Law in the Americas Robert J. Cottrol, Harold Paul Green Research Professor of Law, wrote the book The Long Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race, and Law in the American Hemisphere. His work examines how countries in North and South America that historically imported African slaves have dealt with issues of race. Professor Cottrol notes that unlike in the United States with Jim Crow laws, Brazil and many Latin American countries never formalized racial hierarchy. He argues that this lack of codification is an obstacle toward overcoming racial discrimination in modern Latin America.

Practices Act and anticorruption-related issues at the World Bank’s Suspension and Debarment Colloquium; World Bank’s Law, Justice, and Development Week; Food and Drug Law Institute (FDLI) Annual Conference; FDLI Enforcement, Litigation, and Compliance Conference; Nash and Cibinic Annual Procurement Roundtable; a program sponsored by the D.C. Bar International Investment and Finance Committee of the International Law Section; and the GW Institute of Brazilian Issues. She also moderated a panel on “Anti-Corruption Origins and Evolution” at a program hosted by GW Law and the Anti-Corruption Committee and North American Forum of the International Bar Association. Roger Trangsrud hosted a two-day symposium at the Law School in March on the “Modern Law of Class Actions.” The 17 papers prepared for the symposium by leading class action practitioners and scholars will be published in two upcoming issues of the George Washington Law Review. Art Wilmarth spoke on financial reform topics at conferences hosted by the University of Cincinnati Law School, University of Indiana

Law School, and Georgetown Law Center. He also presented testimony on financial regulatory issues at hearings before the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Christopher R. Yukins spoke with the Mongolian press in Ulaanbaatar (Bloomberg and a local television network), on anti-corruption initiatives in that country.

Probate & Property magazine awarded Naomi Cahn’s article (with Gerry W. Beyer) “When You Pass On, Don’t Leave the Passwords Behind: Planning for Digital Assets” its 2012 Excellence in Writing Award for the Best Cutting-Edge Article— Trust and Estate. Phyllis Goldfarb received the 2012 Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers Award from the Clinical Legal Education Association. Sean Murphy was elected a member of the American Law Institute. He will serve as an adviser to the institute’s Fourth Restatement on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. In September 2012 Alfreda

Robinson was honored with prestigious Presidential Distinguished Service Awards from the National Bar Association for the years 2011 and 2012. Dinah Shelton received the Stefan A. Riesenfeld Award for her outstanding contributions to the field of international law from UC Berkeley School of Law in February and the prestigious 2013 Goler T. Butcher Medal for outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights law from the American Society of International Law in April 2013. Christopher R. Yukins is pleased to serve as the inaugural Lynn David Research Professor in Government Procurement Law.

Hire GW Law Graduates

Awards/Honors Jerome A. Barron was awarded the Elizabeth Beckman teaching prize at a ceremony at the Carter Center in Atlanta. He was nominated for the award by Marla Spindel, JD ‘93. Francesca Bignami was appointed a member of the executive editorial board of the American Journal of Comparative Law and an associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. In April Christopher A. Bracey received the Foundation Award from the GW Black Law Students Association (BLSA). The Foundation Award recognizes a faculty member who has consistently supported BLSA students in their law school and career endeavors.

The Center for Professional Development and Career Strategy invites you to contact us with your hiring needs. We are eager to connect you with our recent graduates!

To post a job listing, please contact us at postjobs@law.gwu.edu.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

alumni & philanthropy

Called to Serve

Two prominent GW Law alumni enjoy second careers as administrative patent judges by Laura Hambleton

Throughout his life as an attorney, Tom Smegal, JD ’61, has excelled in two areas: patent law and public service. Regarding the former, he is one of the country’s top experts on intellectual property, having practiced for more than 50 years at several law firms, ending his career at a San Francisco firm. At the same time, he has represented clients too poor to pay him, which led the National Legal Aid and Defender Association to honor him for his lifelong dedication to the indigent. He also was named twice to the board of directors of Legal Services Corp., once by President Ronald Reagan and again by President Bill Clinton. Now, at 78, Mr. Smegal has been called to serve again, this time as one of the newest judges on the expanded Patent Trial

It is not unusual for lawyers with long years of practice experience to serve as judges. In fact, experience and expertise are fundamental requirements for good judges.

— James Smith

and Appeal Board. He joins another GW Law graduate, Tom Giannetti, JD ’76, as one of 170 judges on the board. The board will grow to 220 by the fall. “Their presence greatly enhances our ability to meet the challenges before us,” says James Smith, the chief administrative patent judge. “It is not unusual for lawyers with long years of practice experience to serve as judges. In fact, experience and expertise are fundamental requirements for good judges.” The intent of hiring new judges, under the America Invents Act of 2011, is to streamline the appeals process for inventors or companies challenging the validity of a patent decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to this act of Congress, the board had a backlog of 27,000 cases, which could have easily mounted to 30,000 to 40,000 in the next few years, Mr. Smith says. In addition to its original base in Alexandria, Va., the board now has offices in Denver, Detroit, Dallas, and the Silicon Valley region of California. Mr. Smegal adjudicates from his law office on the 21st floor 66

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Administrative Patent Judge Tom Smegal, JD ‘61

Administrative Patent Judge Tom Giannetti, JD ‘76

of a downtown San Francisco building, where he practiced law for 15 years. Similar to his days as a partner, he routinely puts in 12 hours daily, staying in touch with the other patent judges electronically. When he turned 70 in 2005, Mr. Smegal faced mandatory retirement from his law firm. “Partners have to step out at age 70 [from Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear],” he says. “I had no interest in retiring. I became a mediator and arbitrator and would be continuing to do that, except this judgeship seemed like something fun to do.” He knows how an examiner thinks since he worked as one in the late 1950s while attending law school at night. After his studies and a stint in the military, Mr. Smegal started his career in 1961 as a patent attorney with Shell Development Co. in California. That led to becoming partner in three different San Francisco law firms: Townsend and Townsend, Graham & James, and then Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear until 2005. In private practice, Mr. Smegal wrote thousands of applications for U.S. patents and trademarks as well as hundreds of infringement and validity opinions on patents. He was the lead trial counsel in the U.S. District Courts on many trials that involved patent validity and infringement. Pro bono cases, though, drew more and more of his attention. As a young lawyer new to San Francisco, he received a case from

the Ninth Circuit Court, for which he was asked to get a retrial for an inmate in San Quentin. He won a retrial but lost the case, and the prisoner returned to San Quentin. That case stirred a passion in him to represent those without means. Mr. Smegal helped start the Employment Law Center and a youth legal program in San Francisco, called the National Center for Youth Law. He fought to keep funding for the Legal Aid Society during years of threats of cuts in funding from members of Congress. In addition, Mr. Smegal served in many capacities on the American Bar Association, the California Bar Association, and various boards focused on patent and intellectual property law. The Law School named him alumnus of the year in 1996. When Mr. Giannetti, 66, received the call to join the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (now called the Patent Trial and Appeal Board) more than a year ago, he was considering whether to take a position as an in-house corporate lawyer. He had retired as a partner with Jones Day in 2010, and was looking for just the right opportunity. He had read that Congress was hoping to reform the way patent disputes were handled, and when his daughter saw another story that the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences was expanding, he decided to apply to be a judge. With his background in patent litigation, his experience made him an ideal fit. He was hired. There was just one hitch: Mr. Giannetti and his wife were living in New York City, but the position was in Alexandria, Va. “My wife and I decided to divide our time between Alexandria and New York,” he says. “She has a website that covers New York and D.C., womanaroundtown.com, so this fit in perfectly with her.” He started in March 2012. After Mr. Giannetti graduated from Yale University in 1968, he debated between working and going to law school. He took a job with Westinghouse Electric, stayed five years, and earned a master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon. In 1973, he entered law school at GW. “I was always interested in science, research, and writing,” he says. “Like many people in the field with a keen interest in science, I didn’t want to be a scientist. I had other skills. Patent law offered that to me.” Mr. Giannetti was attracted to GW because of its classes in patent law. He interned at some law firms in Washington, D.C., during his summers, moving to New York for a job with Fish & Neave. He became a partner; after 25 years, he joined Jones Day. “Lawyers move all the time to bigger firms with larger platforms,” he says. As for the judgeship with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, Mr. Giannetti is energized by the new opportunity and doesn’t have plans to retire anytime soon. “It’s a little bit like litigation,” he says. “Every day is a little different. You are not sure what is going to happen. The usual day involves writing and reviewing of opinions. There are always emergency things, where I have to file an order or have a conference. It’s unpredictable. I am reading opinions by others and drafting opinions of my own.” Mr. Giannetti, like Mr. Smegal, is happy to start a new career past the normal retirement age. “I’ve had a very good experience,” he says.

with gratitude Vinod Gupta created The Ben Gupta Endowed Fund for International Legal Education. The $1 million endowed scholarship will support students from developing countries seeking JD or LLM degrees, and those pursuing educational opportunities at the Law School on a non-degree basis. The fund is named for Mr. Gupta’s son, a former JD/MBA student at GW who died in December 2011. The Lawrence and Carol Horn Intellectual Property Scholarship was endowed with a gift of $100,000 from the parents of former student Steven Horn. It will begin in 2015. The Murray J. Schooner Endowed Government Procurement Law Scholarship was established with more than $100,000 in gifts raised by Associate Dean for Government Procurement Law Studies Daniel I. Gordon, along with students, alumni, and family and friends of Mr. Schooner—the late father of Professor Steven L. Schooner, LLM ’89. The scholarship will provide financial aid to second- and third-year JD or LLM students studying Government Procurement Law. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker established the Paul A. Volcker Scholarships after a successful $250,000 campaign. Two scholarships will be presented annually to second- or third-year law students with demonstrated financial need and strong academic records who intend to work with government agencies in the field of financial regulation. A $100,000 pledge by Lynn David created the Lynn David Research Professorship. GW Law received an anonymous gift of $125,000 to support a scholarship fund. Now in its ninth year, the Class Gift Campaign enjoyed a 57 percent overall participation rate, with a record 44 percent of the class signing multi-year pledges. The Law School received an anonymous planned gift of $40,000 and a multi-year pledge from Joseph D. Edmondson, Jr., BA ‘88, JD ‘91, to challenge the Class of 2013. A number of GW Law professors and deans also provided monetary incentives to help endow a scholarship. Howard Rudge, JD ‘64, retired senior vice president of DuPont Corp., awarded a cash prize of $5,000 to Caitlin Clarke, JD ‘13, for her winning paper on reducing youth unemployment. Mr. Rudge endowed the prize with a gift of $150,000. James A. Gass, JD ‘73, pledged a gift of $100,000, which will double his scholarship fund. The James A. Gass Scholarship Fund provides financial aid to students from developing countries. An anonymous pledge of $375,000 was made to the Law School to benefit the Government Procurement Law Program. GW Law will receive over $200,000 in awards this year from Microsoft that will support three program areas: Intellectual Property; the Internet Freedom and Human Rights Program, and the Competition Law Center.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

