Study

Gaia Clara Barcilon LLM’16

Human Rights for Businesses: A Socially Responsible Path

Ms. Barcilon is the founder and CEO of EOS Social Responsibility Solutions SA, based in Lugano Switzerland, which consults with major companies on corporate social responsibility and delivers educational programming to promote human rights. She also serves as in-house counsel for HOPS Technik and has worked in the areas of international arbitration and commercial relations. She holds an LL.B. from City University in London, and an LL.M. from Duke Law.

Isabella Bellera Landa ’14

Investor-State Relations: An Arbitration Case Study

Ms. Bellera Landa is an associate at White & Case LLP in Washington, D.C. in the Firm's International Arbitration Practice and Commercial Litigation groups. She represents and advises private companies, foreign sovereigns, and state entities in the resolution of international disputes. She has represented clients in arbitrations before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), as well as in litigation in US federal district and appellate courts. Ms. Bellera Landa has experience in disputes in a wide range of industries, including construction, infrastructure, textiles, and sovereign debt. A native of Venezuela, Ms. Bellera Landa is multilingual in English, Spanish, Italian, and French. Her dual training and experience in civil and common law jurisdictions allow her to understand the differences between various legal systems and structure advice accordingly. Ms. Bellera Landa received her JD from Duke Law School.

Stuart Berkson

Practice and Strategic Development of International Transactions: Investment in Latin America

Mr. Berkson is a partner at DLA Piper in Chicago, where he chairs the firm’s global Latin America practice.  Mr. Berkson specializes in international business transactions and is a widely recognized expert on Latin American tax issues. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Law School and a frequent lecturer on international tax and commercial transactions. Additionally, Mr. Berkson is a certified public accountant. He received his law degree from Harvard in 1980.

Efraim Chalamish

Law, Economics, and Politics of Sovereign Finance

Dr. Efraim Chalamish is an international economic law scholar, Professor, and a Senior Advisor at Kroll, the world’s largest independent valuation and risk management firm. He has been involved in international legal practice in New York, Paris and Israel, along with research and analysis of cutting-edge areas in public and private international economic law. He has also served as a Global Fellow at New York University, exploring global governance of corporations and multilateral institutions, the intersection of business and national security, sovereign wealth funds’ economics and policy, energy markets, international investment arbitration, and global governance and financial regulation. His articles have been published in leading journals and magazines in the Unites States and Europe, such as the European Journal of International Law. He is the founder and president of the Global Center for Economic Development and Security. Dr. Chalamish received his LLM and a Doctorate in international economic law from the University of Michigan, where he was awarded Olin Law and Economics fellowship.

Johanna Collins-Wood ’10

Getting to “Yes” with the SEC: Mastering the Art of Comment Letters

Ms. Collins-Wood is the Senior Counsel of Bitwise Asset Management (“Bitwise”), and the Chief Compliance Officer of Bitwise Investment Manager, an SEC-registered investment adviser and CFTC-registered commodity pool operator. Prior to working in-house for Bitwise, Johanna served as outside counsel to Bitwise and other digital asset and cryptocurrency companies as a senior associate at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati, LP. Johanna started her career as a capital markets associate in the London office of Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP, where she executed almost every type of IPO that can be done in the US and European markets, including the IPO that won the IFLR’s European Equity Deal of the Year in 2017. A devoted Duke alumna, Johanna graduated from Duke University with her B.A. in religion and from Duke Law with her J.D. and an LL.M. in international and comparative law, married another Duke Law graduate in the Duke Chapel, and serves on the Duke Law Alumni Association Board of Directors and the DukeNY Alumni Board.

Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly ’91

Patent Litigation in Practice

Colm F. Connolly is the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. He served as the United States Attorney for the District of Delaware from 2001 to 2009 and was an Assistant United States Attorney from 1993 to 1999. He was engaged in private practice from 1999 to 2001 and from 2009 until he took the bench in 2018. Judge Connolly was a law clerk for the Honorable Walter K. Stapleton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1991 to 1992. He received a law degree from the Duke University School of Law, a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. Judge Connolly is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the American Law Institute.

