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Alumni News Fall 2007
From Patents to Peridot: IP Lawyer's Jewelry Business Takes Off
 What started as a way for Arlene Chow ’98 to “de-stress” from her full-time job has since turned into a second career .
Chow, who grew up drawing and doing craftwork, started making jewelry from glass beads her first year out of college in her downtime as a paralegal in Seattle. Seeing jewelry in store windows, “I thought, ‘I can do that!’ and went and read a slew of books and figured out how,” Chow says. Then, she sold a few pairs of earrings on consignment to stores.
She took a break from jewelry-making as a law student but gravitated back to it when she started private practice in San Francisco.
“My eyes were too tired to read after work, so I started beading again,” Chow recalls. “It felt great to stop being logical and exercise a completely different part of my brain.”
When Chow and husband Thomas Healy ’99, moved to Washington, D.C., Chow — who by now had a large inventory — began taking her part-time jewelry business more seriously.
At this point, she also developed a unique style.
“I stopped looking at other people’s jewelry and started creating my own,” she says.
Her pieces, made from sterling silver and semi-precious stones, combine colors within a soft palette and appeal especially to professional women, says Chow.
 In 2003, Chow and Healy returned to New York City when he joined the faculty of Seton Hall Law School. Currently a partner at Hogan & Hartson LLP, she spends most Saturdays selling her jewelry, Arlene Chow Designs, at The Young Designer’s Market (at 268 Mulberry) in NoLiTa. Her work recently caught the attention of a costume designer and appears in two independent films, Bella (2006) and Brother’s Shadow (2006).
She identifies the self-assurance, people skills and composure she’s developed as an attorney as a source of her success in the jewelry business.
“Being a lawyer gives you the chutzpah to put yourself out there. I didn’t have the same confidence before I went to law school.”
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Alumnus Rescues San Diego's Public Pension System
 As a generation of Americans approaches retirement age and concerns grow about the viability of public pension plans, San Diego’s retirement system has captured national attention. Once embroiled in fiscal and legal strife that critics called insurmountable, the pension fund is now posting record growth and showing signs of stability. At the head of the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System (SDCERS) is Retirement Administrator/CEO David Wescoe ’79.
Just three years ago, papers teemed with headlines that painted SDCERS as “the poster child for what’s wrong with public pension plans,” says. Wescoe. That year, an independent report declared the pension fund $1.4 billion short of assets to cover its future obligations. Wescoe’s predecessor retired in December 2005 and was indicted on wire fraud and conspiracy one week later.
The situation looked so dire that the first person the SDCERS search committee approached to take over the fund pronounced the city a political quagmire and declined.
Wescoe, then executive director of a money management firm, reacted differently.
“I like challenges. I could do that job,” he recalls thinking.
Wescoe convinced the search committee that his solid credentials — 27 years of experience in the financial and legal sectors, including work as counsel to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1980s — and thorough knowledge of the city’s challenges made him the right man for the job.
Since taking the reins of SDCERS in May 2006, Wescoe has steered the pension system toward a major turnaround.
Its funded ratio — the measure of the plan’s assets to its liability — has jumped from 68 to 80 percent, with assets climbing to $4.8 billion, up $1.4 billion from two years ago. The city has also started paying its full contribution to the fund, correcting a shortage that resulted in part from decisions in 1996 and 2002 to under fund the employee retirement plan while increasing worker benefits.
Drawing on his expertise as a money manager, Wescoe has overseen strong investment returns; his experience as a lawyer in private practice has helped the pension system prevail in most litigation it faced in the wake of past scandals.
In overhauling SDCERS, Wescoe used principles he learned from Columbia Law Professors Harvey Goldschmid and William Cary.
“They were really at the forefront of corporate governance,” he says.
Wescoe is as quick to acknowledge his mentors as he is to share credit with his colleagues.
“The momentum began before I got here,” he says, citing board reorganization that started in 2005 and investment returns that first picked up in 2003. “Sometimes you have to convince people not to just take a snapshot but to look at the long view.”
Indeed, the inflammatory headlines have subsided, and national media are starting to note the progress of SDCERS. San Diego demonstrates that “cities don’t have to abandon defined benefit plans for public employees,” Wescoe says. “This may have a ripple effect on the rest of the country.”
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Law School Grads Named Columbia Alumni Association Medalists
Steve Epstein ’68 and Michael Barnett ’72 were among the 10 recipients of the University-wide 2007 Alumni Medal in recognition of their dedication and service to Columbia.
Epstein is the founding partner of Epstein, Becker & Green, the largest health care law firm in the country. As chairman of the Columbia Law School Board of Visitors, he has spearheaded an overhaul of the organization to ensure active participation of board members and all alumni in the life of the Law School, and taught a health law course at the Law School during the fall 2007term.
Barnett is a founding partner of Barnett Ehrenfeld Edelstein & Gross, also a health care law firm. He is president of the Alumni Executive Board of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, where he earned his master of science in 1970. He is also the current representative to the University’s Alumni Trustee Nominating Committee and an active assembly member of the Columbia Alumni Association (CAA).
