GPS SPEAKER AND PANELIST PROFILES
John Ahlers
John Ahlers is the Director of Financial Aid for the Duke Law School Financial Aid Office.
Richard Allen ('08)
Richard Allen is a sole practitioner and social entrepreneur. His practice focuses on small business, intellectual property and employment law. He is a member of Bull City Forward, a Durham business incubator dedicated to nurturing social entrepreneurship in the Triangle area. Before returning to Durham, he worked as a litigator at a Washington, DC firm. He is a 2008 graduate of Duke Law School and a founder of the intellectual property law blog 95years.com.
Christian Broadbent ('99)
Christian Broadbent graduated from Duke Law School in 1999 with JD and LLM degrees. He worked for two law firms (now called WilmerHale, and Dewey & LeBoeuf), then joined the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he held several positions. First, he worked in the Division of Investment Management's Office of Disclosure Regulation, which focuses on registered investment companies. While there, he worked on matters such as proxy voting by mutual funds and investment advisers, the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and market timing/late trading scandals. He then became Counsel to Commissioner Annette L. Nazareth, working primarily on investment management and enforcement issues. Following that, Mr. Broadbent became Senior Special Counsel in the Division of Investment Management's Special Projects Office, reporting to the Division Director on a diverse portfolio of emerging regulatory issues. He is currently Senior Counsel to Commissioner Elisse B. Walter, and focuses on regulatory reform, investment management, ethics, and enforcement issues. In this position, Mr. Broadbent has been involved with the regulatory response to the economic crisis and implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act.
Rodney Bullard ('01)
Rodney Bullard is currently an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Georgia. Prior to the Department of Justice, Mr. Bullard served as a Judge Advocate General officer in the United States Air Force. His experiences as a JAG Officer included serving at the White House, NASA, and as a Legislative Counsel to the Secretary of the Air Force. Among his many volunteer activities, Mr. Bullard serves as a member of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security Committee, the Duke Law Young Lawyers Board of Directors, the Air Force Academy's Falcon Foundation, the Truman National Security Program, and the Board of Directors for The Mission Continues, an organization committed to assisting wounded veterans' transition into civilian service.
Mr. Bullard's recognitions include selection as a White House Fellow (2005-2006), the ABA's Silver Key Award, and the Bell South Young Leader's Award. He continues his affiliation with the military in the Air Force Reserves, and as an instructor at the Air Force Judge Advocate General School.
Roger Cook ('84)
Roger Cook has been a staff attorney at what is now known as Legal Aid of North Carolina since 1992. Prior to that, he represented injured workers before the North Carolina Industrial Commission and in the state appellate courts. His primary area of practice at LANC has been low-income housing law, practicing before state and federal courts and in local administrative forums defending the rights of tenants under state and federal law. He has served on the LANC Housing Task Force, and served as co-counsel in Evans v. Raleigh Housing Authority (2005 EDNC), successfully challenging Section 8 voucher termination hearing procedures as violative of due process. Since 1999 he has served as a board member and Vice President of the North Carolina Legal Education Assistance Foundation, which provides loan repayment assistance to recent law graduates pursuing public interest careers.
Jennifer Dominguez
Ms. Dominguez is an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Raleigh, NC. She recently joined the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of North Carolina after having served as a Fellow to Dean David Levi at Duke Law.
Ms. Dominguez received her juris doctor in 2002 from the University of North Carolina School of Law where she was the Executive Articles Editor for the North Carolina Law Review and a member of the mock trial team. She is a 1994 graduate of Duke University.
Following law school, Ms. Dominguez clerked for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Karen Nelson Moore in Cleveland, OH. She then was accepted into the Attorney General's Honors Program at the U.S. Department of Justice. At DOJ, she was a prosecutor in the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division, a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, and a lawyer in the Office of Policy and Legislation, Criminal Division.
Charles Dunlap
Charles Dunlap Jr., former Deputy Judge Advocate General of the United States Air Force, joined the Duke Law faculty in July 2010. His teaching and scholarly writing focuses on national security, international law, civil-military relations, cyberwar, and military justice.
Mr. Dunlap retired from the Air Force in June 2010, having attained the rank of major general during a 34-year career in the Judge Advocate Corps. In his capacity as deputy judge advocate general from May 2006 to March 2010, Mr. Dunlap assisted the judge advocate general in the professional supervision of more than 2,200 judge advocates, 350 civilian lawyers, 1,400 enlisted paralegals, and 500 civilians around the world. In addition to overseeing an array of military justice, operational, international, and civil law functions, he provided legal advice to the Air Staff and commanders at all levels.
