represents clients who hold more than $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities
The Capital Campaign enters the public phase Q&A with Interim Dean Mark Grunewald Jeff Carey ’83L tackles the NFL in the Supreme Court
g t n in ti Pr ra n eb s I el r C ea Y
Talcott Franklin ’95L
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n and Lee School of Law Ma shingto gazin a W e The W i n t e r 2 011
De jure Brian Murchison, the Charles S. Rowe Professor of Law, goes over the “exploding coke bottle case,” Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., in his Torts class. He said, “It’s a famous case, and law grads will remember it.” (Photo by Patrick Hinely ’73) Cover photo of Talcott Franklin ’95L by Hillsman Jackson.
10th Anniversary The Law Alumni Magazine celebrates a decade in print.
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2 In Brief
By the numbers
3 Law Council
President’s Column What Can You Do?
Clearing Up the Mortgage Mess I Talcott Franklin ’95L has become the leading advocate for investors in soured mortgagebacked securities. —> Jacob Geiger ’10
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4 Discovery
The Capital Campaign enters the public phase, Q&A with Interim Dean Mark Grunewald, faculty accomplishments and opinions on the regulation of video games.
21 Class Notes
Alumni news, profiles and law firm giving.
Score! I Jeff Carey ’83L challenges
the NFL in the Supreme Court and wins 9–0.
—> Jason Bacaj ’10
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In Brief
by the
Numbers
4,925 34 84 During the fall semester, Law School students consumed close to 5,000 cups of coffee. That’s the equivalent of about 725 gallons.
The number of years Interim Dean Mark Grunewald has been teaching at the School of Law. If that number looks familiar, it’s because that’s how long the doors of Lewis Hall have been open. As Dean Grunewald often quips when asked about his tenure, “I came with the building.”
Two-thirds of current 3Ls are voluntarily participating in the new third-year program, now in its second year. As of next year, participation in the program is required.
238,878
What did you do on your summer vacation? The law library staff moved lots of books over the summer during a reorganization of the stacks. It took less than two months. 2
W&L
© Washington and Lee University
Law
Alumni
Magazine
Volume 11 No. 1 Winter 2011
Louise Uffelman ED ITO R
Jennifer Utterback, Emily Anne Taylor ’12 CL A S S N OTE S ED ITO R S
Patrick Hinely ’73, Kevin Remington U N I VER S IT Y PH OTO G R APH ER S
Donelle DeWitt, Laurie Lipscomb, Denise Watts, Mary Woodson G R APH I C D E S I G N ER S
Bart Morris, Morris Design ART D I R EC TO R
Published by Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va. 24450. All communications and POD Forms 3579 should be sent to Washington and Lee, Law Alumni Magazine, Mattingly House, 204 W. Washington St., Lexington, Va. 24450-2116. Periodicals postage paid at Norfolk, Va.
University Advancement Jeffery G. Hanna EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Elizabeth Outland Branner DIRECTOR OF LAW SCHOOL ADVANCEMENT
Peter Jetton DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE SCHOOL OF LAW
Julie A. Campbell ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS
L AW AL U M N I A S S O CIATI O N
Stacy Gould Van Goor ’95L President (San Diego)
James J. Ferguson, Jr. ’88L Vice President (Dallas)
W. Hildebrandt Surgner ’87, ’94L Immediate Past President (Richmond)
Darlene Moore Executive Secretary (Lexington)
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF LAW Lexington, Virginia
L AW CO U N CI L E M ER IT U S Peter Baumgaertner ’83, ’86L (New York City) Walter J. Borda ’67, ’71L (Novi, Mich.) Matthew J. Calvert ’75, ’79L (Atlanta) Albert V. Carr Jr. ’71L (Lexington) Michael Cohen ’90L (Washington) Thomas J. Gearen ’82L (Kalamazoo, Ill.) Shawn George ’81L (Charleston, W.Va.) Thomas B. Henson ’80L (Charlotte, N.C.) Nicholas J. Kaiser ’83L (New York City) Chong J. Kim ’92L (Atlanta) A. Carter Magee Jr. ’79L (Roanoke) Susan Ballantine Molony ’00L (Greensboro, N.C.) William H. Oast III ’71, ’74L (Portsmouth, Va.) Robert W. Ray ’85L (New York City) Richard Smith ’98L (Washington) Carla J. Urquhart ’96L (Washington) Andrea K. Wahlquist ’95L (New York City)
It would be an understatement to say that a lot is going on at the Law School. The school has reformed its third-year program (law.wlu.edu/thirdyear) into a model that integrates legal theory, practice and community service. This new program is unprecedented in modern legal education. While implementing this momentous change to the third year, the school Law Council President Stacy is planning a dean search, addressing the Gould Van Goor ’95L accepts the gavel tight legal market and combating increasfrom Brandt Surgner ’87, ’94L. ing competition in law-school rankings from larger schools with greater financial resources. The School is addressing these challenges through a number of initiatives, all of which demonstrate its commitment to academic excellence, ethics and community. In other words, W&L is staying true to the values that make us distinctive. Now, as ever, the law school needs alumni support. As professionals, we have many demands on our time. The school recognizes this by making it easy to give back through these opportunities. Helping a place that has done so much for us is an easy decision. Many opportunities for support are available. In addition to financial support, the School invites alumni to get personally involved with students. A few options:
Law Council
What Can You Do ?
President’s Column
L AW CO U N CI L Eric A. Anderson ’82L (New York City) Blas P. Arroyo ’81L (Charlotte, N.C.) Stacy D. Blank ’88L (Tampa, Fla.) J. Alexander Boone ’95L (Roanoke) Katherine Tritschler Boone ’06L (Atlanta) Benjamin C. Brown ’94, ’03L (Washington) T. Hal Clarke Jr. ’73, ’76L (Charlotte, N.C.) John A. Cocklereece Jr. ’76, 79L (Winston-Salem, N.C.) Thomas E. Evans ’91L (Bentonville, Ariz.) David K. Friedfeld ’83L (Hauppauge, N.Y.) Betsy Callicott Goodell ’80L (Bronxville, N.Y.) Rakesh Gopalan ’06L (Charlotte, N.C.) Diana L. Grimes ’07L (Des Moines, Iowa) M. Peebles Harrison ’92L (Nags Head, N.C.) Christina E. Hassan ’98L (Washington) Nathan V. Hendricks ’66A, ’69L (Atlanta) A. John Huss ’65L (St. Paul, Minn.) Wyndall Ivey ’99L (Birmingham, Ala.) W. Henry Jernigan Jr. ’72, ’75L (Charleston, W.Va.) The Hon. Mary Miller Johnston ’84L (Wilmington, Del.) The Hon. Everett A. Martin Jr. ’74, ’77L (Norfolk, Va.) Andrew J. Olmem ’96, ’01L (Washington) Lesley Brown Schless ’80L (Greenwich, Conn.) William M. Toles ’92, ’95L (Dallas)
Alumni Mentoring Program Mentors advise students during their three years at W&L as they explore career paths and assess their strengths and weaknesses. Individual matches take into account the student’s geographic and practice area preferences. Go to law.wlu.edu/mentor.
Alumni Support Network Students access this online database to seek advice from alumni working in their preferred geographic and practice areas on the local market and particular practice areas. Register at law.wlu.edu/alumninetwork.
Write an Article for Careerblog
Write By Mail:
Now!
Elizabeth Outland Branner Director of Law School Advancement Sydney Lewis Hall Washington and Lee University School of Law Lexington, VA 24450
By E-Mail:
brannere@wlu.edu
By Phone:
(540) 458-8191 All letters should be signed and include the author’s name, address and daytime phone number. Letters selected for publication may be edited for length, content and style. Signed articles reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of the editors or the University.
Share your best practices for networking, interviewing, getting coveted assignments on the job, how to succeed in law practice, changing careers or managing work-life balance with an entry for the Career Blog. Submit your entry to Lauren Kozak at kozakl@ wlu.edu.
Recruit on Campus or Regionally In addition to our campus interview programs in Lexington and Charlottesville, W&L Law participates in regional programs in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York. If your employer is not able to participate but is interested in receiving résumés from qualified candidates, Career Planning offers a résumé collection service free of charge. Visit law.wlu.edu/recruit.
Regional Events • Invite students working in your hometown over the summer to alumni and professional events. • Tell OCP about jobs, internships and fellowships you hear of so they can post for students and alumni. • Defray students’ travel expenses while they interview in your city—invite them to dinner or to be a guest in your house. • Conduct a mock interview in your city. For more information about any of these programs, and to suggest other ideas, please contact Lorri Olan, director of career planning, at olanl@wlu.edu or (540) 458-8534.
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Discovery
School A T r a d i t i o n o f I n n o vat i o n
W
ashington and Lee University School of Law has long been an innovator in legal education, and these innovations have allowed the School to build a singular community that educates students for character and challenges them to solve the problems they will face in a complex world. It fosters a desire not simply to act, but to act intelligently and ethically. There is such a thing as a W&L Lawyer. Committed to a liberal arts model of legal education and close student-faculty interaction, W&L was one of the first law schools to introduce small-section legal writing classes and to require an administrative law course and a transnational law course in the first year of law school.  During the second year, students broaden their knowledge of the law, selecting from a wide array of more specialized and rigorous courses, and author a substantive research paper. The School’s groundbreaking third-year program, which combines the demanding study of legal doctrine and analysis with simulated and actual practice experience, has
been hailed by many in both the legal profession and in legal education as the most significant change in law-school curriculum in more than a century. Having an identifiable role for each year of the curriculum and a meaningful progression in learning over the three years are central to W&L’s approach to legal education. It allows the School to produce lawyers who can excel in their practice area in a professional and principled manner from the outset of their careers. This effort is all the more important given fundamental changes in the legal landscape that will remain a challenge for years to come. The School of Law is worthy of your support, your enthusiasm and your passion. Generation after generation of caring faculty, engaged students and generous and committed alumni, parents and friends have made Washington and Lee the extraordinary institution it is today. Together we will ensure that future generations of students graduate with the knowledge and commitment required to work and lead in their world just as past generations did for theirs.
The School of Law is worthy of your support, your enthusiasm and your passion. Generation after generation of caring faculty, engaged students and generous and committed alumni, parents and friends have made Washington and Lee the extraordinary institution it is today.
