Accolades & Achievements

Kenneth Handal '73 Named New York Racing Association's Acting GC, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer

arester — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:35:42 +0000

Original source:

http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202555126698

From Law.com:

Two weeks after a scandal involving overcharging bettors shook the New York Racing Association, it handed the reins of its law department to legal and compliance expert Kenneth Handal. He was named NYRA’s acting general counsel, chief ethics and compliance officer, and secretary on May 14, replacing ousted GC Patrick Kehoe.

As part of a larger shakeup of the nonprofit racing association, COO Ellen McClain was tapped for the role of NYRA president, taking on some of the responsibilities of former CEO Charles Hayward, who was also terminated by the board. In what she described as a “critical period for New York racing,” McClain said in a statement that Handal is “a crucial addition to the NYRA senior management team and has the expertise to help guide our company through the current crisis and beyond.”

Just how long Handal will stay on with NYRA has yet to be determined. But at least one thing is clear—the acting GC has his work cut out for him right out of the gate. “There are a lot of issues that need to be dealt with,” he says.

That’s a studied understatement. On the heels of an interim report from the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, NYRA is under investigation to determine what its officials may have known about overcharging for certain exotic bets. During a period of more than a year, the association wrongfully withheld more than $8.5 million by not reducing its takeout rate, as it was required to do by law. State auditors discovered the error in December.

Even NYRA’s naming of new executives in the midst of the investigation has fueled the ire of critics. NYRA issued a statement Wednesday defending the appointments, saying, “It exercised its business judgment as a private, not-for-profit corporation to appoint a president and secretary. These appointments were made to stay in compliance with NYRA’s Bylaws, Article VII, Section 7.01.”

The New York Daily News reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said last week that his administration would let the investigation “run its course.” But the governor threatened to tighten legislative control over the association and called it “a long-troubled agency.”

From 2003 to 2005, NYRA operated under a deferred prosecution agreement following charges of tax evasion and money laundering that spanned nearly two decades.

“It is a critical period in NYRA’s history,” says Handal. “They’ve faced critical periods before and come through them,” he says. “I’m hoping we can do the same here.”

The acting GC has wasted no time familiarizing himself with NYRA’s current regulatory compliance program and the organization’s code of ethics. Handal has also been getting to know the organization’s remaining four lawyers, as well as his colleagues in management and on the board of directors. Based on his first week, he says NYRA’s board and company executives appreciate the presence of a strong general counsel.

Handal points out that strong in-house counsel tend to be matched with strong companies. “If you look around, the best run companies have strong law departments,” he says.

The new GC has been asked to help management and the board get through this critical period, based on his proven track record of cleaning up corporate messes.

In 2005, he joined CA Technologies Inc. (formerly Computer Associates) to head up its legal department after most of its top executives were jailed for fraud. As GC, Handal successfully led CA’s management and board through a deferred prosecution agreement, and later headed up its global risk and compliance group.

He left in 2009, at which time he says he’d accomplished what he went there to do. Handal says that it was rewarding to help save the company and its 15,000 jobs. “Had it not been for the DPA and the work done to get the company through this period,” he says, “CA might have gone out of existence.”

Handal notes that he likes a challenge: “I’ve always thrived in that kind of situation, where I can put my own stamp on something from a legal and compliance point of view.”

The seasoned lawyer says that he learned to make decisions under fire from doing trial work as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He has also served as associate general counsel for Altria, where he oversaw litigation, and as a partner in the law firm of Arnold & Porter.

“All of that prepared me for CA,” says Handal, “and now for NYRA.”

NATO Summit Q&A with David Franklin '97

arester — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:42:40 +0000

Original source:

http://mychicagonews.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/nato-summit-qa-david-frank...

From My Chicago News:

It’s no secret: Several free speech and First Amendment issues will be at stake with the NATO summit being held in Chicago May 20-21 at McCormick Place.

David Franklin, vice dean of DePaul University’s College of Law, said that both summit protestors and public safety officials need to be aware of their rights, particularly as it pertains to the First Amendment.

Franklin is a constitutional scholar and former law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and received his law degree from the University of Chicago.

His writings have been published in the Yale Law Journal, Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post. In addition to serving as vice dean, he also teaches Conflict of Laws and Constitutional Process.

