2011 Distinguished Alumni Awards
October 8, 2011
The Distinguished Law Alumni Awards honor alumni who have obtained distinction in their professional or academic careers. Those honored share the same characteristics of leadership, progressive thinking, high standards, uncompromising integrity, commitment, courage, and confidence. Their careers serve as models for WashU Law students and alumni.
Distinguished Alumni
Clifford M. Buchholz JD ’70
2011 Distinguished Alumnus
Owner, Miramont Lifestyle Fitness
Cliff Buchholz is a successful businessman with a passion for health and wellness and community involvement. He currently lives, works, and provides his leadership on many advisory boards in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Mr. Buchholz played in the U.S. Open nine times and Wimbledon twice. He held a U.S. ranking as high as 17 in singles and 4 in doubles, with wins over Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith. He retired from professional tennis to enter Washington University School of Law in 1966, graduating in 1970. While in law school, he founded his first tennis club, the Buchholz Racquet Club, in St. Louis, and a second club in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. In 1970, Mr. Buchholz was tournament director for the Rawlings Tennis Classic in St. Louis, at that time the largest prize money tournament in the United States. Since 1971, he has opened, owned, and operated six tennis clubs. In 1982, Mr. Buchholz and his brother formed the Lipton International Players Championship, which is now the Sony Ericsson Open, the fifth largest tennis tournament in the world. He was tournament director for 20 years before retiring in 2002. He has also provided tennis camps for children and adults. The Buchholz family funded the Ashe-Buchholz Tennis Center in Miami, Florida, providing opportunities for inner-city youths.
Mr. Buchholz is currently owner of Miramont Lifestyle Fitness, voted the first Business of Character in Fort Collins, Colorado, composed of four health and wellness clubs with more than 22,000 members and 400 employees. He is an innovator in the health club industry. He recently opened a medical urgent care facility, a physical therapy center, and a lifestyle medicine practice at one of his four Fort Collins clubs. He was one of the original investors and during 2009 was the acting CEO of St. Renatus LLC, a start-up dental pharmaceutical company. St. Renatus was founded to commercialize a dental anesthetic in the form of a nasal mist instead of a needle. The company
is currently entering Phase III of FDA trials and looks forward to being in the market mid-2012. Mr. Buchholz is a steering committee member of the Coalition for Activity and Nutrition to Defeat Obesity in Fort Collins and is actively involved in assisting the City of Fort Collins to become a Well City. He also serves on the First Western Bank & Trust Community Board and the Colorado State University Capital Campaign Steering Committee.
Andrea J. Grant AB ’71, JD ’74
2011 Distinguished Alumna
Partner, DLA Piper
Andrea Grant is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of DLA Piper. Ms. Grant is a member of the Government Affairs Practice Group. She received her AB from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971, graduating magna cum laude, and her JD from the law school in 1974. She has been an active alumna at Washington University, serving on the Regional Council, as co-chair of the Washington, D.C. Scholarship Initiative, and on the National Council for Arts & Sciences. In 2010, she became a member of the Board of Trustees.
Ms. Grant has been involved in the fields of energy and environmental law since the beginning of her career. She initially worked at the Oil Import Appeals Board—a predecessor to the Department of Energy and the governmental agency charged with forging national petroleum import policy in the 1970s. Based on that work, she moved into the private sector and continued to assist with the development of U.S. energy policy on projects ranging from price and allocation of petroleum products, innovative taxing regimes, oil spill legislation, air quality standards, climate change legislation, and most recently, renewable fuels. She has provided advice to the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, and various congressional committees with jurisdiction in these areas.
Ms. Grant has spoken frequently before industry groups on energy and environmental policies and programs, excise taxes, and the Washington political scene. The New England Fuel Institute named her a “legend” of the industry. Ms. Grant’s expertise has allowed her to represent a much broader array of clients, including the car rental and food processing industries, as well as companies engaged in forest products. She has represented individual companies and led coalitions successfully to achieve their legislative and regulatory goals for many years.
Ms. Grant is married to Selig Merber. They have two adult children. Ms. Grant’s daughter is a Washington University graduate from the Class of 2007.
Hon. Kenneth J. Rothman AB ’57, JD ’58
2011 Distinguished Alumnus
Of Counsel, Capes, Sokol, Goodman & Sarachan PC
The Hon. Kenneth Rothman, former Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, received his AB and JD degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. He has been a member of the Missouri Bar since 1959. Judge Rothman began his legal career as an assistant prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County. Following active duty in the Missouri Air National Guard during the Berlin crisis from 1961 through 1962, he was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives, where he served for 18 years. Judge Rothman was elected to several House leadership positions, including House Majority Leader and Speaker of the House. Judge Rothman served as Lieutenant Governor of Missouri from 1980 to 1984.
As a legislator, Judge Rothman guided to passage a number of important pieces of legislation, including those related to child abuse prevention, drug code revision, a state public defender system, nursing home reform, mental health reform, extension of nonpartisan court appointments to include St. Louis County, revision of the judicial article, creation of the first two renal dialysis centers in the state, and the RothmanBrockfeld Road Act.
Judge Rothman served as Judge for the City of St. Ann and as Provisional Judge for the City of Richmond Heights. Judge Rothman, of counsel to Capes, Sokol, Goodman & Sarachan PC, practices primarily in the areas of administrative law; health care law, including representation of major healthcare providers seeking approval under Missouri’s Certificate of Need Law; and civil and criminal trial practice. He is a member of the Missouri Bar and the Missouri Municipal & Associate Judges Association.
The recipient of numerous awards for public service, Judge Rothman is an active and prominent member of the St. Louis community. On December 9, 2008, the Supreme Court of Missouri reappointed him as a member of the Commission on Judicial Resources. He serves or has served on the Board of Directors of several regional banks and was commissioner of the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District for 18 years.