alumni & philanthropy

Paying It Forward

GW Law Launches Alumni Mentoring Program by Melissa Apter Navigating the pressures of law school, particu– larly during the first year, is a daunting task made easier by the GW Law Office of Alumni Relations with the recent introduction of the Alumni Mentoring Program. Word was sent out to the GW Law alumni community in early 2012 seeking participants in a pilot program matching incoming students with alumni mentors. Each participant filled out a survey detailing personal preferences—practice area, geographic location, hobbies, and interests—and committed to keeping in contact with their assigned partner three times a year, whether in person or by phone, email, or Skype. The response from both alumni and students was staggering. “About 300 students, nearly 75 percent of the Class of 2015, requested mentors. We had about 400 alumni—ranging from recent grads to more established alumni from all over the country, and even internationally—who wanted to participate and support this new endeavor,” says Amye Lee Rheault, GW Law’s associate director of alumni relations.

At first–and I think he knows this— I was a little scared to meet him because he’s a really well known criminal attorney, but he’s really great. He knows how to talk to me and put things in perspective.

One alumnus who leapt at the opportunity to give back was Roger L. Stavis, JD ’82, an active member of the GW Law alumni community in his home state of New York where he is a partner with Gallet Dreyer & Berkey, LLP. “I’ve been unofficially mentoring GW Law students for many years, so I jumped at the opportunity to join a formal program. I wanted to be a part of it from the very beginning,” says Mr. Stavis. He was paired with Vara Lyons, Class of 2015, who with two years of experience as a paralegal at the St. Louis District Attorney’s office, was a good match for the former prosecutor. “At first—and I think he knows this—I was a little scared to meet him because he’s a really well known criminal attorney, but he’s really great. He knows how to talk to me and put things in perspective,” said Ms. Lyons. 68

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“The first year of law school is so stressful. It’s useful to have an alumnus who can say, ‘Just do your outline and you’ll get through it.’” says Mr. Stavis. The pair communicated frequently throughout the school year, approximately twice a month by email or phone, with Mr. Stavis lending advice on internship applications and dealing with classroom dynamics and grades, and Ms. Lyons reciprocating by sharing news and insights into the current GW Law environment. The two had an opportunity to meet in person at the Dean’s Dinner.

ILLUSTRATION BY Ken Orvidas

— Vara Lyons

“Since I am in New York and she is in D.C., we’d never met, so I invited her as my guest. There were several alumni at my table, and we went out for drinks after dinner. I think [Ms. Lyons] enjoyed listening to our war stories,” says Mr. Stavis. “I was one of the few first-year law students there,” says Ms. Lyons. “It was good to see that people succeed after law school.” Bottom line: “If you love being a lawyer, then you will love being a mentor to a law student. You can pass your passion on to a law student—that’s a wonderful thing,” adds Mr. Stavis. Charlie Wood, Class of 2015, signed on during the summer of 2012, and was specifically looking for a mentor he could meet with face-to-face during the school year and during his summer interning at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Mindful of his needs, the Office of Alumni Relations paired him with John Murino, JD ’01, of the Crowell Moring firm based in Washington, D.C. “It was important to me to establish a rapport with my mentor,” says Mr. Wood. “I didn’t want or expect [Mr. Murino] to open his rolodex and just give me contacts. I wanted someone I could really connect with who I could talk to about law school, but also someone I could grab a beer with or go to a basketball game. “With [Mr. Murino] being in the area, there have been times when I’ve had a question and I call him up and he’s said, ‘Come by for lunch and we’ll talk about it,’” adds Mr. Wood. Andrea Agathoklis Murino, JD ’01, of counsel for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati based in Washington, D.C., and a former member of the GW Law Alumni Association Board’s Student—Alumni Committee, volunteered to be a mentor right away, like her husband. “I saw it as a fairly tangible way of being able to share my experience with someone who was just starting out with their legal education—both good and bad experiences,” says Ms. Murino. “We didn’t have a program like this when I was at GW. I wish we did because it would have been helpful for me and my friends as a reality check. To interact with someone who survived law school and think, ‘OK, if they did it and they’re giving me advice, then I should be able to survive as well.’” Based on an end-of-the-term survey administered to alumni and student participants, adjustments will be made to improve the existing program. One change that will be implemented this year is the introduction of a workshop for 1L students emphasizing how to make the most of the mentor—student relationship, as well as proper etiquette for interacting with alumni volunteers. Beginning with the Class of 2016, the workshop will be a prerequisite for rising 2Ls wishing to request a mentor for the upcoming year. During the first year of law school, the Class of 2016 will also enjoy the benefit of peer mentors through the Student Bar Association, as well as the opportunity to interact with alumni during events such as Alumni Week, Sept. 23—28, and Inns of Court meetings throughout the year. “Our office is extremely proud of the Alumni Mentoring Program. That so many alumni want to give back and that we have the support of the dean, admissions office, career office, and the larger GW community speaks to the value placed on this program,” says Ms. Rheault. Alumni wishing to participate in the Alumni Mentoring Program are encouraged to email the GW Law Office of Alumni Relations at mentoring@law.gwu.edu.

GW LAW Upcoming Events February 5, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Reception Washington, D.C. February 21, 2014 Government Contracts Luncheon Washington, D.C. February 22, 2014 Law Revue Pre-Show Reception Washington, D.C. March 4, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Reception Los Angeles March 5, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Reception San Francisco March 6, 2014 GW Law Alumni Reception Denver March 12, 2014 GW Law Alumni Reception Detroit March 8, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Lunch in Salt Lake City March 13, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Reception Chicago March 18, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Reception Atlanta March 19, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Reception Miami March 20, 2014 GW Law Alumni and Admitted Student Reception Houston March 27, 2014 An Evening with GW Law Washington, D.C.

To check for new and upcoming events, visit GW Law’s website at www.law.gwu.edu

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

alumni & philanthropy More than 500 GW Law alumni and guests returned to campus in June for Reunion Weekend 2013. Attendees enjoyed a wide range of events and activities and contributed more than $5 million in gifts, pledges, and planned giving commitments to the Law School.

Class Celebrations The festivities began Friday night, June 7, with cocktail parties for the classes of 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, and 2008. Sunny Dupree, JD ’68, organized the event for the classes of 1963 and 1968 at the Metropolitan Club, while the classes of 1973 and 1978 gathered at the historic Hay Adams Hotel. Charlie Berardesco, JD ’83, hosted classmates at the University Club, and Rich Gold, JD ’88, organized a party at Holland & Knight for the Class of 1988. The Class of 1993 gathered for dinner and drinks at Katten Muchin, an event hosted by Jay Freiberg, JD ’93. Charles Webb, JD ’98, organized a reception at the Baker Botts office for his classmates. The classes of 2003 and 2008 met at Smith & Wollensky to enjoy hors d’oeuvres and a comedy routine performed by Rob Lindo, JD ’03.

GW Law | winter 2014

Reunion Weekend Highlights Saturday kicked off with the Stockton Guard brunch and induction, an annual highlight of Reunion Weekend. The popular event for GW Law alumni who graduated 40 or more years ago welcomes the newest members into the alumni affinity group. Alumni, family, and friends of all ages gathered on University Yard in the afternoon for a barbecue and meet-and-greet with Interim Dean Gregory E. Maggs. The well-attended event featured lawn games and homemade desserts by Warren Brown, JD ’98, founder and owner of CakeLove. Reunion participants seeking academic enrichment were treated to a two-credit Continuing Legal Education course and a Supreme Court panel led by Alan Morrison, Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest and Public Service Law, and Professor Jeffrey Rosen.

Washington Nationals Game Reunion participants Enjoyed a private pre-game Q&A session with Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo before cheering the team to victory over the Minnesota Twins. winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

alumni & philanthropy

Alumni Awards and All-Class Dinner The weekend culminated with an all-class dinner and reception recognizing alumni award recipients and classes who achieved the highest reunion attendance and fundraising success.

Bobby Burchfield Receives GW’s Top Alumni Award

Interim Dean Gregory E. Maggs (second from left) with Reunion Award winners (left to right) Don W. Martens, JD ‘63, the Hon. Margaret M. Richardson, JD ‘68, and Leslie Megyeri, BA ‘63, JD ‘68, MBA ‘80

The following awards were presented to the top-performing classes in the class gift campaign: The Dean’s Cup, awarded to the class with the highest overall participation rate in the reunion class gift campaign, was presented to the Class of 1963. Twenty-two percent of the class made contributions to the Law School—the highest participation rate among reunion classes. The Lawrence Cup, awarded to the class with the top attendance rate at the reunion, was given to the Class of 1963, with almost 20 percent of the class attending. The Lawrence Cup is named for former GW Law Dean Frederick M. Lawrence. The Barron Cup, honoring the graduating class section with the highest level of participation in the class gift campaign, was awarded to Section 13 of the Class of 2013. The award is named for GW Law Professor and former Dean Jerome A. Barron. The Friedenthal Bowl, awarded to the class that raises the most money for the reunion, went to the Class of 1983, which raised $3,129,672. The award is named for GW Law Professor and former Dean Jack H. Friedenthal. The Stockton Bowl, honoring the Stockton Guard class (graduating 40 or more years ago from GW Law) that raises the most money in its reunion year, was awarded to the Class of 1968, which raised $342,917. We look forward to welcoming the classes of 1964, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, and 2009 back to campus in June for Reunion Weekend 2014! 72

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Bobby R. Burchfield, JD ’70, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery and co-head of the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, received the prestigious George Washington University Alumni Achievement Award at Alumni Weekend 2012. The highest honor the university bestows on alumni, the Alumni Achievement Award recognizes GW graduates who make a lasting impact on society through outstanding professional, voluntary, or philanthropic accomplishments. One of the top trial and appellate attorneys in the United States, Mr. Burchfield represents major corporations in antitrust,

One of the top trial and appellate attorneys in the United States, Mr. Burchfield represents major corporations in antitrust, class action, securities fraud, and other commercial matters. class action, securities fraud, and other commercial matters. He has argued appeals in state and federal courts throughout the United States, including before the U.S. Supreme Court, and has represented political parties and officeholders in constitutional and political litigation. A dedicated GW Law volunteer, Mr. Burchfield has served on the Dean’s Board of Advisors for the past two decades and was national chairman of the Law School Annual Fund from 1989 to 1992. He has also lectured at the Law School and endowed a scholarship at GW Law. Mr. Burchfield serves as vice chair of the Wake Forest University Board of Trustees and as chair of Crossroads GPS. He co-chaired the American Heart Association’s Lawyers Have Heart 10K for 2012 and is on the board of the Georgetown Pediatric Center.

