2017 Distinguished Law Alumni Awards

2017 Distinguished Alumnus
Howard Cayne, JD ’79 Partner,
Arnold & Porter LLP

Howard Cayne is a partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, where he counsels financial and other institutions on a broad range of regulatory, compliance, and transactional issues. He also has played a prominent role in much of the most significant federal banking litigation of the past four decades, and has served as plaintiff-side trial counsel in a number of cases resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in total judgments against the United States.

Currently, Howard and his firm represent the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a broad range of high-stakes cases in courts throughout the nation. Collectively, these litigations have involved damages claims running into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Just last month, in one of the most significant victories of his career, Howard prevailed on behalf of FHFA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That appeal involved a series of massive litigations brought by hedge funds and other investors attempting to profit from the federal government’s rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Howard also has achieved a number of important victories for federally chartered banks, savings institutions, and credit unions threatened with overreaching state and local actions. Earlier in his career, Howard successfully handled Winstar breach of contract litigations against the U.S. government, as well as litigation and settlement of major class and derivative actions against large financial institutions.

Previously, Howard has served as an adjunct instructor in banking law enforcement at Boston University. Before joining the firm in 1984, Howard served as a senior attorney in the Enforcement and Compliance Division of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Howard earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester in 1976. He has been a member of the law school’s national council and the Parent Council. He and his wife, Caroline, established and endowed the Howard and Caroline Cayne Professorship in the School of Law. The couple has three children, Allison, AB ’07, SW ’18; Elizabeth Rosen ’AB 11 (Max Rosen AB ’10, MD ’15); Brian (Elizabeth); and two grandsons, Teddy Rosen, and Lee Cayne.

2017 Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus
Yvonne Cordell, JD’88 and Joseph Cordell, LLM’08
Founders, Cordell & Cordell 2017

Joe and Yvonne Cordell founded Cordell & Cordell in 1990 as a general practice law firm. Today, the firm focuses on family law, specifically men’s divorce cases. With more than 200 divorce lawyers in more than 100 offices across the United States and one office in the United Kingdom, Cordell & Cordell is one of the largest family law firms in the world serving men.

Mr. Cordell earned his JD from the University of Texas School of Law and his bachelor’s degree in accountancy from Oklahoma State University. He is a graduate of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and holds a Missouri CPA license. An adjunct faculty member at Washington University School of Law, he is also the past president of the American Academy of Attorney-Certified Public Accountants.

Mrs. Cordell earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from Illinois State University and worked in the legal department of American General Finance in Evansville, Indiana, before co-founding Cordell & Cordell. She stopped practicing law in 1996, and now remains active in a number of charitable organizations, including the board of directors for Teen Challenge USA, an international faith-based organization dedicated to helping teenagers, adults, and families with substance abuse and other problems.

Currently, Mr. Cordell speaks at various seminars dealing with topics from domestic relations to estate planning, and Mrs. Cordell is pursuing her master’s degree in theological studies at Concordia Theological Seminary. The couple has two daughters, Caroline and Elizabeth, and lives in Wildwood, Missouri.

2017 Distinguished Alumna
Sharis A. Pozen, JD ’89
Vice President, Competition Law and Policy, General Electric

Sharis Pozen is vice president, Competition Law and Policy, for General Electric, leading the company’s global competition and antitrust teams in matters of compliance, merger clearance, and other related issues since 2014. She joined GE from Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where she was a leader of the firm’s antitrust competition practice. Prior to joining Skadden in 2012 she was Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division in the U.S. Department of Justice.

As Acting Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Pozen led many high-profile matters, including the eBooks and Autoparts cases and the challenge of AT&T’s proposed acquisition of TMobile. She worked extensively with leaders of international antitrust authorities. Additionally, she has represented the U.S. on international competition issues on behalf of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Competition Network.

Pozen’s professional career began at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where she held several positions, including attorney adviser to two FTC Commissioners, Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of Competition, and staff attorney.

In 2009, 2013 and 2016, Pozen was profiled as a leading antitrust attorney in Global Competition Review’s “Women in Antitrust” report. She was selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business 2014, The Best Lawyers in America 2014 and 2015, and Washingtonian Magazine’s 2013 “Best Lawyers” list. In addition, she is listed in the Competition and Antitrust edition and the Women in Business Law edition of Expert Guides, Who’s Who Legal 100 2013 and The International Who’s Who of Competition Lawyers and Economists 2014, respectively.

Pozen earned her bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College in 1986. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Thorn. The couple has two daughters, Hannah and Grace.

