NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW MAGAZINE

US President Joe Biden recently appointed two Northeastern Law graduates to key positions in his administration. Shakuntla Bhaya ’85 (right) was appointed as a member of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency within the executive branch whose statutory mission is to identify ways to improve the procedures by which federal agencies protect the public interest and determine the rights, privileges and obligations of private persons. Bhaya, a partner with Doroshow, Pasquale, Krawitz & Bhaya in Delaware, has served on Governor John Carney’s Judicial Nominating Commission for seven years and is a member of the Delaware Democratic Party’s State Executive Committee. She is a past president of the Delaware Trial Lawyers Association and is actively involved in fighting for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.

In September, Biden announced the appointment of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey ’98 to the Council of Governors for a two-year term. The Council of Governors is comprised of 10 bipartisan governors from across the country and serves as the lead forum to increase coordination around preparedness, resilience and response between the federal government and state governments and strengthen the federal-state partnership, particularly in regard to threats to homeland security.

In October, Talesha Saint-Marc ’09 was sworn in as the first Black person to serve on the federal bench in New Hampshire. She was appointed to fill the second, recently created, full-time US magistrate judge position in the District of New Hampshire. The Honorable Landya McCafferty ’91, chief judge for the US District Court for the District of New Hampshire, presided over the ceremony and administered the oath of office to Saint-Marc. In attendance were Saint Marc’s family members; classmates; former Bernstein Shur colleagues, including firm CEO Joan Fortin ’96; and Emily Gray Rice ’84, former US attorney for New Hampshire and the current city solicitor for Manchester, New Hampshire.

Avana Epperson-Temple ’15, a litigation and trial attorney with Peabody & Arnold, was recently honored by the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts with its Emerging Women Leaders in the Law award and by the Anti-Defamation League of New England (ADL) with its 2023 Krupp Leadership Award in recognition of her dedication to the ADL’s mission and embodiment of its core principles and goals. Epperson-Temple is a graduate of the ADL’s Glass Leadership Institute, has been a member of its board since 2018 and is active on a number of ADL committees. She’s also a volunteer with Pine Street Inn and is president-elect of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association.

Samuel Segal ’10 is the elected treasurer of the Massachusetts Bar Association (MBA) for the 2023–2024 membership year. Founder of the Law Offices of Samuel A. Segal, he serves as a member of the MBA’s leadership team and is former chair of both the MBA Young Lawyers Division and the Lawyer Referral Service Committee. He regularly volunteers for both the MBA’s Dial-A-Lawyer and Mock Trial programs, and he received the MBA’s Volunteer Recognition Award in 2016.

Alvin Benjamin Carter III ’18 received a Cornerstone Award from Lawyers Alliance for New York in November for outstanding pro bono service. An associate with Brown Rudnick in Boston, Carter was lauded for utilizing his expertise in corporate law, intellectual property and music to assist a nonprofit organization, serving mostly Latino youth and families in the South Bronx, with a jazz album and a documentary film.

David Balto ’83, a longtime antitrust attorney and ordained chaplain, received a Star Volunteer Award in November from Bikur Cholim of Greater Washington, an organization that provides services to hundreds of people who are vulnerable, sick, in despair and who have other needs. Balto received the award for his service in hospitals and prisons. Balto and his wife, Naomi, recently provided funding to create a garden and backyard deck for the Bernard Creeger Bikur Cholim House, a facility that offers temporary housing for the families of patients receiving medical treatment at the National Institutes of Health, area hospitals and treatment centers. The Baltos’ gift was made in memory of Naomi’s parents.

Congratulations to our women leaders who were honored as pioneers, educators, trailblazers and role models by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly at a gala in November.

Kristina Barclay ’98
US Attorney’s Office

Gavriela Bogin-Farber ’12
Segal Roitman

Asya Calixto ’11
3Play Media

Nicole Forbes ’08
Globalization Partners

Elizabeth Fraser ’99
Greenberg Traurig

Beth Myers ’09
Burns & Levinson

Hema Sarang- Sieminski ’05
Jane Doe Inc.

Kaila Clark ’20 (left) and Amanda Hainsworth ’12 (right) were honored in August with the 40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40 Award by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. Clark is an associate at ArentFox Schiff, where she serves as co-chair of the firm’s LGBTQ+ inclusion group, OutFox. Hainsworth is senior legal advisor to Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell.

Barry Bisson ’13, head of Bisson Law and current president of the Northeastern Law Alumni/ae Association, was honored last summer as Public Defender of the Year by the National College for DUI Defense (NCDD). Bisson received the award in recognition of his relentless pursuit of justice on behalf of his clients, his thirst for knowledge and his tenacity in court and for setting himself apart in his local legal community as a tenacious, compassionate and ethical advocate for his clients.

Micah Jones ’19, an associate with Morgan Lewis, received the Boston Intellectual Property Law Association (BIPLA) 2023 Pro Bono Award during the association’s annual meeting in December. The annual award recognizes a BIPLA member’s “significant or meaningful” pro bono services. Jones was recognized for his efforts as part of a team of lawyers, legislators and diplomats who, after the US Armed Forces’ 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, helped evacuate former Afghan government deputy minister Mohammad Hamid Yousafi and his family, who were, according to Hamid, facing a “life-or-death situation.” Jones helped secure Special Immigrant Visas for the family, who relocated to the United States. Jones previously worked alongside Hamid to fight corruption in the Afghan government in 2014 and 2015 during Jones’ deployment to Afghanistan with the US Army.

The Honorable Ramon Ocasio III ’88 was elevated to the Appellate Court of Illinois in August. He is the first Puerto Rican jurist to serve in that role. Ocasio also co-chairs the Illinois Supreme Court Disparate Outcomes Working Group, mandated to identify and eliminate racial disparities in the state courts. He was first elected to the Cook County Circuit Court bench in 2006 and has held assignments in the First and Fourth Municipal Districts — he was the first Puerto Rican to serve as presiding judge in the Fourth Municipal District and has also presided over the Drug Treatment Court. Ocasio is a past president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association of Illinois and the first president of the Illinois Latino Judges Association. He also writes a monthly column on racial justice issues for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

Mary Bonauto ’87 (left), Joyce Kauffman ’92 (right) and Professor Margaret Burnham were inducted this fall into Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s inaugural Hall of Fame based on their career accomplishments, contributions to the development of the law in Massachusetts, contributions to the bar and efforts to improve the quality of justice in Massachusetts. Hall of Fame membership is reserved for Massachusetts lawyers who are age 60 and older or have been practicing for 30 years or more.

Bonauto is senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), where her tireless advocacy and powerful oral arguments before the US Supreme Court, led — in large measure — to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States when she served as one of the lead attorneys in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Kauffman has practiced family law for the past 25 years with a special focus on issues impacting the LGBTQ+ community in the areas of adoption, relationship recognition and parentage. Shortly after graduating from law school in 1992, she was on brief in Adoption of Tammy, the case that secured the right for same-sex couples to adopt in Massachusetts.