Standard-bearers: Outstanding Black Alumni

UVA Lawyer recognizes black alumni who have made their mark. To submit a photo and information, contact alumni@law.virginia.edu.
 
 

AMA ADAMS ’01 is a partner with Ropes & Gray in its business and securities litigation practice in Washing­ton, D.C.

 

JAMES W. BENTON JR. ’70 is a retired Court of Appeals of Virginia judge and the first Af­rican-American ap­pointed upon the court’s creation in 1985.

 

CARLOS M. BROWN ’99 is vice president and general counsel of Do­minion Energy, head­quartered in Richmond, Va.

 

JANICE ROGERS BROWN LL.M. ’04 is a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Dis­trict of Columbia Circuit, and a former associate justice of the California Supreme Court.
 

DELORES BOYD ’75 retired as a U.S. mag­istrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

 

 TILLMAN J. BRECKENRIDGE ’01 is a partner with Pierce Bainbridge. He is also the St. George Tucker Adjunct Professor of Law and managing attorney with William & Mary Law School’s Appellate and Supreme Court Clinic.
 

BERT A. BUNYAN ’74 is a retired justice of the Kings County, N.Y., Supreme Court.

 

HENRY L. CHAMBERS JR. ’91 is the Austin E. Owen Research Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Rich­mond School of Law; he served as special assis­tant attorney general for Virginia from 2011-13.
 

ALFONSO CARNEY JR. ’74 retired as vice president and associate general counsel for corporate and government affairs with Altria Corporate Services, and serves as chairman of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York and chairman of the New York City Water Board.
 

JESSICA CHILDRESS ’10 is founder of The Chil­dress Firm, based in Washington, D.C., and Juris Prudence LLC. She is author of the children’s book “The Briefcase of Juris P. Prudence.”
 

NOAH CROOM ’90 is assistant general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves and formerly assistant general manager for the Vancouver Grizzlies.
 

JULIAN A. COOK III ’88 is the J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law.

 

KURT DAVIS ’09 is an investment banker at Houlihan Lokey in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and a former investment banker with Barclays.

 

JEREMIAH “JERRY” DEBERRY ’91 is a partner at Mayer Brown in New York City, where he is responsible for develop­ing and implementing diversity and inclusion policies for all the firm’s U.S. offices.
 

 DENNIS P. DUFFY ’82 is a partner with Baker­Hostetler in Houston, where he concen­trates on representing management in labor and employment law matters.
 

CHARLES W. DURANT ’91 is vice president and assistant general counsel at government and defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC); and also retired at the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
 

DASHA SMITH ’98 is executive vice president and chief people officer for the NFL. She previously served as executive vice president and global chief human resources officer at Sony Music Entertainment in New York.

 

ARNOLD EVANS ’96 is enterprise ethics officer at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta. He is for­merly president and CEO of SunTrust Bank, Orlando/Central Divi­sion of Florida.
 

CORDEL FAULK ’01 is assistant dean and chief admissions officer at the University of Virginia School of Law, and previously served on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
 

TERRICA REDFIELD GANZY ’02 is devel­opment director at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and formerly worked on death row cases as an SCHR staff attorney.
 

YARED GETACHEW ’98 is counsel for Mehrteab Leul & Associates in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and an assistant pro­fessor of law at Addis Ababa School of Law. He is formerly a legal adviser for the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal and a senior legal adviser on international law for the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 

RICHARD H. GLANTON ’72 is chairman, CEO and president of Philadel­phia Television Network Inc.

 

S. BERNARD GOODWYN ’86 is a justice on the Supreme Court of Vir­ginia. He formerly was a trial court judge in the First Judicial Circuit Court in Chesapeake.
 

SHARON S. GOODWYN ’88 is counsel with Hunton & Williams in Norfolk, Va., and a Law School Foundation trustee.

 

TIFFANY MARSHALL GRAVES ’06 is national pro bono counsel at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings in Jackson, Miss.

 

JOHN B. HARRIS JR. ’79 is a member of the board of directors of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company and a retired senior banker, executive and director of Deutsche Bank, where he worked for 29 years in investment and commercial banking.
 

PATRICE HAYDEN ’02 is director of associate recruitment at Hogan Lovells.

 
 

RICARDO HOLLINGSWORTH ’94  is a partner at Katten­MuchinRosenman in New York.