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of Law C a m pa i g n P r i o r i t i e s Student Financial Aid — $14M
Lewis Hall Renovations — $5M
Financial aid for our students is ever more important. Even though nearly 60 percent of our students receive need-based aid, our third-year students will graduate this spring with an average debt of $110,000. If we are to continue to attract outstanding students to the very special legal education Washington and Lee provides, we must remain committed to assisting many of them financially.
Planning for a major renovation of Lewis Hall is underway. If the School of Law can raise $5 million for this project, the University will provide the remaining funds so this $10 million addition can be completed. The project will provide much-needed common space for the clinics, more small teaching and other working space for specialized courses, including third-year instruction, and at long last an identifiable front entrance to the building adjacent to the parking areas.
Faculty Support — $7M Support for the teaching and scholarly mission of the Law School is vital. The kind of faculty members we seek, dedicated in equal parts to teaching, scholarship and mentoring, are unique. Attracting and retaining these talented individuals, as well as experienced practitioners for our third-year program, is an important priority in the campaign.
Programmatic Support — $3M Gifts in this area will support professionalism education across all three years of the curriculum. Support for clinics, externships and other third-year courses are similarly targeted, including our international programs that enable students to provide legal services and assistance with legal system development around the globe.
Law Annual Fund — $6M A Law Annual Fund gift ensures a secure future for the Law School and supports the foundations of a W&L legal education. These gifts go directly to the Law School for its general operating expenses and support tuition subsidies, law journals and more than forty student-run organizations. These priorities emanated from the strategic planning process led by the law faculty. The campaign kickedoff July 1, 2008, and will conclude June 30, 2015. To learn how you can play a part in the Law School’s future, please contact Elizabeth Outland Branner, Director of Law School Advancement, at (540) 458-8191 or brannere@wlu.edu
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Q&A Discovery
Mark Grunewald
James P. Morefield Professor of Law
Y
Mark Grunewald is serving as interim dean of the Law School for the next two years. He joined the law faculty in 1976 and has taught and written widely on labor and employment law and administrative law.
ou were interim dean about 10 years ago and now have another semester in that position under your belt. How are things going? Do you find it different than last time? Very well, thank you. I think all regular readers of the Law Magazine will understand that in any 10-year period at the Law School, some things will change, almost always for the better, but much will also remain the same. It is just in the nature of the place. Those of us who work and learn here continue to appreciate the opportunity to be a part of a small, but vibrant, academic community in which faculty and students share a commitment to high standards in professional education and at the same time develop important personal values and life-long relationships. But during the past 10 years, the overall environment has certainly become more complex. We have a more elaborate curriculum. We also seek to help students with their needs in more ways—not just educationally, but financially, emotionally and increasingly in navigating paths to employment. This in turn means we have more faculty and staff engaged in more ways by far than 10 years ago. And that necessarily makes administration more complex. But it’s just as interesting and rewarding for me as it was then, and most importantly, the greater complexity has not diminished at all the warmth and collegiality of the Law School for its students, faculty and staff. The biggest change in curriculum is, of course, the new Third-Year Program. How is that working? What kind of reception is it receiving from legal professionals and educators? It, too, is going well. Under the program, as you know, the entire third year is based in experiential education—a combination of legal clinics and externships and legal practice simulations. It is, as we have come to say, teaching students to learn law the way lawyers do, not the way law students do. Last academic year was the first year in which we offered the program in its full form to third-year students. It was optional, but two-thirds of the class chose to participate. This year, it is again optional and again two-thirds of the class is enrolled. Next year, it will be mandatory for all third-year students. We, and the students, learned a lot the first time through. Most things went extraordinarily well, and most students found it to be a valuable addition to their legal education. But no curricular change of that magnitude can be implemented without some challenges. For individual components of the program that did not go as well as we had intended, we have made changes in the current year and
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Having an identifiable role for each year of the program and a meaningful progression in learning over the three years are central to our approach to legal education. judges, I find the vast majority thinks we are clearly on the right track and is anxious for us to succeed. Among legal academics, there may be more skepticism, but each day I learn about moves that other law schools are making in the direction in which we have led. However, it is important that we not view the Third-Year Program in isolation from the first and second years, equally important parts of our overall program. Our first-year curriculum is among the most innovative among national law schools. In addition to the usual set of common law courses, the first year includes administrative law, transnational law, an introduction to professional responsibility and, for each student, writing instruction incorporated into a small section of one of the substantive courses. The second year offers students a wide array of more specialized courses, and includes two additional requirements, constitutional
law and evidence. The first two years are structured so that at the end of the second year, every student is third-yearpractice qualified. Having an identifiable role for each year of the program and a meaningful progression in learning over the three years are central to our approach to legal education. The tough economy has had an impact on most areas of employment. How has it affected legal employment and the job prospects of your students? The effect has been quite dramatic. Not only has there been some loss of legal employment, but also the same conditions have affected the structure of legal practice in some fundamental ways. Law firms have had to adjust both in terms of size and compensation, and even in organization. Some of this, no doubt, is temporary and will adjust again as the economy improves. But some of the change in the landscape of law practice will probably be permanent. It is possible that fewer lawyers will be employed in the ways in which they had been in the past, and the growth and prosperity in the profession may not return to the levels of recent decades. For law students and law faculty and administrators, this is a serious concern, and we are working hard to anticipate change and respond to it sensibly. Our students have felt the impact, and at least for the short term will likely continue to. We have strengthened resources in the career planning area and seek to be ever more creative in helping our students identify legal employment that fits with their interests. The Washington and Lee alumni network has, not surprisingly, been tremendously valuable for us as we, and our students, face these new market conditions. We will continue to reach out to alumni for their assistance in this vital dimension of the Law School’s mission. Another step to practice is passing the bar exam. How are your students doing in that regard? This year we had an uncharacteristically low passage rate on the Virginia bar exam, which roughly 30 percent of our graduates took. We have carefully
analyzed those results and have found no systemic explanation. In fact, our results in other states would suggest the Virginia results this year were aberrational. For example, on the New York exam, which nearly 20 percent of our graduates took, the pass rate was 100 percent, as it was in virtually every other state in which we had graduates sitting for the bar. The public phase of the Capital Campaign has begun. What are the Law School’s priorities?
Q&A Discovery
have seen very positive results. At the same time, we have undertaken through our curriculum committee, as we had committed to from the outset, a thorough and ongoing assessment of the program. The first assessment report will go to the faculty this spring, and we will look carefully at what we have accomplished and what may need to be done going forward. It is really too early to say much about the reception the program is receiving from legal professionals and educators. What we have learned in that regard tends to be anecdotal. In speaking to practicing lawyers and
As the cost of a legal education here and elsewhere continues to rise, financial aid for our students is ever more important. Scholarship grants offset some of the substantial debt most students take on these days in getting a law degree. If we are to continue to attract outstanding students to the very special legal education Washington and Lee provides, we must remain committed to assisting many of them financially. Financial aid endowment is, in fact, the largest single priority in the Law School campaign. Support for the teaching and scholarly mission of the Law School is, of course, vital. Funds for professorships, research, and course development are therefore an important priority in the campaign. Support for clinics, externships and other third-year courses are similarly targeted. Finally, but just as importantly, a major renovation of Lewis Hall is on the drawing boards. The project will provide much-needed common space for the clinics, more small teaching and other working space for specialized courses, including third-year instruction, additional faculty offices, and at long last an identifiable front entrance to the building adjacent to the parking areas. What is the timeline for the dean search? We will begin organizing the dean search in the spring semester and will use the summer to activate it fully. By early next fall semester, it should be in high gear, and by later in the semester, we anticipate finalists will have been identified. We expect to announce the appointment in time for the new dean to take office on July 1, 2012. Winter
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Faculty Accomplishments Discovery
Johanna Bond published “Gender, Discourse, and Customary Law in Africa” in the Southern California Law Review and made several presentations on related topics, including African marriage law and the problem of early marriage. She spoke at William & Mary, the University of Florida and the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law. You can read her blog commentary at intlawgrrls.blogspot.com. Christopher Bruner traveled to Russia with a team of corporate law experts to hold discussions on corporate and securities law with several judges and other representatives of the Supreme Arbitrazh Court, as well as representatives of Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development. In addition to his presentations in Russia, Bruner spoke at Indiana University-Bloomington Maurer School of Law and the Southeastern Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting on post-crisis corporate governance reform efforts. Bruner also participated in an online forum on the SEC’s new proxy access rule at The Conglomerate, a widely followed blog focusing on corporate law and securities regulation. Mark Drumbl presented his work on international criminal law in public lectures to the law faculties at Melbourne,
Johanna Bond
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Sydney, Monash, Bond and Australian National universities. Drumbl was the keynote speaker at the Melbourne Journal of International Law Annual Commemoration and the Rethinking International Criminal Conference held at the University of Sydney. He wrote a book chapter on child soldiers in Collective Violence and International Criminal Justice—An Interdisciplinary Approach. He gave a radio interview to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the case of Omar Khadr and whether child soldiers should be held accountable for war crimes. Susan Franck published a book chapter, “Considering Recalibration of International Investment Agreements: Empirical Insights,” in The Evolving International Investment Regime, and an article, “The Crossroads of Investment Arbitration,” in the American Society of International Law Proceedings. She made presentations on international investment law topics, including empirically assessing ICSID, in Australia, Switzerland, France and Germany. Franck also co-organized the major annual conference for the American Society of International Law, International Economic Law Interest Group. The conference, titled International Economic Law in a Time of Change: Reassessing
Lyman Johnson
Legal Theory, Doctrine, Methodology and Policy Prescriptions, was held in Minneapolis in November. Lyman Johnson published “CounterNarrative in Corporate Law: Saints and Sinners, Apostles and Epistles” in the Michigan State Law Review and gave a number of corporate law talks, including presentations at Emory Law School and the University of St. Thomas School of Law. Johnson also co-authored an amicus brief in a case now being heard before the U.S. Supreme Court, Matrixx Initiatives Inc. v. Siracusano, involving the over-the-counter nasal spray Zicam and a securities fraud claim under Rule 10b-5. Johnson served as an expert witness on corporate law issues for the plaintiff in a trial in Louisville, Ky., that resulted in a $9.4 million verdict for the plaintiff. Tim Jost has continued his work as a consumer representative with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and as an expert on the Affordable Care Act. He has given presentations at the Federal Bar Association in New Orleans; the Hobby Center in Austin, Texas; Princeton University; the University of Pennsylvania; and in Washington. He published a second paper with the Commonwealth Fund
Jeff Kahn
Jeff Kahn published Principles of Corporate Income Taxation (Thomson/ West). Kahn presented his paper “Tax Penalties,” which discusses the tax implications of the Affordable Care Act individual mandate, at several faculty workshops at law schools around the country.
tion to the Fourth Amendment” in the Memphis Law Review. He was a presenter and panelist at the 2010 National Black Lung Conference and a recipient of the 2010-2011 Law Alumni Association Faculty Fellowship in Teaching Excellence. David Millon published a legal history study, Select Ecclesiastical Cases from the King’s Courts, 1272-1307, as well as an invited comment in the Texas Law Review titled “The Still-Elusive Quest to Make Sense of Veil-Piercing.” Millon was appointed to the board of directors of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools.