In the course of his career, Mr. Dunlap has been involved in various high-profile interagency and policy matters, highlighted by his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives concerning the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
Paul Gottlieb ('72)
Paul Gottlieb was the Assistant General Counsel for Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property at the U.S. Department of Energy from 1995-2010. His office was responsible for providing legal counsel on all matters relating to intellectual property (including patents, copyrights, and technical data) and transfer of those rights in contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, "other transactions" and international agreements and from Department laboratories, to the private sector. Mr. Gottlieb's office obtained, administered, and licensed inventions owned by the Government that arose from Department sponsored research and development, and was responsible for investigating and disposing of copyright and patent infringement actions against the Department. Much of the work involved research (new technology, nuclear weapons, environmental clean-up for nuclear weapons, commercial and military uses of nuclear technology, etc.) and the intellectual property provisions that go along with all these transactions.
Kimberly Grantham ('94)
Kimberly Grantham is a Senior Assistant City Attorney and has been employed with the City of Durham since April of 2005. Prior to joining the City, she held staff attorney positions with the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners and the Durham County Attorney's Office, served on the faculty of the UNC-CH School of Government, and spent a few years in private practice with a specialization in real estate work. Ms. Grantham is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, BS, Psychology, and Duke University School of Law.
For the City of Durham, Ms. Grantham oversees general litigation and provides legal support for the City's Risk Management, Human Resources, and Police Departments, in addition to advising the City's transit system and Fleet Management. While she has handled dozens of litigated matters for the City, her most notable cases to date include a successful defense to a public records lawsuit filed by Capitol Broadcasting Corp. (WRAL) and serving as the coordinating attorney for the defense of a series of lawsuits stemming from the Duke Lacrosse prosecution. Her community activities include serving on the Rogers-Herr PTA as the Reflections Committee Chair, frequent service as a Parent Volunteer at Rogers-Herr Middle School and Durham School of the Arts, service to the Durham County Bar Association by volunteering for the Nominations Committee, service on the Board of Directors of Performance Edge, Inc., an organization that strives to enhance the cultural life of the community by providing intensive individual and group performance training to a diverse group of young people.
Margaret Hu ('00)
Margaret Hu is a senior lecturing fellow in Duke Law's Program in Public Law. Previously, she served as senior policy advisor for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and also served as special policy counsel in the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC), Civil Rights Division, U. S. Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C. As Special Policy Counsel, Hu managed a team of attorneys and investigators in the enforcement of the anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), and was responsible for federal immigration policy review and coordination for OSC.
Prior to law school, Ms. Hu served as a policy analyst at the Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, helping to implement community-based programs for crime prevention and the prevention of youth violence. Ms. Hu also served as a court advocate with a domestic violence legal clinic in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was selected as an Everett Summer Fellow with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund and also participated in an internship with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division through the Department's Summer Honors Program (Summer Law Intern Program). After graduation from Duke Law School, Ms. Hu clerked in Miami, Florida, for Judge Rosemary Barkett, Eleventh Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals.
Wendy Kamenshine ('99)
Wendy Kamenshine is the Senior Ombudsman for the Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman's Office and has been with the Ombudsman's Office since 2005. She also serves as the Chair of the Coalition of Federal Ombudsmen and is a regular mediator and facilitator with the Federal Sharing Neutrals Program. Prior to joining the Ombudsman's Office, Ms. Kamenshine practiced international trade law with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in Washington, DC. She earned her A.B. in Economics from the University of Chicago and her J.D. from Duke University School of Law. She also has mediation training from Harvard's Program of Instruction for Lawyers, the Northern Virginia Mediation Service, and Duke's Private Adjudication Center.
Sebastian Kielmanovich ('04)
Sebastian Kielmanovich Kie is currently an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He also teaches Latin American Business Law and Spanish for Legal Studies. He received a J.D. from the University of Buenos Aires School of Law in 1999, and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law in 2004.
Before coming to Duke, Mr. Kielmanovich was a practicing attorney in Argentina, specializing in corporate law, intellectual property and contracts, and an assistant professor of business associations in the University of Buenos Aires. In addition, he worked with the city attorney and clerked for a trial judge.