Commencement 2013

Judge Randall R. Rader Keynotes Diploma Ceremony by Jamie L. Freedman

Rainy skies did not dampen the festive atmosphere on the National Mall May 19, as nearly 25,000 GW graduates, family members, and friends gathered near the Washington Monument to celebrate Commencement 2013. More than 700 Law School graduates joined the distinguished ranks of GW alumni at the spirited, universitywide celebration, headlined by keynote speaker Kerry Washington, BA ’98. In her address, the acclaimed actress and alumna—who portrays Olivia Pope in the hit ABC drama Scandal—urged

Our life is shaped by our dreams. Choose them wisely, not because they will come true—because most of them won’t—but because they will change you.

— Judge Rader

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

Commencement 2013

As we journey along with the hero of any story, we realize that we, too, are the lead characters of our own lives. The adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential.

— Kerry Washington

Award-winning actress Kerry Washington, BA ‘98, served as keynote speaker at GW’s universitywide commencement ceremony.

graduates to go beyond their comfort zones and script their own life stories. “As we journey along with the hero of any story, we realize that we, too, are the lead characters of our own lives,” she said. “The adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential.” The award-winning movie star, who appeared in Hollywood hits such as Ray, The Last King of Scotland, and Django Unchained, received an honorary doctorate at the ceremony, along with former Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, MPA ’86, and international education advocate Harriet Mayor Fulbright, MFA ‘75. The spotlight next shifted to the Charles E. Smith Center for the Law School Diploma Ceremony, featuring keynote speaker Randall R. Rader, JD ’78, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Thousands of well-wishers packed the Smith Center to cheer on the members of GW Law’s Class of 2013—composed of 559 JD and 155 LLM recipients. Also attending the ceremony were the newly inducted members of the Stockton Guard, comprising graduates of the Class of 1973 and earlier, led by Jonathan S. Kahan, JD ’73, the group’s grand marshal. 74

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As always, a highlight of the ceremony was the awarding of honors to outstanding GW Law graduates, faculty members, and staff members. For the third consecutive year, Interim Dean Gregory E. Maggs received the Distinguished Faculty Service Award, voted on and presented each year by the JD graduating class. The Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Service Award went to Professorial Lecturer in Law Randall D. Eliason. For the second consecutive year, Information Specialist Bobby Walis received the Law School’s Distinguished Staff Service Award, voted on by the graduating class. The status of professor emeritus was conferred on Jerome A. Barron, the Harold H. Greene Professor of Law and former dean of GW Law. Graduate Charles Hardy Davis received the John Bell Larner Award for earning the highest cumulative grade point average in his class. The Anne Wells Branscomb Award went to Jason R. Grimes for attaining the highest cumulative average in the evening program. The graduating class voted Michael J. Lueptow the recipient of the Michael D. Cooley Memorial Award. Delivering the diZerega Lecture and Commencement Address, Judge Rader encouraged the graduates to “dream big” and make the most of opportunities. “Our life is shaped by our dreams,” he said, “Choose them wisely, not because they will come true—because most of them won’t—but because they will change you.” Sharing some personal dreams with the graduates, he urged them to retain and embrace the “vision of international community” cultivated at GW Law and “tear down those walls” built by previous generations. He invited the Class of 2013 to join him in repairing the American dispute resolution system by reducing expense and seeking efficiency. Finally, he encouraged them to dream of coming back to their alma mater. “I’m supposed to say, ‘I want you to dream of going forth and becoming attorney generals and general counsels and chief judges and, perish the thought, professors,’ but I’m not going to say that. Because I want you to dream of exactly the opposite—to dream of coming back,” he said, explaining that places of learning help us “humbly understand” the need to reshape our dreams. “As we reshape our dreams, we reshape our actions,” he concluded, “and as we reshape our actions, we will reshape ourselves and then dream again—better.”

winter FALL 2013 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

class notes alumni newsmakers

1960s James A. Thompson Jr., JD ’67, is of counsel to Pepper Hamilton in the firm’s environment and energy practice group. John Holden, JD ’68, was named one of Jackson Walker’s “Lawyers of the Year” for 2013. Mr. Holden practices energy law in the firm’s Dallas office. James W. Korman, JD ’68, was recently selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2013 in the area of family law. Jerome N. Klein, LLM ’69, was named to the Pennsylvania Rising Stars list as one of the top up-and-coming attorneys in Pennsylvania for 2012. Bruce Kramer, JD ’69, an attorney with Apperson Crump, received the Crystal Award from the International Carwash Association for his 20 years of service as the association’s general counsel. The association, founded in Memphis in 1955, is composed of 15,000 professional car wash operators, retailers, and suppliers in 25 nations.

1970s Lewis F. Tesser, JD ’70, is the chair of the 2,151-member general practice section of the New York State Bar Association. Mr. Tesser is a senior partner at Tesser, Ryan & Rochman. He concentrates his practice in litigation and mediation. Craig S. Miller, JD ’71, was recognized by Chambers USA as a leading real estate lawyer in 76

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Ohio for both 2012 and 2013. He is the chair of the public law group at Ulmer & Berne. J. Rodman (Rod) Steele, LLM ’71, of Duane Morris’ Boca Raton, Fla., office, has been honored by the Narcotics Overdose Prevention and Education (NOPE) Task Force with its Spirit of Living Award. NOPE works to diminish the frequency and impact of overdose death through community education, family support, and purposeful advocacy. The award was presented to him at a benefit on March 23 in Tequesta, Fla. John Leonardo, JD ’72, was appointed by President Obama as the United States attorney for the district of Arizona. Glenn V. Whitaker, JD ’72, was included among The Best Lawyers in America 2013 list. Mr. Whitaker practices at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in areas including commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense. Sanford (Sandy) M. Stein, JD ’74, was named to The Best Lawyers in America 2013 list. Mr. Stein practices at the Chicago office of Quarles & Brady, where he specializes in environmental law and land use/zoning law.

Steven L. Cantor, JD ’75, managing partner of Cantor & Webb, was selected among the “Top 50 Foreign Lawyers for Latin America” by the Latin

ALUMNI PROFILE

Building Community Litigator and lobbyist Hannibal G. williams II Kemerer, JD ’99, an associate at Patton Boggs, is one of those D.C. attorneys who naturally seem to know everyone and strive to help others make connections. His passion for community building is evident at his frequent networking gatherings, where he brings together a wide range of people—from law firm partners and business people to public defenders, prosecutors, and students. “I try to add value to all that I do professionally and personally,” says Mr. Kemerer, who always includes GW Law students at his community-building events. “These are people I want to meet one another; I model it on Patton Boggs’ approach, which is to bring together disparate people at professional events, as it underscores the breadth of the firm’s reach.” At Patton Boggs, he concentrates his practice on litigation and legislative affairs with a particular focus on the U.S. Senate, its rules and procedures, and the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction.

alumni newsmakers

His vast Hill experience comes from six years as a Senate lawyer; he served as the chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Crime and Drugs Subcommittee, where he was the lead lawyer for the late Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). He served as a principal Judiciary Committee attorney to the senator, assisted members on both sides of the aisle in enacting legislation, and oversaw high-profile congressional investigations. Additionally, he supervised Sen. Specter’s antitrust, tort reform, intellectual property, civil rights, and criminal law portfolio. “Among other things, Sen. Specter taught me to be conscientious about my time and the time of others. He also taught me that preparation is key, and that when properly prepared and observant of the time, one can manage to attend literally dozens of events in a single day.”

When I started working at the NAACP in 2002, I was not quite 30 and still very much an idealist, and the resolution of cases I worked on brought me enormous professional satisfaction. Prior to working in the Senate, Mr. Kemerer was an assistant general counsel at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) headquarters in Baltimore and before that, he litigated complex, multiparty employment cases at a Maryland law firm. “When I started working at the NAACP in 2002, I was not quite 30 and still very much an idealist, and the resolution of cases I worked on brought me enormous professional satisfaction,” he says. “I also met many lifelong friends, including lawyers at The Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and here at Patton Boggs.” As a student at GW Law, he was a member of the International Law Society and the Black Law Students Association. Reflecting on his law school days, he says, “Professor Jonathan Siegel’s photographic memory never ceased to amaze,” and “Professor Ralph Steinhardt fueled my passion for international law in classes big and small.” He adds that he also appreciated Professor Mike Selmi’s “scholarship and omnipresent availability during office hours.” Over the years, he has returned to GW Law to speak to Professor Selmi’s Civil Rights and Litigation classes and, through the professor, has gotten to know many students whom he has unofficially mentored and brought into his networking circle. He says he looks forward to learning more about GW’s alumni mentoring program for 1L students. “When it comes to law clerks and others that I’ve mentored, I’m sentimental,” he says. “I have worked with so many diligent young lawyers-in-training who went on to do extraordinary things. Mentoring them throughout the years comes naturally to me. The irony is how often they prove to be the real teachers. When I seek to advance exceptional people professionally it is an implicit recognition that many people have helped to promote me along the way. Sometimes we give thanks by paying a favor forward.” – Claire Duggan

