September 22, 2023

In November 2022, Justice Patrick F. Fischer was reelected to a second term on the Supreme Court of Ohio. Justice Fischer began his first six-year term on the Supreme Court of Ohio on Jan. 1, 2017, following his election in November 2016. Previously, he was elected to serve as a judge on the Ohio First District Court of Appeals in 2010 and was re-elected in 2012. Justice Fischer has dedicated himself to the practice of law for nearly 40 years. An honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College, he tried cases as a practicing lawyer throughout the country, and was named to Best Lawyers in America, one of the Top 50 Lawyers in Cincinnati, and one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Ohio. He was routinely named to Ohio Super Lawyers.

October 10, 2023

Mat Heck, Jr., born and raised in Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio, attended Chaminade Catholic High School, Marquette University and Georgetown University Law Center. He is a career Prosecutor, having worked as an Assistant Prosecutor after law school, and later being elected Prosecuting Attorney in 1992. Mr. Heck is a member of many professional associations and involved in numerous civic organizations. He is past Chair of the American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section; delegate to the House of Delegates, American Bar Association; Chair of the Executive Committee, CARE House, Dayton’s Children’s Advocacy Center; and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

October 20, 2023

Maria Otero is a Senior Attorney and Co-Manager in the Agricultural and Immigrant Rights Practice Group at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE). She is an immigration attorney who specialized in removal proceeding, and is currently managing the Unacompanied Children’s Project and the Columbus Family Together Fund Project.

January 26, 2024

Daniel Rafferty currently serves as a term clerk for the Honorable Judge Walter H. Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. He received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, before receiving his commission in the United States Air Force in 2011. After serving nearly seven years as an intelligence officer in Texas, Ohio, and Georgia, and after completing a Masters in Intelligence Studies from American Military University in Charlestown, West Virginia, Daniel retired from active duty and received his law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law in 2022.

February 9, 2024

Chris is a Senior Counsel with Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP. He has more than 30 years of experience in the environmental field, including six years as Director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and four years as Chief of the Ohio Attorney General’s Environmental Enforcement Section. While Director of Ohio EPA, Chris was a two-term elected president of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), a national organization of all of the directors of state environmental agencies. In this role, he served as the primary liaison between states and the U.S. EPA.

March 22, 2024

Michael Leesman is a member of the Corporate and Business Law Department of Coolidge Wall and focuses his practice in the areas of business advising and transactions, contract evaluation, negotiation and drafting, and health care law. Mike began his career as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Ohio where he represented the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services handling various issues and multiple administrative appeals for State benefit programs including Medicaid. After leaving the Attorney General's Office, Mike worked for several years as in-house counsel for a large, Ohio-based physician group that provides services to hospitals in eight states.

October 28, 2022

Tejal Wadhwani is a Managing Director and Co-Head of FICC Legal for the Americas at Goldman Sachs. Tejal serves as lead counsel to and manages a legal team that advises the Fixed Income, Currencies, Commodities and Structured Finance teams in the Global Markets and Investment Banking Divisions. Tejal serves as counsel to various capital and risk committees at Goldman Sachs. She is also co-head of the Global Legal Division People Development Committee and a sponsor on the Legal Division Black Vice President Career Development Program advisory team. Tejal joined Goldman Sachs as a managing director in 2017. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Tejal served as lead counsel for the Securitized Products Group at Morgan Stanley. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, she was a managing director at the Royal Bank of Scotland, where she held a similar role. Tejal serves on the Board of Directors of HELP for KIDS – Exchange Club Parenting Skills Center, whose mission is to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect by providing home-based remedial and preventive intervention to abused and/or neglected children or those considered to be "at risk," and their families. Tejal earned a BA in Finance from Loyola University Chicago in 1991 and a JD from the University of Dayton School of Law in 1994.

November 3, 2022

Since October 16, 2017, Mr. Germain has served as the chief legal officer and executive vice president of Federated Hermes, Inc. In this capacity, he oversees the delivery of legal, compliance, internal audit and risk management services to Federated Hermes and its affiliates. Mr. Germain also serves as chief legal officer of the Federated Hermes Funds and is president of Federated Administrative Services, Inc. Mr. Germain previously served as general counsel from January 2005 to June 2021.

November 14, 2022

Magistrate Judge Gentry grew up in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She is a graduate of Kalamazoo College (B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1992) and Yale Law School (J.D. 1995), where she was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. After completing a two-year clerkship with United States District Judge Walter Rice, she entered into private practice as a civil litigator. From 2005 to 2021, she was a litigation partner in the Dayton office of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP.

