Debra Tucker sent in this news for Ed Reilly, who may have been too modest to do it himself: "Ed Reilly recently started in his new position as Deputy General Counsel of Quantum Foods, LLC in the Chicago suburbs. Quantum Foods is a leading independent meat processor whose products are sold to a variety of foodservice, military, and retail customers, including national restaurant chains, mass merchandisers, and grocery retailers."
Jamie Green says: "After surviving fires, a couple of floods and an unusual cold snap (which resulted in a second consecutive year with a snow day in L.A.), things are pretty nominal for me here in Santa Monica. My son Joseph is now 8 years old and in the Third Grade. He is on a swim team, but his real passion is fencing. I try to avoid the living room when he practices with the foil. I continue to practice business and insurance litigation in Century City with the law firm of Charlston Revich & Wollitz."
From Rachel Laser (and Mark Davies): "Hello class of '95. 2008 finds us (Rachel and Mark) all still enjoying the nation's capitol. Mark is enjoying working with Walter Dellinger defending DC's gun safety law and Oxford Press will be publishing Mark's book on how to write an IP brief early this year! I am having fun "modernizing progressive thinking" at Third Way still. What does THAT mean? Check out www.third-way.com and let me know what you think. The kids are getting old (Em is 10, Nicole is almost 9 and Xander is almost 7) and doing great. We totally stuggled but succeeded at finding the Wii for them this Hannukah! Give us a holler if you come to DC at 202-907-7676."
And I think this is the first time we've ever heard directly from Jeff Richards... "Well, after 12 long years, I finally feel I have news sufficiently worthy of a Class Notes submission! This summer, I was fortunate enough to marry Eileen Byrne on Saturday, June 30, 2007. Eileen, who hosted a talk radio show on WLS AM 890 in Chicago for 8 years prior to the wedding, originally hails from New York. We married in the University Church at Fordham University in the Bronx, where Eileen attended college, followed by a reception at the Apawamis Club in Rye. Dan Baker, Scott Toban (co-best men), and Dan McGuire stood as groomsmen. Other '95ers in attendance include Greg Coules, Anastasia Katinas, Chris Kemnitz, Thies Kolln, Lisa Noller, Eric Rutkoske, and Wayne Yu."
George Lin writes: "We've now officially
moved to Hong Kong. The kids have all gotten into schools and I'm
traveling a lot throughout Asia in my new role running the consumer, retail and
healthcare effort for CS investment banking in Asia. Before we
finally made that final trip out here though, we were able to spend our
Christmas vacation with Vicki and Jeff Shapiro and their two daughters - Isabel
and Juliet - in Hawaii. It was a blast and we're looking forward to
planning the next vacation together in Asia! In addition, on our first
weekend here in HK, we were also lucky enough to have Katie and Wayne Yu visit
us from Chicago and we had a lot of fun showing them a traditional good time in
Hong Kong. We're now going to try and settle down here in HK and Ann will
be plenty busy as well learning Chinese and all the local customs, etc.
Hope all is well with everyone else in the class.
Brogan Sullivan writes: "Nothing terribly noteworthy from the class outpost in Kansas City. I'm still busy working as a partner in the corporate group at Blackwell Sanders, which has agreed to merge with a 300+ lawyer law firm based in St. Louis called Husch & Eppenberger. The new firm will be called Husch Blackwell Sanders (our firm lost the coin flip), and the resulting entity will have 650+ lawyers in Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, and other regional offices. The merger becomes effective February 1, and I think it's going to be a good combination. Lara opened her own pediatric urgent care clinic over a year ago, and that's been a success. Our four kids are all healthy and happy, although our two oldest boys have been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. They're dealing with that like champs." Brogan also wants everyone to know that his firm is available for local counsel purposes in Kansas, Missouri, or Nebraska, or if you need a lower cost (but still sophisticated) alternative to major-market law firms for a deal or other legal matter. You can reach him at bsullivan (at) blackwellsanders.com.
A little birdie also told me that Joe Klauke is engaged to a lovely woman named Terri. Joe - details?
Scott Gaille has big news this time around - he raised private equity funding in 2007 to start West & East Africa Oil Group, which is building a portfolio of petroleum exploration licenses in Sub-Saharan Africa.