Business Chronicle in its 2012 “Legal Stars” feature. Cantor & Webb was also short-listed as one of five finalists for the 2013 Best Law Firm of the Year in the private client category by Private Asset Management Magazine. Larry D. Harris, JD ’75, was named president of the American College of Construction Lawyers for the 2013–2014 term. He has also been named in Chambers USA for more than 10 consecutive years as one of the leaders in the construction bar in the District of Columbia. Janine Landow-Esser, JD ’76, a partner in the Chicago office of Quarles & Brady, received the President’s Lifetime Volunteer Service Award at the Keep Chicago Beautiful 25th Anniversary Vision Awards Dinner in September 2012. She was also named in the peer-selected Best Lawyers in America list for 2013. Ms. Landow-Esser is vice chairman and education chair of Keep Chicago Beautiful and has served on the board since 2008. She concentrates her practice on environmental and OSHA law. Daniel J. Metcalfe, JD ’76, has been elected a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Professor Metcalfe teaches secrecy law at American University Washington College of Law, where he is executive director of the Collaboration on Government Secrecy. Richard Reibstein, JD ’76, a partner with Pepper Hamilton, was named a top lawyer in the state of New York for 2012. No more than 5 percent of lawyers in New York make it onto the annual New York Super Lawyers list. John M. Dempsey, JD ’77, is listed in The Best Lawyers of America and Michigan Super Lawyers. Mr. Dempsey is a member in Dickinson Wright

PLLC’s office in Ann Arbor, Mich. He focuses his practice in the areas of administrative and regulatory, energy and sustainability, and telecommunications law.

Thomas G. Mancuso, JD ’77, an attorney with Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2013. Mr. Mancuso was recognized in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions law, securities/capital markets law, and tax law. Jeri L. Whitfield, JD ’77, an attorney with Smith Moore Leatherwood, was named by North Carolina Super Lawyers magazine as a top attorney in 2013 for her work in workers’ compensation law. She was also included in The Best Lawyers in America 2013, and was recently reappointed chair of the North Carolina State Bar’s Board of Legal Specialization. The appointment reflects her dedication to the North Carolina State Bar and commitment to the legal profession for more than 30 years. Richard L. Byrne, JD ’78, was elected president of the Webb Law Firm in Pittsburgh. Mr. Byrne has addressed every aspect of intellectual property law during his 34-year career. Marvin S. C. Dang, JD ’78, serves as a council member-atlarge and a division director for the American Bar Association’s General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Division. He is also vice chair of the Hawaii Mortgage Foreclosure Task Force created by the legislature. Mr. Dang is the managing member of the Law Offices of Marvin S. C. Dang LLC, the largest creditors’ rights law firm in Hawaii.

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alumni newsmakers

“Almost from the moment I entered that courtroom and sat in the back row, I knew that this was where I wanted to be,” she says. “I didn’t just want to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a trial lawyer.” Since then, Ms. Bruce, a partner at K & L Gates LLP in Washington, D.C., has had a long, varied, and highly decorated career in the private and public sectors. Her career, like her life, has been punctuated by important moments in history. She was the deputy independent counsel in the investigation of Attorney General Edwin Meese in 1988 and was appointed the independent counsel to look into whether Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt lied to Congress about political influence in a department matter during Bill Clinton’s presidency. A few years ago, she served

I was still adjusting to urban campus life when I realized that GW was at the epicenter of the antiwar movement. ALUMNI PROFILE

A Monumental Life Carol Elder Bruce, BA ’71, JD ’74, came of age during the time of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. She was drawn to study law after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy, the civil rights movement, and the war in Vietnam. But what inspired her to become a trial lawyer—and she is considered one of the nation’s top litigators—was a simple visit to a courtroom during orientation to law school. Classes hadn’t even started in the fall of 1971 when Ms. Bruce stepped into D.C. Superior Court. Before then, she had not set foot inside a courtroom, let alone watched trials in action. She and about 40 other first-year students filed into a courtroom, sat on the public benches, and waited for the judge to come down from the bench to talk with them about criminal and civil trials.

Sandra A. Lanni, JD ’78, was nominated by Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee for associate justice of the Rhode Island Family Court. Since 2001, she has been a sole practitioner concentrating in family law, employment related matters, civil appellate law, alternative dispute resolution, and contract work for the Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. James R. Schroll, JD ’78, was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2013 in the area of bankruptcy and creditor 78

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debtor rights/insolvency and reorganization law. Michael S. Mitchell, JD ’79, was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers of 2013. Mr. Mitchell is a partner in the New Orleans office of Fisher and Phillips. Marcos G. Ronquillo, JD ’79, was selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2013 based on his work for clients in commercial litigation. Mr. Ronquillo is a shareholder at Godwin Ronquillo in Dallas, where he is president and chair of the public law section.

as special counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics that found that Sen. John Ensign broke Senate rules and possibly federal laws when he allowed a former senior staffer to lobby him. Ms. Bruce has represented detainees at Guantánamo Bay pro bono. She trained lawyers in Russia when the jury trial system was reintroduced under President Yeltsin and at The Hague as part the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Each historical event is etched in her mind, even those from 50 years ago when she was a freshman in high school. She remembers driving in a car when JFK was shot. Four and a half years later, she saw police cars and ambulances racing past the GW campus to the riots on 14th street after MLK was killed. And later that summer, three days before her 19th birthday, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. “I remember being on my parents’ living room sofa, knees to my chest, clutching a sofa pillow and sobbing as I watched the news coverage of this latest horror,” she says. “The lives led by these three extraordinary men and their individual strong personal commitments to public and social service strengthened my desire to study political science and played a

1980s Leo S. Fisher, JD ’80, was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2013 in the area of commercial litigation. Mr. Fisher is the managing shareholder of Bean, Kinney & Korman. Michael Davis, JD ’81, senior partner at Davis, Agnor, Rapaport & Skalny, and his wife, Joanne Davis, were awarded the 2012 Leadership Legacy Award from Leadership Howard County. This year, for the first time, LHC honored a husband and wife because they,

together and independently, use their skills and resources to make a positive impact on the community and have provided a lasting legacy for others to follow. Ira S. Goldenberg, JD ’81, was elected to the executive committee of the New York State Bar Association. As a section representative, he will represent boards of condominiums, homeowners’ associations, and cooperatives, as well as developers, unit owners, sellers, and purchasers. Greg Vigdor, JD ’81, was named CEO of the Arizona

alumni newsmakers

very large part in my later decision to go to law school.” The antiwar movement was also never far from view. Her first fall at GW, she marched with more than 100,000 protesters across Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon. “I was still adjusting to urban campus life when I realized that GW was at the epicenter of the antiwar movement,” she says. She recalls one particularly dramatic day during her senior year in May of 1971 when she was a resident adviser in Thurston Hall. The city and GW pulsated with antiwar activities. The National Guard came on campus, “right outside my dorm, setting off tear gas canisters and clubbing some of the protesters.” Later that month the Pentagon Papers were released. Ms. Bruce started law school in the fall, keeping her job as an RA. That year she met her future husband, Jim Bruce, JD ’74, and her father died on Christmas Day before final exams. “I felt I had no choice but to take my exams in January, even though I was in no shape to do so,” she says. Her contracts professor, one of her favorites, Monroe Freedman, heard about her father’s death and shooed her out of the exam room, telling her to come back when she was ready. During law school, she interned with the Public Defender Service under Stuart Stiller, represented clients as part of the Law Students in Court program, and testified before Congress and the Vehicle Equipment Safety Commission on the need to build safer school buses as part of Professor John Banzhaf’s seminar on consumer activism. “It was a heady, constructive experience that further reinforced my desire to be an advocate,” says Ms. Bruce, whose youngest child, Barbara, is now a third-year law student at GW and senior articles editor of The George Washington Law Review. Monumental events marked her last moment in law school. As the president of the Student Bar Association during graduation, Ms. Bruce introduced the guest speaker, Leon Jaworski, the Watergate special prosecutor. Soon after, President Nixon resigned. She gives this advice to new litigators navigating turbulent events: “Be cool, calm, yet deadly earnest in your work,” she says. “Always have your eye on your case goal and be willing to pivot, change course, or compromise to accomplish it.” –Laura Hambleton

Hospital and Healthcare Association. Previously, he was president and CEO of the Washington Health Foundation, which he created in 1992.

Joseph G. Blute, JD ’82, a member of the litigation section of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, has received the 2013 “Client Choice Award” for Product Liability— Massachusetts from the

International Law Office and Lexology. The award was presented at an awards dinner in London on Feb. 27.

the firm, he served as general counsel for several leading public companies, including Thomson Consumer Electronics.

Susan Heller, JD ’82, was named to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s list of “Who’s Who in L.A. Law: Angelenos to Know in Intellectual Property Law” and was featured in a special supplement to the publication in October 2012. She practices at Greenberg Traurig.

Kimberly Couch, JD ’84, was selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2013 in the area of employee benefits law. She was also recognized by London-based legal research firm Chambers & Partners as a leading lawyer in the field. Bart I. Mellits, JD ’84, became chair of Ballard Spahr’s real estate department last year.

Kenneth J. King, JD ’82, a partner with Pepper Hamilton, was named to the New York Super Lawyers list for 2012. No more than 5 percent of lawyers in New York make it onto the annual list. Alan S. Miller, JD ’82, was named Lawyer of the Year for environmental litigation in Pittsburgh by The Best Lawyers in America. Seth Price, JD ’82, was recognized as a 2013 Georgia Super Lawyer. Mr. Price is an attorney with Chamberlain Hrdlicka, specializing in construction litigation. James P. Rathvon, JD ’82, started a regulatory law and litigation practice group at Paley Rothman in Bethesda, Md., after 26 years with DLA Piper in Washington.

Eric Breslin, JD ’82, a partner at the Newark, N.J., office of Duane Morris in its trial practice group, was appointed to a one-year term as co-chair of the New York Regional Committee of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section White Collar Crime Committee.

Susan Ellis Wild, JD ’82, was selected to the 2013 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers list. She also received special recognition as one of the top 50 female attorneys in Pennsylvania. Ms Wild is an attorney with Gross McGinley, where she specializes in the defense of health care practitioners and hospitals.