February 3, 2023

Judge Kimberly Melnick was appointed to the Common Pleas Court Bench, General Division, in March 2022 and elected in November 2022 after serving the majority of her 29 year career prosecuting criminal cases. Judge Melnick began her legal career with the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office in January 1994. In 1998, she went into private practice before returning to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office from 2000 to 2002. From 2002 to 2006, Judge Melnick spent time as a Deputy District Attorney in Jefferson County, Colorado. She returned to Dayton and the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office in November 2006. Judge Melnick graduated Wright State University 1990, receiving her B.S. in Marketing. She received her Juris Doctor in 1993 from the University of Dayton School of Law.

April 13, 2023

Ahmad Saleh is a senior associate with the Corporate Department at GLA & Company and licensed in the State of Ohio, US, and the Federal District for the Southern District of Ohio, US. His practice focuses primarily on M&A, other local and cross-border transactions, and complex construction disputes. Since joining GLA & Company, Ahmad has successfully advised multinational clients across various industries, including construction and manufacturing, government contracting, finance, food and retail. Ahmad is regularly involved in acquisitions and other matters, and recently has been focusing on complex contractual disputes for major construction projects in the State of Kuwait.

September 20, 2021

Bob Taft began his career in public service as a Peace Corps Volunteer, working as a schoolteacher in Tanzania, East Africa right after graduating from college. He went on to get a masters degree in government from Princeton and a law degree from the University of Cincinnati. His first job in government was with the Bureau of the Budget in the State of Illinois. He has served as an elected official in Ohio for 30 years, as a member of the state legislature, a county commissioner, Ohio Secretary of State and, most recently, as Governor of Ohio (1999-2007). In his role as Governor, he focused on improving schools, reforming Ohio’s tax system, attracting advanced, high paying jobs and helping communities clean up polluted sites and provide better recreational opportunities for their citizens. Former Governor Taft is currently a Distinguished Research Associate with the University of Dayton, teaching political science courses and working with state and federal internship programs.

October 11, 2021

Tim Nevius has been at the forefront of college sports issues since shortly after his own college baseball career at the University of Dayton, where he also attended law school. After graduating first in his law school class, he joined the NCAA as an investigator where he helped lead high-profile enforcement cases against major college sports programs. Thereafter, he earned an LLM with honors from Columbia Law School before establishing a college sports practice at the law firm of Winston & Strawn in New York. In that role, Nevius helped initiate and lead landmark litigation for college athletes against the NCAA that resulted in a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court victory for the athletes in Alston v. NCAA. Since then, he formed a one-of-a-kind sports law practice dedicated to representing college athletes and founded the College Athlete Advocacy Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to athlete representation and college sports reform. Nevius has been involved in state and federal lobbying efforts to advance ground-breaking legislation regarding Name, Image, and LIkeness for college athletes and is a regular speaker on college sports issues. His Tedx Talk called "The Exploitation of US College Athletes" has been viewed over 1.1 million times. Nevius has appeared on ESPN Outside the Lines, HBO Real Sports, NBC Sunday Today, Vice, NPR All Things Considered, and his work has been featured in several leading media outlets.

November 1, 2021

Steven Strain serves as the attorney to the Veterans Service Commission for Miami Valley Veterans. Steve is a Veteran of the United States Marine Corps where he served as an infantry rifleman with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines. Steve is a graduate of Wright State University and the University of Dayton School of Law. He now serves as Legal Counsel for the Montgomery County Veteran Service Commission where he provides no cost legal guidance to the Commission and legal advice and counsel to Veterans.

February 15, 2022

Kathleen Kersh is a Senior Attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE) in Dayton, Ohio. She represents low-income immigrants and agricultural workers in immigration and civil rights matters, including anti-racial profiling litigation against state agencies who wish to enforce immigration law. Katie also directs the Neighborhoods BUILD Dayton community lawyering project, where she supports community-driven advocacy in Latinx communities and public housing complexes in Dayton.

March 1, 2022

Ameer E. Mabjish is a criminal defense lawyer and personal injury lawyer at Mabjish Law, PLLC. He was a senior producer for the "Heroin USA" documentary with Soledad O'Brien. Mabjish earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Kentucky and his law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law.

October 5, 2020

Michael Paul Bowen's practice with Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP focuses on complex civil litigation, white collar criminal defense, corporate investigation and regulatory matters. He has litigated matters involving the international financial markets and market data distribution, securities fraud and regulation and shareholder derivative claims, government corruption charges, criminal conspiracy and racketeering and grand larceny, commercial contracts, fraud and commercial torts, unfair competition law, antitrust, environmental insurance law, defamation and libel and civil RICO and conspiracy claims. He has extensive trial experience, including trying to verdict complex multi-defendant conspiracy cases.