Jason Cowley

Prosecutorial Ethics

Mr. Cowley is a partner with McGuireWoods, where he is a member of the firm’s Government Investigations and White Collar Litigation departments. He joined the firm after serving as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York since 2011, where he held roles including Co-Chief of the Office's Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force and Chief of the Office's Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit. Mr. Cowley has prosecuted a number of individuals and entities for a wide array of white-collar offenses including securities fraud, money laundering, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), tax evasion and related violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. Prior to joining the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Cowley served for four years in the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. As a prosecutor, he has tried over a dozen federal criminal jury trials.

Collin Cox ’01

Hearings Practice

Mr. Cox is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Houston, Texas, where he leads the firm’s litigation practice and focuses on representing plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes commercial cases.  Mr. Cox was formerly a partner with Yetter Coleman LLP and has extensive experience in the energy and financial services sectors, and has also been a lead trial lawyer in computer software trade secrets cases, fraud cases involving the Madoff bankruptcy, and antitrust actions. Prior to moving to Texas, he practiced with Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Cox received his J.D. from Duke Law School in 2001.

Professor James D. Cox, Brainerd Currie Professor of Law

Basics of Accounting Professor

James Cox joined the faculty of Duke Law School in 1979, where he specializes in the areas of corporate and securities law.  He has authored texts including Financial Information, Accounting and the Law; Cox and Hazen on Corporations; and Securities Regulations Cases and Materials (with Hillman & Langevoort). Professor Cox has also published extensively in the areas of market regulation and corporate governance as well as having testified before the U.S. House and Senate on insider trading, class actions, and market reform issues.

Cassandra Creekman T’02

Compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

Ms. Creekman is an attorney with Wyrick Robbins in Raleigh, working on regulatory and compliance matters including antitrust, export controls and sanctions, anticorruption, and foreign investment issues. She began her legal practice in New York, working on cross-border transactions and arbitration for a UK-based law firm, then first joined Wyrick Robbins in 2007, practicing in the firm’s Emerging Companies and Mergers & Acquisitions groups. After nearly eight years as in-house compliance counsel for SAS, multinational data analytics company, she returned to Wyrick Robbins in 2021. She holds a BA from Duke University and a JD from New York University School of Law.

William J. Curtin, III T’92

Counselor and the Client

Mr. Curtin is Global Head of the M&A practice for Hogan Lovells and a partner in the firm’s Washington, DC and New York offices. He advises market-leading companies on their cross-border transactions, with significant international experience practicing out of major commercial centers around the world. He has been based in both Paris and London, where he led the development of the firm’s French and European operations, and also served on the firm’s Global Board. He holds a BA from Duke University, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Kelly Margolis Dagger

Deposition Practice

Ms. Dagger is an attorney with Ellis & Winters in Cary, where her practice focuses on business litigation, employment litigation, and criminal defense. She regularly appears in federal district court, the North Carolina Business Court and other state trial courts, both criminal and civil, and represents clients on appeal in both state and federal court. She holds a JD from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.

Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., USAF (Ret.)

Legal and Policy Aspects of U.S.  Civil-Military Relations

Professor Dunlap joined the Duke Law faculty in July 2010, after serving as Deputy Judge Advocate General of the United States Air Force.  His teaching and scholarly writing focus on national security, international law, civil-military relations, cyberwar, and military justice.

Miguel Eaton ’06

Litigation Strategy in the Corporate Context

Mr. Easton is a partner with Jones Day in Washington, DC, where he co-chairs the firm’s employee benefits and executive compensation group. His practice focuses on complex employee benefits issues that present significant business challenges, with a significant portion of his time spent defending ERISA class actions and litigating on behalf of employers that contribute to multiemployer plans. He also advises benefit committees regarding participants’ claims and defends companies under investigation by the Department of Labor. After a career as a two-sport athlete (basketball and boxing) at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, he received his J.D. from Duke Law School in 2006.