 

MELVIN J. “BUTCH” HOLLOWELL JR. ’84 is managing partner of The Miller Law Firm Detroit. He formerly served as corporation counsel for the city of Detroit and general counsel for the Detroit Branch NAACP.
 

LINDA HOWARD ’73 is general counsel and vice president for legal at Landmark Worldwide and previously served as an Ohio State University Law School professor and an executive in the New York City Law Department.
 

ROSCOE C. HOWARD JR. ’77 is managing partner of Barnes & Thornburg in Wash­ington, D.C. He served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 2001-04, and for­merly was a professor at the University of Kansas School of Law.
 

JEFFREY L. HUMBER ’78 is senior vice president and group manager of PNC’s Mid-Atlantic Public Finance Group and a Law School Foun­dation trustee.

 

EUCLID IRVING ’76 is the founder and managing principal of Blue Energy Alliance (a developer of turnkey solar power and energy storage for com­mercial and industrial customers) and a Law School Foundation hon­orary trustee.
 

GERALD F. IVEY ’82 is a partner with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner in Washington, D.C., where he focuses on patent liti­gation and jury trials.

 

GWENDOLYN JACKSON ’72 retired as a judge on the Norfolk General District Court, and still hears cases as a substitute judge.

 

RAYMOND JACKSON ’73 is a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, known for being a proponent of sentencing reform.

 

NICHOLAS P. JELLINS ’82 is a founding member of The Jellins Group in Menlo Park, Calif., and formerly served as the city’s mayor and city councilman.

 

JANICE JOHNSTON ’95 is an Emmy-winning senior producer and di­rector at ABC News in New York.

 

ELAINE JONES ’70 is the first African-American female graduate of UVA Law and was the first woman to serve as director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
 

JERRAULD C. “JAY” JONES ’15 of Norfolk is the youngest member of the Virginia House of Delegates and is an attorney at Bischoff Martingayle.

 

MAURICE A. JONES ’92 is CEO of Local Initiatives Support Corp. in New York and a member of the UVA Board of Visitors. He formerly served as Virginia sec­retary of commerce and trade, publisher of The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pi­lot and deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
 

ROSCOE JONES JR. ’03 is legislative director for U.S. Sen. Dianne Fein­stein. He is formerly senior counsel to U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Patrick Leahy.
 

KIM KEENAN ’87 is ex­ecutive vice president of marketing and re­search at Odyssey Media in Washington, D.C. She was the youngest person and second woman to serve as general counsel of the NAACP.
 

CAROLINE LAGUERRE-BROWN ’97 is vice provost for diversity, equity and community engagement at George Washington University.

 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE ’75 represents Texas’ 18th Congressional Dis­trict in the U.S. House of Representatives. She formerly served on the Houston City Council.
 

TONYA LEWIS LEE ’91 is a producer, author and advocate for women’s health who co-founded Tonik Productions in 2012.

 

BLANCHE M. MANNING LL.M. ’92 is senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

 

BYRON F. MARCHANT ’87 is president and CEO of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation. He formerly served as ex­ecutive vice president, general counsel and chief administrative officer for Black Enter­tainment Television.
 

THURGOOD MARSHALL JR. ’81, whose father is the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, is a partner at Morgan Lewis in Wash­ington, D.C. He formerly was senior staff in the Clinton administration and co-chaired the White House Olympic Task Force for the 2002 games.
 

DICKENS MATHIEU ’93 is general counsel and sec­retary of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

 

DAYNA BOWEN MATTHEW ’87 is the William L. Matheson and Robert M. Morgen­thau Distinguished Pro­fessor of Law and the F. Palmer Weber Research Professor of Civil Liber­ties and Human Rights at the Law School.
 

JENNIFER MCCLELLAN ’97 of Richmond is a Vir­ginia state senator and is assistant general counsel at Verizon Communi­cations. She also serves as chair of the Virginia General Assembly’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission and vice chair of the Vir­ginia Legislative Black Caucus.
 

A. DONALD MCEACHIN ’86 represents Virginia’s 4th Congressional Dis­trict in the U.S. House of Representatives. He formerly served in the Virginia state Senate and House of Delegates.
 

COLETTE WALLACE MCEACHIN ’85 is an assistant common­wealth’s attorney in Richmond, Va.

 

RICHE MCKNIGHT ’97 is senior vice president, as­sociate general counsel and global head of litiga­tion at Endeavor (for­merly WME | IMG) in New York.