First awarded in 1933, the annual medal honors graduates across the University for 10 or more years of outstanding service to Columbia’s schools, alumni associations, regional Columbia Clubs and University-wide initiatives.
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Providing Legal Assistance on NY's Upper East Side
For Kati Daffan ’05 and Kim Mosolf ’06, a typical work week might include fending off eviction threats in housing court, securing disability payments for injured workers, and helping a low-income senior draft her will.
 Kim Mosolf (left) and Kati DaffanDaffan and Mosolf are two attorneys in the legal advocacy and organizing department of Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, a 113-year-old settlement house in New York. The legal department, launched in 2003 by Lenox Hill Executive Director Warren Scharf ’83, now has a staff of eight — including four attorneys — and about 350 open cases and counting.
The demand for free legal services on the Upper East Side, considered one of the city’s toniest neighborhoods, is enormous. Many of the Neighborhood House’s clients live in Harlem and the Bronx but commute to the Upper East Side to work as low-wage housekeepers, caretakers and fast-food servers.
The Neighborhood House is committed to “helping the people who make this community run,” says Daffan. Others in need include local seniors living in low-income or rent-controlled housing.
Both Daffan and Mosolf bring skills gained through Columbia Law School’s clinical programs. Daffan, who chose Columbia for its strength in public interest law, participated in the human rights clinic, worked on domestic violence and held a handful of internships at social justice organizations. Mosolf assisted the incarcerated in Professor Philip Genty’s Prisoners & Families Clinic, interned at the Sex Workers Project at Urban Justice Center and worked at the Legal Clinic for the Homeless at the NYC Bar Association.
During the Neighborhood House’s intake sessions, held at worker-friendly times such as evenings and lunch hours, Mosolf and Daffan address questions from walk-in visitors but also screen for related issues and collaborate with educational, social service, and mental health workers under the same roof to provide clients with appropriate services.
“Legal skills allow you to intervene in all the areas that one problem affects,” says Daffan.
A low-income worker seeking unpaid disability benefits, for example, might in turn be on the brink of homelessness and need assistance on that front.
Mosolf learned through her hands-on work during law school the value of a multi-pronged strategy.
“I saw there were larger issues to address, like housing, substance abuse, and access to public benefits,” Mosolf says. “I’m excited to work at a place defined by that holistic perspective on legal outreach.”
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Law and the Arts
 When Clotilde LaFont-König ’77 LL.M. had the opportunity to enroll in art school after earning her Baccalauréat degree in her hometown of Paris, her parents steered her toward a less risky profession. She studied political science and law at the University of Paris, where, while working on an advanced law degree, she met Professor Hans Smit, who encouraged her to come to Columbia for an LL.M.
After a year and a half working for a multinational company in New York, the young lawyer joined Dr. Norbert König ’77 LL.M. in Germany, where they married and started a family.
“I did not know a word of German,” she says, “and it was impossible to keep working in French or Anglo-Saxon law.”
Instead she studied German and took art classes, eventually entering Ecole des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Having created her own clothing and furniture in her spare time as a lawyer, she welcomed the chance to concentrate on art. The flexible schedule also allowed her to raise her three children, Bernhard, Valériane and Alexandra.
 Today, LaFont-König exhibits professionally, with a focus on textiles and ceramics. On display in Paris last summer was “A” (shown here), which applies painting methods traditionally used on cloth to handmade paper. She has also created two children’s books on classical music.
Law and art are not separate chapters in LaFont-König’s life. In 2005, when Dr. König’s job brought them to Grenoble, she seized the opportunity to earn a doctorate in copyright law at the University Mendes-France. While curating shows this past year, she negotiated “with galleries and art managers, knowing my rights and in the position to defend them,” she says. “I was really happy to have done law.”
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Alumni News Fall 2007
Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff ’57 reports that he currently specializes in environmental law and is chairman of Audubon New York and a board member of the National Audubon Society.
Ira S. Novak ’64, member of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, was named in the health care law section of the Best Lawyers in America® 2007.
 Joan Messing Graff ’67 was the 2006 recipient of the State Bar of California’s Loren Miller Legal Services Award, in recognition of her commitment to civil rights and social justice. She is the first woman to lead the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco-Employment Law Center, where she has worked for 25 years.
 Joseph Ryan ’67 joined Venable as a partner in its Washington, D.C., office. He brings 12 years of experience as executive vice president and general counsel at Marriott International, Inc., which he established as a key player in the global hospitality industry. A member of Venable’s business transactions practice,. Ryan works with major hospitality and real estate clients.
Robert Davidson ’72 retired in 2003 from Baker & McKenzie and is now a full-time arbitrator, mediator and director of the arbitration practice at the Midtown New York office of JAMS, a provider of alternative dispute resolution services. He also reports that he has two daughters from his first marriage and is happily remarried, living with two stepchildren and a Maltese in Harrison, N.Y.