David Carthy writes: "I am a corporate partner at William Fry in Dublin practicing Irish law but travelling frequently to the US and working with very many US and international clients and lawfirms. I am frequently in touch with many of our LLM group including Yuval and Isabelle Tal, Pontus Hallengren, Anna Vilades, Stan Brijs and Pierre de Bandt. We met up recently in Barcelona in November and plan to do so again in Brooklyn in May. With families and kids in tow we may have to look to booking a convention centre for the growing numbers at these reunions."
Tom Brown reports: "All is well in SF. I am happily ensconced at O'Melveny & Myers in San Francisco. Although no one else from our class is in SF, we have a growing collecting of '95ers at OMM--Abby Rudzin is in NYC, Mark Davies is in DC, and Dan Shallman is in LA. At home, Cait and I are on the census bureau track. We have two kids--Amelia and Beatrice ("Bebe" to all who know her), ages 11 and 8. We have two cats--Allegra and Charlotte. And we will soon be getting a dog--name TBD. I continue to practice antitrust law while moonlighting as an amateur law professor. A second paper that I co-authored with Richard Epstein will be published by UofC's Law Review in the Winter/Spring. I will be teaching a class at UC Berkeley's law school this coming term on the law and policy of modern consumer payments."
John Eastman was named Dean of Chapman University School of Law on June 1, 2007, where he now holds the Donald P. Kennedy Chair in Law. Among his first hires at Chapman was Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith (2002 Nobel Prize in Economics) and another U of C alumn, Steve Krone, a former law clerk to Justices Blackmun and Souter. John’s wife, Elizabeth, began teaching 3 courses each semester in the undergraduate History and Political Science departments at Chapman. Benjamin started high school, continues with Boy Scouts (almost an Eagle Scout) and plays jazz trumpet. Christina is in the 7th Grade, still playing up a storm on her violin and now on the mandolin as well. So as you might expect, there is never a dull moment at the Eastman house. A highlight of the past year was a visit by Justice Clarence Thomas, part of his national book tour.
If you ask for ClassNotes, they will come...
Julie and Chris Kemnitz are expecting baby #3 on May 21.
Remember Michele Blay's daughter Annie, who used to run around the Green Lounge? Michele reports that Annie graduates from high school this spring. "She's been accepted into Rice University for next year, where she plans to study astrophysics, and in late spring she'll complete an internship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration here in Colorado."
Susan (Hanaway) Frohling writes: "I have new position at Kraft, namely, Chief Trademark Counsel. All else is status quo, 3 kids keeping us very busy and exhausted-- but providing a few laughs and lots of smiles along the way :)"
Tom Hiscott writes: "On September 27th my wife Michelle and I had our second daughter, Charlotte Rose Hiscott. Her older sister, Victoria, is 2 1-2. We continue to live in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, an older, inner suburb of Philadelphia, and two years ago bought our circa 1925 home from the original owner (age 109). I remain a partner at the trusts and estates boutique Heckscher, Teillon, Terrill, and Sager, in West Conshohocken (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania. I was recently elected to the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and appointed to the Decedents' Estates Laws Committee of the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission, which advises the legislature in writing the law in this area. My practice tend to be tax focused, but I have handled some litigation matters, enough to have been involved in cases involving cy pres, the Rule Against Perpetuities, and ownership of reversionary interests. The intersection of families, state property law and federal tax law keeps me interested and busy."
More soon...
Lisa Noller has had a very busy (and excellent!) year: "Effective today, I’ve been promoted. I’m now a Deputy Chief in the General Crimes section of the office. It’s something I’ve hoped for for awhile, but there are so few slots and so many good people I figured I’d never get it. Basically, now I supervise a group of new AUSAs – reviewing their indictments, search warrants, trial strategies, plea agreements, etc. Oh, and I keep all my cases and investigations. This Fall I received an award for “Superior Performance as an AUSA” for the money laundering case I tried earlier this year. We got guilty verdicts on 100 counts of racketeering and other crimes against 2 car dealers who laundered drug proceeds by selling high-end luxury cars to drug dealers and gang bangers, then among other things, sent the money to Iran. Oh, and I got engaged to the most fabulous guy ever. And I taught Federal Criminal Practice at U of C."
