Submitted by STEVE CROZIER and DAVID ACH
It has been about 2 1/2 years since someone dared to step into APRIL MAYNARD'S shoes as our class agent. Recently, with the urging of Sally Schwettmann '04, the Associate Director of Alumni Relations at King Hall, STEVE CROZIER and DAVID ACH volunteered. Here is our first report.
We are not exactly thrilled to think that our 30th reunion is upcoming — though we do look forward to the event. We are more than mildly curious about where we — our classmates — have been traveling these past years. With enthusiasm and dedication and not a lot of free time — hallmarks of our class, we scoured the electronic world for news of the Class of 1977 — thank you, e-mail and internet Web search engines. This Counselor's Class Note column is the first of our efforts to find you all — even those of you who are not reading this.
Here is what we have learned:
ROSIE METRAILER still lives in the mountains in Northern California Gold Country and works as an attorney, mediator and arbitrator in the Sacramento/Nevada County area. She and her partner Tina — an independent contractor botanist/biologist — took the trip of their dreams last September: A week in the French part of Switzerland (whence Rosie's family came), a week in the Lake Como area near (Tina's family's original land), and a week in Rome to see the sights. Wining, dining, and hiking across some of the most beautiful places in the world, they visited with Swiss cousins, took a day trip to Venice, and can't wait to go back again. Right now it's winter prep time in the Sierra. Rosie and Tina are girding for winter and hoping to avoid too much "cabin fever" before the snow melts.
VICTOR OCHOA served as President of the Alameda County Bar Association in 2005, the latest in a long and impressive career of service to the Alameda County legal and Hispanic communities in the East Bay. He practices law, too (Personal Injury, Workers' Compensation and Immigration matters). Check out his website: http://www.vochoalaw.com/.
KRIS KNAPLUND: One of our many classmates who have never left school, Kris is professor of law at Pepperdine School of Law in Malibu, teaching Property, Wills & Trusts, and Advanced Wills & Trusts — and that after teaching for 18 years at UCLA Law School. This year she is vice chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee. (She said to say she welcomes any classmate's interest in teaching. Get in touch!)
Kris' research has focused on postmortem conception and estate planning. (Being in estate planning myself, I can attest to the currency of the topic. Take a look at California law these days about the rights of the unborn, such as frozen fetuses later thawed, implanted and born!)
More recently, Kris read every probate case filed in Los Angeles in the first year of the archives (1893) to see what kind of property women owned, to whom they left it, and how often an unconventional choice provoked a will contest. She lives in Pacific Palisades with her dog and husband, who is Dean of Academic Affairs at Drew University, not necessarily in that order.
LINDA GROSS has been a regular correspondent for Class Notes. (Thank you, Linda! Drop in when you are in the Bay Area!) Linda tells us she is living the relatively mundane life of a family lawyer in LA-LA land, taking on the very tough task of representing spouses of addicts or alcoholics and representing people with mental issues such as depression, bipolar, obsessive-compulsive disorder. She was named a SuperLawyer for 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Picking up on our social activism theme, Linda says she is working with clients on transgender and sexual orientation issues. And now (registered) domestic partners need divorce lawyers, too.
To make up for not litigating as much, she volunteers as a temporary judge in family law matters — definitely fun and exciting.
The law isn't all of Linda's life. She has been whitewater rafting down the Colorado, hiking, camping, etc. She added "I think of myself as a high maintenance princess, but there I was, bathing in the river, sleeping in a tent, etc. and I had a blast!"
HELEN HALPERT has been a superior court judge in Seattle since 2000, after a municipal court judgeship for ten years. Outside of the courtroom, two kids, a lawyer husband, and two cats take center stage. For those "getaway" moments we all dream about there is escape into the beautiful Northwest for hiking and bicycling.
When PATIENCE MILROD brought us up-to-date, she first talked not about The Law. She talked about her husband, Paul, who is busier than is good for him doing training and facilitating with businesses and nonprofits. Their daughter Darrow is a junior in high school, balancing the rigors of an International Baccalaureate program and the rigors of varsity track. (Do we remember college applications?)