Bethan Eynon

Cross-Cultural Lawyering

Ms. Eynon is the Director of Public Interest Careers at Duke Law, counseling and developing programming and resources for students pursuing government and public interest careers. She also advises students in the Public Interest and Public Service Certificate Program and several student organizations. Prior to joining Duke Law in 2017, she was the Community Development Attorney-Fellow at the UNC Center for Civil Rights, where she represented communities of color in Central and Eastern North Carolina on fair housing, environmental justice, and access to municipal services issues. She then worked in Durham at Southern Coalition for Social Justice, first as an Equal Justice Works/AmeriCorps Employment Opportunity Legal Fellow and then as Director of SCSJ’s Clean Slate Project, which provides statewide direct reentry legal services for people with criminal records and addresses collateral consequences and criminal justice reform issues through a racial justice and community lawyering model. She holds a JD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.

Lily Farel ’06

Deposition Practice

Ms. Farel works as legal counsel at SAS Institute in Cary. Prior to her current position, she was a Trial Attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, where she represented the Commission in litigation matters before federal district courts and other tribunals. She previously served as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the US Department of Justice, which she joined through the honors program, and defended the United States against challenges to the constitutionality of government programs such as the No Fly list, certain economic sanctions imposed by the Departments of State and Treasury, and the Controlled Substances Act. Ms. Farel received her JD from Duke Law School in 2006.

Brody Greenwald T’01

Investor-State Relations: An Arbitration Case Study

Mr. Greenwald is a partner in White & Case's international arbitration and litigation practices. He represents companies and sovereign states in high-stakes, complex international disputes, and has been recognized as a "Rising Star" in international arbitration by Law360. Mr. Greenwald has significant experience representing clients in investment treaty arbitrations before major arbitral institutions such as ICSID and the PCA and in ad hoc arbitrations under the UNCITRAL rules. He has advised clients regarding matters arising under numerous bilateral investment treaties, the Energy Charter Treaty, free trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA-DR, and national investment laws. His experience spans industries such as mining, mineral processing, oil and gas, electricity, construction, industrial production, telecommunications, manufacturing, tourism, and consumer and retail services. Mr. Greenwald holds a BA from Duke University and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.

Cari Grieb ’06

The Right to Bargain in Professional and Amateur Sports

Ms. Grieb is a partner in Chapman and Cutler LLP in Chicago, where she practices in their Banking and Financial Services Department. She has represented a range of clients in large corporate and middle market spaces in connection with senior, first lien/second lien, silent second lien, subordinated, and mezzanine financings; credit facilities; joint ventures; stock and asset acquisitions; leveraged buy-out transactions; and restructurings. She primarily focuses her practice on acquisition financing, sponsor finance, commercial lending, cross-border lending, franchisee financings and leveraged finance in the middle market, and has experience representing both professional teams and banks in stadium finance transactions and other sports law matters in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Football League, and the National Premier Soccer League. Ms. Grieb is a sports law contributor to the Sporting News and regularly serves as a commentator about legal aspects of various sports controversies. She received her JD from Duke Law School in 2006.

Chris Hart ’05

Litigation Strategy in the Corporate Context

Mr. Hart is a partner with Foley Hoag LLP in Boston, MA, where he co-chairs the firm’s Privacy & Data Security Practice. With significant trial litigation, appellate advocacy and data privacy and security experience, Mr. Hart has counseled and represented sovereign nations, Fortune 500 companies, start-up companies, non-profits, and individuals in a wide variety of contexts for over a decade. He represents clients before the U.S. Supreme Court, argues in appellate courts across the country, including successfully before the Massachusetts Appeals Court and Supreme Judicial Court; and advocates on behalf of clients in federal and state courts nationwide. He also frequently represents clients in significant internal investigations. Mr. Hart also represents companies and individuals in investigations brought by federal and local law enforcement authorities, including the Massachusetts State Attorney General’s office. Mr. Hart received is B.A from Harvard in 2000, his M.A. from St. John’s 2002 and his J.D. from Duke Law School in 2005.

Kirk Jensen ’00

A Brave New Economic World: Financial Services Law in an Era of Uncertainty

Kirk Jensen is Executive Vice President and General Counsel of First Interstate BancSystem, Inc. and its subsidiary First Interstate Bank, a large regional bank headquartered in Billings, MT.  Prior to joining First Interstate, Mr. Jensen was a founding partner of the law firm BuckleySandler LLP in Washington, D.C., where he advised financial institutions on a variety of regulatory compliance matters and represented financial institutions in federal and state government enforcement actions and in high-stakes litigation. He is a fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, a member of the Conference on Consumer Finance Law, and has held various leadership positions in the American Bar Association’s Consumer Financial Services Committee and Litigation Section.  In 2018, he was recognized with the Global Counsel Award for Financial Services-Regulatory by the Association of Corporate Counsel and Lexology. Mr. Jensen has been a frequent speaker on financial services legal topics and has published numerous articles on financial services issues in both scholarly journals and professional publications.