Erik Luna published “Mandatory Minimalism” in the Cardozo Law Review and presented expert testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on crimes against the homeless. Luna was interviewed by The Economist regarding overcriminalization in the United States and was quoted in The Atlantic regarding alternatives to prison incarceration, including the increasing use of GPS monitoring devices.
Jim Moliterno published “What the ICJ’s Decision Means to Kosovars” in the German Law Journal. He participated in an ABA Roundtables looking at efforts to revise the Standards for the Defense and Prosecutor Functions. He also made numerous presentations on legal education reform and W&L’s innovative third-year curriculum, including talks at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools annual conference and the Future of Legal Education II conference at Harvard Law School.
Tim MacDonnell published “Orwellian Ramifications: the Contraband Excep-
Adam Scales has been invited by the American Law Institute (ALI) to serve
Tim MacDonnell
as an advisor on the organization’s Principles of the Law of Liability Insurance project. ALI principles projects are usually addressed to courts, legislatures or governmental agencies and attempt to express the law as it should be, rather than how it may currently be put into practice. In this case, the project will develop principles of contract law in the liability insurance context, principles of liability insurance coverage and principles of the management of insured liabilities. Scott Sundby published articles on how capital juries reach unanimity in the Hastings Law Journal, on the educational role of the exclusionary rule in a symposium edition of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and on the history of the exclusionary rule in a symposium edition of the Texas Tech Law Review. In addition, Sundby made presentations to W&L’s Law & Literature Conference on Richard Wright’s Native Son, to the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office on capital juries, to the Vanderbilt Criminal Law Roundtable and to the Federal Death Penalty Strategy Session in Austin, Texas.
Faculty Accomplishments Discovery
on exchanges and published articles and blog posts with the New England Journal of Medicine and Health Affairs. He continues to be interviewed on health-care reform by the national media, and in a single day this fall was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and on National Public Radio.
Robin Wilson published “Trusting Mothers: A Critique of the American Law Institute’s Treatment of De Facto Parents,” in the Hofstra Law Review, and “Privatizing Family Law in the Name of Religion,” in the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Wilson also published an article in the American Journal of Law and Medicine and gave several presentations related to her work on the case of Jesse Gelsinger, the first person to die in a human gene therapy trial. She traveled to Turkey to address the International Academy of Nanomedicine, Second World Congress, on “Enlarging the Regulation of Shrinking Cosmetics and Sunscreens.”
Adam Scales
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Should Video Games Be Regulated? The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger. At issue is whether state law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors violates the First Amendment right to free speech. Professors Robin Wilson and Josh Fairfield offer their perspectives.
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On a summer night in 2008, four Long Island teens decided to mimic the video game Grand Theft Auto. They needed victims. The boys first mugged a man at a bus stop, beating him and breaking his teeth. Then, after breaking into garages for bats and crowbars, they attempted to carjack two unsuspecting victims. But their spree quickly ended when witnesses called the police, who arrested the teens. For many people, these teens exemplify the dangers posed to children—and others—from easily available, gratuitously violent video games. Motivated by news of rampaging teens, legislatures in California, Washington and Illinois have banned the sales of violent video games to minors, only to see federal courts invalidate those bans on First Amendment grounds. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger. Legislative bans draw support from a growing body of empirical research suggesting that children who play violent games may become violent themselves. Across a series of studies, playing videogames exerted a “small” effect on physical aggression and a “moderate” effect on aggressive thinking. But these studies are few and imperfect, as the Surgeon’s General’s Report on Youth Violence noted in 2001: “[T]here have been none on serious violence, and none has been longitudinal.” In the real world, even small correlations can lead to big effects. For example, if 1 of every 1,000 players of violent games later demonstrates violent tendencies, then among a million players, approximately 10,000 will demonstrate aggressive behavior. Of course, correlation and causation are two different things. Not every teenager who plays violent video games will feel the impulse to imitate the violent acts depicted, as the Long Island teens did. Still, the strength of the relationship between violent games and aggressive behavior is stronger than even the relationship between homework and academic achievement or between calcium intake and bone strength—two areas where we believe it is rational to promote the underlying behaviors. Indeed, all public health campaigns are premised on promoting or discouraging behaviors that correlate with good or bad outcomes.
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Legislative efforts to restrict the access of minors have not fared well to date. A federal district court in 2004 struck down Washington’s law and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Illinois’ law in 2006. Despite this daunting track record, California nonetheless sought to protect children from exposure to materials lacking substantive value.
Robin Wilson is the Class of 1958 Law Alumni Professor of Law and co-editor of the Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage 2006).
Ironically, the Supreme Court grappled with the limits of available research in 1968 when it upheld New York’s ban on selling obscene materials to children. In Ginsberg, the Court credited a “growing consensus” that obscene materials harm children even if “a causal link has not been demonstrated” because “a causal link has not been disproved either.” The Court emphatically declared, “We do not demand of legislatures scientifically certain criteria of legislation.” In 1968, the Court carved out an exception to the First Amendment to advance child welfare, and in a few months we will know whether the Court is willing to do so again.
Now, the Supreme Court must decide if California’s ban on the sale of violent video games to minors meets constitutional muster. On appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, California argued that it can impose restrictions on minors because of the potential psychological harms caused by violent video games, just as it can restrict minors from purchasing obscene materials under the Supreme Court’s 1968 ruling in Ginsberg v. New York. Declining to extend Ginsberg to violent materials, the Ninth Circuit subjected California’s ban to strict scrutiny and found the state’s evidence less than compelling: the state lacked evidence showing a causal, rather than a correlational, relationship between violent video games and violent behavior.
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We should not be surprised by California legislators’ claims that video Moreover, the science that California used to show that video games should be regulated. Each form of new media has been subject games cause increased aggression in minors also shows that minors to overblown attempts to legislate content, based on some version of suffer the same effects when told Bible stories, or when they are merely shown a picture of a gun. Every court to have examined video the argument that this medium is different; that this medium uniquely game regulation to date has gotten this one right. As one court noted, affects children. Plays, novels, comic books, movies and television “[t]he Court finds that the Legislature’s belief that video games cause have all been accused of corrupting the youth. We should resist the violence, particularly violence against law enforcement officers, is not cliché this time around. Law, science and the realities of the gaming based on reasonable inferences drawn from substantial evidence.” industry all point away from giving in to the urge to legislate morality. The U.S. Supreme Court in Ginsberg established a special The court just barely touched on two huge issues that go exception to the First Amendment to the realities of the video-game regarding children and sexually industry—first, how content for games obscene materials. But every lower is produced, and second, how games court so far has rejected such a special are now distributed. The oral argument exception when it comes to violence reads as though we were discussing the and children. The real issue here is game industry of 20 years ago—one in that video games are not exceptional which video game makers are like movie directors and control the content of media—they are a medium like any their creations, and one in which games other. If the state was free to regulate are sold over the counter rather than by violent content in movies under the digital distribution. Both ideas are now obscenity standard it wants to apply very much out of date. video games, it would render obscene movies like Gladiator, Saving Private Video-game makers are increasingly Ryan and The Last Temptation providing the ability for users to of Christ, to say nothing of Gov. generate their own content. When Schwarzenegger’s own movies. this content is sexual, government organizations still count it as content Rather than expand obscenity, the of the game. This approach puts game court might hold that the California manufacturers on the hook for content law satisfies strict scrutiny. In Josh Fairfield is director of the Frances Lewis Law Center they had nothing, or next to nothing, Schwarzenegger, the trial court and has published widely on the law and regulation to do with. And if you think userfound that protecting children from of e-commerce and video games. generated sexual content is bad, think violence is a compelling state interest. about violence. The first thing that And there is a possibility that the users do when they get a game’s toolset is blow stuff up, kill people justices could find that the California law is the least restrictive means or some combination of the two. How in the world can a videotowards achieving that end if they decide Internet content filters are game manufacturer protect itself against the California law if it can’t ineffective. However, if restricting children’s access to violence meets control the content of its own game? strict scrutiny, much of the framework of free speech online will come undone. There are many things online that children should not see. The court’s understanding of distribution is also outdated. The California should not be permitted to set functionally worldwide laws sales clerk is gone. Many video games are now delivered directly to to regulate all of these forms of speech. the user’s computer by download. How is a video-game download service going to know whether or not they are selling to a minor in California expressly conceded at oral argument that it does not California? Ban all sales to California IP addresses? Proxies are easy believe video games cause criminal behavior. Rather, California cited and effective. Rely on the use of a credit card as a proxy for age? The a series of studies that have been used by legislatures (and uniformly statute doesn’t provide for an exception on those grounds. rejected by courts) to show that video games may be correlated with increased aggression in children. More notably, the studies do California is attempting to regulate an industry that is rapidly not account for the question of whether violent video games make changing in ways that make the statute at issue highly questionable. children aggressive or whether aggressive children simply enjoy Neither the law nor the science is on their side. The Supreme Court is violent video games. unlikely to give California what it asked for.
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10th Anniversary Celebrating a Decade in Print W&L LAW: Washington and Lee School of Law Magazine sprang to life in the fall of 2000, with the purpose of reflecting the intellectual pursuits of faculty, highlighting the achievements of graduates who enhance our national reputation, discussing issues pertinent to the Law School and reporting the news of the institution. The magazine has covered a lot of ground—here’s a summary of what appeared in the first five years.
Fall 2000
David Partlett becomes dean of the Law School. In his column in this début issue, he explains that the print publication will enable him and the School to communicate better with its alumni and other constituencies. The issue features profiles on Robert Ray ’85L, head of the Office of Independent Counsel, and Marie Coukos ’89L, assistant general counsel of the New England Patriots.
