Every year, Case Western Reserve University School of Law honors the achievements of distinguished alumni, faculty and prominent members of the legal community by inducting new members to the Society of Benchers – the law school’s Hall of Fame.
Established in 1962, the Society of Benchers inducts new members on the basis of extraordinary achievement and dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession, as voted on by their peers.
This year, we celebrate 14 new members of the Society of Benchers.
This year, I retired from the law firm of Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C. based in New York City. I joined as an associate in 1988, became a partner in 1993, and also served on its Executive Committee and as Treasurer of the firm for almost 25 years.
My interest in CWRU came from growing up in Lorain, Ohio. There, I was fortunate to have some excellent teachers and mentors. I enrolled at Tufts University, received a degree in Chemical Engineering, and followed with graduate work at Cornell University. A course in environmental law inspired me to go to law school.
After I graduated from CWRU law school in 1982, I joined a Chicago patent firm, working primarily on patent litigation. It became clear to me that I was not interested in complex litigation. At CWRU I particularly enjoyed my trademark and copyright courses. That is what drew me to Fross Zelnick (then Weiss Dawid).
At Fross Zelnick, I advised a significant number of clients, with a focus on the luxury, fashion, music, entertainment, and hospitality industries in connection with adopting, protecting, using and maintaining their brands and non-traditional trademarks. Because I am also a patent lawyer, I started the firm’s design patent practice to protect the product and package designs of our clients. In addition, I worked extensively with U.S. Customs. I also took advantage of numerous speaking and publishing opportunities, including co-authoring the book “From Edison to iPod” with Frederick Mostert.
As I write this bio, I am on the eve of my retirement. I look forward to spending much more time with my spouse, Jim Stanton. I am also serving as the Treasurer of our small Episcopal country church in Roxbury, Connecticut where we have had our “weekend” house for almost 30 years. On the music front, I was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the American Symphony Orchestra, a pro bono client since 1990. And I have a great interest in fiction writing–we’ll see!
Jim Bildner is the CEO of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, one of the largest venture philanthropy firms in the world. DRK has made more than 235 investments in early stage non-profit and for-profit social enterprises working to solve complex societal issues including systemic poverty, food and water insecurity, access to healthcare and economic opportunities, sanitation, homelessness, criminal justice, social justice and climate change and adaptation strategies. In the aggregate, its portfolio organizations have directly impacted more than 400 million lives. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a Senior Research Fellow at the Hauser Institute for Civil Society and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University.
At the Kennedy School, his research interests include understanding the role of private capital in solving public problems, extending the capacity of foundations to solve complex societal issues and the sustainability of public and private systems when governments disinvest in these systems. At HKS, he teaches MLD 836, a foundational course on the role of for-profit and non-profit social enterprises in creating social impact and lasting impact when tackling complex societal issues.
Among his many board affiliations, he is a trustee of The Kresge Foundation and chair of its Investment Committee. He serves on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations including Public Citizen Foundation, Education SuperHighway, OpenBiome, JUST Capital, The GroundTruth Project, Service Year Alliance, the Healthy Americas Foundation (National Alliance for Hispanic Health Foundation) and a number of boards of arts and culture institutions including the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Dallas Symphony Association, Pérez Art Museum Miami, The Africa Center, and on the Board of Advisors of the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College. He is a Trustee Emeritus at Case Western Reserve University, an Overseer Emeritus of the Boston Symphony and an Emeritus Trustee of the board of the Lizard Island Research Foundation in Australia. He is a member of Young Presidents Organization.
In his board service, Bildner serves on the Investment Committees of boards with aggregate endowments in excess of $4,000,000,000 as well as a member of numerous finance, investment and/or audit committees of these boards.
Bildner earned his AB from Dartmouth College, his MPA from Harvard, his JD from Case Western Reserve School of Law and an MFA from Lesley University. He is a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 2008, Bildner was awarded the Dartmouth Alumni Award for service to the College and to his community.
Jennifer Cupar is a Professor of Lawyering Skills at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where she also serves as Director of the Legal Writing, Leadership, Advocacy, Experiential Education, and Professionalism program (LLEAP). A recognized authority in legal writing and legal writing pedagogy, Cupar publishes and presents nationally and locally on these subjects. Under her leadership, Bloomberg Law selected the LLEAP program as one of twelve finalists for its prestigious Law School Innovation Program in 2024. Bloomberg Law chose LLEAP for this honor because of its pioneering approach to preparing students with essential lawyering skills. During Cupar’s tenure, the LLEAP program has significantly advanced in the legal writing specialty ranking, climbing nearly 50 spots to 37th in the nation.