Alexandra Johnson T’99

Basics for the Finance Lawyer

Ms. Johnson is a partner in the Transportation & Space group of Milbank LLP in New York, where her practice involves the representation of Fortune 500 companies and top financial institutions in their roles as, among other things, issuers, lenders, underwriters, and placement agents in a wide variety of international financial and corporate transactions in the worldwide transportation industry. Her experience includes portfolio securitizations, acquisition financing, mergers and acquisitions and secured lending, that involve transportation assets, such as aircraft, railcars and loan obligations collateralized by aviation-related assets. Ms. Johnson has worked on some of the most complex and innovative financings involving aircraft, including many that have been recognized by industry publications as “Deals of the Year.” Ms. Johnson helped lead the creation and implementation of, and is the lead instructor for, the Deals@Milbank Transactional Drafting Series for junior associates at Milbank. Professor Johnson graduated from Duke University and received her law degree from Georgetown University School of Law.

W.H. "Kip" Johnson III T’88, L’94, B’94

Excel for Lawyers

Professor Johnson was the founding director of Duke Law’s Start-Up Ventures Clinic, and continues to teach as a Senior Lecturing Fellow in the area of transactional law.  A founding partner of the Morningstar Law Group, Professor Johnson is an experienced securities and technology attorney who works with clients from seed-stage start-ups to mature operating companies. He was formerly a member in the corporate and securities practice group of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice's Research Triangle park office, which he co-founded in 1997. He also is an active angel investor locally and in Silicon Valley. He holds three degrees from Duke University: his B.A., J.D., and M.B.A.

Dan Katz ’83

Deposition Practice and Strategy

Mr. Katz is a partner at Williams & Connolly in Washington, DC, and an experienced litigator who has tried cases all over the country, in state and federal courts, before both judges and juries, as well as numerous arbitrations and administrative proceedings.  He has practiced in a diverse array of fields, representing both corporate and individual clients in cases involving financial services, franchise, automotive, employment, real estate, construction, healthcare, RICO, securities, and antitrust law.  He received his law degree from Duke in 1983.

Sasha Leonhardt ’10

A Brave New Economic World: Financial Services Law in an Era of Uncertainty

Sasha Leonhardt is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe LLP, where he represents financial services industry clients in a wide range of enforcement, litigation and regulatory matters. In addition, Mr. Leonhardt maintains a large privacy and data security practice where he advises companies, non-profits and industry associations on issues arising under financial privacy statutes, consumer privacy laws, and data security/data breach laws at both the state and federal level. He has published over 40 articles on various aspects of consumer financial services law and privacy law. A frequent speaker on a variety of legal topics, Sasha has taught at Duke University School of Law, American University Washington College of Law, and was previously a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School. He currently co-hosts RegFi, a podcast discussing emerging issues on financial regulation in the digital economy.

Michael McAuliffe

Life or Death: The Decision-Making Process in a Death Penalty Case Mr. McAuliffe is the founding partner of McAuliffe Law PLLC, a firm based in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is a frequent opinion columnist for the Sun-Sentinel and the Tampa Bay Times, writing about legal ethics and federal law enforcement issues. In 2008, Mr. McAuliffe was elected and served as the State Attorney for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit (Palm Beach County), leading an office of 125 lawyers and 200 support staff. After leaving public service, Mr. McAuliffe served as general counsel for a global, privately held company. He has been a litigation partner at a major law firm and a visiting law professor in the Czech Republic in the early 1990s. Mr. McAuliffe also served as a supervisory assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of Florida and a prosecutor in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division through the Department of Justice Honors Program. McAuliffe received his JD from the law school at the College of William & Mary in 1989.