Spring 2001
The Law School goes wireless. The magazine coverers the aftermath of the Bush v. Gore election, focusing on Tim Keefer ’98L and Richard Smith ’98L, who sequestered themselves in Hotel Tallahassee to work on the GOP’s motion to dismiss the Democrats’ request for a mandatory recount of ballots. Loranne Ausley ’90L is elected to the Florida House of Representatives. Professor Uncas McThenia ’58, ’63L retires.
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Fall 2001
The magazine introduces law alumni to the public phase of A Campaign For The Rising Generation. Strategic goals include updating the technology, enhancing financial aid and recruiting top-notch faculty.
Spring 2002
A national trend of more women applying to law school held true for W&L. In the fall of 2001, women composed 47 percent of the first-year class. In the wake of 9/11, Professors Mark Drumbl, Roger Groot and Rick Kirgis offer opinions on whether international tribunals should be considered.
Spring 2004 Fall 2002
This issue features stories on former Dean Roy Steinheimer; Doug Ammar ’88L, director of the Georgia Legal Justice Project; and Professor David Million talking about the Enron pension disaster.
The issue covers six alumni who serve as government prosecutors; Professor Brian Murchison and an interdisciplinary class on Media Law, made possible by a gift from Charles S. Rowe ’45, ’50L; and a roundtable discussion on 30 years of sports czardom.
Fall 2004 Spring 2003
The Law School introduces the Center for Law and History, covers networking among alumni and examines the contributions of Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell ’28, ’31L to affirmative action. A feature highlights law alumni who have careers outside the legal system.
Fall 2003
International education takes off, with a new international legal studies program at the Law School. The School builds on exchange programs with law schools in Germany and Ireland, while a new LL.M. program welcomes foreign lawyers to campus. The VC3, headed by Professor Roger Groot, joins the defense team of sniper Lee Boyd Malvo. The School also dedicates a renovated classroom, thanks to the generosity of Ruth and John Huss ’65L, in honor of Robert E.R. Huntley ’50, ’57L, former professor and dean of the Law School and former president of W&L.
Robert Grey ’76L becomes the 128th president of the ABA, the sixth law alumnus to hold the position. The magazine follows the election bids of Lexington locals David Natkin ’83L running against Robert “Bucky” Joyce ’81L for Commonwealth’s attorney and Bob Goodlatte ’77L running for another term representing Virginia’s Sixth District. Larry Framme ’74L, Susan Swecker ’91L and Jerrauld Jones ’80L campaign hard in Virginia for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Spring 2005
Students from the class of ’05L create the groundwork to launch the Shepherd Loan Repayment Assistance Program that will provide financial help to graduates entering the public service sector. Profiles include Sandy McNabb ’59L and his work on behalf of American Indians, Patricia McNerney ’94L as senior advisor to Under Secretary John Bolton and Donald E. Williams ’86L as president pro tempore of the Connecticut State senate. W&L hosts a symposium exploring the controversy over unpublished opinions, with the Hon. Samuel A. Alito, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as the keynote speaker.
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Clearing Up the Mortgage Mess BY JACOB GEIGER ’10
“Some day, some teacher will wake up and discover— through no fault of her own—that she has no pension,” said Talcott Franklin ’95L in an interview on MSNBC in October. “I was in a position to do something about it, so I’m doing something about it.”
Where you’re really going to see the hit is off in the future in a few years, when there’s no money to pay your life insurance policy, or when your pension is gone, or when your mutual fund is unable to pay you the interest rate they promised you.
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In the past few months, Franklin has become the leading advocate for investors in soured mortgage-backed securities—those toxic assets backed by subprime mortgages that brought the global financial system to its knees just two years ago. And because mortgage-backed bonds are widely held by insurance companies, endowments, pensions, charities and mutual funds, the impact will be widespread. “Where you’re really going to see the hit is off in the future in a few years, when there’s no money to pay your life insurance policy, or when your pension is gone, or when your mutual fund is unable to pay you the interest rate they promised you,” Franklin said. Earlier this year, Franklin left an equity partnership at Patton Boggs, which he joined in 2003, to represent investors reported to range from PIMCO and BlackRock to Fannie Mae (Franklin will not confirm any entity is a client based on confidentiality restrictions). He has six lawyers to assist him, including Shannon Brown ’92L, and formed his own firm, Talcott Franklin P.C. He does most of the work from his home in Dallas, where he lives with his wife, Jennifer Thomason Franklin ’95L, the former assistant general counsel at Lennox International Inc., and their three daughters, Charlotte, Virginia and Ava.
If lawyers for the nation’s largest banks and investment banks don’t know Talcott Franklin ’95L, they soon will. As of Nov. 1, 2010, Franklin is representing clients who hold more than $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities, an amount worth more than one-third of the outstanding mortgage-backed holdings in the world.
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Franklin, who grew up in Oregon, arrived in Lexington with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology from the University of Washington, with an emphasis on quantitative research. He considered continuing at Washington for his law degree, but a donation by the late Robert Banse ’53L, a former member of W&L’s Board of Trustees and Law Council and one-time general counsel of Merck & Co., brought him east. “I was the very first Banse scholar, and Bob and Anne came down to visit me after I got the scholarship. Bob came down my second year when I made Law Review, and again when I became editor in chief of the Law Review,” Franklin said. The relationship continued after graduation, and Franklin dedicated the book he co-authored on securitization, Mortgage and Asset Backed Securities Litigation Handbook, to Banse’s memory. After working at Hunton & Williams L.L.P. in Charlotte, N.C., Franklin moved to Dallas, where he joined Susman Godfrey L.L.P. and focused on plaintiff class-action work. An offer to create an intellectual property program at American Airlines followed. “It was really challenging, and the airline industry is fascinating,” Franklin said. “It has a lot in common with securitization because it is quite complicated, and I was having a lot of fun there. Then Sept. 11 happened, and the airline industry came under severe stress, so intellectual property became less important. I remember that Trey Nicoud, the assistant general counsel for my group, called me at home one evening and asked, ‘Who in your group could be laid off?’” Recalls Nicoud: “Without hesitation, Tal said, ‘You can lay me off.’ That took courage and maturity.” Franklin moved to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld L.L.P., and wound up serving as primary litigator for the firm’s large, mortgage-backed security practice. From there he joined Patton Boggs, intending to leave the field of securitization law behind and focus on intellectual property, because he did not want to take clients away from Akin Gump. “Essentially I forgot all about it,” says Franklin. “But three or four months went by, and I started getting calls from clients.” Little wonder. “Tal wrote the authoritative treatise on securitization litigation,” says Micah Green, the former president of The Bond Market Association and current public policy partner at Patton Boggs. “When you talk to him about these very complicated issues, his depth of understanding comes through immediately.”
Franklin finds securitization a fascinating area of the law, one that “affects the entire economy, as we’ve now seen.” As worthless mortgage-backed holdings brought down the nation’s largest banking houses, causing some to fail and forcing others into shotgun marriages with the government, Franklin thought his 16
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phone would be ringing off the hook. “When this whole subprime crisis began to unfold, I thought, ‘I’m going to be so busy because investors are going to call me, since I’m one of the few litigators who knows how mortgagebacked securitization works and doesn’t represent the big banks.’ But nobody called, and virtually no lawsuits were filed.” He soon figured out why. A closer look at a pending Congressional bill revealed that originators of mortgages would have safe harbor from mortgage repurchases when a loan was modified, even if fraud had been committed during the loan origination. Investors would have few ways to recoup their losses. When a client asked Franklin if he knew any lobbyists who could help fight the bill, he and Green— with the assistance of investors—stormed Capitol Hill to gut the safe harbor provision. It was the ongoing conversations with his clients, however, that revealed why those same mortgage investors weren’t filing lawsuits—they had no reliable way to communicate with each other, in the way equity investors can to force change. “You often need at least 25 percent of the stakeholders to take any action, and if they didn’t know who else was invested, then they couldn’t act as a unit,” explained Franklin. “So, I suggested that if everyone would hire me and tell me what their holdings were, with their consent, I could match them up and introduce them.” Patton Boggs decided not to pursue the venture, so Franklin struck out on his own and created a clearinghouse where investors receive legal advice on a collective basis without revealing proprietary trade information. And by July 23, less than eight months after he left Patton Boggs, Franklin was representing clients who held more than $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities, an amount worth more than one-third of the outstanding mortgage-backed holdings in the world.
Although Franklin’s clients range from state pension funds to government entities to for-profit asset managers, he said it has been easy to build a consensus. “They are all being harmed in some way, so it’s not that difficult to get them focused on the damage being done,” Franklin said. It helps, he added, that “in most instances each deal will have bigger holders and smaller holders. And, generally speaking, the person with the most at risk has more influence over the process.” Franklin usually sits down to negotiate with loan originators and servicers—often different arms of the same large bank— when he has assembled 25 percent of the security holders by value. If the security holders are unhappy with a servicer’s actions, they can ask the securitization’s independent trustee
to take action. With backing from 50 percent of the holders on a securitization, a trustee can be removed, securitizations can be amended and servicers can be replaced. To date, Franklin said, banks have fought these efforts rather than trying to negotiate a solution. The end result, if many of his clients have their way, could be massive repurchases of these toxic securities by the issuing banks. Repurchases have already cost the four largest U.S. banks as much as $9.8 billion, and costs could go far higher. Franklin has four significant lawsuits moving through various courts (the estimated damages for one of the suits is $6 – $10 billion), with far more cases proceeding behind the scenes. He’s signed up investors holding more than 25 percent of the voting rights in about 3,100 private-label, residential, mortgage-backed security deals; 50 percent of the voting rights in more than 1,400 deals; and more than 66 percent of the voting rights in more than 800 deals. So far, Franklin said, “The banks are refusing to deal with
an enormous liability and are going to keep it hanging over their heads as long as humanly possible. Unwinding these securitizations is likely to take years. Bank of America has essentially said, ‘We have thousands of people devoted to fighting these warranty claims.’ I don’t think the strategy is a good one. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put those people to work on loan modifications to help keep people in their homes? It’s better for the country and the market.” As mortgage-backed securities have moved from an obscure financial product to part of the national lexicon, Franklin has seen his area of expertise recognized by people he never thought would care. “Three years ago, when people asked what I did, I just said I was a lawyer. People got very bored when they heard about securitization. But recently a worker came to my house to check my furnace, and he asked what I did. I asked him if he knew what a mortgage-backed security was, and he said, ‘Yeah, they’re those things that screwed up the country.’ ”
Bank of America has essentially said, “We have thousands of people devoted to fighting these warranty claims.” I don’t think the strategy is a good one. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put those people to work on loan modifications to help keep people in their homes? It’s better for the country and the market.