Cupar also oversees the law school’s Federal Judicial Externship program; contributes to various committees; coaches a moot court team; has taught Race, Law, and Society; and has directed the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Summer Legal Academy. She is also the past chair of the CWRU Faculty Senate Women’s Committee. In 2022, Cupar received the Faculty Distinguished Service Prize for her service to the School of Law.
Previously, Cupar held roles as Assistant Director of the Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic, a law clinic that operates out of the School of Law, and as Assistant Director of the Northeast Ohio Human Trafficking Law Clinic. Cupar clerked for The Honorable Patricia A. Gaughan and The Honorable Solomon Oliver, Jr., both former Chief Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
Cupar is a graduate of the Association of Legal Writing Director’s Leadership Academy and an active member of the Legal Writing Institute, where she serves on the Teaching Resources Committee. Beyond academia, she actively contributes to her community as Vice President of the Women’s Fund of the Lorain County Community Foundation and as a board member of the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking.
Timothy F. Geisse is a retired attorney living in South Russell, Ohio, a 1984 graduate of CWRU School of Law, and a 1974 graduate of Dartmouth College. His law practice focused on mergers and acquisitions and general business matters. He is a Trustee of The John F. and Mary A. Geisse Foundation, a private foundation primarily devoted to helping extremely poor people improve their lives and work their way out of poverty.
His contributions to the Law School’s Yemen Accountability Project over the past six years have enabled our students to undertake essential research and analysis for eventual prosecutions of international crimes committed in the Yemen Civil War.
Tim has an MA in Biblical Studies and volunteers in various capacities in his church and other Christian ministries. Tim has served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations including Laurel School, Geauga County Habitat for Humanity, Fieldstone Farm Therapeutic Riding Center, Lifewater International, Village Enterprise, Rainbow Network and In His Steps Foundation.
Tim is married to Jane Hadden Geisse. They have two adult daughters and four grandchildren.
Jeff Herman is a nationally recognized trial lawyer and advocate for victims of rape, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. He is a passionate, and experienced attorney. Herman is a trailblazer in the representation of victims of sexual abuse, devoting 100% of his practice to the cause.
Over the past two decades, Herman has built a national practice and has become one of the nation’s leading childhood sexual abuse lawyers and pioneers, a true champion of his client’s rights. He is the founding and managing partner of Herman Law Firm.
Over his career, Herman has represented thousands of brave men, women and children seeking justice in New York, New Jersey, California and other states throughout the country. Herman and his firm, by virtue of experience and deep knowledge of the law, have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients through settlements, mediation, and successful trials.
Herman is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Case Western Reserve University School of Law, earning his Juris Doctorate in 1985. During that time, he served as the Editor of the Journal of International Law and President of the International Law Society. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Arizona in 1982. Herman is the proud father of four children.
A battle-tested trial attorney, Kelly Grigsby Jones has represented clients in over 60 jury trials, dozens of bench trials and hearings or mediations in state and federal courts across Ohio. Jones has more than 20 years of experience in premises liability, personal injury, and insurance matters. Jones joined the Perez Morris Columbus office in 2022.
Prior to joining Perez Morris, Jones worked at Williams, Moliterno & Scully Co., L.P.A., where she practiced corporate, personal injury, and insurance defense litigation. She represents several top national insurance companies, self-insured corporations, municipal entities, medical, charitable and educational institutions, and businesses and individuals in various civil matters.
Jones frequently lectures on trial skills as a member of the American Board of Trial Attorneys (ABOTA) and the Ohio Association of Civil Trial Attorneys, and previously served as an adjunct professor for first- and second-year law students in a CORE Lawyering Skills course at Case Western Reserve University. She also served as a judicial staff attorney for the Honorable Lillian J. Greene for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
Jones lives in Westerville, Ohio with her husband Tony. She enjoys ballroom dancing, book clubs, international travel and biking on the amazing trails Columbus has to offer.
Steven S. Kaufman is a 1975 graduate of CWRU Law. He is nationally recognized first-chair trial attorney known for his leadership and client service in litigation matters, with experience as lead trial counsel in state and federal courts across the U.S. Before joining Ulmer & Berne LLP in 2020 (Counsel 2022 - ), Kaufman was a partner and member of the Executive Committee of Thompson Hine. He founded and grew two boutique litigation firms in the city – Kaufman & Cumberland from 1982 to 2002, and Kaufman & Company, LLP from 2011 to 2019 which were three-time winners of the Weatherhead 100 awards for the fastest growing businesses in Northeast Ohio.
His career as a complex civil case trial lawyer had positive impacts across the country, but substantially in Northeast Ohio. In 2001, he was lead counsel for the City of Cleveland in a five week trial defeating the City of Brook Park, allowing Cleveland to keep the I-X Center property for airport expansion. He was also lead trial counsel for the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority in the acquisition of 15 acres of land for the redevelopment of The Flats East Bank in 2007.