2017 Distinguished Alumnus
Richard Rothman, JD ’77
Senior Partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Richard Rothman is a senior partner and former chair of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP’s Complex Commercial Litigation practice. For more than 35 years, he has successfully litigated and tried his clients’ most complex disputes in courts and arbitrations around the country.

Rothman has long represented the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in connection with multi-hundred million dollar disputes, including the successful appeals relating to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Other major clients have included American Airlines and global pharmaceutical company Sanofi Aventis. Rothman has won each of the appeals he has argued in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Eighth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits, as well as the New York Court of Appeals.

Rothman is the lead author and editor of Litigating Complex Cases: From the Inside and Out, and numerous articles. Throughout his career, he has served in leadership roles of various public service organizations, including president of the Second Circuit’s Federal Bar Foundation; trustee of the Federal Bar Council and chairman of the council’s Second Circuit Courts and Public Service Committees; and counsel to the board of the American Red Cross of Greater New York. He is currently a director of the Legal Aid Society and vice chairman of the board of Graham Windham, the nation’s oldest non-sectarian child welfare agency. He now devotes much of his time to public interest work, including advising non-profit organizations and assisting victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, disadvantaged children, and incarcerated women and men.

Rothman earned his bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in 1974. At Washington University School of Law, he was managing editor of the law review, and he is currently a member of the law school’s national council.

Rothman and his wife, Melissa, have two sons, Tommy and Harris. The couple lives in New York City.

2017 Distinguished Alumnus
The Honorable Charles R. Scarlett, JD ’52
Retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge

Before attending Washington University School of Law, the Honorable Charles R. Scarlett served in the South Pacific with the United States Marine Corps during World War II. As a Century Club Fellow for more than 20 years, he was a long and loyal supporter of the School of Law before his death in early 2017.

Shortly after completing his JD, Scarlett married and moved to San Francisco, California, with Ed McSweeney, AB ’50, JD ’52. Together they opened the firm McSweeney and Scarlett. Scarlett later moved with his wife, Charmaine, to Los Angeles to found the firm Broady, Scarlett and Broady. When Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. appointed Scarlett to the bench in 1980, the firm became Ivie and McNeill, and later Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt, APLC. One of the largest minority-owned law firms at the time of its founding, Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt has produced several judges.

As a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge, Scarlett presided over juvenile delinquency cases, predominately in Inglewood, California, until he retired in 1994. After retirement, he sat by assignment at various courts in Los Angeles County until 2015, when he was 91 years old.

A pillar of the Los Angeles community, Scarlett received awards from the state of California, the city and county of Los Angeles, and the city of Inglewood, as well as a resolution from Senator Diane Watson and a tribute by the Honorable Julian Dixon that was placed in the House of Representatives’ Congressional Record. He also served on the board of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and other legal organizations.

Scarlett earned his bachelor’s degree from Howard University in 1949. He and Charmaine were married for 64 years. The couple had four children and five grandchildren.

2017 Distinguished Alumnus
Jack J. Schramm, JD ’59
International Development Lawyer

Jack J. Schramm’s experience spans 50 years in governance at state, federal, and international levels. Over the last 25 years, USAID, The World Bank, and others engaged him for senior assignments in 26 countries. In Iraq, he developed intergovernmental power-sharing strategies and investigated parliamentary operations, unearthing Iran-inspired efforts to sabotage American programs. In Afghanistan, he crafted negotiating strategies to win back transboundary water resources from the country’s neighbors.

Schramm earned a bachelor’s degree in politics from Colgate University in 1953. He served with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and was the Carter Administration’s regional administrator in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He skillfully negotiated the resolution of a number of nationally significant cases in the Mid-Atlantic Region, and his management of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident tempered public fears nationally. Schramm’s consistent superior performance earned him a presidential appointment as EPA’s national enforcement chief, which he declined.

Internationally, Schramm strategically prepared developing countries to meet environmental requirements for entry into trade. His pioneering development of management systems for industrial settlements were globally adopted and earned him the title of “2009 Professional of the Year” from Cambridge Who’s Who.

Schramm began his political career in the Missouri House of Representatives. Among his many accomplishments, he redesigned local governments’ constitutional relationships and created one of the first state housing finance agencies, a new economic development agency, and the state’s first comprehensive environmental program. His leadership was recognized by the Eagleton Institute of Politics of Rutgers University (selected one of the nation’s top legislators), the Wall Street Journal (named a “new breed of legislator” in a national front page feature), and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (“one of the most effective legislators ever to sit in the House”). His memoir, Passionate Purpose: A Global Governance Journey, was published in November 2016. He lives with his wife, Dorian, in Alexandria, Virginia.