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Score! Jeff Carey ’83L challenges the NFL in the Supreme Court and wins 9-0 BY JASON BACAJ ’10
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Is the NFL one big entity or 32 separate teams? That’s the question merchandise prices, labor negotiations and ticket prices. “The Jeff Carey ’83L, in-house counsel to American Needle Inc., single greatest expenditure for NFL teams is player salaries; unexpectedly raised when he filed a lawsuit against the NFL teams the single greatest revenue source is the television and other after they awarded an exclusive, 10-year licensing contract to transmission of games,” Carey noted. “Had the NFL won, the Reebok in 2001. That deal, said Carey, violated antitrust laws. But, players’ union would have lost its greatest weapon against the in a development that surprised Carey, the U.S. District Court in owners—its ability to decertify and sue the NFL under the Chicago, as well as the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled Sherman Act. The union could have been broken. And, while that the NFL and its teams constituted a “single entity,” effectively the teams have a statutory exemption from the antitrust laws, immunizing them from the antitrust suit. the Sports Broadcasting Act, that “The NFL and other sports leagues allows them to sell traditional television had been pushing the idea that they are broadcast rights together, the exemption single entities for years, but the courts is a limited one that does not cover had consistently rejected the claim,” many of the newer technologies and Carey explained. He decided to ask the distribution media, like cable, satellite U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, and the Internet. Were the teams held to and in a move that surprised many be a single entity, the effect would be to observers, even though the NFL had won remove the limits in the SBA and permit the lawsuit, the league supported Carey’s the league to sell all transmission rights petition for certiorari. as a group. The league could simply have As the controversial case made run itself and its 32 teams as a monopoly its way to the Supreme Court, the without any immediate repercussions.” entire sports world—the MLB, NBA, That’s why Carey was not surprised NHL, all their players’ associations, that the NFL supported his petition sports pundits and fans—as well as the for certiorari. “The league’s strategy,” Prior to joining American Needle Inc. in 2002, antitrust legal community—watched for Jeff Carey ’83L worked with Mayer, Brown & Platt, explained Carey, “was to try to extend a Chicago-based international firm, a ruling that could potentially change the the broad antitrust exemption implicit for eight years before resigning his partnership legal landscape, not only of the sports in the lower courts’ rulings beyond the to start his own practice. world but also of joint ventures more Seventh Circuit to the entire nation and generally. Sports Illustrated called it one beyond headwear licensing to all of the of the most important cases in sports history. teams’ business dealings. The potential upside to the NFL of a Carey, who joined American Needle in 2002, said that favorable ruling from the Supreme Court was enormous.” the NFL’s exclusive contract created a monopoly, preventing Carey began working on the lawsuit six years ago, shortly after his company and other headwear and apparel manufacturers joining American Needle. Working the case from an in-house from negotiating with individual NFL teams to produce their lawyer’s perspective has given Carey, who had tired of litigating merchandise. He noted that Reebok, without that competition, as outside counsel, the luxury of exploring in depth the legal and began charging higher prices. “The NFL and its teams are subject economic policies underlying the antitrust laws. “I lived the case, to antitrust law just like any other business,” Carey said. and I’ve experienced it at a lot of levels,” Carey said. “It’s been very Had the high court deemed the NFL and its 32 teams to interesting, though it didn’t go the way I thought it would go. be a single entity, the consequences would have been dramatic. When I filed, I figured I’d be facing off against 33 of the world’s At stake was free agency, players’ salaries, broadcast rights, largest firms (one for each of the 32 teams and one for the league)
When I filed, I figured I’d be facing off against 33 of the world’s largest firms (one for each of the 32 teams and one for the league) and that they would just paper me to death. What I didn’t expect was to have to litigate the league’s so-called single-entity defense.
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and that they would just paper me to death. What I didn’t expect was to have to litigate the league’s so-called single-entity defense.” The process of moving his case to the Supreme Court was new to Carey. He had handled the case personally in the trial court and before the Seventh Circuit and decided to file the certiorari petition himself. As the filing deadline approached, he found himself with two drafts—one long and academic and one concisely limited to arguing that the Seventh Circuit’s decision was at odds with all of the existing precedent and had rejected any consideration of the economic competition between the teams. He conferred with his wife, Johnnie DeWilde ’83L, on which one to file. “My gut was to go with the short one,” Carey said. “The one thing I focused on more than anything else was how much time a litigant actually gets from a judge—or a justice in certain circumstances. How many hours is he going to take on this brief? Is she even going to spend an hour on it?” Carey recalled a conversation he had with Mark Grunewald, his former professor and the Law School’s current interim dean, in connection with a labor-seminar contract-negotiation project. “I had drafted our group’s collective bargaining agreement using a very formal format, much like the Uniform Commercial Code, an oddity on which Grunewald commented. I expressed the view that if a labor contract were written carefully enough, its meaning would be clear and there would be little or no need for arbitration to interpret it. With just the hint of skepticism, Grunewald responded, ‘You’ll have to let me know if that works out.’ Well, it didn’t—six months after I negotiated, and carefully wrote, my first real-life collective bargaining agreement, I found myself a witness in an arbitration trying to explain what had been so clear to me when I wrote it.” The point of the story? “No matter how right you are and how well you explain it, there is always someone out there who won’t understand. Sometimes you just have to let it go and hope.” Carey decided to keep American Needle’s petition short and to the point, using only a third of the pages he was allotted. When the Supreme Court asked the solicitor general for the government’s position on the case, Carey knew it was time to bring in the experts. He engaged Glen Nager and Meir Feder, Supreme Court practitioners from Jones Day, to present the case to the court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and,
on May 24, 2010, issued a unanimous decision in favor of American Needle. The court’s ruling was limited to the narrow issue that Carey had presented in the certiorari petition. “I just don’t think the court was influenced by any of those other concerns about players’ leagues, and so on,” Carey said. “The court handled the case strictly on its view of antitrust law and let the consequences follow.” The court agreed with American Needle’s position that its claims should be analyzed under a standard that antitrust lawyers call the “rule of reason” to determine whether the NFL’s licensing practices harmed competition. Justice John Paul Stevens, now retired, explained in the court’s opinion that “a nut and bolt can only operate together, but an agreement between nut and bolt manufacturers is still subject to [1890 Sherman Antitrust Act] scrutiny.” The court’s unanimous ruling in favor of American Needle sends the case back to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which had ruled for the NFL in 2008. The three-judge panel had determined that by promoting NFL football through collective licensing, the NFL was promoting football in competition with other forms of entertainment and thus acting as an economic unit that should be considered a single entity. Justice Stevens dismissed that reasoning, writing, “To a firm making hats, the Saints and the Colts are two potentially competing suppliers of valuable trademarks.” Allowing the league to license independently owned trademarks to a single vendor would deprive the marketplace “of actual or potential competition.” So the question remains: Did the NFL’s exclusive contract with Reebok harm competition? According to Carey, the answer is still yes. “We won 9-0, so we’re right back where we started six years ago,” Carey said. “I’m still very confident that we will win on the merits.” Carey has only the highest of praise for the Jones Day Supreme Court lawyers and was particularly impressed by Nager’s oral argument. Still, he occasionally is asked whether he would have preferred to argue the case himself. “I have never regretted letting Glen do it,” said Carey. “I’m arrogant, but not foolish.”
The one thing I focused on more than anything else was how much time a litigant actually gets from a judge or a justice in certain circumstances. How many hours is he going to take on this brief? Is she even going to spend an hour on it?
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Michael Michaeles (’65) has been elected to the prestigious American Board of Trial Advocates, the national organization whose aim is to foster improvement in the ethical and technical standards of practice in the field of advocacy. Membership is by invitation only. Michaeles, who practices in Worcester, Mass., has been involved in a wide variety of cases, several of which been featured in national jury verdict publications, Newsweek, the New York Times, USA Today, the Boston Herald, as well as national T.V. He regularly gives seminars to the local bar on trial prcatice and techniques.
In October, Linda Klein ’83L (pictured with Interim Dean Mark Grunewald, left, and Robert Grey ’76L) returned to campus as an honorary inductee into the Order of the Coif. Klein is managing shareholder of the Georgia offices of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Cadwell & Berkowitz and a member of the firm’s board of directors. In August 2010, Linda Klein ’83L was sworn in for the 2010-2012 term as chair of the ABA House of Delegates, the second most powerful position in the organization. As she said to the Women Law Students Organization during her October visit to campus, “Never be afraid to think big—seize the bully pulpit.” It’s a mantra she’s taken to heart. As a young lawyer, fresh out of W&L, Klein moved to Atlanta, where she didn’t know anyone. So she joined the Atlanta bar association and volunteered to survey members on the new uniform rules of court. “I’m sitting here before you having achieved all that I have because I took a job no one wanted,” she explained. “I did the survey, wrote an article summarizing my findings and got it published. Suddenly, I had credibility.” From there, she took on more responsibility, both at her firm, where she practices business dispute resolution, and with local non-profits and the ABA. In 1997, Klein became the first woman to serve as president of the state bar of Georgia. A year later, Georgia Trend Magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful and influential Georgians. The awards piled up quickly: The Margaret Brent Achievement Award and the Randolph Thrower Award for Lifetime Achievement, not to mention being named a Georgia Super Lawyer and one of the top 50 women lawyers in Georgia annually since 2004. Klein spends all seven days of the week at her profession. “I love doing this, and if you do what you love, then your practice fills in around you.” Her advice to the students: “You’re spending a fortune to become a lawyer. Don’t let anyone deny you your right to work. You’ve been investing in yourself at school. Don’t stop after law school—keep building your credentials. Make sure you are paid fairly, that you get equal benefits and equal opportunities.”
1964L
Thomas W. Budd (’61) retired
from Clifton, Budd & DeMaria L.L.P. in January but will remain of counsel to the firm. His business, Budd Consulting, is located in Leland, N.C., where he spends most of his time.
Stanley A. Fink and his wife, Fay,
celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in June 2010 with a second honeymoon cruise adventure in Alaska. Both continue to work at Fink Rosner Ershow-Levenberg L.L.C. and enjoy spending time with their grandchildren in Atlanta. They live in Clark, N.J., and Atlanta.
