2022 Alumni Annual Awards

The Centennial Medal Award

Weinberger - Mark

The recipient of this year's Centennial Medal Award is Mark A. Weinberger.

The highest award bestowed upon a graduate of our school. The recipient of this award has demonstrated excellence and leadership in the practice of law, public service, or commerce; significant legal scholarship; significant participation and leadership in professional organizations or activities; extraordinary commitment and active contribution to the recipient’s community; and consistent involvement in CWRU School of Law affairs.

Mark has experience leading a global business, working at the highest levels of government and as an entrepreneur. He has a track record of driving transformative change in the public and private sectors during periods of unprecedented disruption. 

Mark was the Global Chairman and CEO of EY, a leading global professional services organization with 284,000 people, operating in more than 150 countries. He led the organization through a purpose-fueled transformation centered on EY's purpose of building a better working world.

Mark's government experience includes serving as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Tax Policy) in the George W. Bush Administration. He was also appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Social Security Administration Advisory Board. He served as a member of President Trump's former Strategic and Policy Forum and as a member of President Obama's Infrastructure Task Force. Mark also worked in the U.S. Senate. 

Mark played an active role in the World Economic Forum (WEF), as a member of its International Business Council and as a Global Agenda Steward for Economic Progress. He co-chaired the Russia Foreign Investment Advisory Council (FIAC) with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and served as Chairman of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council (IBLAC) to the Mayor of Shanghai. 

Mark is on the Board of Directors of Johnson & Johnson, MetLife and Saudi Aramco. He is also on the Board of Directors of JUST Capital and the Accelerate Acquisition Company. Mark serves as a Senior Advisor to Stone Canyon Industries Holdings, Teneo and Tanium. He is an Executive Advisor to G100 and World 50. Mark also serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Board of FCLTGlobal, which focuses on long-term investing and corporate governance. Mark is also on the Board of Advisors of the American Council of Capital Formation. He sits on the Board of Directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), is a Senior Advisor to Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP) and is a member of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. 

Mark sits on the Board of Trustees for the United States Council for International Business (USCIB), the Greater Washington Partnership and The Concord Coalition. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for Emory University and Case Western Reserve University. Mark is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Liveris Academy for Innovation and Leadership at The University of Queensland. 

Mark has a BA from Emory University, an MBA and JD from Case Western Reserve University and an LLM in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. He has an honorary doctorate from the Kogod School of Business at American University.
 

The Distinguished Recent Graduate Award

Ekeke

The recipient of this year's Distinguished Recent Graduate Award is lkechukwu (Ike) Ekeke.

Awarded to a graduate of the law school within the last ten years, whose accomplishments enhance the perception of the profession and of the law school in the eyes of the community. Professional accomplishments, significant participation in professional societies or professional activities, community activities and involvement in School of Law alumni affairs should be considered.

For the first two and a half years of his law career, Ike worked in the Juvenile Division and General Felony Unit in the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, drafting charges, motions and briefs, and conducting hearings and trials for cases ranging from petty offenses to major trial offenses. While working as an assistant prosecuting attorney, he began coaching and still coaches the CWRU Law Black Law Student Association (BLSA) Mock Trial Team, which earned third place in both regional and national competitions in 2019.

Ike returned to the law school in the fall of 2019 as a fellow- serving as a staff attorney and instructor in the Criminal Law Clinic. He also co-taught in IPVC and Re-Entry Clinics during his employment with Case Western Reserve University. He began working as a Citizen Complaint Authority Investigator for the city of Cincinnati in November 2020. That same year, he was selected to The National Black Lawyers organization's "Top 40 Under 40 Black Lawyers in Ohio." The National Black Lawyers is a professional honorary organization composed of the Top 40 Under 40 Lawyers who represent individuals and businesses in the American legal system. Membership into the organization is by invitation only and is extended exclusively to attorneys who excel in their profession or promote diversity. 