Speaking of her own activities, Patience added she is involved with everything from Muslim-Jewish dialogue to the fight for affordable housing. I handle plaintiffs' civil rights cases, criminal defense (mostly federal--bank robbers and meth dealers), and some environmental litigation (with help from the brilliant and astonishing SUE BRANDT). She added, "And just so you know the Central Valley is not all red—we are SO dancing in the end zone about the November 7 election returns!"
ANN NOEL serves as the Executive and Legal Affairs Secretary (ELAS) for the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission, the state's adjudicatory civil rights agency. She is the Commission's executive officer and presiding administrative law judge since February 2005. The Commission has jurisdiction over employment, housing, and public accommodation discrimination, family care and pregnancy disability leave, and civil complaints of hate violence. The agency has five main functions: adjudication, mediation, legislation, regulation, and public outreach and education. Ann loves her job and finds it stimulating and challenging.
Ann lives in San Francisco, enjoying the city's cultural richness — especially the ballet, symphony and opera. He wonderful life partner, Izzy Cohen, is a sociology professor at California State University at San Jose, active with the California Faculty Association, chairing the grievance committee there. She travels regularly — Mexico and Europe are favored destinations. Izzy also drags her to hikes in Pt. Reyes, Mt. Tamalpais and the Marin Headlands.
Ann thoughtfully adds, probably echoing the sentiments of more than one of our classmates, "Although I was one of those law students who really hated law school, getting the law degree was one of the best life choices that I could have made. I love the area of law that I practice and the life that the law profession has given me."
Although we didn't have classmate PEDRO NAVA'S e-mail address to bug him about an update, we remembered Pedro was serving as Assembyman for the 35th district. We checked the election results and discovered Pedro was re-elected with more than 62 percent of the vote. The 35th District includes parts of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, including Buellton, Solvang and Santa Ynez. Congratulations, Pedro!
We were not able to e-mail SALLY LU LAKE either, but we note from a sidebar in the Winter 2006 Counselor that Sally is an associate general counsel with the IBM Research legal department providing general legal and patent advice If we remember correctly, Sally went to IBM after graduation — clearly a satisfying career. She lives in Patterson, NJ, with her husband, Bill. She has honored her parents with the Joseph and Jan Cutter Lake Scholarship at King Hall. A tip o' the King Hall hat!
DAVID WHITE continues to head his firm's litigation department and specialize in litigation of real estate matters, including environmental issues, employment cases, and general business litigation. Finding he has additional time, he also leads the firm's technology group as it grapples with all the innovations of the 21st century on law practice. (Does anyone else remember the first LEXIS console in the basement of King Hall?)
David's wife (31 years and counting), Lynn (sister of classmate Steven Marcus-Wyner!) runs her busy psychotherapy practice. Daughter Becky is a junior at UC Santa Barbara — living in Madrid this Fall quarter. (Guess who is going to visit her?) Son Jake is a 2005 Honors graduate from UC Santa Cruz, managing office services at Steven's law firm in Torrance, eyeing another visit to the Middle East. (He lived in Jordan and took post-graduate Arabic at University of Amman last year.)
David adds, sounding too much like many of us, "I am greyer, rounder, and cannot stay up very late at night anymore, but, other than that, all is well, and I send my kindest regards to my classmates and professors."
For DAVID KATZEN, family has been a major high point. (After a while, the focus shifts doesn't it?) He reports he is "pleased (make that ‘thrilled')" that all four of his and Linda's kids have departed the nest (at least for the time being). (David, they will move back in. At some point, they will move back in.)
Amy graduated from Williams in 2005 and is working for a healthcare policy group in Boston (and just might go to law school for extra "gravitas" in these pursuits). Erin completes her UCLA undergrad work shortly and expect to head to some fortunate law school back East (without any piquant encouragement from David or Linda). Risa is a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara, fascinated with history (like her mom) and thinking about a career in academia. Sam is a sophomore at UCD and evidently a stalwart at his frat house! Career choices are premature, but currently he's inclining toward a career in the business/commercial world. Linda and David report feeling pretty darn lucky.