Class Notes
1968L
1970L
James J. Winn Jr. joined the George C. Marshall Foundation board of trustees. He lives in Baltimore.
1976L
Hiram Ely III joined the law firm of
Middleton Reutlinger in Louisville, Ky. He will concentrate his practice in commercial and business litigation. He has more than 30 years of busi-
In his posthumously published memoir, Going to Windward (Texas A&M University Press), The Hon. Robert A. Mosbacher Sr. ’47, ’49L shares the ups and downs of his life as an avid champion sailor, a businessman, a political player in Texas and U.S. Secretary for Commerce under President George H. W. Bush. Winter
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Class Notes
1982L
ness litigation experience, including as lead counsel in more than 50 jury trials. Ely serves as outside general counsel for several businesses and is a certified mediator and arbitrator, and a listed neutral for the American Health Lawyers Association and the National Arbitration Forum.
Anne Sumpter Arney, an expe-
rienced attorney in health-care law, became a partner in the law firm Bone McAllester Norton P.L.L.C. in its Nashville, Tenn., office.
1983L
Richard H. Middleton Jr. (’73)
Linda A. Klein is one of 14 new
is a member of a legal team that was a finalist for the 2010 Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year. The team represented a Missouri community in an eight-year-long case that ended with a jury verdict of more than $11 million for 15 residents.
members of the Buckhead Coalition in Atlanta. She is a managing shareholder with Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz L.P.
1992L
Michael Scott Carlson, a DeKalb
Thomas L. Sansonetti, a partner at Holland & Hart law firm, now leads its Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Practice group, which is ranked as the best natural resources practice in the country by Best Lawyers in America. Sansonetti lives in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Denver.
1977L
Theodore D. Grosser was named a
2011 Cincinnati Best Lawyers Mergers and Acquisitions Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers. Grosser is a corporate and commercial lawyer in Porter Wright’s Cincinnati, Ohio, office, representing both private and public companies in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and a host of complex strategic transactions.
1979L
Matthew J. Calvert (’75), a
partner in the litigation and intellectual property practice in the Atlanta office of Hunton & Williams L.L.P., was appointed board president of Atlanta Legal Aid Society Inc. Calvert has previously served in all Atlanta Legal Aid executive committee positions and has been a member of its board of directors since 2004. He has devoted much of his pro bono efforts to domestic and family law matters, primarily child custody and divorce cases.
John A. Cocklereece Jr. (’76) is
in the 2011 edition of Best Lawyers in America. Cocklereece works for Bell, Davis & Pitt in Winston-Salem, N.C., and concentrates his practice in tax law. 22
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M. Marcy Jones ’95L published Graceful Divorce Solutions: A Comprehensive and Proactive Guide to Saving You Time, Money and Your Sanity (BCH Fulfillment & Distribution), which offers “practical and compassionate solutions for achieving a better divorce process.” She has worked as a prosecutor of sexual assault and domestic violence cases, as an associate in a law firm, and now as a solo practitioner specializing in collaborative divorce law in Lynchburg, Va. Jones also does coaching and consulting, specializing in helping women lawyers find a work-life balance. Her web site is mmarcyjones.com.
County, Ga., deputy chief assistant district attorney, became a master of the Joseph Henry Lumpkin American Inn of Court associated with the University of Georgia School of Law. Previously, Carlson was in private practice focusing on civil litigation and media law. He has been published in legal journals, and he lectures and teaches trial practice, evidence law and criminal procedure.
Howard Smyser retired from the
Idaho judiciary in January. The Idaho Supreme Court has appointed him a senior judge, and he will continue hearing cases on a selected basis as needed in the Boise area.
Peter G. Strasser transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad after four years at the U.S. Embassy in Malawi.
1980L
Lesley Brown Schless joined the
firm of Shipman & Goodwin as a partner in the trusts and estates practice group. Lesley and her husband, Eric Schless ’80L, have lived in Greenwich, Conn., for 16 years. Their daugher, Karina, graduated from W&L in 2007.
Kent Basson ’01L published The OddShoeFinder.com Shoe Wearer’s Handbook. The book promotes OddShoeFinder.com, his web site that matches people with severely mismatched feet so that they can exchange their unused shoes. The entire book is freely accessible and can be downloaded from the OddShoeFinder.com web site, and the hard copy is available through Amazon.
Christina E. Hassan joined Katten
Muchin as a partner in its D.C. office, specializing in commercial real estate with a focus on hospitality transactions.
James M. Williams was named one of the National Bar Association and IMPACT’s inaugural Nation’s Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40. He is a partner at Gauthier, Houghtaling and Williams in New Orleans.
From l. to r.: Todd Peppers ’90, coordinator of the Turk Pre-Law Program, Maynard Turk ’52L, Judge James Turk ’52L and Morgan Scott, former federal prosecutor and now Roanoke College professor. Roanoke College’s pre-law program has been named in honor of Judge James C. Turk ’52L, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court, and his brother, S. Maynard Turk ’52L, retired vice president and general counsel of Hercules Inc. Both Turk brothers attended Roanoke College and are members of the class of 1949. Todd C. Peppers ’90, a lecturer in law at W&L and an associate professor in the Department of Public Affairs at Roanoke College, is the new program’s advisor. Both Jim and Maynard Turk served in the U.S. Army before attending Roanoke College. They majored in economics and went on to attend Washington and Lee School of Law, where both were editors on the law review. Jim Turk practiced law with the Radford firm of Dalton, Poff & Turk and was appointed to the federal bench by President Richard Nixon in 1972. He also was a state senator and senate minority leader. As a judge, he presided over a number of high-profile cases, including the 1981 libel case involving the Rev. Jerry Falwell and adult magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Maynard Turk practiced with the Roanoke law firm of Dodson, Pence & Coulter before becoming in-house counsel for the Radford Army Arsenal and then its parent company, Hercules, in Wilmington, Del. He served as rector for the board of visitors at Radford University, on the board of visitors at George Mason University and on the W&L Alumni Board. Maynard Turk is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.
Elizabeth L. Ewert was promoted
to partner at the Washington office of Drinker Biddle & Reath L.L.P. She practices in both the products liability and mass tort and commercial litigation groups.
1993L
Daniel J. Munroe, a partner in
Capital Management Group, opened the Farmington Valley office of Capital Management Group in Simsbury, Conn. Munroe is part of AXA Advisors’ Paramount Planning Group, a select group of financial professionals who are distinguished for achieving a high standard of experience, expertise and service in the industry.
1994L
Laura Anderson Wright is uni-
versity counsel at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she still isn’t comfortable cheering for the Terps over the Tarheels.
1995L
Class Notes
1998L
1999L
Robert Baker joined Bone McAll-
ester Norton. He lives with his wife in Nashville, Tenn.
Brian S. Clarke was named one of
Charlotte’s Top 40 Leaders Under 40 by the Charlotte Business Journal. Brian practices labor and employment law at Littler Mendelson P.C. in Charlotte, N.C., and is also an adjunct professor at W&L.
Wyndall A. Ivey established his
own practice, Ivey Law Group L.L.C., in Birmingham, Ala. He will focus on employment, products liability, personal injury, wrongful death and insurance bad faith cases.
Shannon Gasparovic Christianson joined the Oregon
Zoo Foundation this summer as the major gifts/gift planning manager. Christianson lives in Tualatin, Ore., with her husband Mark, son Sutton, 4, and daughter Sloane, 2. Her career in charitable estate planning began at Willamette University, where she worked for seven years. She is enjoying her new job and has already had the opportunity to meet and feed an elephant, a rhino and the hippos.
Cabell Evans Youell was named
Stacy Gould Van Goor was
named assistant general counsel for regulatory law at the San Diego Gas & Electric Co.
1996L
R. Booth Goodwin II was unani-
mously confirmed as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia by the U.S. Senate.
one of the Roanoke YWCA’s 2010 Women of Achievement. Youell was practicing corporate law in Roanoke when she began volunteering with the Saint Francis of Assisi Service Dog Foundation, which trains service dogs that help children and adults stricken with a broad range of disabilities (autism, cerebral palsy, joint and muscular diseases, etc.). In 2003, Youell was named executive director of the service dog foundation. Under Winter
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Class Notes
her leadership, St. Francis became one of only 50 service dog organizations accredited by Assistance Dogs International Inc.
2001L
Bryan C. Barksdale has joined
Bazaarvoice as general counsel in Austin, Texas.
Scott A. Houser was transferred to the FBI field office in Miami from his previous post in New Mexico.
Brace R. Mullett became general
counsel and senior vice president of City Holding Co. and City National Bank in Charleston, W.Va. He had been a partner at Dinsmore & Shohl L.L.P.
2002L
Anne Musgrove Rife is a visiting
asisstant professor of law at the Appalachian School of Law. She teaches Legal Process I and Legal Research and Writing.
Caryn R. West was named to the
Class of 2011 of LEAD Hampton Roads. West earned the peer review rating of AV Preeminent from the Martindale Hubbell law directory. West is a partner at Clarke, Dolph, Rapaport, Hull, Brunick & Garriott P.L.C. She practices business and commercial real estate law, estate planning and administration and taxation. She lives in Virginia Beach.
Richard Whalen ’87L (center), Peter Hull ’87L (right) and Hull’s daughter, Sara Stassen, on the summit of Mt. Garfield in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Whalen lives in Amagansett, on Eastern Long Island, N.Y., where he owns Land Marks, a land planning company, and maintains a law practice with an emphasis in zoning, land use and real estate. Hull, a former federal prosecutor, lives and works in Simsbury, Conn., where he has his own practice. His daughter is a critical care nurse in Houston.
2003L
Andrea C. Coleman is in-house
counsel for Allstate. The short film she wrote, produced and acted in last year, BFF, has been in 12 film festivals and aired on BET’s TV series “Lens on Talent.” A feature script she wrote was selected as one of the 25 Emerging Narrative Scripts included in IFP’s 2010 Film Week.
Julie Smith Palmer was named
partner at Harman, Claytor, Corrigan & Wellman, in Richmond.
2004L
Leah S. Gissy won the 2010 Young
Lawyer of the Year Award from the Roanoke Bar Association Foundation. She works for LeClair Ryan.
