This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
The Legal Professions Faculty Advisory Committee invites students to the inaugural event of the 1826 Law Alumni Society Saturday.
Alumni in the legal professions will share their perspectives on issues related to their education and career paths. A panel discussion will be followed by a reception and dinner, where they will be joined by alumni who will be on campus that day as participants in the mock trial competition.
Students interested in participating in the panel discussion and/or attending the dinner should contact June Thompson, postgraduate studies and fellowship assistant, at 10 Markle Hall; thompsoj@lafayette.edu; or x5521.
Alumni participating in the panel discussion from 4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. in Oechsle Hall Auditorium 224 will be Judge Steven Baratta `78, Northampton County Court of Common Pleas (Student host: Azad Assadipour ’06); Lucinda Glinn Brolin `96, associate in the civil litigation and health care practice areas for Nauman, Smith, Shissle and Hall, LLP, in Harrisburg, Pa. (Student host: Allison M. Ligorano ’06); James McGuire ’70, deputy commissioner for legal affairs for the New Jersey Department of Human Services (Student host: Rasheim J. Donaldson ’06); Duncan O’Dwyer ’60, managing partner at Forsyth, Howe, O’Dwyer, Kalb & Murphy, P.C. in Rochester, N.Y. (Student host: Erin Simendinger ’06).
The alumni will address a broad range of questions, including how students can get an understanding of what legal careers involve, what students can do to prepare during their undergraduate education, and how to choose among areas of legal practice.
Ed Ahart ’69, managing partner at Schenck, Price, Smith & King, will welcome guests and speak from his perspective as a founding member of the 1826 Law Alumni Society. Alumni guests who will join students for dinner include: Jack Furlong (parent of Jack Furlong `05), certified civil trial attorney as recognized by the Supreme Court of New Jersey (Student host: Edward Page Allinson ’07); Jennifer Meredith `97, Meredith & Keyhani, PLLC, New York (Student host: Lori Weaver ’06); Barbara Toop `79, deputy general counsel for Dannon Co. Inc. (Student host: Colby F. Block ’06); Timothy Van Hise `70, assistant prosecutor for the Somerset County Prosecutors Office in Somerville, N.J. (Student host: Jamie D. McFarlane ’07).
Providing musical entertainment for the evening will be Jack Furlong `05, Sean Comerford ’06, and Sean Gough ’09.
Ahart is a partner with Schenck, Price, Smith & King’s business organizations department and chairs the corporate practice group. He practices primarily as a transactional attorney, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, finance and banking, and general corporate law. He also is the firm’s managing partner and serves as chair of its management committee.
Ahart has extensive experience in the purchase, sale, and financing of businesses and related commercial transactions, including the structuring and restructuring, negotiating, and closing of complex asset and stock sales and acquisitions. He has been listed in Who’s Who and Who’s Who in American Law and has written and lectured in the areas of corporate law, commercial transactions, and banking.
Ahart is admitted to both the New Jersey and New York bars, is a member of the Morris County, New Jersey State, and American Bar Associations, business law section, and has served on the New Jersey District X Ethics Committee.
Ahart is a member of Lafayette’s Board of Trustees and its executive committee, and has served as president of the Alumni Association. He is chair of the Morris County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and a member of its executive committee, the Harkers Hollow Golf and Country Club Board, and is active in various other organizations. He acted as the attorney for Pohatcong Township in Warren County and its board of education. He was also chairman of the Board of Trustees of Warren County Association for Retarded Citizens.
After graduating with honors from Lafayette, Ahart attended Cornell Law School, graduating in 1972. Prior to joining Schenck, Price, Smith & King in 1973, he served as law secretary to the Honorable Joseph Halpern, Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.
Panelists
Judge Steven Baratta `78 (government and law), Fordham University School of Law `81
Baratta was elected Judge of the Northampton County County Court of Common Pleas in November 1997 for a ten-year term commencing Jan. 4, 1998. He presides over civil, criminal, and motions court. He is also the Administrative Judge for Domestic Relations.
He graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 1981. He has been admitted to practice law both in New York and Pennsylvania. In 1981, he began his private practice in Easton.
Baratta has a history of governmental service, beginning in 1985 as solicitor to Northampton County Children and Youth. In 1990, he became an assistant county solicitor, where his duties included representation of Northampton County Department of Human Services. In 1992, District Attorney John Morganelli appointed Baratta to be his first assistant district attorney, where he remained until his installation as judge.