Howard M. Groedel, JD ’82, was named among the Ohio Super Lawyers for 2013. Mr. Groedel is a partner with Ulmer & Berne in Cleveland.

George Lawrence, JD ’83, serves of counsel to the business services group of Bose McKinney & Evans in Indianapolis. Prior to joining

Peter A. Rome, JD ’84, an attorney in the Cleveland office of Ulmer & Berne, was recognized as an Ohio Super Lawyer and also made the Best Lawyers in America list for 2013. Robert Stang, JD ’84, is a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of Husch Blackwell. His practice focuses on customs and international trade law. John M. Tran, JD ’84, was elected in April to the Fairfax County Circuit Court by the Virginia State Assembly. He is the first Asian-American ever to serve as a judge in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Ian Ballon, JD ’86, was named to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s list of “Who’s Who in L.A. Law: Angelenos to Know in Intellectual Property Law” and was featured in a special supplement to the publication in October 2012. He practices at Greenberg Traurig. Jay Cohen, JD ’86, received a citation for excellence in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business.

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alumni newsmakers

Mr. Cohen is an attorney with the Baltimore office of Duane Morris. George F. Indest, LLM ’86, is president and managing partner of the Health Law Firm in Orlando, Fla., which this year celebrated its fifth year in its Alamonte Springs, Fla., building and its 13th year of practice as a separate firm representing health care providers. He was also featured in the July and September 2012 issues of Medical Economics, for which he wrote articles on the litigious ramifications of “unnecessary” medical testing and the prevention of employee embezzlement, respectively. Sandra G. Sheets, JD ’87, was featured on the Florida Super Lawyers lists for 2012 and 2013. She practices in the Lakeland, Fla., office of GrayRobinson in the area of estate planning and probate law. Elizabeth S. Blutstein, JD ’88, was named in The Best Lawyers in America 2013. Ms. Blutstein is a partner with Quarles & Brady, where she practices in the public finance group. John Hintz, JD ’88, of Haynes and Boone, was selected as the “Lawyer of the Year” for 2013 in the field of patent litigation in the New York City area by The Best Lawyers in America. This follows Intellectual Asset Management magazine’s listing of him in the “IAM Patent 1,000—The World’s Leading Patent Practitioners” in 2012, and the “IAM Patent Litigation 250—The World’s Leading Patent Litigators” in 2011.

Andrew J. Anderson, JD ’89, joined the intellectual property practice group as counsel in the Rochester, N.Y., office of Harter Secrest & Emery. 80

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Brian Kerwin, JD ’89, received a citation for excellence in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. Mr. Kerwin is an attorney with the Chicago office of Duane Morris. Michael Liebman, JD ’89, was named senior litigation counsel at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. He has been an assistant U.S. attorney there since 2002, and a homicide prosecutor since 2007.

1990s Gary D. Federochko, JD ’90, was elected president of Banner & Witcoff. He joined the firm in 1993 and specializes in procuring, managing, and enforcing intellectual property rights. He practices in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. Herbert A. Hedden, JD ’90, was named to the 2013 Best Lawyers in America list. Mr. Hedden is an attorney with Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, where he specializes in franchise law. Paul P. Josephson, JD ’90, joined the trial practice group of Duane Morris in New Jersey as a partner, working out of the firm’s Cherry Hill and Newark offices. He specializes in government affairs and gaming law. John L. Long, LLM ’90, left government service in April 2013, after more than 25 years. He served 29 years of active duty in the U.S. Army, retiring as a colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, followed by civilian service in Germany with the U.S. Army V Corps and the Defense Logistics Agency. Janene Marasciullo, JD ’90, joined the Midtown Manhattan office of Wilson Elser as a partner, specializing in financial services and securities. Prior to joining Wilson Elser, she was a partner with Kaufman, Dolowich, Voluck & Gonzo.

ALUMNI PROFILE

Banking on Success From his earliest days as a lawyer, Richard Jones, JD ’84, earned a reputation for his deep knowledge of bank regulation and enforcement. He was thrust into the role, first as a young lawyer working at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Washington, D.C., and then at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta during the mid 1980s when the savings and loan crisis deepened across the country. He sharpened his bank enforcement skills at the Office of Thrift Supervision during the clean-up after the S&L crisis and several commercial bank challenges at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. during the 1990s. Now as senior vice president, general counsel, and strategic

Marc J. Gross, BA ’88, JD ’91, a partner in the Roseland, N.J., office of Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis, was awarded attorneys’ fees and costs following the firm’s success in preventing BP Products North America from terminating all of its New Jersey franchises.

Greg Brower, JD ’92, is the state senator from Nevada’s 15th District and a partner in the Reno, Nev., and Las Vegas offices of Snell & Wilmer. In April 2013 he was named to the executive committee of the Federalist Society’s criminal law and procedure practice group.

Joseph C. O’Keefe, JD ’91, is a partner in the Newark, N.J., office of Proskauer, where he focuses his practice on labor and employment litigation and arbitration.

Timothy Diemand, JD ’92, is co-chair of the Connecticut Bar Association’s federal practice section. Mr. Diemand is co-chair of Wiggin and Dana’s insurance practice group.

alumni newsmakers

adviser for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Mr. Jones has a broader mandate: to help ensure the safety and soundness of the banking system, particularly banks in the Sixth District of the Federal Reserve System headquartered in Atlanta, and to promote and maintain an efficient and reliable payments clearing process. “In many ways, Federal Reserve Banks function as a ‘bankers’ bank,’” Mr. Jones says. “We receive bank deposits and count them to the exact penny. If the money is short, we have to notify that there is a discrepancy and make every effort to ascertain how it

I was interested in the Foreign Service. I thought about becoming an ambassador or other foreign service officer. occurred and who’s at fault. Of course, we try mightily to ensure that discrepancies don’t occur at the Federal Reserve Bank.” Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separately incorporated, private institution with different and similar functions. The Reserve Bank of Atlanta (Sixth Federal Reserve District) serves Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It helps set “national monetary policy, supervises numerous commercial banks, and provides a variety of financial services to depository institutions and the U.S. government,” Mr. Jones says. Mr. Jones—now one of the country’s top enforcers of banking law—wouldn’t have predicted this type of career for himself. At GW, he took a lot of courses in international law and employment and labor law. “I was interested in the Foreign Service,” he says. “I thought about becoming an ambassador or other foreign service officer.” But managing financial crises—even his own once—became his trademark. Just before starting law school at GW, he went to pay tuition with a cashier’s check which was all of the $8,500 he had saved working for UPS during college. But when he opened his wallet, the check wasn’t there. He looked in his car, the parking deck at the Marvin Center on GW’s campus, and he retraced his steps several times. The check could not be found.

Rod Dixon, JD ’92, was appointed an administrative law judge by the Social Security Administration in Columbus, Ohio. Scott Watkins, JD ’92, is a partner at Novak Druce Connolly Bove & Quigg in Washington, D.C. Mark H. Chichester, BBA ’90, JD ’93, co-founder and president of Atlas Research, is the chair of the NEA Foundation’s board of directors. Jocelyn Dyer, JD ’93, is general counsel of Advanced Solutions International, Inc. Ethan O’Shea, JD ’93, a partner at Hamburg, Rubin, Mullin,

Maxwell & Lupin, was selected by Suburban Life Magazine as an “Awesome Attorney” for 2012 in the areas of criminal defense and employment/labor law. He was featured in the magazine’s December 2012 issue. Greg Blue, BA ’90, JD ’95, is the resident partner in charge of the New York City office of Dilworth Paxson. Michael Fanelli, JD ’95, is a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of Covington & Burling. He represents companies and individuals in antitrust litigation and advises clients on antitrust compliance. Mr. Fanelli is a member of the ABA antitrust section’s International Cartel Task Force, a former vice

He confided what happened to Audrey Free, who headed the Office of Financial Aid and served as special assistant to the dean of the Law School at the time. He was permitted to go ahead and attend classes as an unregistered student without any idea and little hope of how he would pay his law school tuition. Three weeks later, still unregistered, he was lying on the sofa studying in his Takoma Park apartment, when a mailman delivered a letter from GW. “I assumed I wasn’t going to be allowed to continue attending or auditing classes,” he says. Instead, the letter from the financial aid office granted him a full tuition scholarship for three years. He was stunned and gratified but to this day has no idea how the scholarship decision was made. He received another shock a few weeks later when he received a registered letter from his Atlanta bank forwarding him the missing cashier’s check, which had been found on the street in downtown Washington, D.C., and returned to his bank. With his finances secure, he turned his attention to working hard, as he always had. As one of 12 children, he worked during high school, contributed to household funds, and earned “every penny,” he says, operating a forklift, painting driveways, and stocking shelves at a grocery store. And when his family didn’t have the means to send him to college, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He became so good at judo that he hoped to compete in the 1980 Olympics. When the United States boycotted the games, he let go of his sensei’s (judo teacher) dream to focus on his studies. After completing Morehouse College on the GI Bill, he enrolled at GW Law. “Before law school, I thought I was a very analytical person, but I wasn’t even on the map,” he reflects. At law school, “I learned how to evaluate and weigh things, how to get to the point and help others to focus on the issue at hand in a way that has the best chance of making a difference.” He now recognizes he needed to go over those hurdles to get to where he is today. “If I had looked at where I was and thought of the places I would go, it would’ve been inconceivable, much like eating an elephant; you can’t eat the whole thing in one bite—you have to take those first steps,” he says. “Each step helped to shape my trajectory, and I’m thankful for all of them.” –Laura Hambleton

chair of the section’s criminal practice and international committees, and the former editorial chair of the second edition of Competition Laws Outside the United States, published by the section in 2011. Daniel W. Hamilton, JD ’95, was appointed dean of the William S. Boyd School of Law of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Previously, he was a member of the law faculty at the University of Illinois. John Roesser, JD ’95, joined Alston & Bird in NYC as a partner on the securities litigation team and new leader of the international arbitration practice. Mr.

Roesser currently serves as a member of the ICC Court of Arbitration’s commission on arbitration as well as the GW Center for Law, Economics and Finance board.

Tulio G. Suarez, JD ’95, was appointed to the Diocese of Venice Catholic Charities board of directors. Catholic Charities, Diocese of Venice Inc. is a notfor-profit social service agency that provides assistance to those in need in the 10-county area of Southwest Florida.