Kaufman was instrumental in several important local government initiatives, serving as co-chair of the Cuyahoga County Government Reform Ballot Initiative in 2009, changing the form of county government, and as general counsel to the Cuyahoga County Government Transition in 2010.
Steve is most personally proud of his eight years of service on the Shaker Heights Schools Board of Education. A resident since 1979 (until 2017) with his late wife Loretta (Law, Class of ’75) and two daughters, Sara and Leah, who are graduates of Shaker Heights schools, he was first elected to the board in 1997. He served as vice-president and president in the early 2000s.
Among many other Board roles, served as President of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association (2003-2004) and Member of the Board of Trustees, 1998-2001. In 2023, Steve was the recipient of the CMBA Legacy 150 Award for extraordinary Leadership, Innovation and Professional Excellence. In 2023, Steve was also named a Cleveland Jewish News Difference Maker for making invaluable contributions for the benefit of the Northeast Ohio Jewish Community.
Steve resides with his wife Raisa in Orange, and has 4 grandchildren (daughters, Sara and Leah).
Charles (Charlie) Kowal graduated from BGSU in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science in accounting and earned his law degree from CWRU School of Law in 1978. He joined Ernst & Ernst (Young) as an intern in 1975, and full-time following his graduation from law school, and rose through the ranks to partner.
Before retiring, Kowal was a Tax Partner at EY. He held various leadership positions over his many years at EY, ultimately as the EY Global-Americas Director of Personal Financial Services.
Kowal was a longtime volunteer with AICPA, chairing the Personal Financial Planning (PFP) Division from 2015-2019. Kowal led the charge when financial planning regulation was threatened in the 1980s and testified on behalf of AICPA before a Congressional hearing on proposed financial planner/investment adviser legislation in the 80’s. He has been involved more recently with advocating for clarity to SEC IA-1092, on SEC’s Reg BI and advertising rules, and positioning on financial planning regulation.
Over the years he made significant contributions to many initiatives including task forces charged with editing the Fiduciary handbooks, creating and updating the Statements on Responsibilities in Personal Financial Planning, and leadership around acquiring standard setting authority for the PFP Division. These efforts ultimately led to issuance of the AICPA’s Statement on Standards in Personal Financial Planning Services. In 2021 he received the AICPA PFP Distinguished Service Award for his many contributions.
Mark Kramer is widely recognized as a thought leader, writer, speaker and consultant on corporate and philanthropic strategies for social impact. He has published more than 30 articles in Harvard Business Review and Stanford Social Innovation Review.
In 2000, together with Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter, Mark co-founded FSG, a 150-person non-profit social impact consulting firm with offices in the US, Europe and Asia. FSG has developed social impact strategies for many of the world’s largest foundations, and corporations. Porter and Kramer also co-founded the Center for Effective Philanthropy, a U.S. nonprofit that helps major foundations measure and improve their effectiveness.
Mark taught MBA and Executive Education courses on Purpose & Profit at Harvard Business School. He has served as a sustainability advisor to major corporations such as Kimberly Clark and Nestlé. More recently, he co-founded Maternal Newborn Health Innovations to commercialize a life-saving medical device for obstructed labor. He is a partner in Congruence Capital, an impact investing hedge fund.
Mark’s involvement with the Law School dates back to 1994, when Mark and his mother, Charlotte Kramer, established an endowment to support and expand the Law Clinic in memory of Mark’s father, Milton Kramer. Mark co-chaired a strategic planning committee that led to greater integration of experiential learning throughout the law school curriculum and a tenure track for Clinic faculty. In 2021, after Charlotte Kramer passed away at age 101, the Clinic was renamed in honor of both Milton and Charlotte Kramer.
Prior to founding FSG, Mark served as President of the private equity firm Kramer CapitalManagement. Before that he was an Associate at the law firm of Ropes & Gray and clerked for Judge Alvin Ruben on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He earned his BA summa cum laude from Brandeis University, an MBA from The Wharton School and his JD magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as an Articles Editor of the Law Review.
Nancy Marcus graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a JD in 1997 and subsequently earned her LL.M. and S.J.D. at the University of Wisconsin School of Law. She had a diverse and extensive legal career, ranging from litigation and policy work to her work in the legal academia. Currently a law professor at California Western Law School, she is the first legal skills professor to be promoted to the unified tenure track; and also teaches a seminar on Sexuality, Gender Identity and the Law. She previously taught constitutional law at Indiana Tech Law School and appellate practice at CWRU Law.