Gray McCalley ’79

In-House Practice

Mr. McCalley is Acting General Counsel to Nexus Circular, an advanced recycler of hard to recycle plastics that are otherwise landfilled. Before joining Nexus, he was with the Taylor English law firm where he co-led the firm’s fractional general counsel practice. Prior to joining Taylor English, Mr. McCalley was Vice President and General Counsel of Printpack Inc., an Atlanta-based, privately-held manufacturer of flexible packaging. He worked for over 15 years in the domestic and international operations of The Coca-Cola Company in a variety of positions, including as Vice President and Deputy General and General Counsel Europe (based in London) for Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. Mr. McCalley has also served as a Foreign Service Officer for the US Department of State and practiced as an associate with Alston & Bird in Atlanta. He received his J.D. from Duke Law School in 1979.

Valecia McDowell ’98 T’95

Internal Investigations

Ms. McDowell co-heads the White Collar, Regulatory Defense and Investigations practice of Moore & Van Allen, and is Head of Civil Rights & Racial Equity Assessments at the firm. She has extensive experience conducting internal investigations for publicly traded, privately-held, and non-profit institutions in the United States and elsewhere around the world.  She also possesses significant trial, arbitration, and regulatory defense experience in complex, high-stakes cases, particularly in the financial services, securities, manufacturing, telecommunications, and health care industries. She received her B.A. from Duke University in 1995, and her J.D. from Duke Law School in 1998.

Bryan McGann LLMLE ’15

Counseling & Creating a New Entity

Bryan McGann is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Start-Up Ventures Clinic at Duke Law School. Prior to joining the Duke Law faculty in 2016, McGann had a broad career as a lawyer, entrepreneur, and commercial banker. He is of-counsel to the Smith Anderson firm in Raleigh, an entrepreneur in residence at the University of North Carolina, and a contributor to the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network. McGann is the inventor and founder of the Pill Pockets® brand pet treats, the world’s leading medicine delivery aid for animals. After building and commercializing the brand, McGann’s company was acquired by Mars, Incorporated and today the Pill Pockets® brand is sold across the United States and around the world under various Mars’ divisions. He also co-owns Sundial Homes, a general contracting firm building lakefront, residential property, and McGann has recently been granted a U.S. patent on a medical brace to aid in the rehabilitation and recovery of orthopedic surgical patients. Prior to his practice of law, McGann was vice president of a regional commercial bank, and is a graduate of the North Carolina School of Banking. He received his JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law.

José Meirelles

Practice and Strategic Development of International Transactions: Investment in Latin America

Mr. Meirelles is a partner at Pinheiro Netto Advogados in São Paulo, Brazil. Mr. Meirelles specializes in corporate finance and has written on securitization and structured finance in Brazil. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois School of Law. Mr. Meirelles received an LL.B. degree from São Paulo University in 1986 and an LL.M. from the University of Illinois in 1989. He is a visiting scholar at Duke Law for the 2023-24 academic year.

Mike Murphy

Improv for Lawyers

Professor Murphy joined the Duke Law faculty in 2023, teaching in the Start-Up Ventures Clinic. He teaches students how to provide transactional legal services to entrepreneurs and small businesses, using a unique perspective based on his experience working as an attorney for a large law firm, a startup, and a publicly traded corporation. His research explores social entrepreneurship, how technology changes legal practice, and how members of the legal profession can lead happier lives. He is also an award-winning storyteller, with stories featured on First Person Arts’s “#US” podcast, WHYY-Philadelphia’s “NewsWorks Tonight” and “CommonSpace” podcast, and WNYC’s “The Takeaway,” and is a stand-up comedian and comedic improviser. He earned his JD from the University of Michigan Law School in 2006.

Allen Nelson ’89, T’86

In-House Practice

Mr. Nelson is a partner with Taylor English Duma LLP in Atlanta, where he focuses his practice on advising boards of director and senior executives of both public and private companies. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Nelson was Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Administrative Officer for Crawford & Company, the world's largest independent provider of claims management solutions to the risk management and insurance industry, as well as self-insured entities. In those capacities, he handled all legal matters for the company, and directed the firm's Quality and Compliance, Corporate Communications, Corporate Real Estate, Ethics and Compliance, and Internal Audit functions. He previously served as chief compliance counsel for BellSouth Corporation and practiced with Atlanta-based firms Hawkins & Parnell and Troutman, Sanders, Lockerman & Ashmore. Mr. Nelson received his B.A. from Duke University in 1986, and his J.D. from Duke Law in 1989.