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alumni newsmakers

Flom Special Counsel) of the Innocence Project Inc.

Adrienne Clair, JD ’96, was elected president of the Energy Bar Association, a nonprofit voluntary association of attorneys, non-attorney professionals, and students whose mission is to promote ethical integrity in the practice, administration, and development of energy laws, regulations, and policies. Musa Eubanks, JD ’96, is the director of the Office of Community Relations for Prince George’s County, Md. In October 2012, he launched the county’s new 311 call system for non-emergency requests. Jeffrey Hessekiel, JD ’96, has joined the FDA/healthcare practice group as senior counsel in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Calif., offices of Arnold & Porter. Bernd Janzen, JD ’96, was elected to partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Akin Gump. Mr. Jandzen is a member of the firm’s international trade practice. Stephen Stern, JD ’96, earned the 2012 Label A. Katz Young Leadership Award. The award goes to individuals under 45 who have demonstrated outstanding service to B’nai B’rith. He is a partner at Hyatt & Weber in Annapolis, Md., where he resides with his wife and three daughters. Kelly Jennings Yeoman, JD ’96, was included on the 2013 Best Lawyers in America list. Ms. Yeoman is a partner in the Columbus office of Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, where she specializes in employment law. M. Chris Fabricant, JD ’97, serves as director of strategic litigation (aka the Joseph 82

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Karineh Khachatourian, JD ’97, joined Duane Morris’ newest office in Palo Alto, Calif., where she is the managing partner. She focuses her practice in the area of intellectual property litigation. Michael S. Levine, JD ’97, of counsel to Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff & Cohen in New York, serves on the working group of the Loan Syndication and Trading Association, providing guidance to the American Bankruptcy Institute as it explores reforms to Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The ABI commission plans to deliver its suggested Chapter 11 amendments to Congress by April 2014. Margaret Rosenfeld, JD ’97, was recognized by Chambers USA for her work in corporate/ mergers and acquisitions law. She is a partner at Smith Anderson and head of the firm’s international law practice. Matthew Kreutzer, JD ’98, a partner at Armstrong Teasdale’s Las Vegas office and chair of the firm’s franchise, distribution, and antitrust practice group, was chosen as a 2013 “Legal Eagle” by Franchise Times. He also was named a Mountain States Rising Star for 2012 in the franchise/dealership category. H. David Starr, JD ’98, was promoted to partner at Nath, Goldberg & Meyer, formerly the Nath Law Group.

Michael Stimson, JD ’98, joined the Austin, Texas, office of Fulbright & Jaworski as senior counsel. He works in the intellectual property and technology department.

ALUMNI PROFILE

Journey to the Top When Grace Speights, JD ’82, studied for three years at GW Law, she often heard in the back of her mind the voice of her mother, who had worked in a drapery factory and hadn’t finished high school. Her mother, Ellen Venters, told her “to be successful, it takes long, long, long hours. It takes hard work, and it takes not giving up,” she recalls. Those words of encouragement helped her persevere in law school and beyond. Today, Ms. Speights has worked so many hours so successfully that her résumé could fill pages. She has been named one of Washington, D.C.’s 100 most powerful women, a member of the Who’s Who of Black Lawyers, and one of the best attorneys in America. Just this year, she was awarded the NAACP’s Champion of Justice Award and the Washington Bar Association Legal Fund’s Maden Haden Trailblazer Award. As a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, in Washington, D.C., Ms. Speights regularly counsels the country’s top Fortune 50 firms, including Lockheed Martin and Wells Fargo, in employment law and corporate diversity best practices. She also represents clients in class-action suits involving discrimination. Her latest highprofile client is celebrity chef and TV personality Paula Deen. As busy as she is, she finds time to support her alma mater. She hosted an “Evening With GW Law” at her firm for admitted students interested in learning more about GW and was recently elected to the GW Board of Trustees. Ms. Speights grew up in south Philadelphia, in a neighborhood where gang violence was the norm. Once she dodged bullets on the way to ballet class. Her mother raised her alone, holding down a job in a factory that made fiberglass draperies. “She came home every day scratching and itching because of the fiberglass,” Ms. Speights says. “We lived in a poor neighborhood in a rented townhouse, but I thought we were rich. We had a house, it was clean, it was neat, we had food, and my mother worked. I had nice clothes. She would bring home scraps of material and make clothes for me.” Mother and daughter negotiated the different public school choices throughout Ms. Speights’ middle school years, and when

alumni newsmakers

the young Speights stood out among her peers, they entertained offers from elite boarding schools in New England. Her mother, though, wanted her home for high school. Ms. Speights enrolled in Philadelphia High School for Girls, one of the country’s oldest single-sex public schools. She thrived there, as well as at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. Law school then beckoned, and she was offered a full scholarship to attend GW. Immediately, she found a home—GW felt like the University of Pennsylvania, a diverse urban school, she says—and a lifelong best friend, Donna Hill Staton, JD ‘82. She and Ms. Staton were among about 20 African American law students in their class at that time.

We were keenly aware that we were one of only a few African Americans at the school. “I think most of us felt very comfortable in the setting,” Ms. Speights says. “Number one, the District of Columbia had one of the largest professional, well-educated African American communities in the country. We took advantage of the city to make a lot of connections. The school was very supportive, the Black American Law School Association was very supportive, and the only African American professor, Professor [James Philip] Chandler, had his door open. I didn’t feel isolated, even though I was in a small minority.” Ms. Speights and Ms. Staton helped one another research clerkships and both were selected for the law journal International Law and Economics. “We were keenly aware that we were one of only a few African Americans at the school,” says Ms. Staton, who ultimately became Maryland’s first African American female deputy attorney general. “We were raised in the 60s and 70s, and recognized all the sacrifices of others before us.” The two lived together much of their time during law school, but as close as they were, “Grace was very modest about her achievements,” Ms. Staton says. “I never knew she was a superstar until she graduated with the Order of the Coif, the highest honor from GW Law. She was very determined, focused, disciplined, and organized. She has a very generous spirit. She is a person that has friends who date back from kindergarten.” Ms. Speights loved many of her GW professors: Among them was Roger Schechter, who taught antitrust law. “We called him Boy Wonder because he didn’t look a day older than we were,” she says. She feared Professor John Cibinic, who taught Contracts her first year. “The whole Socratic method was scary, but he took it to the next level,” she says. “He came up with questions that were so difficult and that we could not get from the case. He wanted to develop our analytical skills.” A clerkship with the late Chief Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, taught her how to apply the legal theory and lessons she learned in law school to real situations. In 1984, she joined Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, and in 1991 became the firm’s first African American woman partner. When Ms. Speights looks back at law school and her career in law to date, it’s easy to hear the words of her mother, who is now 88. “No matter where you go, work hard, do a good job, and don’t burn any bridges,” she says. “Don’t put your fate or future in other people’s hands and don’t wait for people to give you things.” –Laura Hambleton

Calvin K. Woo, JD ’98, was selected to Lawyers of Color’s inaugural “Hot List,” honoring early- to mid-career minority attorneys. Mr. Woo practices from Verrill Dana’s Stamford, Conn., office. Erek Barron, JD ’99, was named to the 2012 class of Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Bar Association. Mr. Barron is an attorney with Whiteford Taylor Preston in Bethesda, Md. Juanita F. Ferguson, JD ’99, was named a shareholder of Bean, Kinney & Korman in Arlington, Va. Her practice is focused on litigation in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Kimberly Bullock Gatling, JD ’99, a Smith Moore Leatherwood attorney practicing in Greensboro, N.C., was featured in The Best Lawyers in America 2013. She also was selected by her peers as part of Business North Carolina’s 2013 Legal Elite for her work in intellectual property law. Joshua B. Goldberg, JD ’99, is an attorney with Nath, Goldberg & Meyer in Alexandria, Va., which changed its name from the Nath Law Group in his recognition. Michael Puma, JD ’99, was named by Law360 as one of the top five labor/employment lawyers under 40 in the country. He lives with his wife, Lysa Selfon Puma, JD ’99, in Philadelphia. Annamaria Steward-Dymand, JD ’99, was named to the 2012 class of Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Bar Association. She is the associate dean of students at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clark School of Law. Stephen Y. Wu, JD ’99, was named by The National Law Journal as a “Rising Star” and one of “Chicago’s 40 Under 40.” Mr. Wu is a partner at

McDermott Will & Emery’s Chicago office and a member of its antitrust and competition practice group.

2000s Karma B. Brown, JD ’00, was promoted to counsel at Hunton & Williams. She is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, where her practice focuses on litigation and regulatory compliance. She has also undertaken significant pro bono work representing detainees at Guantánamo Bay. L. Eden Burgess, JD ’00, joined Cultural Heritage Partners LLC, a multiservice law firm serving clients in the cultural heritage, art, museum, and historic preservation communities. In 2012 she was a professorial lecturer in law at GW, teaching a spring seminar entitled Art, Cultural Heritage and the Law, and was also the faculty adviser for the Art Law and Entertainment Society. Kevin Cromer, JD ’00, joined Clyde Bergemann Power Group Americas Inc. as its general counsel. He oversees 35 domestic and four international locations. Michael J. Engle, JD ’00, joined Greenblatt, Pierce, Funt & Flores as a partner. With his addition, the firm’s name is now Greenblatt, Pierce, Engle, Funt & Flores LLC. Michael Roessner, JD ’00, and Acadia Wallace Roessner, MA ’06, proudly announced the birth of their twin sons, Archibald (Archie) Lawrence Roessner and Amos Warren Roessner, on Father’s Day, June 17, 2012. Neil Whiteman, LLM ’00, is now of counsel to the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. His practice focuses on government contracts. Previously he served as corporate counsel to Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

alumni newsmakers

Tremayne Bunaugh, JD ’01, was named to the 2012 class of Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Bar Association. Mr. Bunaugh is counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, where he advises members, officers, and Senate employees on the Senate Code of Conduct. David Calabrese, MA ’94, JD ’01, was promoted to general counsel and senior vice president of policy at the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute.

named to the Daily Record’s 2012 list of “Very Important Professionals Successful by 40.” Thomas Klemm, JD ’02, joined the Philadelphia office of White and Williams LLP. His practice is focused on reinsurance and commercial litigation matters. Gary C. Ma, JD ’02, serves as the managing attorney of Finnegan’s Taipei, Taiwan, office. Mr. Ma’s practice focuses on patent litigation, patent prosecution, and client counseling. Rafael Nendel-Flores, JD ’02, a partner in the Irvine, Calif., office of Fisher & Phillips, was listed in Southern California Rising Stars as a top attorney in the region for 2012.