Hon. Tatjana V. Schwendinger JD ’72
2011 Distinguished Alumna
Supervisory Administrative Judge, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The Hon. Tatjana Schwendinger is a 1969 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a double major in French and history and a 1972 graduate of Washington University School of Law. An expert on actions by employers and managers that lead to problems for the employer and to complaints that come before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), she has processed more than 2,000 cases. She has been an Administrative Judge with the EEOC since 1983 and has been the Supervisory Administrative Judge since 1995. Prior to her work at the EEOC, Judge Schwendinger worked in private practice and with the National Labor Relations Board.
Judge Schwendinger understands the challenges of overcoming adversity, not only in the workplace, but also as part of her family history. She was born in Holland, the eldest of four children. Her mother, a Polish Jew, survived the Holocaust by assuming false identities and working as a non-Jewish slave laborer in Germany. After the war, she met and married Johannes Martinus Arnold (Hans) van der Horst. They immigrated to the United States and spent their lives supporting organizations that promote public education, civil rights, religious freedom, and Jewish culture. Schwendinger’s mother received Holocaust reparations and carefully invested them over many years. Following their mother’s death in 2006, Schwendinger, her two brothers, and sister used their mother’s investment to create an endowed professorship of Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to honor their parents.
Judge Schwendinger has served on the board of the Forsyth School and on either the board or a committee of the Grace Hill Settlement House since 1991. She and her husband, Bob, JD ’71, are members of Washington University’s Law Eliot Society and Scholarship Initiative Committees as well as annual scholarship donors, and they have established a bequest commitment to fund an endowed scholarship at the law school.
2011 Distinguished Young Law Alumni Awards
The Distinguished Young Law Alumni Awards honor alumni who graduated from WashU Law within the past 10 years. The recipients exemplify achievement and commitment to the ideals embodied in a School of Law education.
Hon. Michael D. Burton JD ’85
2011 Distinguished Alumnus
Administrative Judge, St. Louis County Family Court
The Hon. Michael D. Burton received a BA in Government from the University of Notre Dame in 1982 and a JD from Washington University School of Law in 1985. He was an attorney with the St. Louis Special Public Defender’s Office from 1985 to 1989. For the next 10 years, he was a trial attorney specializing in criminal defense (with a special emphasis on death penalty defense) with the law firm Margulis, Grant, Burton and Margulis PC. During that time, Judge Burton was a guardian ad litem for both juvenile and domestic proceedings for the St. Louis County Family Court.
The late Governor Mel Carnahan appointed him as an Associate Circuit Judge in 1999. In 2004, Governor Bob Holden appointed Judge Burton as a Circuit Court Judge. He was appointed to be the Administrative (presiding) Judge of the St. Louis County Family Court in 2008.
In 1990, Judge Burton and his wife, Sheila, started Join Hands ESL Inc. (formerly known as Project Kids Inc.) with a boys club and girls club for youths in East St. Louis, Illinois. Recently, Join Hands ESL has developed two new mentoring programs for teens and for young mothers. Over the years, the group has had nearly 250 volunteers, mostly from the St. Louis legal community.
Judge Burton is co-director of Students Toward Academic Responsibility (S.T.A.R.) Court, which is composed of a group of volunteer lawyers who provide guidance to truant children in the Ferguson–Florissant School District. Since 2008, he has been chairman of the St. Louis County Domestic and Family Violence Council. In 2009, Judge Burton spearheaded the St. Louis County Domestic Violence Court. He created a law enforcement manual on domestic violence for municipal and county police officers throughout St. Louis County that is also used statewide. Additionally, he has served as an adjunct instructor of judges for the National Institute on Domestic Violence.
Judge Burton is currently an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at Washington University School of Law (since 1997) and Saint Louis University School of Law (since 1992). He and his wife, Sheila, live in Webster Groves with their three children, Thomas, Molly, and Caroline.
Kevin E. Packman JD ’98
2011 Distinguished Alumnus
Partner, Holland & Knight LLP
Kevin E. Packman is a partner with Holland & Knight LLP, chair of its Offshore Compliance Team, and a member of its Private Wealth Services Group. His practice also includes tax controversies, estate planning (domestic and international), and creditor protection planning.
Mr. Packman has lectured for the American and Florida Bar Associations, New York University, and numerous national and community institutions/organizations. He is a prolific writer with articles appearing in numerous publications including the Florida Bar Journal, Journal of Taxation, Estate Planning, and The Jerusalem Post. He is also frequently quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Daily Business Journal, and Business Week.
Mr. Packman earned his BA in 1993 from the University of Texas (where he was named the Most Outstanding Individual in 1991), his JD in 1998 from Washington University School of Law (where he received the Honor Scholar award), and his LLM in estate planning in 2002 from the University of Miami (where he received the Vice President’s Award for Service).
Mr. Packman has frequently been recognized for his volunteer efforts. He was the first recipient of the ALS Association’s Kevin Packman Award for the Most Outstanding Volunteer and also received the Thelma Gibson Community Service Award and Health Care Hero Award. He serves as chairman and CEO of the ALS Recovery Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization, and served as its president during 2001–09. The organization, which is volunteer-driven, has given $1 million to fund a permanent chair for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Research at the University of Miami and more than $750,000 to ALS patients (making it the only ALS organization in the country that provides patients with grants of up to $10,000).
He serves on the pro bono committee at Holland & Knight, the Miami Children’s Hospital Ambassador Legacy Board, and the University of Miami Planned Giving Advisory Board, and is heading a program to help Holocaust survivors throughout South Florida apply for pensions from Germany.