In this Q&A, Franklin clarified the restrictions the government may place on protests, how to determine if these restrictions can be deemed unconstitutional, and what government officials and protestors should know prior to summit.

Q. In regard to the First Amendment, can you explain how or why the government is able to place restrictions on our freedom of speech or assembly?

A. The First Amendment says there should be no law abridging the freedom of speech, what it really means is that the government is not allowed to restrict speech because it is afraid of, or concerned about, or opposes the message of the speech. The government is allowed to restrict speech on neutral, non-content based grounds. For example it’s OK for the government to say no loudspeakers after midnight, particularly in residential neighborhoods, because the desire to restrict noise because whatever noise it may be is a content neutral interest.

Q. Can you tell us about chilling speech and what that means in regards to protesting?

A. The concept of chilling speech is quite important in the area of the First Amendment. The idea of chilling speech would come into play when you have a law that has vague or ambiguous terms. That could apply to an act of speech or expression. When you have a person who wants to engage in an act or expression but they look at the law and think, “Gosh I don’t know whether my speech or expression is going to subject me to possible penalties, maybe criminal penalties.” So in the interest of playing it safe he or she will censor themselves. That’s a situation where a person who engages in self-censorship has been chilled, and been chilled by a law that’s more vague than it should be.

Read the rest of the Q & A here.

Read Ed Walters '96's Commencement Address at the University of Illinois College of Law

arester — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:20:25 +0000

Original source:

http://www.fastcase.com/walters-uofi-commencement/

From the Fastcase website:

Thank you, Dean Smith. Members of the faculty, university administrators, distinguished alumni, parents, and members of the graduating class of 2012, it is an honor to serve as your commencement speaker today.

Like most of you, when I was growing up, I had a recurring nightmare – that it was the morning of a test, and I hadn’t done the reading. I would sit bolt upright in bed, in a cold sweat. I had this dream all my life.

Until the day I graduated from law school. On the night after graduation, I had the same nightmare. I sat bolt upright in bed, and then I realized: I had taken the last exam of my life. Then I smiled, and went back to sleep. And I’ve slept pretty peacefully ever since.

Welcome to the end of that nightmare. Welcome to the rest of your life.

Your Toughest Grader

Until now, you have constantly been tested by other people, evaluated by other people, and graded by other people. Your success has been measured by other people: your parents, your teachers, the SAT, the LSAT. Your success was measured by their standards for you. You had to constantly worry: am I passing? Am I failing? Will my standardized test scores be good enough to get me into law school? Will I make law review? Will I graduate cum laude?

But soon you will take the bar exam, the last major test of your life. This will mark the end of the era in which other people will be testing you and grading you. Starting today, you must prepare to enter a new era in which the primary judge of your success will be: you. And you are the toughest grader you’re ever going to face.

So today, I’d like to share some things to consider as you’re defining, measuring, and achieving happiness and success on your own terms.

The Fastest Hamster on the Wheel

Shortly after law school, I learned an important lesson in defining happiness for myself. In law school, I was very caught up in other people’s definitions of my success – getting good grades, making law review, getting a good job. I wasn’t quite a gunner, but let’s just say that people couldn’t put a hoop in front of me without me wanting to jump through it. I worked hard, and I was pretty proud of myself for it – a little too proud. As we said in law school, “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

Then I graduated and clerked for a judge for a year, and I carried that attitude with me to my clerkship. And my judge pulled me aside one day, and said very kindly: Ed, you’re doing good work here. But if you take this attitude into a big law firm, they’re going to chew you up. There’s no glory in being the fastest hamster on the wheel.

That lesson landed on me like a bag of bricks – but the judge was right. I had been looking for other people to recognize how hard I was working. So I spent my clerkship year letting go of what others expected. I got out of the Habitrail and cleared all the wood shavings out of my life. And I arrived at my firm ready to work hard, but also with my own ideas about what constitutes success.

And because I learned to stop worrying about what other people think, I was better able to make the very difficult decision to leave my law firm job in 1999 to start a legal publishing company in my living room.

Most of my classmates were on their way to making partner or getting great jobs as in-house counsel, and I was struggling to get a software company off the ground. But it was liberating and thrilling to be contrarian, and ultimately right – to define success on my own terms. It’s worth noting that I probably would not have succeeded without the full support of my family. Parents out there: I’m talking to you.