Bjarne Tellmann's life is, as usual, significantly more fascinating than mine... Bjarne writes: "We are now happily settled in Tokyo after moving in July/August from Athens. Tokyo is a fantastic place in which to live! One of the greatest features is the restaurant/food scene: all (virtually without exception) excellent. Tokyo has the highest restaurant density on Earth, with over 164,000 restaurants in Tokyo, as compared to only ca. 20,000 in each of NY and London and about 13,000 in Paris. In other respects Tokyo is also a consumer paradise. It is also (which was surprising to me) a walking city, so you can get virtually everywhere with the (excellent) subway system or by foot. For a city of 33 million people (if you include the Kanto plain), this place is amazingly harmonious and well organized. Housing is surprisingly good - very modern and large and right smack in the center of one of the best parts of town. The building we live in is virtually exclusively inhabited by expats from all over with kids, which is great for Mia and Liv (as well as Alessandra). My commute, door to door, is 7 minutes. Alessandra is happy and taking time off from work to spend with the kids. Mia (now 4) is going to the Montessori School nursery and seems to be very settled. Liv (now 1) is still at home but I think she is soon ready for her first foray into a nursery environment, even if only for a few hours per week. People here in Japan are very polite and very hard working. I am trying to study Japanese but so far there has been little time to really dive in. The culture is of course very different but, strangely, it doesn't take very long to settle in. The expat community is very large and consists mostly of people who we have a lot in common with. You kind of just slip right in without too many adjustment issues.
"Work is great but demanding. It started with being mercilessly required to sing karaoke in front of the top 45 managers of Coca-Cola Japan on my first day. Talk about an ice breaker! If there is any justice I think it hurt them more than it hurt me. We sang "Don't Worry Be Happy" which has been now billed as the Legal Department's new motto! I wear two hats in my new role on the Coca-Cola Company side of things: in Japan, I am the General Counsel. Given that Japan is the most important market for Coke outside North America, it is a role with a lot of pressure and visibility but I have a great team and I am getting up to speed quickly. One great aspect of the new role is that I am on the Management Committee, which gives me a broader level of managerial and commercial exposure beyond just being on the legal side. I also wear a second hat in which I keep my toe in the bottling waters as Assistant General Counsel for Bottling Investments. In that role, I manage legal affairs for Coke's directly held bottling investments across Asia-Pacific, including China, The Philippines and Singapore. I am also responsible for various global functional areas on the bottling side, including competition law, where I am currently managing projects in both the EU and China.
"On the fun side, I have been taking martial arts classes but, after careful contemplation, I actually settled on Krav Maga, the Israeli style I took while I was in Vienna, rather than on a traditional Japanese style. Talk about a globalized world! The Israeli-trained Japanese fighters are tough as nails - lots of Samurai spirit against one haggard old Viking!
"I also attended my first Sumo tournament with colleagues the other night, which was very interesting. Instead of nuts, we munched on sushi, yakitori sticks, seaweed crackers, dried and salted scallop sinews and beer. Not sure how popular those snacks would be at a Giants game but it was actually quite nice (though I did have a bit of a stomach ache when I got home)! On the less fun side, we survived our first typhoon in September, the epicenter of which went directly over Tokyo. Quite a night. Next morning we met with a team of Japanese Coke bottlers: after a suicidal drive on the highway in 100 mile an hour gusts, we arrived: all of them had lined themselves up the stairs in uniforms, with headbands with Japanese written on them, shouting salutations - "Ohaio Gozaimasu!!". They had made posters of our President and the GM for Tokyo and pasted them on the walls and doors. Also a bit different from a typical meeting in Europe or the US! All in all, we could get used to Asia. It really brings you into its orbit!"
Clive Theodore Burt was born on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 at 4:45 p.m. 7lbs. 2oz., 20 1/4 inches. According to Chris Burt, "Baby and mother are doing great. Clive enjoyed watching football with his dad on his first Thanksgiving."
Lisa Noller is engaged!She reports: "I’m happy to say that Tyler and I are getting married! He proposed last Saturday night on the Royal Albert Bridge in London, England, and I said yes. It was during halftime of the 2007 Rugby World Cup finals (England v. South Africa), so all the Londoners were watching the game and we had the city to ourselves. It was beautiful, and I couldn’t be happier."
On August 15, Kristen and Rob Mahnke welcomed their third baby, Annabel Sunkes Mahnke. I gather the 15th was Rob's birthday, as he describes Annabel as "the best birthday present he's ever had." Photos are here and here.
For once I have some news of my own. On August 14, Brian and I welcomed Samuel Avichai Nagorsky, 6 lbs., 15 oz., 20 inches long. Pictures available at our blog.