Joseph J. Fleischman '72 and J. Anthony Manger '72 were selected for the Best Lawyers in America® 2007in the commercial litigation and health care law sections, respectively. They are both members of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus.
Stephen Crimmins ’73 joined Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw as a partner in Washington, D.C., where he focuses on SEC enforcement investigations and litigation.
Arnold N. Bressler ’74 joined Epstein Becker & Green as the chair of its business law practice. He and his wife, Monica Jacobson, live in New York and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary. They have two children: Rachel (24) teaches fourth grade in Tel Aviv, Israel; Sara (20) is a junior at Washington University in St. Louis.
Rex S. Heinke ’75 was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
George Madison ’80, executive vice president and general counsel of TIAA-CREF, was elected to the board of the Legal Aid Society.
Kenin M. Spivak ’80, chairman, president, and CEO of Telemac Corp., has been elected chairman of the board of Phoenix Books and to the board of the RAND Corp.Center on Corporate Ethics, Law and Governance. His essay on the Scott Peterson murder trial appears in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Phoenix Books, 2006),a compilation of essays on America’s criminal justice system and related issues by authors, lawyers, and legal journalists, including Abbe Lowell ’77 and Lanny Breuer ’85. Spivak’s first thriller, The Karasik Conspiracy, was published in December 2005.
Steven C. Barre ’84 was the featured guest at a Dean’s Luncheon. Barre, senior vice president and general counsel of Jacuzzi Brands, spoke about the seemingly endless procession of challenges facing the general counsel of a publicly traded company, and about how his time at Columbia and his experience since have helped him in making thoughtful decisions in the contexts of risk, business and law. He also highlighted the differences between the traditional “outside counsel” versus his present position of “inside counsel” as it relates to a public company. His talk was followed by a spirited Q&A session with students. The Dean’s Luncheon series regularly hosts alumni from different professions in a relaxed, interactive atmosphere.
 Julia Heaney ’91 was named to the Lawdragon 3000 Leading Lawyers in America. She is a member of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell’s intellectual property litigation group, which, according to IP Law & Business, ranked second nationally in the number of patent cases filed in 2005.
James Masella ’92 reports: “I married Jessica Mordas ’99, we purchased a second home, and I left Sullivan & Cromwell [where I had been since 1994) to become a partner at Blank Rome specializing in securities litigation.”
Charles Garcia ’93 was elected chairman of the board of visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he earned his degree in 1983. He is president of the Sterling Hispanic Capital Markets Group of vFinance, Inc., and the recipient of the San Antonio College Public Administration Club’s Henry B. Gonzalez public service and integrity award.
David Glatt ’94 and Daniel Gamulka ’94 were profiled as “up-and-coming” significant lawyers in Globes, Israel’s leading business paper. Glatt is a partner in the corporate and securities group of Meitar Liquornik Geva & Leshem Brandwein.. Gamulka is a partner at Gross, Kleinhendler, Hodak, Halevy, Greenberg & Co., where he focuses on international corporate finance and technology transactions.
Marion Turner “Van” VanBebber ’94 published an article in the National Law Journal on white-collar sentencing policy. The article, “Valuing Life or Life Savings,” questioned the greater length of sentences given for white-collar than for violent crimes.
Rory Lancman ’95 was elected to the New York State Assembly in the 25th district in 2006.
Carol Leslie Mascera ’95 writes: “On June 14, 2006, I gave birth to a baby girl, Samantha Madeline Mascera. I am currently a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher.”
Jennifer R. Cowan ’97 was named counsel at Debevoise & Plimpton. She works in the litigation department in the New York office.
Luisa Cabal ’97 LL.M. directs the international legal program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, focusing on legal strategies to protect women’s human rights in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Craig F. Arcella ’98 and Andrew R. Thompson ’99 were promoted to the position of partner at Cravath Swaine & Moore.
Sander Bak ’98 was named to the partnership at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in New York.
Bryan D. King ’98 was elected partner in the litigation department and securities practice of Jenner & Block.
Randi Singer ’98 and Jonathan Soler ’98 were elected partners at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York. She concentrates in intellectual property and media, while he works in private equity.
Lance Lange ’01 was elected a shareholder at Belin Lamson McCormick Zumbach Flynn, based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Marla Tusk ’03 and Josh Gottheimer were married in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is a trial lawyer in the counterterrorism section of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C..
Petr Panek ’03 LL.M. was promoted to partner at White & Case in Prague, Czech Republic.
Assistant District Attorney Aisha S. Greene ’04 of Cambria Heights received the Queens District Attorney’s Office 15th annual Hal Miller Weinstein Memorial Award for her dedication to public service. She teaches fifth graders at a local elementary school about the dangers of gangs and also speaks to women about domestic violence. Greene recalls the guidance she received from the Law School when she opted to pursue public interest law. “While I did not intend to work in the public sector,” she writes, “I enthusiastically look forward to continuing to serve the people of Queens County.”
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