In the United States, Mr. Kielmanovich participated in the Summer Honors Program at the Securities & Exchange Commission in Miami, Florida. He also worked as staff attorney for Legal Aid of North Carolina, and as corporate counsel for a major software corporation in McLean, Virginia. He served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Fifth and Tenth Judicial Districts of North Carolina where he was assigned to prosecute habitual felons, drug traffickers and violent offenders. Additionally, Mr. Kielmanovich was an Assistant Attorney General with the North Carolina Department of Justice where he served as a special prosecutor and provided legal representation to the Department of Crime Control & Public Safety.
David Kirkman
Dave Kirkman has served in the North Carolina Department of Justice's Consumer Protection Division since 1987. That agency enforces North Carolina's Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act and related marketing practice statutes. Mr. Kirkman's primary responsibilities are preventing and prosecuting scams targeting elderly citizens, telemarketing fraud and cross-border fraud. He has long believed in tackling fraud via a multi-party, collaborative approach. Since 1998, he has been a leader of the North Carolina Senior Fraud Task Force, a group of fifty government and private, nonprofit agencies dedicated to eliminating "elder frauds" through collaborative efforts. In 1995, Mr. Kirkman and two investigators assembled an ad hoc task force of three-dozen local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in North Carolina and Virginia to take down a large, itinerate home repair fraud ring that was plaguing very elderly home owners throughout the region. To date, members of that task force have obtained over 400 felony convictions against members of the fraud ring. In addition, since 1999, Mr. Kirkman has managed a federally funded Telemarketing Fraud Prevention Project for the North Carolina Attorney General. That project expands this multi-agency networking philosophy and regularly collaborates with overseas law enforcement agencies, as well as members of the banking, senior care and medical geriatrics communities.
Mr. Kirkman serves on the Executive Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Telemarketing Fraud Task Force. In that capacity, he assisted NAAG in planning and conducting seven national training programs on telemarketing fraud and cross-border fraud enforcement. He has participated in numerous NAAG multi-state enforcement initiatives during the past two decades, as well as joint enforcement actions by the Federal Trade Commission and smaller groups of states. Recently, these NAAG and state/FTC initiatives have involved the payment processing and wire transfer industries, whose services are utilized heavily by overseas fraud artists.
Mr. Kirkman received his undergraduate degree from Davidson College and his law degree from the University of North Carolina. In 1986, he received a license to practice before the Supreme Court of Nepal.
Stephan Klingelhofer ('67)
Stephan Klingelhofer is the Senior Vice President for the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law
in Washington, DC. Mr. Klingelhofer served as ICNL's President and CEO from December 2001 until December 2005; before becoming President, he served as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.
Mr. Klingelhofer has played a leading role in ICNL's senior management team since 1994. He has helped design and implement an effective response to the global need for establishing and sustaining a sound enabling legal framework for civil society. His duties at ICNL have included project development and implementation, planning, and financial and personnel management, as well as relations with funders and local project partners, government officials, representatives of civil society organizations, and academic leaders. Mr. Klingelhofer continues to represent ICNL on law reform, taxation, legislative advocacy, and regulatory implementation assistance throughout the world, with particular emphasis on the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and Asia. He has led numerous seminars and has taught courses on NGO law in several universities and has written extensively on subjects related to laws and regulations that affect civil society and the promotion of participatory democracy.
Mr. Klingelhofer is an ordained Episcopal priest, and has served several parishes, currently part-time. He previously served as an attorney with United Airlines and as Director of Taxation for the Air Transport Association between 1968 and 1978. In addition to his work with ICNL, Mr. Klingelhofer practices law and serves as a mediator on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where he resides.
Thomas Maher
Thomas Maher is the Executive Director of the Office of Indigent Defense Services, the agency that is responsible for funding and oversight of local and state-wide public defenders and private assigned counsel in North Carolina. He has an extensive background in criminal defense litigation. Mr. Maher graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1982, and then spent two years clerking for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. From 1984 until 2006 he was engaged in the private practice of law, focusing on criminal defense. He represented clients at trial, on appeal and in post-conviction proceedings, both appointed and retained, including capital trials, appeals and post-conviction proceedings. Mr. Maher has appeared on behalf of clients at every level of North Carolina's Court system, including arguing cases before the North Carolina Supreme Court, as well as appearances in federal district courts and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
From 2006 to 2009, Mr. Maher was the Director for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, a non-profit law firm that represents inmates on death row, as well as capital defendants at trial and on appeal, and which provides consultation to capital attorneys and other defense team members throughout the state.
