UCLA Law Magazine

FALL 2020 | VOLUME 43

Alumni News

UCLA Law Magazine | Fall 2020

Class Notes

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Class Notes

Class Notes 2010 - 2019

  • Emily Haan ’10 has joined UC Hastings College of the Law as Director of Student Services.
  • Jenna Glassock ’10 joined Lido Advisors LLC to expand the firm’s wealth planning services.
  • Krysta Kauble Pachman ’11 has been named a partner with Susman Godfrey LLP.
  • Mary Tanagho Ross ’11 led a class action lawsuit that overturned a government policy affecting the rights of unaccompanied immigrant children.
  • Andrew Cosgrove ’11 joins LendingUSA as general counsel and chief compliance officer.
  • Vandana Kapur ’11, an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, was elected Co-President of the South Asian Bar Association of Southern California. Vandana is.
  • Nick Kennedy ’11 made partner at Baker McKenzie, where he sits in the Dallas office and focuses on international arbitration and commercial litigation throughout the United States and worldwide.
  • Michael Seiden ’11 joined Greenberg Traurig, LLP as a Shareholder in their Real Estate Practice.
  • Darcy Meals ’11, a graduate of the UCLA Epstein Public Interest Program, has been appointed to a two-year term on the Equal Justice Works National Advisory Committee.
  • Rachel Landy ’12 joined YouTube’s government affairs and public policy team (at Google) in April to be the global lead for music policy.
  • Joshua Escovedo ’12 was named a 2020 Northern California Rising Star. Escovedo is a trial attorney and a member of Weintraub Tobin’s litigation, intellectual property, and real estate practice groups.
  • Samuel Siegel ‘12  is a Deputy Solicitor General for the California Department of Justice and has worked on high-profile Supreme Court litigation on behalf of California. He served as second chair for the DACA argument for California in the Supreme Court that had a victorious outcome and is also the counsel of record in the Affordable Care Act case pending in the Supreme Court.
  • Amalia Beckner ’14, is a felony trial attorney with the Harris County Public Defender in Houston, TX, won the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants Centennial Access to Justice Award. Beckner began bringing reading materials for her clients in jail because of the limited educational programming available to them, then started a crowdfunding program for more books and launched a book club for female inmates in a maximum-security unit.
  • Peter A. Griffin ’15 was awarded the California Minority Counsel Program’s (CMCP) Marci Rubin Emerging Diversity Leader Award, which is given to those who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. Griffin is one of only two recipients of this award this year.
  • Christina Behrman ’16 joined the board of the Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara, a local nonprofit providing comprehensive mental health care to thousands of patients since 1976.
  • Brian Fink ’17 wrote a legal guidebook for farm businesses on complying with federal food-safety and labeling laws, which has been published by the National Farmers Union under a grant from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.
  • Michelle Cooper Cuozzo ’18 has joined Sheppard Mullin LLP’s New York office as an associate in the firm’s business trial practice group.
  • Beth Abramson ’19 joined Hecht Solberg Robinson Goldberg & Bagley LLP as an associate.
  • Cody McDavis ’19 has joined Jennings, Strouss & Salmon, P.L.C. as a law clerk in their business transactions practice group, while he studies for the Arizona Bar Exam.