No matter what your job, people will put hoops in front of you for your whole life. But you get to decide which ones to jump through. Decide carefully, and make sure to look around. There’s no glory in being the fastest hamster on the wheel.

Read the rest of the address here.

Mike Hilgers '04 Advances to General Election in Nebraska Legislature Race

arester — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:13:06 +0000

Original source:

http://journalstar.com/elections/tuesday-s-primary-who-won-who-lost/arti..., http://www.omaha.com/article/20120501/NEWS01/705019911/0

Stephen McConnell '85 Joins Reed Smith as Partner in Life Sciences Health Industry Group

arester — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:57:32 +0000

Original source:

http://www.reedsmith.com/reed-smith-adds-preeminent-big-pharma-litigator...

Reed Smith LLP has announced the addition of Stephen J. McConnell '85 as a partner in its Life Sciences Health Industry (LSHI) Group in the firm’s Philadelphia office.

From the Reed Smith website:

“Steve is one of Philadelphia’s preeminent life science and health care attorneys,” said Mike Scott, a partner in Reed Smith's LSHI Group in Philadelphia. “He has earned a reputation as a top litigator in the pharmaceutical world and elsewhere, and is often sought after to take over important cases for trial. We have admired his work and his results for some time, and we share several common clients. We are thrilled he is now a part of the Reed Smith team.”

Mr. McConnell’s practice focuses on representing pharmaceutical and medical device companies, including extensive involvement in recent mass tort litigations regarding antipsychotics and diet drugs. He has also handled matters relating to tobacco trials, sales and advertising liability, and shareholder derivative litigation.

Mr. McConnell received his J.D. cum laude in 1985 from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. He received his A.B. from Harvard College in l981. Following graduation, he clerked for the Honorable William A. Norris, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, joining Skadden Arps in Los Angeles after completing that clerkship.

In 1992, Mr. McConnell became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California in Los Angeles. During his tenure in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he investigated and prosecuted criminal cases in the Major Frauds Section involving savings and loan frauds, violations of the securities laws, wire and mail frauds, and money laundering. He also served as counsel to the Christopher Commission, an independent body that investigated the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991, and as deputy general counsel to the Kolts Commission, an independent body that investigated the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 1992.

Mr. McConnell has worked extensively in the area of liability for marketing practices and is a member of the Advisory Board of Villanova University's Center for Marketing and Public Policy. He has been selected among the Best Lawyers in America for product liability litigation since 2007. Mr. McConnell was a member of a Philadelphia-based team of attorneys honored as “Unsung Heroes” of 2012 by the Legal Intelligencer for the group’s pro bono work on civil rights cases protecting the privacy rights of children against random drug testing in schools.

“We at Reed Smith know Steve well,” said Ajay Raju, the firm’s Philadelphia Managing Partner. “There’s universal agreement by everyone who has seen him in action or worked with him previously that he is one of the best trial lawyers around. He will be a definite asset both to the firm's clients and to our lawyers in the high-stakes, bet-the-company litigation we handle.”

Daniel Gallagher '76 Joins Meyer, Unkovic & Scott LLP as Partner

arester — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:21:39 +0000

Original source:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/legal/on-the-docket-pittsbu...

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Meyer, Unkovic & Scott LLP said that Daniel P. Gallagher, Jr. joined as a partner.

Mr. Gallagher currently devotes his practice to a wide variety of financial and international commercial, investment and joint venture transactions. He also represents clients in complex international disputes before international tribunals and courts, including disputed matters arising in Iran, England, Canada, France, Saudi Arabia and India. Mr. Gallagher earned his bachelor of arts in history at Yale University, and his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

Cas Holloway, ’02: A Civil Servant Committed to Customer Satisfaction

arester — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:17:07 +0000

As New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Operations, Cas Holloway, ’02, directly oversees 11 mayoral agencies and assists the mayor in overseeing the police department, fire department, and several other key offices—all with the ultimate goal of providing more than eight million New Yorkers with effective, efficient, innovative, and sustainable services.

“Fundamentally, this is a customer service job,” Holloway says, “and the key metric is whether people want to live, work, and raise their families in New York City—or somewhere else. Many factors contribute to that decision—from whether a city is safe and clean to the quality of the drinking water.” Pointing out that under Mayor Bloomberg all of those factors are currently heading strongly in the right direction, Holloway adds, “People and businesses also want to know whether they can get things done here—whether that’s building a new home, or adding the newest addition to the skyline. In one way or another all of these outcomes come under the Operations umbrella.”