Throughout his career, Baratta has remained active in the community. He is a member of the board of directors of Boys and Girls Club of Easton, VIA of the Lehigh Valley Inc. (a successor organization to both Lehigh Valley Association of Rehabilitation Centers Inc. and United Cerebral Palsy), Criminal Justice Advisory Board of Allentown Business School, and Bangor Area High School Alumni Association. He is also a member of American Judicature Society, the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges, and the Pennsylvania and Northampton County Bar Associations.
Baratta serves on the Corrections Committee of the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges. He is also an active participant in the Criminal Law Section of the conference.
Lucinda Glinn Brolin `96 (history and philosophy), Georgetown University Law Center `99
Glinn is an associate in the civil litigation and health care practice areas for Nauman, Smith, Shissler and Hall, LLP, the oldest law firm in continuous existence in Harrisburg, Pa. She concentrates her litigation practice in employment law, contracts, municipal, zoning and public utility law, and administrative law. Her health law practice focuses upon health care compliance, including HIPAA, state regulatory and licensure boards, as well as reporting obligations under patient safety initiatives.
James McGuire `70 (government and law), Seton Hall University School of Law `93,
Vermont Law School `96 Masters in Environmental Law
McGuire is deputy commissioner for legal affairs for the New Jersey Department of Human Services. He serves as general counsel with responsibility for all legal, legislative, and regulatory matters for New Jersey’s largest state department with more that 20,000 employees and a budget of $10 billion. He has been directly involved in negotiating settlements in several high-profile lawsuits against the department as well as dealing with the court-appointed panel overseeing New Jersey’s child welfare reform effort.
Duncan O’Dwyer ’60 (English), Cornell University Law School `63
O’Dwyer is a managing partner at Forsyth, Howe, O’Dwyer, Kalb & Murphy, P.C., founded in 1950 in Rochester, N.Y. The firm’s members have provided leadership in government, community affairs, charitable organizations, and in bar associations. Its 45 personnel concentrate in the legal areas of banking and finance, commercial/bankruptcy law, title insurance, secured lending/asset recovery, real estate, business and corporate law, trust and estate planning, education law, labor law and municipal law
Dinner Guests
Jack Furlong, Regis University `72, and Anna McDonough, University of Denver College of Law `76
Furlong and his law partner, Scott Krasny, are certified civil trial attorneys as recognized by the Supreme Court of New Jersey. McDonough, his wife, is a 1997 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University Law School at Dickinson College. She is counsel to the firm of Kleinbard, Bell and Brecher, Philadelphia, where she undertakes complex business and financial transactions. Their son, Jack `05, who graduated as a music major, is providing musical entertainment during dinner for the 1826 Law Alumni Society event.
Jennifer Meredith `97 (civil engineering), University at Buffalo Law School ’01
Meredith is a member of the law firm of Meredith & Keyhani, PLLC. Prior to forming the firm, she worked at the Research Foundation’s Technology, Transfer & Licensing Office, providing patent strategies for university-owned inventions. She also has worked with a number of law firms in New York on intellectual property matters. Meredith has successfully prosecuted numerous patents and trademarks, which is her main focus. She also handles litigation matters and has prevailed in complex copyright, trademark, and patent litigation matters.
Barbara Toop `79 (chemical engineering), New York Law School `83
Since 2001, Toop has served as deputy general counsel for Dannon Co. Inc., where she provides legal support to the sales and marketing divisions, including Lea & Perrins and Evian Water. After she earned her J.D. in 1983, she worked for 14 years at Best Foods (makers of Hellman’s mayonnaise, Skippy peanut butter, and Entenmann’s pastries) as a patent attorney, serving as worldwide information technology counsel with responsibility for all North American contracts.
Timothy Van Hise `70 (economics and business), Rutgers School of Law-Newark `77
Van Hise is an assistant prosecutor for the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office in Somerville, N.J. He has been a prosecutor since 1982 and a certified criminal trial attorney since 1990 with over 160 jury trials. He serves as legal adviser to the Major Crimes squad and the Counter-Terrorism Unit, and is a member of the adjunct faculty for the National District Attorneys Association at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, S.C.
He is handling for the state the case of nurse/serial-killer Charles Cullen, who has admitted killing nearly 30 patients at hospitals throughout New Jersey, and in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in Pennsylvania.
In the May 2005 issue of New Jersey Monthly magazine, he was one of four lawyers named a New Jersey Super Lawyer in the field of criminal prosecution.