NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW MAGAZINE

In June 2024, the Florida Bar honored Marshall Maurice Stern for 50 years of membership.

Post-retirement from the Northeastern Law faculty, Brook Baker continues his leadership in access to medicines. This fall, he was selected to join The Lancet’s Commission on Essential Medicines Policies. Over the next two years, the commission will produce a 10-year update to the report of the previous commission, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first WHO Model List of Essential Medicines in October 2027.

Valerie Therrien was recently elected to serve a three-year term as a member of the Fairbanks City Council. Valerie has served four terms on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and three terms on the city council. She has also served on the board of directors of the Alaska Municipal League, the City of Fairbanks Permanent Fund Review Board, the finance and legislative committees and as a member of the Polaris Working Group. A sole practitioner, Valerie works with clients in a variety of areas, such as small business and corporate, bankruptcy, and trusts and estates.

Nancy Lassen, who recently retired as a partner at Willig, Williams & Davidson in Philadelphia, was named to The Best Lawyers in America 2025. Her practice focused exclusively on labor law.Beth Herr has joined OneLaw in Newton as of counsel. Beth specializes in family law and represents clients in guardianships, adoptions, child welfare cases and uncontested domestic relations matters. As a visiting professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Beth shares her knowledge and experience with the next generation of lawyers. She is also co-founder of Daybreak, Inc., a shelter for battered women and their children in Worcester.

As an unexpected silver lining of COVID-19 isolation, classmates Neil Leifer (left) and Wib Gulley (right) teamed up with three fellow musicians to create Tuesday Night Jam. Since April 2020, the band has been rocking out on Zoom nearly every Tuesday night, blending tunes from their homes in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Arizona and Vermont. Once a year, they swap screens for strings, gathering at a cabin on Squam Lake for an all-day jam session.

Stephen Casscles, a viticulturalist based in Athens, New York, has co-authored a groundbreaking new book on Korean and North American cool climate grape varieties. The Wine Grapes of Chungcheongbuk-Do, Korea is the first winemaking grape book devoted to Korean and American native grape varieties published in Korea.

Alexandra Glover, founding partner at Lazan Glover & Puciloski in Great Barrington, Mass., has been elected corporator of Community Bancorp of the Berkshires. Alexandra is a civil litigator who also handles zoning, permitting and other land use matters.

The Honorable William “Mo” Cowan has joined the board of directors of Ratio Therapeutics, an emerging pharmaceutical company employing innovative technologies to develop best-in-class radiopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment and monitoring. A former US senator representing Massachusetts, Mo brings a wealth of experience in government, law, healthcare, strategy and public policy to Ratio’s board. He currently serves as chief legal and external affairs officer for Devoted Health, a mission-driven, next-generation, all-in-one healthcare company.

After winding down a nearly 30-year career in corporate business immigration, Leslie Tuttle Ditrani founded Pathway for Immigrant Workers (PIW), the first nonprofit in the country whose mission is to obtain green cards for lower-wage workers through their jobs. PIW provides the legal work pro bono, thereby serving an immigrant community not otherwise able to access business immigration resources. Prior to founding PIW, Leslie was co-managing partner of Chin & Curtis.

Amy Rosenberger, a partner with the labor, employment and workers’ compensation law firm Willig, Williams & Davidson in Pennsylvania, was named to The Best Lawyers in America 2025. Amy serves as a trusted advisor to a diverse list of unions representing employees in government service, K–12 and higher education, transportation, healthcare and more.

Marielena Hincapié, a leader on immigration reform and immigrant justice, has been named a 2024–2025 John W. Nixon ’53 Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Marielena is on sabbatical after 22 years of working with the National Immigration Law Center, 14 of which she served as executive director. She co-chaired the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Immigration and helped lead the national conversation on the essential role immigrants play in shaping the future of the US and safeguarding our democracy.

Yvonne Hennessey, a partner in the Albany, New York, office of Barclay Damon, was named to City & State New York’s inaugural Trailblazers in Law list. Yvonne serves as chair of Barclay Damon’s environmental and lobbying and election law compliance practice areas, and she is co-team leader of the firm’s oil and gas, linear infrastructure and energy markets teams.

In October, Melissa Hoffer, Massachusetts’ first ever climate chief, headlined a keynote conversation, “Power Shift: Energy Innovation, Sustainability, and Equity,” at Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s 2024 Power Shift Symposium. She discussed her experience leading state and federal efforts to battle climate change through innovation, adaptation and resiliency.

Loren Khogali, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, was recently appointed to serve on the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission (MIDC). The 18-member governor-appointed commission oversees the implementation of minimum standards, including the right to counsel at a person’s first appearance in court, access to experts and investigators in criminal cases and required training for all attorneys taking public defense cases. Before joining the ACLU in 2021, Loren served as MIDC’s executive director for three years and spent 13 years with Detroit’s Federal Public Defender Office (now the Federal Community Defender’s Office).