John Moran, JD ’01, was included on the 2012 Florida Super Lawyers Rising Stars list, under the estate and trust litigation practice area. Mr. Moran is an attorney at Gunster in West Palm Beach, Fla. Rodney Pratt, JD ’01, was named to the 2012 class of Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40 by the National Bar Association. Mr. Pratt is an assistant general counsel with Nike Inc. Brett P. Thornton, JD ’01, was named to The 2013 Ohio Super Lawyers Rising Stars list. Mr. Thornton is an attorney with Porter Wright in Columbus, Ohio. Mircea A. Tipescu, JD ’01, was elected shareholder at Brinks Gilson & Lione in Chicago. His practice encompasses patent litigation, counseling, and prosecution. Christian P. Fonss, JD ’02, joined Klinedinst PC as a shareholder. Previously, he was a principal at the transactional and securities firm Fonss & Estigarribia LLP. Monica Garcia Harms, JD ’02, a principal at Stein Sperling, was 84

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Zach Ellis, JD ’03, is a founding partner in the law firm of Boyd & Ellis LLC in Greenville, S.C. He previously served as a criminal prosecutor for eight years in South Carolina’s seventh and tenth judicial circuits. Jill K. MacAlpine, JD ’03, is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Finnegan. Dr. MacAlpine practices all areas of patent law.

Laura C. McBride, JD ’03, joined Ulmer & Berne as a partner in its litigation department. Ms. McBride is based in the firm’s Cleveland office, where she is co-chair of the energy, natural resources, and utilities practice group. Keirston R. Woods, JD ’03, was elected a shareholder at Bryant Miller Olive. Ms. Woods is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, where she practices in the public finance, real estate, affordable housing, and corporate trust and default departments.

Lynn E. Hawkins, JD ’04, joined Bean, Kinney & Korman, in Arlington, Va., as an associate attorney in the area of family law. Gregory S. Jacobs, JD ’04, is a partner in the global regulatory enforcement group of Reed Smith. He is based in Washington, D.C. Amanda Johnson, JD ’04, was named partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. She is a member of the firm’s intellectual property practice and is based in Washington, D.C. Todd M. Wesche, LLM ’04, was promoted to managing attorney of the veterans’ benefits practice group at LaVan & Neidenberg, P.A., in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was also elected to the board of directors of the National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates in Washington, D.C. Douglas A. Grimm, LLM ’05, a partner with Stradley Ronon, has been elected to the board of directors of St. Catherine Laboure Medical Clinic, which provides medical care to the uninsured population of the Philadelphia area. As part of his new position, Mr. Grimm will also serve as chair of the operations subcommittee, which works to implement best practices for the clinic. Christopher C. Jeffries, JD ’05, a litigator from the Baltimore office of Whiteford Taylor Preston, was named to the inaugural “Hot List” of lawyers under 40 by Lawyers of Color LLC. The list includes 100 early- to midcareer attorneys from the midAtlantic region. Heather Simpson Lallis, JD ’05, was promoted to partner at Carroll, McNulty & Kull, where her practice focuses on insurance coverage litigation. In April 2012, she married classmate Danny Lallis, JD ’05, in Summit, N.J. Cpt. John Olson, Jr., JD ’05, and Rebecca Carvalho, JD ’05, were members of the bridal party. Also in attendance were

fellow classmates Jay Griffiths, Jonathan McQuade, Tony Ellis, Don Amlin, Ben Slocum, and Nick Merrell. Mr. Lallis is a senior associate at Pisciotti, Malsch & Buckley, where his practice focuses on products liability litigation. Chunhsi Andy Mu, JD ’05, was elected a principal shareholder of Banner & Witcoff. He joined the firm in 2005 and practices in its Washington, D.C., office. Tischa Schestopol, JD ’05, joined Reed Smith’s life sciences health industry group as counsel in Washington, D.C. Previously, she was a senior regulatory attorney at Human Genome Sciences Inc.

Benjamin R. Askew, JD ’06, joined the intellectual property practice group of the Simon Law Firm as an associate. He is licensed to practice in Missouri and Illinois.

Cheryl Burgess, JD ’06, was named partner at the Orange County, Calif., office of Knobbe Martens. She practices in intellectual property, with a focus on patent litigation. Aisha Salem, LLM ’06, formerly of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, is the intellectual property attaché for the Middle East and North Africa based in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. She is responsible for promoting U.S. government intellectual property policy in the region, securing IP provisions in international agreements and regional country

alumni newsmakers

laws, and encouraging IP protection and enforcement by U.S. trading partners in the region.

Jeffrey C. Sirolly, JD ’06, joined the Orlando, Fla., office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz as an associate in the financial institutions group. He focuses his practice on business litigation involving the mortgage lending and servicing industries. Arianna Gleckel, BA ’03, JD ’07, was named to Leadership Arlington’s Class of 2013. Ms. Gleckel is an attorney at Bean, Kinney & Korman, where she practices in the areas of commercial litigation and employment law. Tracey S. Lesetar, JD ’08, is the general counsel of Bellator Fighting Championships, a mixed-martial-arts promotion company airing MMA programming on Spike TV and MTV Networks. She practices in Newport Beach, Calif. Matthew P. Thielemann, LLM ’08, joined Bean, Kinney & Korman in Arlington, Va., as of counsel. Mr. Thielemann practices in the areas of intellectual property and corporate transactions. Todd J. Canni, LLM ’09, a former Air Force official who oversaw the operations of the Air Force’s debarment program, rejoined McKenna Long & Aldridge’s government contracts practice as counsel. Evan S. Elan, JD ’09, joined the litigation department of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where he will contribute to the white-collar government investigations group.

E. Derek Jamison, JD ’09, was named one of Southern Nevada’s Top 150 Attorneys by Nevada Business Magazine. Mr. Jamison is a Las Vegasbased associate in Armstrong Teasdale’s intellectual property practice group. Yael Krigman, JD ’09, owner of the Washington, D.C.-based Baked By Yael, is taking her online business to the next level by opening a storefront, which would be the city’s first “cakepoppery.” Baked By Yael specializes in cake pops, which are small balls of cake and frosting mixed together and dipped in a candy coating. For more information, visit www. bestcakepopever.com. Baked By Yael is also on Facebook and Twitter @BakedByYael.

2010s

Elizabeth Handelin, JD ’10, joined the Sacramento, Calif., firm Ellis Law Group, LLP, as an associate attorney. Her practice focuses on litigation in matters of business, commercial, and intellectual property law. Alan Heymann, JD ’10, is vice president of communications for the Humane Society of the United States. He works at the Humane Society’s headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md. Rachael Petterson, JD ’10, an attorney with Yacub Law Offices and former interim director of GW’s Immigration Law Clinic, spoke on “Avoiding

Immigration Law Panel In October, the GW Law Immigration Clinic and the Immigration Law Association invited alumni to discuss their careers in the field of immigration law, and how their education at GW Law helped them get there. Coming to campus to share their expertise, advice, and time were alumni Sergey Basyuk, JD ‘10, co-founder of Basyuk & Klaproth LLP; Joshua Breisblatt, JD ‘11, National Immigration Forum’s assistant for policy and legal affairs; Michelle Morales, JD ‘98, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Rachael Petterson, JD ‘10; associate at Yacub Law Offices; José Pittí, JD ‘12, Presidential Management Fellow at the headquarters of the Refugee, Asylum and International Operations Directorate in the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Danielle Polen, JD ‘91, associate director of AILA Publications.

the Grounds for Deportability” at a four-credit CLE on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. The CLE was presented by the Virginia State Bar’s Young Lawyers Conference, Immigrant Outreach Committee, at the George Mason School of Law. GW Professor Alberto M. Benítez was her co-presenter. Oliya Zamaray, BA ’06, JD ’10, joined Rogers Joseph O’Donnell as an associate in its Washington, D.C., office. Her practice focuses on all aspects of government contracts. Zac Arbitman, Melissa Dolin, Benjamin Kussman, Julia Perkins, and Danielle Ryan, all JD ’12, are associates at Fox Rothschild.

Matthew Engler, JD ’12, was sworn in as an assistant state attorney for the Frederick County, Md., State’s Attorney’s District Court Division. He and nine other District Court prosecutors will handle about 13,000 criminal and serious traffic cases a year.

Eric Quinn, JD ’12, joined Dinsmore’s Cincinnati office as an associate in the corporate department and member of the mergers and acquisitions and securities practice groups.

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

alumni newsmakers

alumni bookshelf publishing their work, the book walks aspiring authors through the entire process of writing, publishing, and promotion. Ms. Nine is president of the fullservice entertainment agency Nine Speakers Inc. Her website is www.ninespeakers.com. Alison Rieser, JD ’76, wrote The Case of the Green Turtle: An Uncensored History of a Conservation Icon (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012). The book traces the environmental history of the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas), including the insatiable demand for gourmet green turtle soup, the fisheries that supplied the global trade, and the attempts to regulate those fisheries to prevent commercial extinction of the green sea turtle. The book describes how scientists and citizen groups used species classification, trade laws, and social marketing to curtail consumer demand and to block the advent of commercial turtle farming. The unsuccessful appeal of the case, Cayman Turtle Farm, Ltd. v. Secretary of the Interior (D.D.C., 1979), and an unpublished opinion by D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge George MacKinnon provides the book’s dramatic climax.

Diane S. Nine, JD ’88, is the author of Get Published: A Guide to Literary Tips, Traps and Truth (Keith Publications, 2012). A how-to for those interested in 86

GW Law | winter 2014

Janet E. Lord, LLM ’95, is the author, with Andrew Power and Allison S. DeFranco, of Active Citizenship and Disability: Implementing the Personalisation of Support (Cambridge University Press, 2013). The book provides an international comparative study of the implementation of disability rights law and policy, focused on the emerging principles of self-determination. It explores how these principles have been enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, which is underpinned by the philosophy of “active citizenship”—that is, that all citizens should be able to actively participate in the community—and explores how different jurisdictions have implemented them.