How does Holloway make sure all those things happen? “I draw on my Law School training every day,” he says. “The Law School has had a tremendous influence on my thinking, my management style, and my approach to problems. I learned then how to break down complex issues into their essential components, how to identify and focus on the most important outcomes, and how to interact effectively with people with different ways of seeing things. This job would be a lot harder without that background.”

Before becoming deputy mayor last year, Holloway made a big difference in two other vital city positions. Most recently, he was the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, New York City’s water and wastewater utility. With a 10-year capital budget of $13.2 billion and nearly six thousand employees, the department delivers a billion gallons of drinking water each day. The department’s sustainability efforts, including its heralded Green Infrastructure Plan, won the prestigious US Water Prize for innovative programming to improve water quality in New York Harbor. It will also save the city more than $2 billion over its 20-year implementation period, compared to a traditional approach.

Holloway began his current service with the city in 2006, when as a special advisor to Mayor Bloomberg he led the creation of a detailed report concerning the health impacts oft he 9/11 attacks and headed the subsequent negotiations that resulted in federal legislation to provide continuing health coverage for 9/11 responders and expand victims’ eligibility for financial compensation. He also played a lead role in the implementation of a new solid-waste management plan, which shifted waste export from diesel trucks to a more efficient barge and rail system.

Holloway says that his education at the Law School helped him with all that work, too: “So much of what I did in those jobs involved complicated local, state, and federal jurisdictional issues. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times that some jurisdictional question would pop up and I’d find myself thinking about things I learned from David Currie, Richard Epstein, or another member of that great faculty.”

Holloway lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Jessica, who is an attorney at Brune & Richard. Before attending the Law School, he served as chief of staff at the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

He came to his later city jobs from Debevoise & Plimpton, a firm he had joined after clerking for an appeals court judge and then starting as an associate with a different firm. He says, “I knew I wanted to return to public service at some time in my career, and Debevoise showed me that it really valued and respected the kind of work I wanted to do. Frankly, I didn’t think my opportunity would come so soon or last as long as it has, but it’s been a phenomenal experience, and I hope all alumni oft he Law School will seriously consider the special rewards that come from public service.”

Leslie Bluhm, ’89: Keeping Chicago’s Volunteer Network “In Service”

arester — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:35:59 +0000

Less than two years after she graduated from the Law School, Leslie Bluhm, ’89, founded Chicago Cares, the nonprofit that is now the largest volunteer service organization in the Midwest.

An avid volunteer as she was growing up, Bluhm continued that practice while she was at the Law School and then when she was an associate at Skadden Arps in New York. Returning to Chicago in 1991, she was surprised to see that many of her friends and colleagues were not volunteering. “They didn’t know where to turn to find the right opportunities,” she recalls, “and they were afraid of becoming overcommitted, given their very busy lives.”

She set out to fix that by founding Chicago Cares and serving as its first executive director. And she succeeded: more than 350,000 Chicago Cares volunteers have now contributed more than a million hours of service through more than 25,000 group volunteer projects. The organization offers a broad range of ways to serve. There’s an online listing of more than 200 monthly group volunteer programs, carefully crafted so potential volunteers can easily identify situations that match their interests and their schedules. There are two annual days of service, during which thousands participate; one is in January, in honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday, and the other is in June. There’s the Business Shares program, which creates customized, hands-on group volunteer projects for corporations that complement the companies’ team building, leadership development, and philanthropy initiatives.

One principal focus of Bluhm’s personal attention these days is Chicago Cares’ Youth in Service program, which provides groups of Chicago public school students with an in-depth volunteering experience that includes analyzing needs in their communities and then creating and leading programs targeted to those needs.

“Seeing these young people become active, committed agents of change is tremendously gratifying,” she says. “They’re gaining skills they can use long after their time with Chicago Cares is over.”