 

ZANE D. MEMEGER ’91 is a partner with Morgan Lewis in Philadelphia and a former U.S. attor­ney for the Eastern Dis­trict of Pennsylvania.

 

JOHN F. MERCHANT ’58 was the first African-American to receive a law degree from UVA. He practiced law in Connecticut before re­tiring.

 

SUSAN BETH MERCHANT ’94, now the global head FCC & IC and regional head of U.S. law compli­ance at Standard Char­tered Bank, was the first child of a black Law School graduate (John Merchant) to graduate from UVA Law.
 

BLAKE D. MORANT ’78 is dean of the George Washington University Law School and former dean of the Wake Forest Univer­sity School of Law.

 

KEITH MORGAN ’88 is deputy chief of the Enforcement Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission. He previously served as deputy chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., where he oversaw Lance Armstrong’s settlement with the U.S. Postal Service.
 

EVERTON MORRIS ’07 is deputy executive di­rector of the African American Mayors Asso­ciation, based in Wash­ington, D.C.

 

ACKNEIL M. “TREY” MULDROW III ’95 is a partner with Akin Gump in New York City, where he focuses on mergers and acquisi­tions and corporate gov­ernance counseling.
 

TIM PHILLIPS ’97 is general counsel and assistant secretary of The American Cancer Society Inc. and the American Cancer Society, Cancer Action Network Inc.
 

ERROL PHIPPS ’91 is vice president and associate general counsel at AT&T.
 

 

KIM PHIPPS ’91 is counsel for Liberty Mutual and previously ran her own firm representing white-collar clients in tax controversies and other disputes.

 

INDIA PINKNEY ’98 is general counsel of the National Endowment for the Arts and was the first U.S. attorney to serve in the Legal Bureau of the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization.
 

RAQIYYAH PIPPINS ’06 is counsel at Arnold & Porter, where she specializes in food and drug and consumer protection law, in Washington, D.C. She formerly served as chair of the National Black Law Students Association and currently serves as a benefactor for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington’s Fearless Girls Program and on the board for the Shaw Community Center.
 

CLEO POWELL ’82 is the first African-American woman to serve on the Supreme Court of Virginia. She formerly served as a General District Court, Circuit Court and Court of Appeals of Virginia judge.
 

TRACY M. PRESTON ’91 is senior vice president and general counsel for Neiman Marcus.

 

KARL RACINE ’89 is the first independently elected attorney general of the District of Colum­bia and former manag­ing partner at Venable.

 

CARLTON W. REEVES ’89 is a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

 

LEAH WARD SEARS LL.M. ’95 in 1992 became the first woman and young­est justice to serve on the Supreme Court of Georgia. In 2005, she became the first Afri­can-American woman to serve as a state chief justice in the U.S. She is now a partner with Smith, Gambrell & Russell in Atlanta.
 

NATASHA PERDEW SILAS ’92 is a senior litigation attorney with the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta, and co-dean of the National Criminal Defense College.
 

TED SMALL ’92, a former partner with Holland & Knight, is a solo practitioner in DeLand, Florida, has served on the board of Florida Legal Services Inc., among other public service activities.
 

ASHANTÉ SMITH ’02 is a partner at Troutman Sanders in Richmond, Va.
 

 

DEMAURICE F. SMITH ’89 is executive director of the National Football League Players Associa­tion. He previously was counsel to the deputy U.S. attorney general and a partner at Latham & Watkins and Squire Patton & Boggs.
 

STEPHEN SMITH ’92 is a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame Law School and a former UVA Law pro­fessor.

 

GREGORY SWANSON was UVA and UVA Law's first African-American student, and later worked as an attorney with the Internal Revenue Service.

 

ERIC C. TAYLOR ’88 is the supervising judge of the Southwest District of Los Angeles Superior Court and the only two-term president of the California Judges Association.

 

JOHN CHARLES THOMAS ’75 was the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court of Virginia in 1983. He is currently a partner at Hunton & Williams in Richmond.
 

CAROLYN ODESSA TILLMAN ’84 is a man­aging counsel in the Houston office of the legal department at OXY USA Inc.

 

BOBBY VASSAR ’72 retired as a Democratic chief counsel for the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and continue to work as a senior counselor for Bay Aging in Virginia.
 

WILMA WALLACE ’89 is vice president, general counsel and legal secretary at REI, and previously served as an executive with Gap Inc.