One category we didn't think about when we started looking for our classmates was those who have or are planning to retire. Nonetheless, we are advised that after 29 years of state service — all but two in the Attorney General's Office, SUZY UNDERWOOD will be retiring in March 2007. She plans to continue doing volunteer mediation with the Sacramento Mediation Center and playing music with the I Street Chamber Ensemble. Suzy and her husband, Ed Lowry, live in Sacramento and are active in the community.
Again with the kids, Suzy considers her greatest achievement to be her three children. Sabrina, now 21, is a senior at Wells College in upstate New York. Ben is a freshman at Harvard. Molly is a fifth grader at Leonardo da Vinci School in Sacramento.
We received the following commiseration from LINDA BRANDENBURGER. "Gentlemen, thanks for taking on this task. I did it for 15 years or more for my undergraduate college. It's an interesting job but hard work to get much information from classmates. Let me help a bit."
"I happily retired 7 years ago (some of us started late, you may recall, so we deserve to quit early). I am still involved in community activities in Sacramento, currently a member of Board of Directors of KVIE, our local public television station. I also serve as Chair of the Planned Giving Committee for the local American Red Cross chapter, using my estate planning experience to help this deserving organization.
For fun, I enjoy the theater, the symphony in Sacramento and San Francisco, gardening, cooking (remembering the delicious dinners we had in law school), traveling (wine tasting in Bordeaux in May, visiting friends in Sweden last year and who knows where next year?), refreshing my Spanish which has languished for decades, working out at the local gym, and not regretting not working one iota!"
Linda, you are a model classmate, a stalwart. Thank you. We look forward to seeing you at the 30th.
MARY (BECKERLEY) FINGAL married Orange County Superior Court Commissioner Thomas Schulte on Sept. 8, 2006. Comm. Schulte is assigned to the court's family law direct calendar panel. Judge Fingal Schulte is assigned to the general jurisdiction civil trials panel, and family law trials back up.
Finally, there is (are?) us!
Class Agent Steve Crozier has been in Seattle (where he was born) for the past seventeen years. He has Solar Affect Disorder — incessant sunny weather depresses him. A former Public Defender, he is now the Senior Law Clerk to U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman (for thirteen years). He is also a writer (screenplays), musician (congas/percussion), player of basketball and lover of baseball, movies and live music. Like many of our classmates, he also serves — with 12-step and the ManKind Project, an international men's community.
Reflecting on the wisdom gathered over the past years, Steve adds "I count many blessings in this eldering process, among them: I know Elvis has left the building and I no longer wonder who wrote the book of love."
DAVID ACH lives — still lives — in Palo Alto. He is married — still married — to Diane Appleton (UCD '73) and twice a father. Daughter Emily graduated from Wesleyan (not Wellesley) in 2004. She's been involved with a research study at the Veterans Administration for a year and is now applying to graduate programs in clinical psych. Daughter Julie is a Junior at Wesleyan (it is in Connecticut), spending her Fall semester in Southern France. Guess who visited her?
David endured big firm practice for several years before going out "on his own."
A sole practitioner for more than twenty years now, David is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. (Guess who had to suffer through a Bar Exam-like experience to qualify?) Recreational activities include regular bicycling. (David bicycling from Boston to New York in the first AIDS Ride several years ago.)
David's office is in Palo Alto. His number is in the telephone book. The coffee is always fresh and real cream is available. If you are in the area, don't be shy.
Because we know you are interested, you are hereby advised the CHARITY KENYON and JOAN STORY are working on the Thirtieth Reunion. Assuming, they will want some help at some point, you are all encouraged to write them to volunteer.
That is all for now. We enjoyed reading the comments of those who wrote in. Some of you have been regular contributors to the Class Notes column in the Counselor. Thank you for your submissions. We look forward to more. Many of us have been AWOL. It is time for redemption. Tell us about your careers, professional achievements, families, children, their accomplishments, travel... whatever motivates you to pick up a pen, send a fax, or hit the keyboard. Let us hear from you.
We will continue our search for classmate news and stories. If you know where someone is who hasn't written in, please give them our e-mail addresses. Please send us theirs. If you want to know about someone in our class, e-mail us. We will try to track them down for an update.
Our best to everyone!