2017 Distinguished Young Alumna
Marty Hereford, JD ‘96
Partner, Armstrong Teasdale LLP

Marty Hereford, a partner at Armstrong Teasdale LLP, is a member of the firm’s International practice area and concentrates on providing immigration and naturalization services to a full range of businesses, families, and individuals. In recognition of her legal skills and experience, Hereford is listed on The Best Lawyers in America® list for immigration law. She is also active in firm management, serves on Armstrong Teasdale’s Compensation Committee, and previously served on both the Management and Diversity Committees.

Hereford is a board member of Covenant House of Missouri and previously served on the board of Voices for Children. She is a member of the United Way Women’s Leadership Cabinet and serves as co-chair of the Attorneys’ Market. A member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Hereford mentors new members of the association.

Passionate about helping women succeed, Hereford was director of Armstrong Teasdale’s Professional Advancement of Women program from 2010 to 2014. She is also one of the founding members of Washington University’s School of Law Women’s Law Initiative. The Women’s Law Caucus of Washington University School of Law honored Hereford as part of its 2013 International Women’s Day Celebration and the Dress for Success 2013 Tribute to Success: A Celebration of Women.

Hereford earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri Columbia in 1989. She currently participates as a committed volunteer in the Washington University School of Law “Lunch and Learn” series and teaches intersession courses. She also heads Armstrong Teasdale’s participation in the School’s Law Firm Challenge, which raises money for the law school Annual Fund.

Hereford lives in St. Louis with her husband Andrew, and son, Jimmy.

2017 Distinguished Young Alumnus
Robert J. Kestelik, JD ’97
Assistant General Counsel, Mattel, Inc.

Robert Kestelik is assistant general counsel at Mattel, Inc., the world’s largest designer, manufacturer, and distributor of toys and other children’s products. His management of the company’s legal affairs includes U.S. and international regulatory issues, international business transactions, material (non-IP) litigation outside the U.S., internal investigations, and labor and employment issues that arise outside the U.S.

After completing his JD, Kestelik worked in Mexico City for Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, where he worked on two $5 billion transactions. He then joined Houston, Texas-based law firm Bracewell LLP, handling domestic and international mergers and acquisitions for clients like Enron. Kestelik continued to work largely on international mergers and acquisitions and major development projects for the Houston office of the international law firms King & Spalding and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP.

A Benefactor of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society, Kestelik established and endowed The Robert J. Kestelik Diversity Scholarship in the School of Law, established the annual Robert J. Kestelik International Law Scholarship, and has supported the Washington University Pride Alumni Network Scholarship as well as other scholarships and initiatives at the law school. Educating future generations of attorneys, Kestelik serves as an adjunct professor at Washington University School of Law teaching a course entitled “Made in China”. The course focuses on the many intricacies of international manufacturing and trade law.

Kestelik earned his bachelor’s degree in Asian languages at Arizona State University in 1994. He lives in Marina del Rey, California.

2017 Distinguished Young Alumnus
Brendan Roediger, JD ’05
Professor of Law, Saint Louis University

Brendan Roediger is a professor of law at Saint Louis University, where he supervises the Civil Litigation Clinic and teaches in the areas of civil rights, consumer, and poverty law. An experienced civil litigator, Roediger previously served as a lecturer of law and managing attorney for the Civil Justice Clinic at Washington University School of Law.

Roediger earned his bachelor’s degree in Chicano Studies from the University of Minnesota in 2002. After law school, he joined Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance in Illinois, litigating issues of housing preservation, predatory lending, domestic relations, and welfare rights.

Roediger’s Civil Advocacy Clinic focuses on court reform, racial justice, and representation of low-income individuals in the St. Louis region. With his law students, Roediger is active in litigation and advocacy directed at eliminating racial profiling, revenue-based policing, and unconstitutional court practices in Ferguson and throughout the St. Louis region. His work has been featured in national media sources like the New York Times, ABC, MSNBC, The Economist, The Nation, the Wall Street Journal, and National Public Radio.

Roediger is a founding member of the Ferguson Legal Defense Committee and the National Law for Black Lives Collective. Through these organizations, he helped formulate the legal response to the events in Ferguson, working on the ground with local and national organizations to coordinate strategies, provide legal representation to activists, and monitor and combat human rights violations. In recognition of his work on these and other issues, he has been awarded the St. Louis Bar Foundation Spirit of Justice Award, the Missouri Lawyers Legal Champion Award, the Legal Services of Eastern Missouri Client Service Award, and the Saint Louis University Student Government Faculty Award for Social Justice.