PUBLISHED:April 16, 2010

Law Alumni Association honors graduates, professor for their dedication to Duke Law

Five members of the Duke Law community are being honored for their career accomplishments, service to the community, and dedication to the Law School as part of the Law Alumni Association’s (LAA) annual awards program during Reunion 2010, held April 16 to 18.

Jeffrey P. Hughes ’65 (Charles S. Rhyne Award), Janet Ward Black ’85 (Charles S. Murphy Award), Xiaoming Li ’90 (International Alumni Award), and Adrian Dollard ’95 (Young Alumni Award) joined Professor William A. Reppy Jr. (A. Kenneth Pye Award) as the LAA’s 2010 alumni award recipients.

Charles S. Rhyne Award
Jeffrey P. Hughes
Since 1994 the Charles S. Rhyne award has honored alumni whose careers exemplify the highest standards of professionalism, personal integrity, and commitment to education or community service. It honors the life and career of the late Charles S. Rhyne T’34, L’35, who was a professor of government and law at American University and George Washington University and a trustee of Duke University and George Washington University. The recipient of an honorary LLB from Duke Law School in 1958, Professor Rhyne also served as president of the American Bar Association and as special legal consultant to President Eisenhower in 1959-60.

Jeffrey P. Hughes is vice chairman and founding partner of The Cypress Group, which since its inception in 1994 has invested more than $4 billion of equity in more than 30 companies through transactions totaling more than $22 billion.

After three years with the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Hughes worked for 26 years as a senior investment banker and merchant banker at Lehman Brothers. He joined Lehman Brothers in 1968 following a career shift from corporate securities law; he became a partner there in 1976. He founded the private financing department and led early LBO financings; had senior investment banking coverage responsibilities for industrial, energy, and consumer product companies; was head of the financial institutions group; and was a member of the investment committee.

He serves as a member of the Law School’s Board of Visitors and as chairman of the Duke Global Capital Markets Center. He also has served on the Law School Capital Campaign committee.

Charles S. Murphy Award
Janet Ward Black
Established in 1985, the Charles S. Murphy Award honors a graduate’s commitment to the common good through his or her work in public service or dedication to education, thereby reflecting ideals exemplified in the life and career of the late Charles S. Murphy T’31, L’34. Mr. Murphy, who received an honorary LLB from Duke Law School in 1967, was a devoted public servant who held positions in the administrations of Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. He served on the Board of Visitors of Duke Law School and as a Duke University Trustee.

Janet Ward Black is the principal of Ward Black Law in Greensboro, N.C. She is a frequent lawyer educator and motivational speaker. She previously worked with Donaldson & Black and Wallace Whitley Pope & Black, and she served as assistant district attorney for Cabarrus and Rowan Counties from 1985 to 1988.

Black was the fourth female president of the 16,000-member North Carolina Bar Association since its inception in 1899. She also was the third female president of the 4,000- member North Carolina Trial Lawyers Association. She is only the second lawyer to serve as president of both organizations. During her term as president of the North Carolina Bar Association, Black created the “4ALL” campaign, which supports the provision of free legal services for those in need. The campaign launched the first “Ask a Lawyer” Day in North Carolina, the largest volunteer effort in the NCBA’s 108 year history.

International Alumni Award
Xiaoming Li
The International Alumni Award recognizes and honors an international graduate of the Duke University School of Law who has exemplified the highest standards of professional excellence, personal integrity, and concern for the common welfare in his or her own profession and home country.

Xiaoming Li is a partner in the Beijing office of White & Case, where he heads the firm’s China practice. He has extensive experience in finance and capital markets transactions and is widely recognized in the market as a leading lawyer for bank finance, project finance, and mergers and acquisitions.

Li’s cross-cultural and cross-jurisdictional skills have allowed him to successfully act on highly complex financial and mergers and acquisitions transactions in China. He has played a role in several high-profile deals in China, including the IPOs of China Life and PetroChina; DaimlerChrysler’s various investments in China’s automotive sector; the $2.7-billion financing of an ethylene project in Shanghai; and Guangdong Nuclear Power Group Co. Ltd.’s proposed financing of a new nuclear power plant.

Li has been a member of the Law School’s Board of Visitors since 1998 and leads the Duke Law International Club of China. He also is a member of the Barrister Donor Society.

Young Alumni Award
Adrian Dollard
The Young Alumni Award was established by the Law Alumni Association in 2000 to honor an individual who has graduated within the last 15 years, and has made significant leadership and service contributions to Duke Law School and in the legal profession.

Adrian Dollard is a co-founder of the Qatalyst Group in San Francisco, which provides high-quality, independent advice to senior management teams and boards of the technology industry’s established and emerging leaders on strategic matters concerning growth and success.

Prior to Qatalyst, Mr. Dollard served as general counsel of Credit Suisse’s technology group and was a lawyer at Shearman and Sterling, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and venture capital.

Dollard is a member of the Law School’s Board of Visitors. He previously served as chair of the Law Reunion Committee Chair and the Law Future Forum. He also is a member of the Barrister Donor Society.

A. Kenneth Pye Award
William A. Reppy Jr.
A former dean of the Law School, A. Kenneth Pye is fondly remembered by Duke Law graduates and colleagues not only for his personal integrity and vigorous intellect, but his exceptional ability to recognize the needs of individual students and the great compassion with which he assisted those who might have otherwise faltered. The A. Kenneth Pye award is given annually to a member of the Duke Law community whose work in education reflects Pye’s life and ideals.

Wiliam A. Reppy Jr. is the Charles L. B. Lowndes Emeritus Professor of Law. A member of the Duke Law faculty since 1971, Reppy’s scholarly work and teaching has focused on marital property, conflict of laws, and animal law, an area in which he is a pioneering scholar; in 2005 he helped establish the Law School’s Animal Law Project. He has taught legal writing to Duke Law students and has served as faculty adviser to the Alaska Law Journal since 1991. He will retire from the faculty at the end of the current academic year.

A member of the American Law Institute, Reppy has served on the North Carolina General Statutes Commission since 1998 and has been a frequent consultant to the California Law Revision Commission on community property and succession law. He currently serves on the board of editors of the Journal of Animal Law and does pro bono legal work for humane organizations and the animal rights movement.