Kevin A. White received the 2010
On a lovely fall day, the Clarke family posed for a picture on the front lawn. Four Clarke cousins are currently students at W&L. From l. to r.: Clarke Morrison ’12, Penn Clarke ’13L, Robbie Clarke ’06, ’11L, Nan Robertson Clarke ’76L, Hal Clarke ’73, ’76L and Aria Vainstein ’12. 24
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Volunteer of the Year Award from the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation, recognizing his contributions through pro bono legal services. White practices with Kaufman & Canoles in Richmond, where he serves as bond counsel and underwriter’s counsel in connection with tax-exempt and taxable financings for Virginia localities and conduit financings for 501(c)(3) organizations, such as educational institutions, hospitals and retirement
communities. White also served as an adjunct professor of business law in the economics/business department at Randolph-Macon College last spring.
2005L
Jared A. Hembree became a
partner at Hinkle, Hensley Shanor & Martin L.L.P. in Roswell, N.M. His primary practice is in oil and gas law, including title examination, acquisitions, divestitures and other transactions.
Luis E. Rivera II was named a 2010
Rising Star by Florida SuperLawyers. He focuses on creditors’ rights and insolvency counseling in bankruptcy court. He lives in Fort Myers.
2006L
Marshall McLean was named the
co-chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Special Committee on Renewable Energy, Clean Technology and Climate Change.
Kyle McNew joined MichieHamlett
as an associate. He will practice in the personal injury and products liability section, as well as handling appeals in both state and federal court. He lives in Charlottesville.
Class Notes
Robert V. Ricca joined the Virginia
law firm of Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore L.L.P. as an associate attorney in the firm’s general commercial practice group. He will focus on securities compliance, corporate governance, securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He lives in Roanoke with his wife, Lucy, Buford and their son, Kevin.
2007
Yousri Omar was elected to chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the Bar Association of D.C. He is an associate with Vinson & Elkins L.L.P.
2008L
Whitney R. Travis joined Chris-
tian & Barton L.L.P. as an associate. She will focus on bankruptcy and creditors’ rights matters. She lives in Tampa, Fla.
2009L
Simran Rahi joined the Norfolk of-
fice of GEICO as staff counsel within its litigation department.
Marriages Justin G. Adams ’70, ’76L to Meredith Gilmer Winn ’96,
on Aug. 7, 2010. They live in Kelly, Wyoming.
Eli D. Frame ’07L to Lauren M. Widdecombe ’08L, on Oct. 3,
2009, at the University of Virginia Chapel in Charlottesville, Va. They live in Columbus, Ohio.
Front row, from l. to r.,: Allison Hamil ’06, Hannah Kate Mitchell ’10, Alexis Richardson ’07. Back row, l. to r.: Alex Duckworth ’09, Richard Simms ’08, Alice Dixon ’09, Kay Dyt ’08, McNeel Keenan ’07, Dharini Aggarwal and Reggie Aggarwal ’94L. In May, Reggie Aggarwal ’94L, CEO and founder of Cvent, received the Distinguished Corporate Achievement Award from the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. This latest recognition comes on the heels of Cvent’s selection for Management Team of the Year in July by the American Business Awards, and a year after Aggarwal was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Greater Washington area and a Top Tech Titan by Washingtonian magazine. When Aggarwal founded his business 10 years ago, Cvent was a two-person startup in the D.C. area. Today, the company is the world’s largest meetingsmanagement software company and has more than 700 employees worldwide. The company provides online event management, venue sourcing, e-mail marketing and web survey solutions for 80,000 users in 35 countries. Cvent has a dozen W&L grads (a few are pictured above) working for the company. In addition, Aggarwal founded and is now chairman emeritus of the Indian CEO High Tech Council (now TiE-DC), which the Washington Post called “maybe the singularly most successful association in the past decade.”
Garrett Ledgerwood ’09L, Emily White ’09L, Kai-Ting Yang ’07L, Thad ’09L and Deirdre McElroy ’08L, Benton Keatley ’10L, Nick Scannavino ’09L and Robbie McCormick ’08L.
Laura Anderson Wright ’94L,
and her husband, Darien, a daughter, Kennedy Morgan, in February 2009. Kennedy joins brother Kendall. They live in Beltsville, Md.
Elizabeth M. Formidoni ’96, ’99L, and her husband, Juan
C. Ryan Germany ’09L to Andrea Dunuwila ’09L on June 12, 2010,
in Cazenovia, N.Y. They live in Birmingham, Ala. Alumni in attendence included Sandy Shurin ’07L, Katy Hall ’09L, Rob ’09L and Katie Reed, Berit Everhart ’09L, Alex Cook ’07 LL.M., Whitney Travis ’08L, Jessica Berenyi ’08L, Josh Payne ’08L and Julie Moore, Kate Houren ’09L, Rachel Flynn ’09L,
Births
Mendez, a son, Javiar Mendez, on July 29, 2010. They live in New York City.
Tracy Taylor Hague ’97L and James E. Collins ’10L to Erica
Alemdar on May 29, 2010, in Harrison Township, Mich.
her husband, Travis, a daughter, Allison Taylor, on June 27, 2010. She joins sister Emily. They live in Chesterfield, Va. Winter
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Class Notes
Cindy Kodama Lowman ’97L
and her husband, Todd, a son, Ryan Charles, on July 20, 2010. Ryan joins sister Natalie. They live in Centreville, Va.
John Bartram ’99L and Ashley Flynn Bartram ’01L, a daughter, Lucy Randle, on May 3, 2010. She joins sister Gaines, 2. They live in West Lake Hills, Texas.
Jennifer Griffin Anstaett ’01L
and her husband, Patrick, a son, Griffin Edward, on Oct. 30, 2010. He joins brother Marshall. They live in Fort Thomas, Ky.
Sara Jones Odell ’01L and her
defender system. Lee represents adults and juveniles charged with crimes in the District’s trial and appellate courts.
Julie Smith Palmer ’03L, and her husband, Jeff, a daughter, Lila Alice, on Jan. 9, 2009.
Ross R. Barton ’04L and Ashley T. Barton ’04, a daughter, Julie
Carolyn, on Sept. 27, 2010. They live in Charlotte, N.C.
Christopher A. Vrettos ’05L
and his wife, Catherine, a daughter, Caroline Stuart, on Feb. 8, 2010. They live in Nashville, Tenn.
husband, Bill, a son, Grayson Michael, on Oct 20, 2010. Grayson joins sister Adriana and brother Will.
Steve Lesser ’08L and his wife, Julie,
Lee R. Goebes ’03L and his wife,
Christopher W. Henry ’09L and
Katya, a son, Dmitri Lev, on May 17, 2010. They live in Washington, and both work as attorneys for the public
a daughter, Maggie Raye, on April 7, 2010. The family live in Richmond.
his wife, Sarah, a daughter, June Katherine, on June 17, 2010. They live in Northborough, Mass.
TH E L AW AN NUAL FUN D Making a Difference
Obits
The Hon Thomas A. Williams Jr. ’37, ’39L, of Richmond, died on Oct. 25, 2010. He served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific from 1943 to 1945. He was appointed judge of the Richmond, and later to the Virginia General District Court. He volunteered at Bon Secours/St. Mary’s Hospital. Williams belonged to Sigma Nu.
Jack Keith Jr. ’42L, of San Diego,
died on Aug. 30, 2010. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and later worked in public and private sectors of law practice. He joined the FBI in 1950, rose to the post of chief of criminal intelligence and organized crime in Washington and retired as the special agent in charge of the Las Vegas, Nev., offices.
Bernard J. Pirog ’43L, of Fair Lawn,
N.J., died on April 28, 2010. He served as a naval aviator in the Pacific Theater during World War II and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. He was an agent for the FBI until his retirement in 1977. Pirog was a member of Kappa Sigma.
George E. Heiner ’47L, of Huntington, W.Va., died on March 25, 2007.
Hugh P. Cline ’48L, of Norton, Va.,
died on June 16, 2010. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and practiced law for 59 years at the firm he founded in Norton. He was a member of the Norton City school board.
John J. Koehler II ’49L, of Honesdale, Pa., died on July 25, 2010. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and worked for a law practice in Honesdale. He was the first president of the Honesdale Jaycees and served as president and chairman of the board of Farmers & Merchants Bank. Koehler belonged to Delta Upsilon.
The Hon. Robert C. Carey ’51L,
The W&L Law Annual Fund provides resources for current students and faculty, classroom updates, technology and scholarships. The goal for the 2011 Law Annual Fund is $900,000. Alumni support is essential to the future of the Law School. To make your gift, go online to law.wlu.edu/give by June 30, 2011, or contact Sarah Hughes at shughes@wlu.edu or (540) 458-8063 to make your gift by phone. 26
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of Brooklyn, N.Y., died on Feb. 7, 2010. He served in World War II and worked as an assistant U.S. attorney. He later opened a private practice and was an administrative law judge in Manhattan. He was chairman of the board of Forestdale Inc. and served on the board of the Brooklyn Eye & Ear Hospital. Carey belonged to Delta Upsilon.
years of service, died Jan. 14. She began her tenure at the School of Law in 1983. During her 26 years as a member of the staff, Shorter served as executive assistant to seven Law School deans, including Rick Kirgis, Randy Bezanson, Barry Sullivan, David Partlett, Mark Grunewald, Brian Murchison and Rod Smolla. She was born Feb. 10, 1941, in Rockbridge County, the daughter of Ralph McCullough and Margaret Smith McCullough. Surviving are her husband, Clifford W. “Buck” Shorter, and children Tony Shorter of Lexington and Stephanie Shorter Maddox of Amherst; her sister, Barbara London, of Lexington and brother, Robert McCullough, of South Boston; and four grandchildren.
William W. Terry ’51L, of Smith
Mountain Lake, Va., died on July 31, 2010. He served in World War II and became an agent with the FBI. Terry belonged to Beta Theta Pi.
Charles E. Viar ’51L, of Goodview,
Va., died on Aug. 7, 2010. He practiced law in Roanoke for more than 30 years. He also owned and operated the Big V Ranch in Bedford, Va.
Walter G. Riddick Jr. ’49, ’52L,
of Little Rock, Ark., died on April 28, 2010. He served in the Korean War. He practiced law at the Rose Law Firm and the Riddick & Riddick law firm. He was also an assistant U.S. attorney. Riddick belonged to Delta Upsilon.
Norvell A. Lapsley ’61L, of Lexing-
ton, died on Oct. 9, 2010. He practiced law in Harrisonburg for 35 years and served as a municipal court judge and as a city attorney for Harrisonburg.
