UA School of Law Alumni Association to Honor Outstanding Alumni and Faculty April 24

Akron, Ohio, April 18, 2008 — The University of Akron School of Law Alumni Association will hold its annual Alumni Awards Dinner at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 24 in the Student Union Ballroom. The honorees were chosen for their achievements in the legal profession and their communities.

The 2008 Outstanding Alumni Award honorees are William M. Oldham ('67), partner, Oldham Kramer; E. Jane Taylor ('80), associate director for pro bono at the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation; and Joseph E. Reece ('87), managing director and head of the Global Industrial & Services Group of Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLP in New York City. Former Dean Richard L. Aynes, who is now the director and John F. Seiberling Chair of the UA School of Law's Constitutional Law Center, will receive an Honorary Alumni Award.

The Hon. K. William Bailey, adjunct faculty member, will receive the John R. Quine Award as the Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member; Professor Jane Campbell Moriarty will receive the Thomas G. Byers Memorial Award for Outstanding Faculty Publication for her article “Misconvictions, Science, and the Ministers of Justice;” and Matthew Vansuch ('05) will receive the Outstanding Alumni Publication Award for his article “Icing the Judicial Hellholes: Congress' Attempt to Put Out 'Frivolous' Litigation.”

William Oldham graduated from the UA School of Law in 1967. After graduation he clerked for Chief Judge Girard E. Kalbfleisch of the U.S. District Court in Cleveland and then joined the Akron firm of Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs. He became a partner of the firm in 1974 and was managing partner from 1985-91. Oldham left Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs in 1994 to found Oldham & Dowling, now Oldham Kramer.

Oldham served on the Akron Bar Association Board of Directors and was elected president of the Akron Bar in 1987-88. He also has served on the Ohio State Bar Association Counsel of Delegates and is a past area chairman of the Defense Research Institute. While Akron Bar President, he worked with the Hon. Sam Bell, U.S. District Court, Akron, to found the Charles Scanlon American Inn of Court. He served as president of the Scanlon Inn from 2002-04. He was selected as an “Ohio Super Lawyer” by Cincinnati Magazine in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Oldham was selected to serve as distinguished visiting professor at UA in 1992. He also served a six-year term on the Hiram College Board of Trustees and taught legal ethics to students in Hiram College's weekend program.

He has been active in community organizations such as the Akron Rotary Club; the boards of Walsh Jesuit High School; Akron General Hospital; Summit County Family Services; Western Reserve Girl Scout Council; Summit County Chapter of the American Red Cross; Tallmadge Board of Zoning Appeals; Hudson Planning Commission; First Presbyterian Church of Akron; Laurel Lake Retirement Community; Hudson Library; Hudson Tennis Club; and Lake Forest Country Club.

Joseph E. Reece is a managing director and head of the Global Industrial and Services Group (GIS) at Credit Suisse Securities in New York. Credit Suisse offers financial advisory services to corporations, governments and institutional investors in 26 countries, and its investment banking business specializes in a spectrum of products including debt and equity underwriting, sales and trading, and mergers and acquisitions.

He began his career in 1987 at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, D.C. While at the SEC, Reece became a special counsel to the Division of Corporation Finance. He also was in private practice with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom from 1993-97. Reece left the practice of law and joined Credit Suisse in 1997 as an investment banker in the Los Angeles office. During his tenure with Credit Suisse he has held several management positions including the Western U.S. Region headquartered in Los Angeles from 2003 to 2005. Since September 2005, he has been head of the GIS Group, currently the largest industry group within Credit Suisse, with revenues of more than $900 million in 2007.

A 1987 graduate of the UA School of Law, Reece received his bachelor of science degree from UA in 1984. While completing his law degree, he also received his master of business administration degree with a concentration in finance. Subsequent to his graduation from UA with his JD/MBA, Reece attended the Georgetown University Law Center where he was awarded a Master's of Law in Securities Regulation in 1989.

He is active in several charities and community activities including the Trust for Public Land, Fulfillment Fund, Phase 1, Milken Institute and Prostate Cancer Foundation.

E. Jane Taylor is an associate director for pro bono at the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation that works to assure resources, programs and services exist statewide to serve the unmet civil legal needs of Ohio's poor. As one of two associate directors for pro bono, Taylor serves in a statewide leadership role to energize and expand pro bono participation by attorneys, and serves as a catalyst and source of support for the development of local pro bono programs by bar associations, law firms, law schools and corporations.

Prior to joining the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation, Taylor was an associate attorney from 1981-89 and partner from 1990-2006 at Guy, Lammert & Towne in Akron where her practice focused on representing creditors in commercial litigation matters.

Taylor was elected as the first female president of the Akron Bar Association (1994-

95); elected first (and to date only) female District 11 (Summit and Portage counties) representative to Ohio State Bar Association Board of Governors; named Outstanding Committee Chairperson of the Akron Bar Association; and was named one of 100 Women of Distinction by the Akron Area YWCA.

Her professional associations include the Akron Bar Association, where she is currently a member of the Lawyers Assistance Committee and the Pro Bono Committee, and she also is a Fellow of the Akron Bar Association Foundation. Taylor is also active with the Ohio State Bar Association including service as its president in 2005-06. She is currently a member of the Access to Justice Committee and the Section on Women in the Profession; the board of the Ohio Lawyers Assistance Program, and the board of Ohio State Bar Foundation; and Life Fellow of the Ohio State Bar Foundation. She is also a member of the American Bar Association and the National Conference of Bar Presidents.

Also an active member in the community, Taylor has served on the board of trustees of the United Way of Summit County and is also a supporter and volunteer for Stewart's Caring Place, a wellness and educational resource center for individuals and families touched by cancer, which is an organization she supports in memory of her husband. She is chairing the Hope Walk in 2008, which will be held May 24.

She received a bachelor's degree from Kent State University in 1977 and her Juris Doctor degree from the UA School of Law in 1980.

Richard L. Aynes earned bachelor's and Juris Doctor degrees from Miami University and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law before joining the UA School of Law in 1976 as coordinator of the Appellate Review Office and a lecturer. He has held the rank of professor since 1986. He served as UA's interim athletics director in 1993-94 and returned to the UA School of Law where he held the John F. Seiberling Chair of Constitutional Law for the balance of 1994. Aynes was appointed dean of the UA School of Law in 1995, a position he held through 2007. In spring 2008 he returned to the faculty and again holds the John F. Seiberling Chair of Law and is director of the Constitutional Law Center. His research and teaching interests include constitutional law, the 14th Amendment and legal history. He has written numerous articles in the area of constitutional law including articles published in the Yale Law Journal, the Journal of Southern Legal History, the Chicago Kent Law Review and the Catholic University Law Review. Among his current and past memberships are the American Bar Association, Ohio State Bar Association, Akron Bar Association, Western Reserve Legal Services board of trustees, ABA Special Committee of Evaluation of Judicial Performance (reporter), and consultant to the ABA Victim's Committee, Ohio Supreme Court Racial Fairness Implementation Committee, Ohio Supreme Court Continuing Legal Education Committee and Scanlon Inn of Court.

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