October 26, 2020

Ann E. Finnell is with the firm Finnell, McGuinness, Nezami & Andux in Jacksonville, Florida. She has been a trial lawyer for over 35 years. She has handled homicide and death penalty cases since 1981 and focuses on complex homicide litigation including death penalty mitigation. She is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Florida College of Law. Ms. Finnell has extensively lectured and taught in the areas of criminal trial practice and death penalty practice. She has lectured for the Florida Public Defender Association, Arizona Public Defenders, Wisconsin Public Defenders and Montana Public Defenders. She has taught at the Prosecutor/Public Defender Program in Gainesville, Florida since 1988 and has taught at the Florida Public Defenders College. She also lectured for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys Annual Conference in Aspen, Colorado.

November 9, 2020

Geoff Walker is the System Vice President and Chief Legal Officer for Premier Health. Geoff has practiced law for 34 years, 28 of which have been with Premier Health, beginning in 1992. Prior to his current position, Geoff served as counsel for Miami Valley Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital and later as counsel for Premier Health’s Physician Companies and the Premier Health Service Lines. Geoff graduated from Cedarville University in 1982 and the University of Dayton School of Law in 1986, with honors. Previous to his coming to Premier, Geoff practiced as a healthcare and general civil defense litigator in one of Dayton’s local law firms. He currently serves on the Premier Health Holding Company and the Wayne Health Boards, and has served on numerous community boards over the years, including as President of the Greater Dayton Volunteer Lawyers Project and Secretary of the Springfield (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra, and continues to serve local charitable agencies by providing free legal assistance to their Boards. Geoff has also held the past honor of teaching Healthcare Law for the University of Dayton School of Law as an adjunct professor. Geoff’s partner in life (for the last 32 years) is his wife Valerie. They have two adult children, Ethan and Amelia.

February 1, 2021

Judd joined Hellman & Friedman in 2012 and is the Firm’s Chief Financial Officer. He is responsible for all finance, accounting, and tax matters. Prior to H&F, Judd was a Principal with Deloitte Tax LLP in its M&A Transaction Services Group, where he specialized in advising private equity firms in tax due diligence, financial model review, and transaction structuring. Judd is a graduate of the University of Dayton School of Law.

February 22, 2021

Roger M. Groves is a former Michigan tax judge, and thereafter equity partner in a 100-person midwest law firm, Howard & Howard, P.C. where he has represented several high profile athletes and entertainers in tax and business transactions, including Aretha Franklin, having played piano for Magic Johnson and opened for Stevie Wonder, and written and recorded with Grammy Award nominee and multiple platinum recording artist Jerry Butler. Mr. Groves has also been a top 20 Forbes contributor on the business of sports (SportsMoney), and appeared on ESPN's Outside the Lines, among various television and radio programs. Mr. Groves is currently Of Counsel with Rogers Towers, P.A. in Jacksonville, Florida. He advises NFL financial advisors and agents on collective bargaining agreement issues, business transactions, and intellectual property transactions, including the valuation of name, image and likeness of collegiate athletes.

March 8, 2021

The Honorable Timothy S. Black was sworn in as United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio on June 21, 2010 at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. He was nominated for the position by President Barack Obama in December 2009 and confirmed by the Senate in May 2010. A graduate of Harvard University in English and American literature, Judge Black began his career as a teacher at the Roxbury Latin School and the Seven Hills Schools as he earned his J.D. degree at Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law. He then joined the law firm of Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP in 1983, becoming a partner in 1990. In 1994, he left the firm to become a Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge. After 10 years on the Municipal Court bench, he became a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District Ohio.

September 27, 2019

Evelyn Stratton served for 16 years as a justice on the Supreme Court of Ohio. She is currently of counsel in the Vorys Columbus office. Stratton spent the first nine years of her legal career as a central Ohio trial lawyer. In 1988, she became the first woman elected judge of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court. She was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court by Governor George Voinovich in 1996 and was elected by Ohio voters to three six-year terms.

October 11, 2019

From NCAA athlete to NCAA investigator and lawyer, Tim Nevius has more than a decade of experience in college sports. Following his baseball career at the University of Dayton, Tim graduated first in his law school class before joining the NCAA as an investigator. In that role, he helped lead some of the NCAA's highest-profile enforcement cases and conducted investigations at college campuses across the country. As a liaison to the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Tim also worked with athletes from every Division I conference on NCAA legislation and policy considerations affecting athletes.