Throughout his career, Mr. Maher also has taught trial practice classes at UNC and Duke School of Law.
Amanda McRae ('09)
Amanda McRae is the Western Balkans researcher at Human Rights Watch. Prior to holding this position, she received the Finberg Fellowship at Human Rights Watch, undertaking a year-long project on the rights of people with intellectual or mental disabilities in Croatia. She is the author of the report "'Once you Enter, You Never Leave': Deinstitutionalization of Persons with Intellectual or Mental Disabilities in Croatia," published by Human Rights Watch in September 2010.
Prior to law school, Ms. McRae worked as an AmeriCorps*VISTA with the Immigrant Law Center for Minnesota and Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. During law school, she participated for two years in the work of the Duke AIDS Legal Assistance Project and spent a summer working for the Advocacy Forum, a local human rights organization in Kathmandu, Nepal. Ms. McRae also participated in way too many extracurricular activities, most notably as a leader of the International Human Rights Law Society, the Immigration Education Project, and the Public Interest Law Foundation.
Steven Miskinis ('00)
Steve Miskinis received his J.D. at Duke in 2000. After clerking for Judge Rosemary Pooler on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, he was accepted into theU. S. Department of Justice's Honors Attorney program as a trial attorney in the Environment and Natural Resources Division where he has remained. He works in the Indian Resources Section, a component of the Environment Division that represents the United States in its trust capacity for Indian tribes and their members. The section defends tribal treaty rights as well as federal statutes, programs, and decisions intended to benefit Indians and Tribes.
Frances Turner Mock ('00)
Frances Mock has her own law practice working with non-profit organizations that provide experiential education, adventure travel, and wilderness programs. She is legal counsel to Outward Bound, Inc., the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), Earthwatch Expeditions, and other clients providing risk management and claims management. She speaks regularly at national conferences and writes articles for the outdoor, camping, and recreation industry. Before starting her own law practice, Ms. Mock worked for several years at a large North Carolina law firm as a litigator. She represented clients in state and federal court, mediation, and arbitration. As a Criminal Justice Act Panel Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, Ms. Mock represented indigent defendants charged with federal crimes. She was appointed as co-counsel in a death penalty case and obtained a favorable unanimous published opinion from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. She also successfully argued before the North Carolina Supreme Court on behalf of four counties that a state statute imposing a fee on indigent defendants was unconstitutional. In addition to her private practice, Ms. Mock is currently a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law School where she teaches the first-year required course in Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing.
Paul Nathanson ('67)
Paul Nathanson is the Executive Director of the National Senior Citizens Law Center, previously having served as the first Executive Director of NSCLC from 1972-1980. He was the director of the University of New Mexico Institute of Public Law and a member of the UNM law school faculty from 1980 until 2005. Mr. Nathanson is now Emeritus Faculty at the Law School. He has served as co-chair of the University of New Mexico Center for Aging Research, Education and Service (UNM CARES) and chair of the New Mexico Association of Geriatric Education (NMAGE). He was president of the American Society of Aging (1984-1986) and a member of its Executive Committee (1982-88). Mr. Nathanson was a founding member of the American Bar Association Commission on Legal Problems of the Elderly, and was National Secretary of the Gray Panthers. He is Past Chair of the Board of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and still serves on the Committee's Board of Directors. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Legal Aid Society and KNME, New Mexico's public television station. Since 1972, he has received and administered several million dollars in grants and awards primarily in the field of legal services for the elderly. He has also been involved in the field of social marketing and has special interest in video production as a means of community organization. He has won numerous awards, including regional Emmys, for this work.
Michelle Nowlin ('92)
Michelle Nowlin is the Supervising Attorney and Senior Lecturing Fellow for the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Duke Law. She has dedicated her career to the protection of natural resources and public health through the practice of environmental law. In 1995, she joined the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill after completing a fellowship awarded by the Ford Foundation and two years in private practice. For the next 13 years, Professor Nowlin represented non-profit environmental and community organizations throughout the southeast on a wide variety of issues. She led SELC's Hog Industry Project and helped develop state laws and the first comprehensive regulatory programs for factory hog farms in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. She also participated in precedent-setting litigation establishing the authority to regulate factory hog farms under the federal Clean Water Act, and establishing the state's authority to address secondary impacts of permitting decisions. She also participated in a groundbreaking settlement between the state of North Carolina and agricultural corporations to study and develop new technologies to manage, treat and utilize waste from factory farms. During her tenure at SELC, she also developed regulations governing the protection and allocation of water during droughts and the protection of groundwater quality, drafted legislation to improve regulation of the inter-basin diversion of rivers, and represented organizations in court to protect coastal resources and wetlands. She participated in precedent-setting litigation to protect Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge by forcing the United States Navy to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, and to protect the Catawba and Yadkin Rivers from massive diversions of water. For her advocacy work, Professor Nowlin received the North Carolina Audubon Society's Advocacy Award in 2006, and the Bill Holman Award for Environmental Advocacy, awarded by the Conservation Council of North Carolina in 1997.