Instilling a long-term commitment to volunteering is a primary goal for Bluhm, who says, “We want to activate and inspire people to serve throughout their lives. We want them to experience the great impact that every volunteer can have.” Toward that end, Chicago Cares carefully constructs and manages volunteer opportunities so they are substantive and fulfilling. Many of its 40 staff members are engaged in creating projects from the ground up to meet community needs while providing a satisfying experience for volunteers, and the organization thoroughly trains volunteer project leaders who are responsible for ensuring that each volunteer’s experience is enjoyable and meaningful.

The unique funding model that Bluhm created for Chicago Cares, in which roughly 75 percent of the organization’s income is derived from donations it receives for its customized Business Shares programming, provides a firm platform for sustainable growth. Chicago Cares is one of only 9 percent of nonprofits to receive the highest financial rating over four consecutive years from Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent charity evaluator—a testimony to exceptional financial health and fiscal responsibility.

“I always knew that my heart was in the nonprofit world, so I took a lot of courses at the Law School that would help me with that,” Bluhm says. “Little did I know that I’d soon be running the equivalent of a small business. The critical-thinking and problem-solving skills that I acquired at the Law School have been very valuable—and I don’t think there’s any better place to develop those kinds of skills.”

She served on the Law School’s Visiting Committee for six years. Last year Bluhm and her husband, David Helfand, created the Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellowship, which recognizes socially minded innovators, entrepreneurs, and change agents who are under the age of 35, and Bluhm also has pledged to reinforce Mayor Emanuel’s health and sustainability initiatives by supporting the creation of community gardens in Chicago. Chicago Cares remains her primary focus, though. She says, “Chicago Cares has been my life’s work and I remain passionately devoted to its mission. I started Chicago Cares because I believe that a thriving community requires a dedicated volunteer corps. As far as we’ve come, there’s still so much to do, so many deeper ways to encourage and grow volunteerism. I’m expecting to be at this for a long time.”

Lillian Kraemer '64 Endows Public Interest Professorship

arester — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:07:12 +0000

A bequest from Lillian Kraemer, ’64, will one day endow a tenured academic professorship at the Law School that will be focused on public interest law.

Dean Schill says, “Lillian Kraemer’s generous bequest—which we do not expect or hope to be utilizing any time soon—is in keeping with her unstinting commitment to the betterment of the Law School, her extraordinary strategic vision, and her demonstrated passion for serving the public interest.”

Kraemer, now retired from practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett where in the 1980s she developed the firm’s bankruptcy and reorganization practice, holds one of only four current lifetime appointments to the Law School’s Visiting Committee, and she served as an honorary cochair of the Law School’s centennial capital campaign.

Former Dean Saul Levmore has observed, “Lillian’s passion for, and belief in, the educational process is so fierce as to improve that process, at least as it takes place at Chicago.”

It is expected that the Lillian E. Kraemer Professor of Law will not only teach subjects related to the public interest, but serve as an advisor and mentor to students interested in practicing public interest law, complementing the activities of the Public Interest Law and Policy Program that was established last year. Levmore credits Kraemer with influencing many aspects of the Law School’s commitment to assertively supporting public interest law: “Lillian Kraemer inspired me to think hard not just about public interest opportunities after law school, but also about the process of advising students and encouraging their public interest sentiments while in law school.”

“As I interviewed prospective associates at Simpson Thacher over the years,” Kraemer reflects, “I would often find that they had learned practically nothing about public service opportunities while they were law students. I’m hoping this bequest will contribute to the strong momentum for changing that at the one law school that matters most to me and, by Chicago’s example, at others. It’s absolutely critical that the great law schools inspire and support public service so that our best lawyers remain keenly aware of their public responsibilities. We’ve seen what can go wrong when lawyers lose sight of this.”

Kraemer was the second woman to be named a partner at Simpson Thacher, and the first woman to chair its finance committee. After working on the Chrysler bailout between 1979 and 1981, she perceived the need for a formalized bankruptcy practice, and she was selected to establish and run that practice. Among the scores of major restructurings that she had a major role in were ones at International Harvester, Zapata, Baldwin United, Braniff, Pan Am, Orion Pictures, and Olympia and York.

She served for more than 12 years on the board of managers of her college alma mater, Swarthmore, and has been active for nearly 20 years (including a current term on the board of directors) at Legal Momentum (the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund), the nation’s oldest organization dedicated to advancing the rights of all women and girls. “Many of the problems that professional women face have not been solved yet, and that includes within the legal profession,” she says. “And the problems for less fortunate women in the current troubled economic and political environment are, if anything, becoming worse, not better.”