Class Notes 2000 - 2009

  • Peter David Balance ’01 has joined the Los Angeles office of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP as a partner in the national Real Estate Group.
  • Natalie Bridgeman Fields ’02 just celebrated a decade of Accountability Counsel, the non-profit legal organization she founded and directs that has supported 2 million people in 50 countries to have their voices heard when their rights are violated. Fields welcomes UCLAW pro bono partners, and there are openings for two new board seats in the year to come. Please be in touch!
  • Songhai Miguda-Armstead ’03 has been selected to lead a “Cares First, Jails Last” initiative to implement a broad set of alternatives to incarceration. Armstead is scheduled to retire from the Superior Court bench this month.
  • Abigail Zelenski ’03 was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, and confirmed by the City Council, to serve as a Commissioner on the inaugural Los Angeles Civil and Human Rights Commission.
  • David Guess ’05 joined the Orange County office of Greenberg Traurig, LLC as a Shareholder, where he will play a leading role in bankruptcy cases on the west coast and nationwide.
  • Pallavi Dhawan ’05 is now the Director of Domestic Violence Policy and Prevention for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.
  • Shana Elson ’05 launched the world’s first customizable-on-the-spot chocolate store in Ventura, California. At the store, customers can choose the type of chocolate, a selection of toppings, and decide whether they want their creation handmade into a bar, squares or hearts.
  • Lucy Schwallie ’06 was named the Managing Attorney for the Athens, Ohio office of Southeastern Ohio Legal Services. Schwaillie represents indigent clients in civil legal matters in Appalachian Ohio and leads the program’s Education Equity practice group.
  • Veronica Darling ’07 has joined the offices of Cultiva Law PLLC, a boutique cannabis practice with offices in Washington, Oregon, and California.
  • Greg Good ’07 was elected President of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works.
  • Gregory Broege ’08 appeared on the cover of the December 2019 Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine, accompanying his article on California’s upcoming “Split Roll” ballot initiative.
  • Tim Reed ’08 was promoted to Partner at FordHarrison LLP and was recognized by the National Bar Association as a 40 Under 40 – Nation’s Best Advocate award winner.
  • Sara Urch ’08 has begun serving as a Senior Assistant Attorney General for the Oregon Department of Justice. She works in the Natural Resources Section of the General Counsel Division, focusing on the Portland Harbor Superfund cleanup project.
  • Jon Cieslak ’09 joined Bona Law PC as a Partner. Cieslak brings nearly a decade of anti-trust litigation and white-collar criminal defense experience.
  • Heather Brooks Karatz ’09 has been named president of the XFL team the LA Wildcats. She previously worked as the Executive Vice President and general counsel of the Los Angeles Football Club.
  • Linda Klein ’09 has been promoted to partner at Cox, Castle, and Nicholson LLP. Klein’s practice focuses on land use entitlement and litigation, with extensive expertise in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and in particular air quality and greenhouse gas issues.
  • Michael Saryan ’09 joins Structure Law Group, LLP for the opening of their new Los Angeles office.

Class Notes 1990 - 1999

  • Philip E Cook ’90 was recently elected Chair of the Board of Public Counsel, the nation’s largest public interest law firm. Cook has been involved in pro bono work with Public Counsel for some time; he received its Volunteer of the Year award in 2012 and 2013.
  • Francis James ’90 was appointed as Resident Representative for the UN Development Programme in Gabon (Central Africa) where his work focuses on climate change, the environment, good governance, youth and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. James has spent the past four and a half years in Haiti with UNDP and the UN peace-keeping mission in Haiti.
  • Jayne Lee ’91 has been appointed to a judgeship in the San Joaquin County Superior Court. Lee has served as a commissioner at the San Joaquin County Superior Court since 2018 and has served as a judge pro tem and supervising probate attorney at the San Joaquin County Superior Court from 2015 to 2018.
  • Hui Chen ’91 has joined the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office as Chief Integrity Adviser.
  • John Ulin ’92 joined TroyGould PC.
  • Dan Kupetz ’92 will join 20th Century Fox TV as Executive Vice President of Business Affairs and Operations. Kupetz had worked at CBS Television Studios as head of business affairs since 2004.
  • David Korduner ’92 joined Endeavor Content as Senior Vice President, Associate General Counsel, Labor Relations – the company’s first in-house labor hire.
  • Tony Rodriguez ’92 was promoted to Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for Litigation at Kaiser Permanente in September 2020. Rodriguez has been with KP since 2015 after partnerships at Morrison & Foerster and Donahue Fitzgerald.
  • Jeffrey S. Galvin ’93, a partner at Downey Brand LLP in Sacramento, has started a six-year term on the Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association’s Trusts and Estates Section.
  • Daniel Alexander II ’94 is the new director of the Startup and Small Business Clinic (SSBC) at UC Irvine Law School.
  • Michael Kalt ’94, a partner in the litigation office of Wilson Turner Kosmo LLP, was recognized in The Best Lawyers in America 2021.
  • Dmitry Gorin ’95 and his law partner Alan Eisner, both State-Bar Certified Criminal Law Specialists, successfully argued that a murder conviction should be reversed and obtained a new trial for the elderly client.
  • Gregory Jones ’95 moved from being a partner at Dykema Gossett to a shareholder at Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, in Century City.
  • Jennifer Hasbrouck ’96 has been named Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Southern California Edison.
  • Ingrid Myers ’97 joins King & Spalding as a partner in the firm’s Corporate, Finance, and Investments practice group in its Houston office.
  • Marie Mendoza ’98 was promoted to Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Kratos Defense and Security Solutions Inc.
  • Navid Yadegar ’99, an employment law partner at Yadegar, Minoofar, & Soleymani, was named among the top 100 lawyers in Southern California by Super Lawyers.