Peggy Nicholson

Lawyering for Systemic Change

Peggy Nicholson joined the Duke Law faculty in 2020 as a lecturing fellow and supervising attorney in the Children’s Law Clinic. In this capacity, she works with law students to represent children and their families in special education, school discipline, and public benefits cases. Before joining Duke Law, Nicholson served as director of the Youth Justice Project of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, where she worked with directly impacted youth, parents, and communities to advocate for legal and policy solutions to North Carolina’s school-to-prison pipeline. She earlier practiced public interest law at Legal Aid of North Carolina, where she provided legal advice and representation in education cases to hundreds of low-income students and families across the state. Nicholson has represented children and their families in administrative hearings and state and federal court. She has also provided continuing education for attorneys, judges, social workers, and other professionals on a variety of education matters including special education, school discipline, and racial equity. Nicholson received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. 

Tanisha Palvia

Internal Investigations

Tanisha Palvia is a partner in the Litigation practice of Moore & Van Allen’s office in Charlotte, where she calls on her five years of experience as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to advise and represent individuals and corporations facing white-collar criminal prosecution and government enforcement actions, as well as to conduct internal investigations. Her clients have included financial institutions, private and public universities and schools, and medical providers, on a variety of sensitive issues, including Title IX, financial fraud, and labor and employment concerns. Ms. Palvia was previously a partner at a regional law firm, where she also focused her practice on white collar criminal defense, government investigations, internal investigations, and complex civil litigation. She holds a JD from Emory University School of Law.

Brandi Bush Percy

Litigation Management

Ms. Bush Percy is managing counsel at a global commercial insurance company. She has spent her entire legal career as in-house counsel managing corporate litigation. Her practice involves advising corporate litigants on litigation strategy, efficiency, cost-effective and preventative measures. She has handled a broad range of cases including premises liability, product liability, construction defect, insurance bad faith and extracontractual liability and was a member of the in-house legal team for the corporate defendant in a landmark Supreme Court case decided in 2014. Her article discussing the use of data analytics to predict legal strategy and legal spend was recently published in the Association of Corporate Counsel's Docket publication. She received her JD from Oklahoma City University School of Law and her LL.M. from Baylor Law School.

James Rhee

The Way It All Works: Investing, Negotiating, and Operating in the Real World

Mr. Rhee is the founder and President of FirePine Group, LLC and the former Chairman and CEO of Ashley Stewart. He lives a life focused on multi-dimensional transformation, the intersection of capital and race/gender, and values-based investing and leadership. Prior to founding FirePine Group and leading Ashley Stewart, he played a senior role managing billions of dollars of capital at institutional private equity firms, where he helped lead numerous platform investments. He has significant public and private board experience (distressed, growth, and otherwise), and currently serves on the governing board of JP Morgan Chase Advancing Black Pathways and the CEO Action for Racial Equity.  Mr. Rhee holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and serves as a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Shanna Rifkin ’17

Federal Sentencing: A Primer and a Case Study in Compassionate Release

Ms. Rifkin is Deputy General Counsel with Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), where she works alongside the General Counsel to advance the initiatives of the legal department, including advocating for reform of federal sentencing and corrections law and policy before Congress, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Department of Justice. Prior to her position with FAMM, she worked at Northwestern Law School’s Children and Family Justice Center to win clemency on behalf of incarcerated youth in Illinois. She was also a litigation associate with Jenner & Block, where she took on an array of pro bono criminal defense matters at both the trial court and appellate court, and clerked on the Western District of New York and the First Circuit Court of Appeals. She earned her JD from Duke Law in 2017.

Laura Scott T'93

Introduction to Research for Public Interest Practice

Ms. Scott is a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law, where she teaches introductory and advanced legal research courses. She received her undergraduate degree in history from Duke University and her J.D. from New York University School of Law. After graduating from law school, she practiced law in the litigation and bankruptcy departments of Choate, Hall & Stewart in Boston, Massachusetts. She later received her M.S.L.S. from Simmons College and worked as Choate's reference librarian for five years. She joined Duke Law as a reference librarian in August 2005. Ms. Scott is a member of the Massachusetts bar, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the Southeastern Association of Law Libraries.