As one of just seven women in her class at the Law School, Kraemer says she found Professor Soia Mentshikoff “invaluably inspiring, as a role model and as a mentor,” and she says she is glad that her bequest will create another endowed chair named for a woman: “The more that women in law school have examples of other women to help them shape their perceptions of their opportunities, the better off they—and all of us—will be. I know from experience that it really matters.”

Kraemer says she sees her bequest as one way of demonstrating her gratitude for a great education. “The Law School made it possible for me for me to have a fulfilling life doing work that was challenging and satisfying,”

she says. “I received an education that broadened my perspectives and expanded my intellectual life while at the same time it focused and sharpened my skills. Malcolm Sharp’s classes were the best educational experience I have ever had, anywhere; Karl Llewellyn, Harry Kalven, and Phil Kurland set incredibly high standards for what a lawyer should be that I have tried to live up to—the list of my great teachers could go on and on. Service to the Law School, and this bequest, are but small ways of paying back my debt to this great institution.”

Ambassador James Hormel '58 Comes Home to the Law School

arester — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:33:40 +0000

For the Honorable James Hormel, ’58, discovering his identity and mission in social justice has been a lifelong process. One early turning point came during his years as the University of Chicago Law School’s first full-time dean of students, when he realized he was on the side of students who were protesting the Vietnam War. Years later, after he came out as a gay man, Hormel faced different challenges as he battled opposition to become the first openly gay U.S. ambassador.

“We must let them know who we are or they will fabricate who we are and what they fabricate will not be true,” Hormel said in a recent talk at the Law School, titled “Breaking the Pink Ceiling.” He was in Chicago to promote his new autobiography, Fit to Serve, which chronicles his political development and the struggles he faced as a trailblazing diplomatic nominee.

“Jim’s visions and his passion for public service have grown out of a life that is dedicated to advocacy for human rights and for social equality,” said Michael Schill, dean of the Law School. “He is really nothing less than a giant in terms of philanthropy and engagement.”

Grandson to the founder of Hormel Foods, Hormel has spent much of his life struggling for social justice and gay rights, culminating in his successful battle to become U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg in 1999. He had served as dean of students and director of admissions at the Law School from 1961 to 1967, admitting to the Law School both Bush-era Attorney General John Ashcroft, ’67, and anti-Vietnam activist Bernadine Dohrn, ’67. After he left the University, Hormel began managing his family investments and became involved in politics.

Since then he has helped found the Human Rights Campaign, was a member of two United Nations delegations, and funded the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) book collection in the world.

As someone who spent years coming to terms with his sexuality, Hormel told students that writing about his life in his new book was “a bit traumatic.”

“I do discuss what it’s like to do whatever one can not to be gay,” said Hormel, who was once married and is the father of five children and the grandfather of 14. “And then what it takes to rise above it and to discover oneself and to be willing to be public about it. It still haunts me now.”

Yet Hormel said being open about his identity was essential as he strove to break political barriers. For more than five years, Hormel faced opposition to President Clinton’s efforts to appoint Hormel as the nation’s first openly gay ambassador. Ultimately Clinton appointed Hormel through a recess appointment, bypassing Senate opposition.

Hormel said he sees things changing for the LGBT community in a positive way—although it is still legal in 29 states to fire someone for being gay, and employment antidiscrimination legislation has languished in Congress for almost 40 years. He predicts the next challenge for many minority groups is to be fully accepted into the larger culture.

“I see the forthcoming battle as one in which the various representatives of minorities in this country will need to band together to make it clear that social justice is not complete until we have addressed the issue of cultural acceptance,” Hormel said.

Hormel has remained an active member of the Law School community. Notably, in 1986 he created a loan forgiveness program as a way to direct law students into public service, something the Law School has been expanding. Hormel also is one of only four life members of the Law School Visiting Committee.

University of Chicago students of his day and today share a special “spark of difference,” he said during his visit.

“U of C is remarkable,” Hormel recently told the Windy City Times, Chicago’s LGBT newspaper, about his regard for the Law School and the University. “There is not another research institution like it that I know—the cross-topical, crosseducational, intellectual curiosity that brings the entire campus together.”

by Sarah Galer