November 1, 2019

Raymond McGuire is Citi's Co-Head of Global Investment Banking, based in New York. He has responsibility for managing the coverage of global industries and clients and executing strategic transactions. He is a member of Citi's Senior Leadership Committee. Prior to joining Citi, McGuire was the Global Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Morgan Stanley; Managing Director in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.; and one of the original members of Wasserstein Perella & Co., Inc.

November 8, 2019

Geoffrey Pipoly is a Litigation & Dispute Resolution associate in Mayer Brown's Chicago office. Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Mr. Pipoly served clients as a securities litigator at a Chicago-based boutique law firm. He also previously served as a judicial law clerk to Hon. Richard Allen Griffin on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

January 17, 2020

Judge Gerald Parker was elected to the Common Pleas Court Bench, General Division, in November of 2018, taking office in early January of 2019. He serves on the Offender Supervision and Security Committee. Judge Parker received his B.A. from Georgetown College (KY.) in 2004 and his J.D. from Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University in 2007. From 2007 to 2011, Judge Parker was an Assistant Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney spending a majority of his time on felony dockets. In 2012, Judge Parker joined the civil litigation team with the Dayton firm of Dyer, Garofalo Mann and Schultz. He would then be appointed as juvenile magistrate for Montgomery County Juvenile Court in July of 2016.

March 15, 2019

Carlos Bernal is Justice of the Colombian Constitutional Court. His qualifications include a LL.B. from the University Externado of Colombia (Bogotá – Colombia) (1996), a S.J.D. from the University of Salamanca (Spain) (2001), and a M.A. (2008) and a Ph.D. in Philosophy (2011) from the University of Florida (U.S.A). He has held a visiting professorship at the University of Paris X (Nanterre), and Senior Research Fellowships at the Yale Law School and the Max Plack Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg). His scholarship focuses on constitutional rights’ interpretation, comparative constitutional change, general jurisprudence –in particular on the intersection between social ontology and legal theory–, and the philosophical foundations of tort law.

February 15, 2019

David Greer has been a practicing trial lawyer in Dayton, Ohio for more than fifty years. In that span of time he has represented clients in cases in an estimated more than five hundred jury trials, ranging from capital murders to corporate takeovers. David is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a life member of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference and a former president of the Dayton Bar Association. David is also an author and leader of the Classic Jazz Stompers, an eight piece orchestra with a vast repertoire of jazz and hot dance music from the 1920s and 1930s.

January 18, 2019

Jessica A. Ramos is an attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE), in the Agricultural Worker and Immigrant Rights Practice Group. ABLE is a non-profit organization in Ohio that provides legal assistance to help low-income individuals achieve self-reliance, equal justice, and equal economic opportunity. Jessica represents clients in immigration and civil rights cases, and she has been recognized for her extensive experience working with Unaccompanied Immigrant Children, including testifying before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in April 2018 where she made recommendations regarding protecting this vulnerable population. She played a pivotal role establishing recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’ (DACA) rights to certain state benefits, including driver’s licenses and in-state tuition.

November 9, 2018

Judge Adkins was appointed to the General Division bench on June 6, 2011. He serves as the Security Committee Chair and also serves on the Criminal Practice and Technology Committees. He received his B.S. from the University of Dayton in 1982, and his J.D. from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University in 1986. In 2013, Judge Adkins created the first Veteran's Treatment Court in this area. He presides over the court, which is designed to provide treatment and rehabilitation for veterans who have found themselves involved in the Criminal Justice System due to combat related problems.

October 26, 2018

Gilbert King is the author of three books, most recently, Beneath a Ruthless Sun. His previous book, Devil in the Grove, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2013. A New York Times bestseller, the book was also named runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction, and was a finalist for both the Chautauqua Prize and the Edgar Award. King has written about race, civil rights, and the death penalty for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he is a contributor to The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. King’s earlier book, The Execution of Willie Francis, was published in 2008. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

September 28, 2018

September 29, 2017

Evelyn Stratton served for 16 years as a justice on the Supreme Court of Ohio. She is currently of counsel in the Vorys Columbus office. Stratton spent the first nine years of her legal career as a central Ohio trial lawyer. In 1988, she became the first woman elected judge of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court. She was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court by Governor George Voinovich in 1996 and was elected by Ohio voters to three six-year terms.