Lisa Simpson ’94, T’91

Advising Clients on Use of Trademarks and Copyrighted Material

Ms. Simpson is a partner in the New York office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where she is a member of the firm’s Intellectual Property and Litigation Groups. Her practice focuses on the representation of retail, entertainment, technology, and pharmaceutical companies in matters involving copyright, trademark, false advertising, rights of publicity, defamation, product liability and consumer class action litigation.  She serves as counsel to Oracle in its litigation with Google regarding whether Google’s use of the Java APIs in Android is a fair use under the Copyright Act.  She also served as counsel to DISH Networks, LLC in its copyright litigation with the broadcast networks over various features offered by DISH’s Hopper DVR, and served as counsel to Supap Kirtsaeng on his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of the copyright first sale doctrine’s applicability to goods manufactured abroad.  Ms. Simpson received her B.A. from Duke University in 1991, and her J.D. from Duke Law in 1994.

DeMaurice Fitzgerald Smith

The Right to Bargain in Professional and Amateur Sports

Mr. Smith is the Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), the Labor Union for Players of the National Football League (NFL). He was reappointed to his fourth term as Executive Director by the NFLPA’s Executive Committee in spring 2018. In March 2020, he successfully negotiated his second long-term Collective Bargaining Agreement with the National Football League. The eleven-year deal will introduce an additional game into the regular season but also provide players with their guaranteed highest share of NFL revenue in history. He also led the negotiations to create comprehensive Covid-19 protections and protocols for his membership, obtained comprehensive testing and opt out provisions for players and designed the return to play agreements that secured NFL Players being paid their full salary for the season despite a projected $ 3 billion shortfall for 2020. On August 4, 2011, Smith signed an historic 10-year Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with NFL management, leading the Players through the owners’ 132-day lockout. The two Collective Bargaining Agreements remain the longest standing agreements between labor and management in any sports league. Prior to his post at the NFLPA, Mr. Smith was an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia and was Counsel to then-Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. He also served as a Partner in the law firms of Latham & Watkins, LLP and Squire Patton Boggs, LLP, in Washington, D.C. where he represented corporations, boards of directors and senior executives in civil and criminal matters. Mr. Smith received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Shane Stansbury T’95

Prosecutorial Ethics

Mr. Stansbury the Robinson Everett Distinguished Fellow in the Center for Law, Ethics, and National Security, and a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law School. Prior to returning to Duke, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, representing the United States in criminal prosecutions involving terrorism, cybercrime, money laundering, export violations, public corruption, international narcotics trafficking, and other violations of federal law. Mr. Stansbury previously worked in the international arbitration and litigation group of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in New York City. He received his A.B. from Duke in 1995, and his J.D. from Columbia University in 2001.

Paul Sun ’89

Deposition Practice

Mr. Sun is an attorney with Ellis & Winters in Raleigh, NC.  His practice focuses primarily on business litigation and appeals.  He has experience in the areas of trade secrets and unfair competition, business and health care fraud (civil and criminal), employment, consumer claims, premises and product liability, and contract disputes. He received his J.D. from Duke Law in 1989.

Thomas Telfer LLM ’92

Mindfulness for Law Students

Dr. Telfer is a Professor of Law at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, where his research and teaching interests include bankruptcy law, commercial law, contracts, legal history, and mindfulness. Prior to joining Western’s faculty in 2022, he taught at the University of Auckland for eight years. He was admitted in 2023 as a member of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law, composed of more than a hundred specially-selected scholars from throughout the world, focused on the global exchange of ideas. He received his LLM from Duke Law in 1992.

Casey Thomson

Exploring Gender and Culture in Negotiation

Ms. Thomson joined the Duke Law faculty in 2015, and received the law school's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2018. She teaches first-year Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing, as well as Negotiation for Lawyers and Mediation Advocacy for upper-level students. Prior to coming to Duke, Thomson was an attorney with Latham & Watkins LLP in Los Angeles. She was a member of the litigation department, and her practice focused on complex commercial litigation, including antitrust, RICO, fraud, and insolvency-related matters. She regularly practiced in both state and federal courts, and appeared in arbitral proceedings before the Players’ Status Committee of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Thomson clerked for the Honorable John F. Walter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Thomson received her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School in 2000.

