Class Notes

Here is a selection of updates reflecting professional activities of Kline School of Law alumni:

Class of 2009

Anthony Chwastyk is associate general counsel at Capital Health in Trenton, N.J.

Briana Elzey is director of legal and business affairs at Los Angeles-based Ignite International, Ltd., a global cannabis brand, and she also serves as senior vice president of operations for Ignite’s former parent company, BlitzNV.

Jennifer Hermansky, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig in Philadelphia, was named an Immigration Law Trailblazer by the National Law Journal, a Best Lawyer in America for immigration law and one of Philadelphia Business Journal’s “40 Under 40,” all in 2019.

Mary Mitchell is an assistant professor of history at Purdue University. She will be a faculty fellow at Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center in the spring of 2020.

Nick Pennington was promoted to shareholder at Stevens & Lee in Valley Forge, where he represents corporations in contractual disputes as well as complex litigation, including trademark, trade secret, unfair competition, antitrust and consumer fraud disputes. He has also handled internal investigations and white-collar criminal litigation.

Class of 2010

Nicole Aiken-Shaban, a senior associate at Reed Smith in Philadelphia, co-led a webinar CLE, “Physician Compensation Issues in the World of Evolving Value-Based Payment Programs,” in August 2019.

Marni Berger was promoted to principal at Post & Schell in Philadelphia. A member of the firm’s Insurance Law Department, she has been listed as a Super Lawyers Rising Star every year since 2014.

Raphael Duran was promoted to shareholder at Marshall Dennehey in Philadelphia, where he focuses his practice on workers' compensation litigation.

Jaimee (Moore) Hatcher was promoted to executive director of Christian Legal Clinics of Philadelphia.

Gene Markin is a shareholder at Stark & Stark in Princeton, where his practice encompasses trademark and copyright infringement, trade secret litigation, shareholder disputes, commercial contract disputes, fraud, complex commercial litigation, alternate dispute resolution and cannabis business law.

Desiree Wilfong was promoted to partner at Lucas & Cavalier, where she focuses on casualty defense, professional liability defense and commercial litigation.

Class of 2011

Heather Rose is vice president of technology licensing and startups at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals.

Diana Silva was promoted to partner at Manko, Gold, Katcher and Fox in Bala Cynwd, where she focuses her practice on environmental litigation, including statutory contribution and cost recovery actions, toxic tort claims, contractual disputes and administrative enforcement actions. A member of the law school’s adjunct faculty, she teaches Toxic Torts.

Blair Thompson is director of the Robert W. Entenmann Veterans Law Clinic at Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law, where she is also assistant clinical professor.

Class of 2012

Michael Benz, counsel with HoganWillig Attorneys at Law in Buffalo, N.Y., was quoted by NBC affiliate WGRZ concerning sentencing of a local executive in the scandal surrounding the Buffalo Billion development project launched by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Jessica Farris, the director of criminal justice at the ACLU of Southern California, announced the release of a white paper in conjunction with the national ACLU in June 2019 detailing racial bias, unfairness, and overuse of the death penalty during the tenure of current Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.

Sam Haaz, an attorney at Haggerty, Goldberg, Schleifer & Kupersmith in Philadelphia made it to the Top 13 in Season 10 of the nationally televised cooking competition, MasterChef, which was judged by Gordon Ramsay, Aarón Sanchez and Joe Bastianich.

Jack Kitchen is associate general counsel of Consolidated Communications, a broadband and business communications provider in Richardson, Texas.

Michael Pierce is a compliance examiner at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in Philadelphia.

Hans Smith is senior manager of the office of Corporate Intellectual Property Counsel at Edwards Lifesciences in Irvine, California.

Michael Zettlemoyer is a shareholder at Brehm Nofer & McCarter in Conshohocken, where he focuses on representing design professionals and others involved in the construction industry.

Class of 2013

John Corcoran, a staff attorney at South Jersey Legal Services in Vineland, and Trevor Serine, the founding partner of Serine Law in Media, as members of the band, All this Huxley, recorded an EP album in July 2019, “Home Stockholm” that is available on Apple Music and Spotify.

Karla Cruel, the owner of the Legal Empowerment Group, which seeks to empower Philadelphia citizens through legal education and guidance, is an Independent candidate in the 2019 Philadelphia City Council District 4 race.

Jordan Fischer, the co-founder and managing partner of XPAN Law Group in Philadelphia and a member of the adjunct faculty, wrote an essay on attorneys’ duties as guardians of clients’ data privacy in an essay published in The Legal Intelligencerin July 2019 (subscription required).

Brooke Hanley was promoted to partner at Margolis Edelstein in Philadelphia, where she focuses her practice on the defense of insured and self-insured entities in casualty litigation. She defends clients in construction site, premises liability and automobile accidents.

Matthew Leaper, an associate at Smart & Biggar/Fetherstonhaugh in Vancouver, Canada, spoke at the Vancouver Film & Tech Expo on, Aug. 10, about utilizing intellectual property to create business value for content producers, start-up founders, and technology investors working in the entertainment industry.

Peter McCall is an associate in business and tort litigation at Jones Day in Pittsburgh, where his practice focuses on representing owners, design professionals and contractors in large construction disputes and in negotiating construction agreements.

Class of 2014

Sarah Bailey is a staff attorney at Reed Smith in Pittsburgh.