Brett E. Bacon, LLM ’99, published his first two children’s books this year. The Fish That Got Away (Clownfish Press, 2013) is a picture book about a boy trying to prove to his two older brothers that he can catch a big fish on his first fishing trip; Messy Room Monsters! (Clownfish Press, 2013) was

The Clarity of Hindsight Southern California attorney and author Julie L. Kessler, JD ’87, has received widespread acclaim for her insightful memoir, Fifty-Fifty: The Clarity of Hindsight (Strategic Book Publishing, 2012). Organized thematically into 50 chapters, the book traces her life adventures around the globe and at home; she has traveled to more than 50 countries and lived and worked abroad twice (first in Japan and then in France). Ms. Kessler’s witty and engaging book won awards at both the 2013 Paris Book Festival and the 2013 New York Book Festival.

nominated for a 2013 Global eBook Award. Both books can be purchased at Amazon.com.

David Gerk, JD ’02, is co-author of the New Practitioner’s Guide to Intellectual Property (American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, 2012). He also uses the book as the course text for the patent law option classes that he

teaches with his co-author, John Fleming, at the GW School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Mr. Fleming and Mr. Gerk co-created the patent law option at GW, a three-course certificate program offered at SEAS, and have been teaching there on a part-time basis since 2006. Claudia Haupt, LLM ’09, is the author of Religion–State Relations in the United States and Germany: The Quest for Neutrality (Cambridge University Press, 2011), which in April was featured in a book review/ response series on I-CONnect, the blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law.

IN MEMORIAM

Morton Willcher, LLB ’41 Dec. 1, 2011 Altamonte Springs, Fla.

Alexander Y.H. Kim, JD ’52 May 27, 2012 Honolulu, Hawaii

Patrick J. Moriarty, JD ’59 July 19, 2012 Lakeville, Minn.

Charles P. Mead Jr., JD ’68 April 18, 2012 Alexandria, Va.

Russell G. Pelton, JD ’44 June 21, 2012 Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Richard T. Laughlin, JD ’52 June 16, 2013 Naples, Fla.

H. Wayne Wadsworth, JD ’59 Jan. 14, 2013 Salt Lake City, Utah

James D. Olsen, JD ’68

J. Winfield Rankin, AA ’38, BA ’40, LLB ’46 May 9, 2012 Brookeville, Md.

James Boone, LLB ’53 May 17, 2012 Santa Cruz, Calif.

W. Risque Harper, AA ’55, BA ’56, LLB ’60 Dec. 6, 2012 Ladysmith, Va.

Allen R. De Long, LLB ’47 Sept. 3, 2012 Washington, D.C. Col. Olin W. Jones, JD ’47 March 15, 2013 Coronado, Calif. Leonard L. Abel, JD ’49 April 11, 2011 Falls Church, Va. John Lasco Jr., AA ’46, JD ’49 July 12, 2012 Surprise, Ariz. The Hon. Jacob S. Levin, JD ’49 March 18, 2013 Silver Spring, Md.

Thomas S. MacDonald, LLB ’53 April 30, 2012 Aubrey, Texas Katsugo Miho, LLB ’53 Sept. 11, 2011 Honolulu, Hawaii Vernon B. Romney, LLB ’53 July 13, 2013 Salt Lake City, Utah William H. Yim, LLB ’53 Jan. 25, 2013 Honolulu, Hawaii C. Stuart Broad, JD ’54 March 23, 2013 Bloomington, Ill.

J. M. Ault, LLB ’51 Sept. 19, 2012

John A. Gray, LLB ’54 Jan. 23, 2013 Boston, Mass.

Paul J. Dembling, JD ’51 May 16, 2011 Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

John Bowker Bromell, JD ’54 Nov. 7, 2012 Tampa Bay, Fla.

John Rollin Desha II, LLB ’51 Aug. 8, 2011 Honolulu, Hawaii

Auzville Jackson Jr., JD ’54 July 27, 2012 Richmond, Va.

Richard G. Dusenbury, LLB ’51 Jan. 14, 2013 Florence, S.C.

Richard C. Pinkham, LLB ’56 May 3, 2011 Hyattsville, Md.

Lawrence Gochberg, AA ’48, LLB ’51 June 6, 2012 Stamford, Conn.

Donald Joseph Smith, JD ’56

E. Eugene Luther, AA ’48, BA ’49, JD ’51 Jan. 16, 2013 Ashburn, Va.

Ronald G. Maurice, JD ’57 Oct. 25, 2012 Oxon Hill, Md. Bernard M. Tanner, JD ’57 May 25, 2012 Salt Lake City, Utah

Themis C. Pailas, JD ’51 Jan. 28, 2013 Ambler, Pa.

Edgar D. Coffman, JD ’58 June 27, 2013 McLean, Va.

Conrad A. Fontaine, JD ’52 Jan. 11, 2013 Melbourne, Fla.

John C. Vassil, JD ’58 March 6, 2012 Greene, N.Y.

Herbert E. Forrest, AA ’46, BA ’48, JD ’52 Aug. 22, 2012 Bethesda, Md.

Charles W. Colson, JD ’59 April 21, 2012 Leesburg, Va.

Robert N. Price, LLB ’52 Nov. 3, 2011 Chevy Chase, Md.

G. Herbert Fahy, AA ’52, BA ’54, JD ’59 Dec. 10, 2012 Pinehurst, N.C.

Judge Joyce Capps, AA ’56, BA ’57, LLB ’61 Feb. 1, 2013 Arlington, Va.

Joseph R. Seiger, LLM ’68 July 9, 2013 Los Altos Hills, Calif. Kris R. Nielsen, JD ’70 Feb. 16, 2013 Unionville Ranch, Wash. Mandev Singh, LLM ’71 Dec. 28, 2011 Washington, D.C.

Norman N. Kunitz, JD ’61 March 13, 2012 Rockville, Md.

Donald Floyd Marlar, LLM ’72 Sept. 12, 2012 Tulsa, Okla.

Richard J. Vipond, BA ’61, JD ’63 Oct. 1, 2012 Omaha, Neb.

Louis A. Ebersold, JD ’73 Jan. 14, 2013 Woodstock, Md.

Francis Kopp Zugel, BS ’57, JD ’61 Jan. 30, 2013 Gaithersburg, Md.

Joseph L. Golden, JD ’74 Feb. 12, 2012 Santa Monica, Calif.

Ronald O. Dixon, JD ’63 Sept. 21, 2012 St. George, Utah Bobby W. Rogers, LLB ’63 Feb. 27, 2013 Henderson, N.C. Paul J. Cook, LLB ’64 May 26, 2012 Manchester, Mass. Stanley R. Miller, JD ’64 Feb. 16, 2013 Cleveland, Ohio Arthur E. Fournier Jr., JD ’65 July 9, 2012 Collinsville, Conn. A. Sidney Katz, JD ’66 Sept. 11, 2012 Chicago, Ill. Gene R. Haislip, LLM ’66 May 17, 2012 Winchester, Va. Jean G. Taylor, JD ’66 May 27, 2012 Washington, D.C. Joan E. Baker, JD ’67 February 2013 Cleveland, Ohio Edmund C. Bennett, JD ’68, LLM ’72 Feb. 27, 2012 Providence, R.I.

Eric Harbes Biddle Jr., JD ’77 Oct. 21, 2012 Fairfax, Va. James J. Gonzales, LLM ’77 Sept. 9, 2012 Centennial, Colo. Arthur George Carlock, JD ’79 May 7, 2012 West Orange, N.J. John LeCato Hummer, JD ’81 April 27, 2012 Orange County, Calif. W. Scott Funger, JD ’83 Aug. 31, 2012 Potomac, Md. Bruce F. W. Brodigan, JD ’84 April 7, 2012 Somerville, Mass. Kenneth R. Meade, JD ’85 June 20, 2013 McLean, Va. Martin Harris Silver, JD ’86 Aug. 31, 2012 Dallas, Texas Joseph Handleman, JD ’89 July 25, 2012 Los Angeles, Calif. Laura Rinaldi, JD ’01 July 28, 2013 Washington, D.C. Adam J. Goodstein, LLM ’02

winter 2014 | www.law.gwu.edu

20th & H GW Law’s active, vibrant campus hosts a wide variety of activities for students to enjoy, both inside and outside the classroom.

ABOVE Faculty, including Interim Dean Gregory Maggs, Professor Mary Cheh, Professor Orin Kerr, Assistant Dean Robin Juni, and Professor Ed Swaine, sing the opening number with students. LEFT No Law Revue would be complete without dances to the year’s most catchy songs; one of this year’s skits used Psy’s “Gangnam Style.”

2013 Law Revue The 1,500-seat Lisner Auditorium was packed for GW Law’s annual, student-produced Law Revue in February. The two-hour, professional variety show once again brought out a huge portion of the GW Law community for a night of laughs and music.

To view all photos from the event, including the GWLAA alumni reception before the show, please visit GW Law Photography http://smu.gs/15Nhd2E

puppies and kittens Law students take a break from studying for final exams during the GW Student Animal Legal Defense Fund Pet Study Break. The Washington Humane Society brings puppies and kittens to the George Washington University biannually.

Fun on the Quad Between classes, work, studying, and writing, GW Law students still find time for fun and games. Among the year’s many social events were Deans Jeans Day in April and a food truck party on the Quad for 1Ls celebrating the inaugural year of the Inns of Court program. 88

GW Law | winter 2014

LEFT Professor Arthur Wilmarth (right), helps get out the ice cream at Deans Jeans Day. ABOVE Professor Todd Peterson (center) hosted a food truck party.

Scholarships Make the Difference!

“ I want to emphasize the magnitude of the positive effect your scholarship

has and will have on me and my family. Your scholarship is the ‘but for’ to my deciding to attend a top-tier law school. Without your scholarship, I simply would not have had the wonderful opportunities to gain experience that I have had as a student at George Washington, and that has directly impacted my post-graduation prospects. I look forward to one day being able to return the favor to future generations of George Washington Law students” – a Jacob Burns Scholarship winner

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