John M. Kirk ’60, ’62L, of Detroit,
Mich., died on Oct. 22, 2010. He received his master’s degree from New York University and worked in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s office and as a trial attorney in the tax division of the Department of Justice. He later opened his own practice. Kirk belonged to Phi Kappa Psi.
Thornton W. Owen Jr ’60, ’63L,
of Washington, died on Feb. 23, 2010. He was head of Thomas J. Owen and Son and a member of the Greater Washington Board of Trade. He was also a member of the Washington Chamber of Commerce. Owen belonged to Beta Theta Pi.
Douglas G. Campbell ’64, ’67L,
of Richmond, died on May 27, 2010. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and practiced law in Tazewell County, Va. Campbell belonged to Phi Kappa Sigma.
Augustus P. G. Biddle ’68L,
of Kingsport, Tenn., died on May 19, 2010. He received his M.B.A. from Wharton and worked for Firestone International. He later worked for Wyomissing Corp., Holliston Mills and Blachford Rubber Corp.
Bobby W. Tucker ’68L, of Ches-
terfield, Va., died on Aug. 1, 2010. He served in the U.S. Army and later worked as a contract attorney for the Department of Defense at the Defense General Supply Center in Richmond.
C. D’Arcy Didier ’74L, of Hartford,
Conn., died on Aug. 1, 2010. He served during the Vietnam War and worked in labor law and human resources for Pullman & Comley L.L.C. He volunteered with the Service Corporation of Retired Executives and the Illinois Work Force Development Board.
Susan M. Dern ’82L, of Christians-
Class Notes
Carole M. Shorter, who retired from the School of Law in 2009 after 26
burg, Va., died on April 26, 2010. She was an attorney for Dern & Dern.
Tyler A. Cather ’97L, of Morgan-
town, W.Va., died on Aug. 24, 2010. He worked as a public defender in Harrison County, W.Va., and was a professional photographer.
Ivy A. Johnson ’94, ’01L, of Washing-
ton, died Nov. 19, 2010. She majored in economics and political science. After graduation, she worked for Sen. Alan Simpson and the CIA before returning to W&L for her law degree. She was the senior articles editor for the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. She clerked for the Hon. Jackson L. Kiser, U.S. District Court, Danville, Va., and then joined the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom in Washington, specializing in anti-trust law. In 2005, she took a position on the staff of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, working for thenchairman Sen. Arlen Specter as chief civil counsel. In 2009, she moved to the Senate committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, where she worked for Sen. Susan Collins as deputy general counsel.
Anne Whitley McThenia, a former member of the University counseling staff,
died Oct. 18, 2010, after a long illness. She passed away at home, surrounded by her children, her friends and her husband, Andrew W. (Uncas) McThenia ’58, ’63L, the James P. Morefield Professor of Law Emeritus at W&L. McThenia was known for her service both to the University and to the communities of Lexington and Rockbridge County. She worked in University counseling in 1986-1987, in 1996 and in 1998. For their 50th reunion in 2008, the W&L Class of 1958 honored the McThenias by establishing the Anne and Uncas McThenia Term Professorship in the Law School. She was active in a number of community organizations, especially Habitat for Humanity and Alcoholics Anonymous. She was an avid wildlife photographer and traveled extensively in pursuit of this passion. McThenia is survived by her husband; her children, Paige ’00L, Andy ’88 and Tal; her brother, William Talmadge Whitley Jr.; her sister-in-law, Kaki Whitley; her sons-in-law, Jon Adams and Brett Berk; and three grandchildren. The family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Rockbridge Area Habitat for Humanity (P.O. Box 1596, Lexington, VA 24450) or the Rockbridge Area Hospice (315 Myers St., Lexington, VA 24450).
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Law Firm ClassGiving Notes 28
W&L
2009 - 2010 Law Firm Giving Competition
Alumni (undergraduate and law) continue to support theW&L Annual Fund at impressive rates. Here is the list of firms that reached 75 percent or greater participation. We thank the law firm liaisons (listed below) who solicited Annual Fund gifts from their colleagues. We appreciate your support. Firm Bryan Cave L.L.P. Burr & Forman Caskie & Frost Christian & Barton L.L.P. Clark, Partington, Hart & Hart P.C. Crenshaw, Ware & Martin Dechert L.L.P. Dinsmore & Shohl Faegre & Benson Fowler White, Boggs, Banker Klinedinst P.C. Lightfoot, Franklin & White L.L.C. Martin, Hopkins, & Lemon P.C. Miles & Stockbridge Moore & Van Allen P.L.L.C. Morris, Manning & Martin Ober/Kaler Patton Boggs L.L.P. Petty, Livingston, Dawson & Richards Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson P.A. Schmittinger & Rodriguez P.A. Sidley Austin L.L.P. Stites & Harbison Dewey & LeBoeuf L.L.P. Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice P.L.L.C. Gentry, Locke, Rakes & Moore Glenn, Feldmann, Darby & Goodlatte Peterson & Myers P.A. Stoll Keenon Ogden, PLLC Waller, Landsen, Dortch & Davis P.L.L.C. Buist, Moore, Smythe & McGee LeClair Ryan Parker, Hudson, Rainer & Dobbs Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease L.L.P. Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz Jones Walker Ogletree Deakins Troutman Sanders Ellis, Lawhorne & Sims Hunton & Williams L.L.P. Jackson Kelly K&L Gates King & Spalding L.L.P. McGuireWoods L.L.P. Miller & Martin P.L.L.C. Richards, Layton & Finger Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. Wiley Rein L.L.P. WilliamsMullen Law
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100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 95% 95% 90% 90% 90% 90% 90% 85% 85% 85% 85% 80% 80% 80% 80% 75% 75% 75% 75% 75% 75% 75% 75% 75% 75% 75%
Law Firm Liaison John C. Morrow ’85L Theodore J. Craddock Jr. ’68 David D. Redmond ’66, ’69L Donald C. Schultz ’89L Monika J. Hussell ’93L James E. Nicholson ’77L Heather B. Parkinson ’90 John D. Klinedinst ’71, ’78L Lee M. Hollis ’86 Timothy A. Hodge ’90L Thomas L. Mitchell ’93L John A. Wolf ’69, ’72L Robert K. Tompkins ’90, ’94L Heyward H. Bouknight ’04L Michael P. Peck ’71 James D. Humphries ’66, ’69L Peter A. Baumgaertner ’83, ’86L Heather K. Mallard ’88L G. Michael Pace ’84L Paul G. Beers ’86L
G. Scott Rayson ’81L John T. Jessee ’79L, Michael E. Hastings ’93L, Tracy T. Hague ’97L Trevor R. Ross ’05L Linda A. Klein ’83L, Buckner P. Wellford ’81L Margaret H. Campbell ’81L Robert L. Brooke ’81, Grady C. Frank ’75L, Stephen D. Rosenthal ’71, ’76L Stacy M. Colvin ’93L, Thomas M. Millhiser ’81L Thomas N. McJunkin ’70, ’74L, Robby J. Aliff ’91, ’97L Bobby Majumder ’93L Michael E. Paulhus ’02L William C. Mayberry ’91L Stanley G. Brading ’79L Samuel A. Nolen ’79L, Kathleen A. Kelley ’00L Bennett L. Ross ’83 A. Brooks Hock ’83L, Elizabeth M. Horsley ’94L
Ways to Give Don Bain ‘49L returned to campus in 2007 for his induction as an honorary member of the Order of the Coif.
M
any years ago, while driving home to Spartanburg from visits to Hollins and W&L, Don Bain ’49L and his wife, Pat, discussed giving back to their respective alma maters when they had the means to do so. Their substantial gift to Hollins occurred just before Pat’s death 20 years ago, and Bain took note of how much joy it gave her and vowed to someday do the same for W&L.
This fall, Bain honored his end of that commitment by establishing the William Donald Bain Family Professorship for Corporate Law, named in honor of his father. Bain’s gift took advantage of The Lenfest Challenge Grant that will match his gift 1:1. He said, “Although I am no Gerry [Lenfest], I, too, like to assist organizations I believe in.” His gift, he explained, “helps me express my high regard for W&L.” Bain, who served as a B-29 flight engineer during World War II, arrived at W&L after completing his B.S. in economics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In his first year in Tucker Hall, he took a business law class from the legendary Charlie McDowell, who left a lasting impression on him. “Charlie had a very humorous way
of presenting the material,” said Bain. “He was among my favorite teachers.” Bain began his career at Travelers Insurance, working in its mortgage division for several years. He then joined Moreland Chemical Co. and stayed there for more than 30 years, rising to the rank of CEO. “W&L gave me a good grounding in business law,” said Bain. “That was particularly valuable to me when I merged Moreland into McKesson Corp. of San Francisco.” Over the years, Bain has been active in higher education, both for W&L and other institutions. He has served as chair of the Spartanburg City School Board, as well as chair of Converse College’s board of trustees. He was a longtime trustee for Hollins College after his wife’s death.
W&L has benefited from his leadership as a member of the Alumni Board, as chair of the Spartanburg Alumni Chapter capital campaign committee during the ’90s and as a class agent. As chair of the 40th Reunion Gift Committee, he helped establish the Class of ’49/ Bain Fellowship Fund. For his dedicated service, W&L awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1987 and inducted him as an honorary member of the Order of the Coif in 2007. Although Bain hasn’t been back to W&L recently, he’s paid particular attention to how the Law School has evolved over the years, applauding the School’s innovative approach to its third-year curriculum. His generous gift, as part of the Law School’s capital campaign, will help the School continue that momentum.
For more information about W&L’s capital campaign, contact Elizabeth Outland Branner at brannere@wlu.edu or (540) 458-8191.
The Washington and Lee University L a w A l u m n i M a g a z i n e L e x i n g t o n ,
V i r g i n i a
24450
law.wlu.edu
Non Profit Org U. S.
P
P o s t a g e
a
P e r m i t
i
d
No. 2
N o r f o l k,
Va
Save the Date Law Reunion Weekend April 15 and 16, 2011
We will celebrate the reunions for the classes of ’61L, ’66L, ’71L, ’76L, ’81L, ’86L, ’91L, ’96L, ’01L and ’06L, as well as our Legal Legacies (any alum who graduated more than 50 years ago). For more information, go to law.wlu.edu/reunion. Questions? Contact the Office of Law School Advancement at (540) 458-8587 or e-mail Joan Miller at jhmiller@wlu.edu.
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