Class Notes 1980 - 1989

  • Alec Nedelman ’80 joined Katten’s Real Estate practice as Senior Counsel.
  • Knox Kimberly ’80 serves as Chair of the Steering Committee for the Texas Child Protection Roundtable and on the Board of Directors for Texans Care for Children, the state’s leading advocacy organization for the wellbeing of children.
  • Douglas Canfield ’81, founding Executive Director of Legal Services Corporation of Delaware, Inc., is going into his 25th year in that position, making him the longest serving executive director of any legal aid or legal services organization in the history of the state of Delaware. In that position he has been the involved in the creation of numerous initiatives, including the Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program, the Access to Justice Program and the Homelessness Prevention Project.
  • Joscelyn Jones Torru ’81 was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to the Alameda County Superior Court to serve as a Judge.
  • Tim Coates ’83 was appointed Co-Chair of the International Municipal Lawyers Association’s California State Region.
  • Daniel A. Olivas ’84 was appointed to Senior Assistant Attorney General of the California Department of Justice’s Land Law Section, which represents over two dozen agencies including the Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, and the Department of Housing and Community Development. In his “other life,” Olivas is also the author of nine books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction including two recent titles, The King of Lighting Fixtures: Stories (University of Arizona Press, 2017), and Crossing the Border: Collected Poems (Pact Press, 2017).
  • Arnold Wuhrman ’85 relocated to Lake Oswego, Oregon in June, 2018. Both of his kids graduated in 2020, and he and his wife are living the joyous life of empty nesters on top of a beautiful, pine tree-filled mountain.
  • Joanne Moore ’85 won an “Excellence in Teaching” award from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Moore is a full-time faculty member in the School of Filmmaking.
  • Joel Beres ’86 has been recognized as the Louisville Litigation – Patent Lawyer of the Year for 2021. Only one lawyer in each high-profile legal specialty in large legal communities is honored as the “Lawyer of the Year.”
  • Gary Bradus ’87, a Shareholder in the Corporate group at Weintraub Tobin, was named a 2020 Northern California Super Lawyer.
  • Patricia Donahue ’87 was appointed Magistrate Judge by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. She will sit in the court’s Western division.
  • Lee Arian ’88 has been appointed to serve as a judge in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Arian has been a partner at Nelson Hardiman since 2017.
  • Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr. ’88 was confirmed to serve as a federal judge in the Central District of California. He has been an LA County Superior Court Judge since 2016.
  • Ronald Sally ’88 joins JLL’s Project and Development Services team as a Senior Vice President in charge of Sports & Entertainment and Higher Education sectors in the West.
  • Erich Andersen ’89 joined TikTok owner ByteDance as global general counsel after 24 years in various leadership roles at Microsoft. He will be based in New York.
  • Scot Stone ’89 retired from the Federal Communications Commission at the end of 2019 and reports that tele-retirement, while not optimal, still beats tele-working.
  • Susan Shields ’89, a shareholder and tax and estate planning attorney with the law firm of McAfee & Taft, has been elected to serve as president-elect of the Oklahoma Bar Association. She will assume the role of president of the professional organization, which currently has more than 18,000 members, in 2020. Susan also received a top Band 1 ranking in the Private Wealth Law category of the recently released 2020 edition of Chambers High Net Worth.
  • Melinda Murray ’89 was elected to her third term as President of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. She is also President of the California Association of Black Lawyers.

Class Notes 1970 - 1979

  • Dick Eiden ’70 recently published his memoir, “Paying the Rent: Adventures of a Left Coast Activist Lawyer from the Turbulent ‘60s to the Era of Donald Trump.” The book covers his 25 years a lawyer and his continuing struggle for peace and justice.
  • John Dobroth ’71 has retired and is exploring a second career as a commercial actor.
  • Joe Hilberman ’73 is again a proud grandfather, this time of Ella, who is in San Francisco but will happily attend UCLA Law in about 2043.
  • Joshua Dressler ’73 is in his 43rd year of full-time teaching, his 20th year at Ohio State, and is the prior recipient of the Distinguished University Scholar and Distinguished University Professor awards.
  • Carolyn Starks Saxon ’75 retired from the Office of the State’s Attorney, Baltimore City in 2004 and retired from the Office of the State’s Attorney Prince George’s County in 2012. She resides in Bowie, Maryland.
  • Larry Valdivieso ’79 has retired from his position as Assistant General Counsel at Verizon.

Class Notes 1960 - 1969

  • Allan Morton ’68 has retired from family law litigation practice and has established a family law mediation practice in Santa Barbara.

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