Celia Pistolis
Celia Pistolis is the Managing Attorney for Legal Aid N.C.
Lewis Pitts
Lewis Pitts graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1973 and has been a public interest lawyer since then. He began his career as a public defender; traveled the Southeast organizing civil disobedience against nuclear power and getting arrested six times; served as board member and attorney for Christic Institute in Washington, DC; served as lead counsel in the Greensboro Massacre Civil Rights civil litigation; worked on racial justice cases throughout the South; and currently serves as Managing Attorney for Advocates for Children's Services of Legal Aid of North Carolina. Mr. Pitts has appeared on Good Morning American and Larry King Live advocating children's rights and has appeared in many other news media forums. He is a passionate advocate and believer in law as a tool for social change and participatory democracy. His current focus of work is fighting the school to prison pipeline in North Carolina. His pet outrage is at "corporate personhood."
Cassy Stubbs
Cassy Stubbs is a Senior Attorney for the ACLU Capital Punishment Project.
Jeffrey Tignor ('99)
Jeffrey Tignor is Special Counsel for the Federal Communications Commission, Broadband Office, Wireless Division.
Dan Willis ('10)
Daniel Willis graduated from Duke Law in May 2010. He obtained a Bridge to Practice fellowship to work at the District Attorney's Office in Durham County, North Carolina. He works there now as an Assistant District Attorney. His duties include conducting first appearances, running District Court, and trying misdemeanors and misdemeanor appeals.
Mae Wu ('01)
Mae Wu is a Program Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C. where she is involved in litigation, policy work, and lobbying on all types of public health issues. She joined the NRDC in 2006 and works in the Public Health Program to remove toxic chemicals from consumer products, ensure better regulation of pesticides, and protect the quality of drinking water.
Ms. Wu received her bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Rice University. After college, she worked for an environmental attorney in Houston on sustainable development and environmental compliance issues for a major plastics plant in south Texas. After graduating from Duke Law school, Ms. Wu worked in San Francisco for Cooley Godward as a general business litigator, and then at Sher Leff as a litigation associate dealing with water contamination cases against the major oil and gas companies.
Julie Furr Youngman ('94)
Julie Furr Youngman is a Senior Attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) in Chapel Hill. She is true blue, having graduated from Duke with a B.S. in Biology in 1987, and then returned to Duke to earn a joint law degree and masters degree in environmental science in 1994, after having served four years as an active duty officer in the United States Army in the interim. In 2007, Ms. Youngman joined SELC, a public interest law firm that works to conserve clean water, healthy air, wild lands, and livable communities, with primary offices in Charlottesville, VA, Chapel Hill, NC, and Atlanta, GA, and several smaller offices throughout the Southeast. At SELC, Ms. Youngman represents non-profit environmental and community organizations in litigation on a variety of issues, focusing on the protection of water quality, coastal areas, and endangered species. Prior to joining SELC, Ms. Youngman clerked for the Honorable J. Dickson Phillips on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and then spent 12 years in private practice in Washington DC and Raleigh, NC, most recently as a partner at Ellis & Winters LLP.
Kevin Zolot ('98)
Kevin Zolot is an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. He is the Anti-Gang Coordinator, and has been cross designated with the U.S. State Department as part of a rapid response team for crisis situations where rule of law or law enforcement expertise is needed. In his capacity as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Mr. Zolot prosecutes gangs, drug organizations, and cases of violent crime. He recently was involved in the successful prosecutions of MS-13 (indicted and convicted 26 gang members), United Blood Nation (indicted and convicted 15 gang members), and the Hidden Valley Kings, a violent gang that held an entire neighborhood in Charlotte hostage with their violence and drug dealing (indicted and convicted 25 gang members).