October 27, 2017

Senator Maggie Hassan is the second woman in American history to be elected both Governor and United States Senator. Hassan was elected to the U.S. Senate from New Hampshire in 2016. She served as the 81st Governor of New Hampshire from 2013-2017. Hassan's talk is entitled, "Learning from those Around You: The Qualities that Can Help You Succeed in Your Career and as a Citizen."​ In it she will address how civic engagement and learning from those around you are fundamental duties for every American. She will also discuss how shared challenges, like the substance misuse crisis, impact New Hampshire, Ohio, and states across the nation.

February 23, 2018

A seasoned healthcare administrator, Mr. Hamlette is experienced in both the public and private sectors, including health law and policy, current healthcare reform issues, the impact of health reform on medically diverse populations and the professionals who treat them. In 2007, he was named chief health policy advisor within the Washington, DC Executive Office of the Mayor, Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs, by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. As policy and legislative strategist, he guided the mayor and agency directors within the District's healthcare cluster, authored policy positions, drafted legislation and testified at public hearings. Mr. Hamlette received a letter of commendation from the mayor for his efforts. Subsequently, Mr. Hamlette served in private practice as counsel and administrator to medical providers, state government and a professional medical association on issues arising from and related to the Affordable Care Act.

March 23, 2018

Judge Lech Garlicki has worked at the Warsaw University since 1968, and since 1987 as full professor. He was member of the Warsaw Bar from 1980-1993, judge of the Constitutional Court of Poland from 1993-2001, and judge of the European Court of Human Right from 2002-2012. He was president of the fourth Section in 2011-2012. He lectured at numerous universities in Europe, the United States, Israel, Japan, China and Hong Kong. He is author or editor of over 300 publications in different languages, including a five-volume Commentary to the 1997 Constitution of Poland and two-volume Commentary to the European Convention on Human Rights.

July 2016

A former professor of the School of Law, Professor Saphire has been involved with the American Civil Liberties Union for many years. Most recently, he was an attorney of record in the Ohio “voter purge” case, successfully challenging the state’s policy of removing voters from the rolls after they had not voted for six years. Professor Saphire talked with students about his extensive pro bono work and drew on his career path and experience as he talked with students about their interests, values, and personal and professional goals.

September 21, 2016

Students in the LHP were privileged to spend an afternoon with Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School professor, New York Times best-selling author, recent presidential candidate and three-time TEDTalk speaker. Professor Lessig talked with students about the corrupting force of money in politics and shared his insights on the 2016 election, the first Presidential debate, and the need for change in our national political system.

October 19, 2016

Administrative Director Michael L. Buenger has served as the Administrative Director of the Supreme Court of Ohio since January 5, 2015. As the senior non-elected officer of the Supreme Court, he, along with the Chief Justice and Justices, the Ohio Judicial Conference, and the judges of the state, is responsible for developing and communicating the long-term vision, values, and direction of the Supreme Court and the judicial branch. Mr. Buenger has also worked for the National Center for State Courts as a senior rule of law adviser in Kosovo, and has worked on rule of law development, judicial reform, and anti-corruption in other countries. He has authored numerous law review articles on state courts, human rights, and international law.

January 2017

Judge Anthony Capizzi serves as a Montgomery County Juvenile Court Judge, a position he was first elected to in 2004. Judge Capizzi is enthusiastic and energetic about working to promote the welfare of children, as has been his trademark throughout his legal career. Judge Capizzi serves on the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Judicial College, as Chair of the Ohio Juvenile Judges Curriculum Committee, and as Past President of the Ohio Juvenile Court Judges Association.

February 2017

A seasoned healthcare administrator, Mr. Hamlette is experienced in both the public and private sectors, including health law and policy, current healthcare reform issues, the impact of health reform on medically diverse populations and the professionals who treat them. In 2007, he was named chief health policy advisor within the Washington, DC Executive Office of the Mayor, Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs, by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. As policy and legislative strategist, he guided the mayor and agency directors within the District's healthcare cluster, authored policy positions, drafted legislation and testified at public hearings. Mr. Hamlette received a letter of commendation from the mayor for his efforts. Subsequently, Mr. Hamlette served in private practice as counsel and administrator to medical providers, state government and a professional medical association on issues arising from and related to the Affordable Care Act.

March 2017

Judi French became a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio in January 2013 and was elected to her first full term on November 4, 2014. She has traveled throughout Ohio, visiting all 88 counties in her first two years on the bench. Before becoming a justice, French had served the State of Ohio as a lawyer for a state agency, an assistant attorney general and counsel to the Governor.

Professor Ericka Curran
Director, Leadership Honors Program
ecurran1@udayton.edu