Rebecca Knudson, a partner in the Wilmington, North Carolina, office of Cranfill Sumner, was selected for inclusion in Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite for 2025. Rebecca focuses her civil litigation practice on representing builders, developers and homeowner association boards.

Nneoma Maduike has joined Holland & Knight’s financial services team as a partner in the firm’s New York office. She focuses her practice on representing many of the largest US and global institutional lenders, regional banks, hedge and private equity funds, commercial finance companies and numerous specialty finance companies in a wide variety of financial matters. She was previously a partner with Otterbourg in New York, where she was co-head of the lender finance practice.

In September, Garrett Lee, co-managing partner at Morgan & Morgan in Boston, was tapped by Governor Maura Healey ’98 to serve on the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission. The JNC, a non-partisan, non-political and non-compensated commission composed of 27 distinguished volunteers from a cross section of the commonwealth’s diverse population, serves as the administration’s screening mechanism for judicial candidates.

Margo Lindauer continues to amaze and amuse as co-host of the podcast justUS, which features conversations between Tashira Halyard, a queer Black woman, and Margo, a white, cis-hetero, married mother of three daughters, who demonstrate how their friendship can persist and thrive outside of the box society has constructed for them.

In November, Nicole Bluefort, managing partner at the Law Offices of Nicole Bluefort, was honored as a trailblazer and leader by the New Hampshire Business Review at the newspaper’s Powered by Women conference, which showcases the drive, conviction and persistence of women leaders in the Granite State. Nicole is an experienced trial attorney whose law firm has offices in Boston and Lynn as well as a new location in Manchester, New Hampshire, which opened in July 2024.

Laura Fauber has joined Cornell Smith Mierl Brutocao Burton, a boutique labor and employment firm in Austin, Texas, as partner. Laura specializes in labor and employment law, and she is licensed and experienced in California, Texas and Washington. She previously served as the senior director of employment, benefits and litigation at National Instruments and as an associate attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and at Arnold & Porter.

Angela Duger recently joined Collegium Pharmaceutical, a diversified specialty pharmaceutical company in Stoughton, Massachusetts, as director, commercial counsel. She previously worked for five years at Servier Pharmaceuticals, most recently serving as director, ethics and compliance.

Leigh Furtado has been elevated to partner at the Providence, Rhode Island, office of Day Pitney, where she is a member of the firm’s trusts and estates practice group and its tax-exempt organizations and charitable giving practice group.

Jennifer Ioli Connelly, a partner in the renewable energy practice group at Sherin and Lodgen in Boston, was named to The Best Lawyers in America 2025 in recognition of her achievements in real estate law. A commercial real estate attorney with experience in acquisitions, development, leasing and financing, Jen represents retailers, developers and institutions in all aspects of commercial real estate transactions.

Janette Ekanem (left) and classmate Paige McKissock (right) have teamed up to serve as the co-chairs of the Boston Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Section steering committee. Janette serves as associate general counsel for Atrius Health, a Massachusetts-based healthcare organization that delivers a system of connected care for adult and pediatric patients. Paige, a partner at Segal Roitman in Boston, represents private and public sector unions in arbitrations, collective bargaining and administrative proceedings.

Naomi Smith has been promoted to counsel at Latham & Watkins in Boston. A member of the emerging companies and growth practice and corporate department, she represents startups and emerging growth companies in the technology, healthcare and life sciences industries in transactions including venture capital financings, corporate formation, securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions and private equity investments.

Lydia X.Z. Brown, director of public policy at the National Disability Institute, was named to the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association’s 2024 class of the 40 Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40 at the 2024 Lavender Law Conference. A committed advocate, community organizer and policy expert at the nexus of disability rights and disability justice, Lydia has spoken and consulted internationally and throughout the US on a range of topics at the intersections of disability, race, class, gender and sexuality and has written for numerous scholarly and community publications.

Kelly Ware is now executive director of the Professional Development Office at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Kelly, who earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh, previously served as director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the Allegheny County Bar Association.

Kristen Tully has joined Ogletree Deakins’ Raleigh, North Carolina, office as an associate attorney specializing in employment-based nonimmigrant matters, including H-1B, O, L, E and TN petitions, and immigrant matters, including EB-1 and EB-2 national interest waiver petitions. She was previously an attorney with WR Immigration, a global immigration firm.

Elaine Marshall is the School Discipline Advocacy Program Fellow with Health Law Advocates, a public interest law firm whose mission is to provide pro bono legal representation to residents in low-income situations who are experiencing difficulty accessing or paying for needed medical services. Previously, Elaine served as a postdoctoral research fellow and research scientist with the Salus Populi judicial education program, a collaboration between Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law and Bouvé College of Health Sciences’ Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research.

Olivia Rayburn has joined Hinckley Allen’s Boston office as an associate in the firm’s litigation group. She was previously an associate at Cetrulo. Olivia brings a wealth of experience in commercial and product liability litigation, as well as expertise in real estate transactions to her new position.