We live through our alums, sometimes daily as their emails and other contacts come in, and what continues to impress us is the diversity of what they are doing and their success in doing it. We do not have the space to present all the updates received, nor to highlight them in more depth as we are able to do for a few in this issue … but we hope that this sample conveys the idea: our alums go everywhere, and do nearly everything. And do it very well.
Jon Schuyler Brooks (L ’84)
Jon Schuyler Brooks has recently left Phillips Nizer, LLP to join Michelman & Robinson, LLP in New York. In the past, he has gone deep into brownfield issues, and has enjoyed plaintiff-side litigation. Now, a new road.
Ruth Ann Castro (L’ 00)
Ruth is now Environmental Counsel at Google, providing transaction and compliance support for teams on three continents. She is also deeply involved in securing the company’s carbon-neutral goal through renewable energy for grids powering its data centers. She had previously worked in corporate practice, and before that as a clerk in EPA’s Region IX. Now she’s greening Google.
Albi Gjenerali, LLM (LLM ’16)
I continue to work for the Albanian Combined Natural Gas company and we are still in the projection phase of the new pipelines. Albanian did not previously have any natural gas resources, but with the new Trans Adriatic Pipeline, which will pass through Albania from Azerbaijan, the country will gain access to 0.3 bcm per year of natural gas to use in the industrial sector.
Alayne Gobeille, J.D. (L’11)
Alayne Gobeille wrote directed and produced an aquatic adaption of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. In Gobeille's interpretation, Orwell's farm animals have been replaced by trained seals, trained killer whales and other sea creatures that star in an anachronistic aquarium show. The term "two legs bad," is Orwellian shorthand for the sea creatures' distrust of bipedal humans.
Jordan Lesser, J.D. (L ’09)
Jordan Lesser works as Legal Counselor for the New York State Assembly from his hometown of Ithaca, NY. He has also been deeply involved with legislative reform to better enforce wildlife crimes in Namibia, on which he has also written and lectured widely.
Michael Mogil, J.D. (L ’88)
I am rethinking how to stay involved in green matters as a lawyer and businessman. My inclination and interest tends towards the macro issues--species and habitat protection internationally, overpopulation, and then sustainable food, building, packaging and energy resources internationally. In short, the perils of overpopulation are everywhere. … My bigger concern is the demonization of science (and intellectual thought in general) to the point where the debate is no longer what we do about the rising seas and obvious rising temperatures, but whether we can even have a national or political discussion on it. Consider that 49.9 percent of the population, and 55% of the electoral votes, disregard anyone who mentions it. That is the challenge for the rest of my generation's useful life, and my children’s -- how to keep teaching and believing in the truth and advocating it in the face of a new culture centered on politicized information, image, lack of respect for Courts and short term thinking.
Adam Reeves, J.D. (L ’95)
Adam Reeves, with the firm Maynes, Bradford, Shipps & Sheftel LLP, is representing the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. They are currently looking to develop and environmental review process that will supplant NEPA in certain circumstances. Adam is helping the tribe develop an efficient and effective review process that will result in better decisions about how the tribe will manage and develop its resources in the least environmentally damaging manner.
Kevin Thompson (L ’98)
Kevin checked in to report a summary judgment win for plaintiffs on the infamous Elk River chemical spill in West Virginia, following several recent verdicts against Murray Coal in that same state. At last report he was in Houston on a hazardous waste leakage matter. He seems drawn to cases of considerable size.