Amelia Thorn ’10

Trauma-Informed Lawyering

Ms. Thorn is assistant director for special projects at the Bolch Judicial Institute. In her role, she designs educational programming for state and federal judges and serves as the articles editor for Judicature, the Institute’s scholarly journal about the administration of justice. She was previously the inaugural Bolch Judicial Institute Fellow. Ms. Thorn clerked for Justice Don R. Willett of the Texas Supreme Court (now of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit) as well as for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She subsequently worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly and Crowell & Moring, as well as an assistant general counsel at the American Chemistry Council, one of the nation’s oldest and largest trade associations. She has substantial publishing experience, having worked as a writer and editor prior to law school, including acting as editor-in-chief for a magazine with a circulation of more than 70,000. She earned her JD from Duke Law in 2010.

Raphael Winick ’92

Media & Internet Platforms, IP Licenses and Changing Technologies

Mr. Winick is Assistant General Counsel for The Walt Disney Company in Los Angeles. He has been closely involved with legal issues related to the Internet, new technologies and media throughout his career, including other prior in-house roles in at ESPN and Comedy Central in New York, and litigating several landmark cases while in private practice. In addition to working in the United States, he was admitted in New Zealand as a Solicitor and Barrister, where he handled IP issues and transactions for local startups and multinational companies. He previously taught as an Adjunct Professor at Fordham Law School, and has published several law review articles regarding the intersection of law and technology. He received his JD from Duke Law in 1992.

William W. Yavinsky T’05

Counselor and the Client

Mr. Yavinsky is a partner in the Washington, DC and New York offices of Hogan Lovells, where he focuses his corporate practice on US and international business transactions. He represents strategic companies, financial sponsors, and other investors on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships, and strategic alliances. He is Co-Head of the firm’s global Automotive Industry Group, and was also seconded from the firm to a US-based industrial sector client, where he worked in-house supporting M&A, commercial and intellectual property development and licensing matters, to mitigate legal risk and provide practical solutions to protect the company’s interests. He holds a BA from Duke University and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Julie Youngman ’94, T’87, G’94

Perspectives and Foundations of Justice 

Ms. Youngman is a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, where she focuses on litigation in state and federal courts. Her cases involve protecting water quality and quantity, coastal resources, and endangered species, and promoting environmental justice. Her career has spanned military service, private practice, and teaching law at Washington & Lee University, where among other things she directed the university's interdisciplinary program in Law, Justice and Society. She holds a BS, MA from the School of the Environment, and JD from Duke University.

Jeff Zhang ’05

CFIUS and Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions

Mr. Zhang is a partner of the M&A and Private Equity Group, splitting his time between Orrick’s Beijing and New York offices. He represents Chinese and international clients from multiple industries, including financial institutions, Fintech, technology, health care and real estate, in a broad range of M&A, capital markets, corporate governance, regulatory and compliance matters. Having practiced for more than a decade in New York, and having served as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of CITIC Securities USA, a SEC/FINRA-registered broker-dealer arm of China’s largest full-service investment bank, he offers Chinese clients a unique perspective when advising on U.S. transactional and compliance matters. Prior to joining Orrick, he was a partner at King & Wood Mallesons in New York. Before his in-house position at CITIC Securities USA, he practiced at two leading global law firms in New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai for many years. Mr. Zhang received his JD from Duke Law School in 2005.

Brian Zuercher

Compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

Mr. Zuercher is currently serving Of Counsel for Bagchi Law providing compliance and technology law advice to the global clients of this growing law firm. He is also serving as an Attorney Board Advisor to Gateway Institute of Medicine and Health Sciences, a start-up dedicated to helping disadvantaged students gain entry into medical school. He retired in September 2020 from his role as Vice President and General Counsel for Ethics and Compliance at SAS Institute Inc., where he was responsible for worldwide compliance activities for the world's largest privately held software enterprise. In his career, Mr. Zuercher has counseled technology and aviation business clients operating across six continents.  Mr. Zuercher holds a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.