Ike recently received admission to practice law in the State of Georgia. He graduated with a BSE in Industrial Engineering and MSE in Engineering Management from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. In addition to serving the people of Cincinnati, Ohio, he now also provides IP counsel to indigent clients and start-up businesses in Georgia.

The Distinguished Teacher Award

McMunigal

The recipient of this year's Distinguished Teacher Award is Kevin C. McMunigal.

This award recognizes full-time, adjunct, or visiting members of the faculty, whose commitment to education and the pursuit of knowledge enriched the personal and professional lives of students. The recipient of this award should be a communicator, a motivator, a scholar, a model and an influence, and a teacher whose personal and intellectual qualities have left their mark on students.

Professor McMunigal teaches Criminal Law, Evidence and Professional Responsibility. He earned a BA in History with honors from Stanford University in 1973, and his JD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1979. 

He has held visiting appointments at the University of California (Hastings}, Loyola Law School (Los Angeles}, and Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala. Professor McMunigal is the co-author of Criminal Law: A Contemporary Approach, a criminal law casebook published by Aspen Publishing, and of Do No Wrong: Ethics for Prosecutors and Defenders, published by the American Bar Association. His recent work includes Investigative Deceit, published in the Hastings Law Journal, The (Lack) of Enforcement of Prosecutor Disclosure Rules, published in the Hofstra Law Review, and Defense Counsel and Plea Bargain Perjury, published in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law. 

Professor McMunigal is currently guest editing a symposium issue of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law on the ethics of client counseling. He is a contributing editor of the ABA Criminal Justice Section's magazine, Criminal Justice. Along with Professor Peter Joy of Washington University, Professor McMunigal writes a quarterly ethics column for "Criminal Justice." Professor McMunigal wrote one of the background papers for a series of Roundtable Discussions held by the ABA Criminal Justice Section in the Fall of 2010 at law schools across the United States on revisions to the ABA's Prosecution and Defense Function Standards. He was also an invited speaker on witness preparation at the ABA's annual Professional Responsibility Conference in 2010. Professor McMunigal joined the faculty after serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in California. Earlier he clerked for U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick and practiced with Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe in San Francisco.

The Joan Gross ’76 Annual Fund Award

Bill Paddock

The recipient of this year's Joan Gross ’76 Annual Fund Award is Bill Paddock.

Established in 2015, and chosen by the School of Law’s Office of Alumni Relations and Development, the Joan Gross ’76 Annual Fund Award is awarded to a member or members of the alumni association at large, who best exemplifies the extraordinary leadership of Joan Gross ’76 through the following award criteria: is an advocate of the law school annual fund, fosters a culture of philanthropy for the law school, volunteers with the law school’s Annual Giving or Development Office, and is a current donor to the annual fund.

Born in 1943 in Providence, Rhode Island where he grew up, Bill married Lyn Mather in 1965 and a year later they both graduated from the University of Rhode Island. Bill received an AB in Economics (Phi Kappa Phi) and Lyn a BS in Music Education (With Distinction). 

The Paddocks then headed west to Cleveland so Bill could study law at the then Western Reserve University and Lyn would teach in the local schools. Bill received his JD (Order of the Coif; Law Review Note Editor) in 1969 and joined Jones Day where he practiced mergers and acquisitions law for 37 years, becoming a partner in 1977 in the Cleveland office. He subsequently lived in Austin, Atlanta and Houston where he retired at the end of 2006. 

While in Austin in 1985, Bill was a founding trustee of The Austin Opera Company and Lyn became its first director of music education. Bill and Lyn have three children and six grandchildren. For recreation, Bill enjoys boating on Galveston Bay and skiing in Crested Butte. 

Bill began donating to the law school's annual fund, starting in 1975, with small but consistent gifts. By 1996 this had blossomed to his establishing the William S. Paddock Endowment Fund. In addition to his financial support of the school of law, has volunteered as an admissions counselor, a career counselor, and is a member of the law school's Society of Benchers.