Chelsea Biemiller, an associate at Stradley Ronon in Philadelphia, scored victories on behalf of the Community College of Philadelphia against a discrimination claim that was dismissed in district court and then rebuffed by the Third Circuit in 2018.

Richard Coble, a criminal defense attorney at van der Veen, O’Neill, Hartshorn and Levin in Philadelphia, authored “Representation Matters,” which was published in The Philadelphia Lawyer’s special issue on Race and the Law.

Bonnie (Johnson) Galam, founder of the Galam Firm in Haddonfield, N.J., was named a Top Attorney for wills, estates and trusts by South Jersey Magazine in 2019.

Garrett Graff is managing attorney at the Denver, Colorado-based Hoban Law Group, a cannabis business law firm.

Maanda Makwarela is a senior researcher at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, a nonprofit human rights organization and a public interest law firm that provides professional, research, advocacy and litigation services to communities, movements and civil society organizations which seek to challenge inequality and realize socio-economic rights.

Class of 2015

Karen Grethlein, an associate at Marshall Dennehey, moderated a discussion of Federal and State Civil Procedures at the Pennsylvania Bar Association Civil Litigation Section Retreat in May 2019.

Amanda NeMoyer, PhD ‘17, is a research professor in the Department of Psychology at Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Devon Pope is an associate at Cullen and Dykman LLP in New York City, where he focuses his practice on M&A and corporate governance.

Alisha (Lubin) Rodriguez, an associate at Ricci Tyrell Johnson and Grey in Philadelphia, was appointed to serve on the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Board of Governors for a three-year term.

Steve Schultz is legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey in Washington, D.C., where his duties include management of the legislative portfolio consisting of Transportation and Infrastructure, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Technology and Veterans Affairs.

Class of 2016

R. Adam Bethke is a staff attorney at South Jersey Legal Services in Atlantic City.

Andrew Bull, founding partner of Bull Blockchain Law LLC, was quoted by Forbes in a March 2019 article about security token offerings.

Viren Doshi is counsel with Conner, Strong and Buckelew, an insurance brokerage and employee benefits and risk management consulting firm headquartered in Camden, N.J.

Emily Haney Caron, an assistant professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, co-authored “Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline: The Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program,” which was published in Children and Youth Services Review in 2019.

Ernie Holtzheimer, an associate at Montgomery McCracken, was named in the “20 Under 40” list published by South Jersey Biz in May 2019. He was also named a Super Lawyers Rising Star for business and corporate law.

Kristin Parker is an associate at Reed Smith in Philadelphia.

Moshe Saado Zada is a high-tech and M&A associate at Herzog Fox Neeman in Tel Aviv.

Class of 2017

Joshua Benjamin, the owner and managing attorney of the Law Offices of Joshua A. Benjamin LLC in Cherry Hill, N.J., attended the oath ceremony in July for a client who he helped achieve status as a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Dylan Caplan, an associate at DLA Piper in Philadelphia, served on a team that advised Real Capital Analytics Inc. in a $115 million growth equity investment and recapitalization by Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC in June 2019.

Margaux Curie, who has been an associate at White & Case in New York City, moves to the firm’s Silicon Valley office in August 2019.

Lauren Ibanez is an attorney advisor in the Attorney General's Honors Program at U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys in Washington, D.C.

Class of 2018

Jenna Ferraro is a litigation associate at Morgan Lewis in Princeton, N.J., where she is a member of the firm’s litigation team, providing legal services in a wide range of areas, including general civil and commercial litigation, environmental law and toxic torts.

Andrew Greer is an assistant district attorney at Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, where he works in the Appeals Unit.

Najah Jacobs is an associate at Archer and Greiner in Haddonfield, N.J., where she is a member of the Environmental Law Practice Group, specializing in complex environmental litigation, products liability claims and toxic torts.

Phil Pasquarello, an associate at Kline & Specter, was co-counsel in litigation that resulted in an $80 million jury verdict in May 2019 against Johnson & Johnson for a woman injured by a surgically implanted vaginal mesh device. Some months earlier, he was co-counsel in another vaginal mesh case that yielded a $41 million verdict against J&J.

Mischa Wheat, an associate at Stradley Ronon in Philadelphia, served on a team that represented Centurion Group, provider of institutional retirement plan consulting and fiduciary services to clients with combined plan assets in excess of $16 billion to the Trion Group, a division of Marsh & McLennan Agency, in April 2019.

Class of 2019

Dale Cooke, the president of Philly Cooke Consulting, will discuss Current Developments and Trends in Advertising and Promotion at the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society Regulatory Convergence in Philadelphia on Sept. 23.

Fanta Freeman has accepted a job as associate at Ballard Spahr in Center City.

Nina Gurak was selected to receive a Reproductive Justice Fellowship from If/When/How, which will support her work at the Healthy and Free Tennessee coalition in Nashville.

Arielle Heald will start work in 2019 with the Air Force JAG.

Justin Hollinger was selected to receive an Independence Foundation Fellowship at Regional Housing Legal Services.

Brittany Kane has accepted a position as associate at Burns White in Conshohocken.

Christopher Mullen has accepted a post as associate at Lauletta Birnbaum.

Liz Yoder has accepted a clerkship with Special Master Brian Corcoran in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.