Her work as a private practitioner included plaintiffs’ side toxic torts litigation, constitutional litigation, family law and criminal defense at firms in Cleveland and Los Angeles. Marcus has also worked as a legal aid attorney and engaged in extensive legislative and policy work, including as a Lambda Legal attorney, as State Public Policy Director for the National Abortion Federation, as State Affairs Research Counsel with the American Association of Justice, and as the Alliance for Justice Judicial Selection Project Dorot Law Fellow.
Marcus has served in numerous leadership positions in her volunteer work over the decades. For example, she is the co-founder of BiLaw (the first national association of bisexual lawyers and law students) and has served as Chair of the American Bar Association Civil Rights Litigation Section LGBT Rights Subcommittee, on the Board of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Foundation and on other non-profit boards.
She has worked as a judicial law clerk for Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Paul Higginbotham and for former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler.
Marcus’s legal scholarship—particularly in the areas of tort law, racial justice and police reform, constitutional law developments in LGBTQ and reproductive rights and bisexual jurisprudence—has been transformative and widely cited, including in a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report; in federal and state court opinions; in a UN Shadow Report; in casebooks, treatises and other books; in American Jurisprudence articles; in magazine articles; and reprinted as a book chapter.
Karen Greve Milton is a proud alumna of the CWRU Law School, Class of 1981, where she served as an Editor on the Law Review. She received her B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. Her legal career has been one of public service positions beginning as an Assistant District Attorney in the Office of Robert M. Morgenthau, the District Attorney for New York County (Manhattan) and culminating with her twenty-one-year tenure as the Circuit Executive for the Second Circuit, the chief executive officer for the thirteen federal courts in the states of New York, Vermont and Connecticut. Among her other positions, she served as Assistant Commissioner for Tax Enforcement in the New York State Department of Taxation & Finance, General Counsel to the (former) New York State Commission on Investigation, Assistant Commissioner in the New York City Department of Investigation and the first Director of the Citibar Center for CLE, a department she created for the New York City Bar Association.
After retiring from the federal courts, she served as Deputy Inspector General/Chief of Staff in the MTA Office of the Inspector General. Milton now works in the non-profit sector as a Senior Consultant with the consulting firm Danosky & Associates, advising non-profits on strategic planning, governance, sustainability and development.
Milton is a past President of the New York Women’s Bar Association and a former Director of its Foundation. She recently completed a term as Treasurer/Director of the Center for Civic Education, a non-profit devoted to promoting non-partisan civic education for citizens of all ages. In November 2023, she joined the Board of Directors of FedCap Rehabilitation Services which helps people with disabilities, including criminal convictions, gain meaningful employment opportunities.
A passionate choral singer, Milton sings with the three volunteer choirs at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan and the Cathedral Choirs of St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre, New York. She has traveled to Europe with multiple choral groups where she sang in Westminster Abbey, St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the Salzburg Cathedral and St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.
Jacquelyn Nance, an attorney and native of Northeast Ohio, is an education and special needs advocate. As the mother of two adult children on the autism spectrum, she has a passion for promoting awareness, acceptance, access and inclusion of neuro-diverse people.
Nance has over 25 years of non-profit board experience. Currently, she is Vice Chair of the national board of Autism Speaks where she also serves as Chair of the Nominating & Governance committee. She has been working to develop partnerships in Northeast Ohio to increase autism resources and services across the lifespan with a particular focus on transition to adulthood and adulthood.
She is a trustee for Case Western Reserve University where she is Vice Chair of Academic Affairs & Student Life and sits on the Executive Committee and the Committee on Trustees and Governance. She also serves on the ODEIE Visiting Committee and served as Co-Chair for the CWRU Mather Center for Women’s Flora20 / The Exponential Power of Women.
She and her husband, Fred Nance, were the 2024 honorees for the Autism Speaks Cleveland Chefs Gala. Nance is a recipient of the Mather Center 2023 Flora Award. She has been featured in Ebony Magazine and has been an invited speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus and the Net Impact Summit at Wharton.
Her former board service includes The Union Club of Cleveland, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and past chair of the Ohio Arts Council. She was a gubernatorial appointee to the Thomas J. Moyer Judicial Center and the separate Foundation board.
Nance is the President of Philanthropic Solutions, Ltd., where she has advised non-profits and athletes including 2x Olympic Gold Medalist and 3x WNBA Champion Swin Cash, the LeBron James Family Foundation, and the WNBA.
She is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Law and a member of the class of 2006 of Leadership Cleveland.
Paul Rose writes and teaches about business associations, corporate governance, corporate finance, sovereign wealth funds, investment management law and securities regulation. He has consulted with and provided testimony on these topics to numerous regulators and other agencies, including the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission; the Government Accountability Office; and the Congressional Research Service. He has been an affiliate with the Sovereign Wealth Fund Initiative, a research project at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, a non-resident fellow of the ESADEgeo-Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, an affiliate with IE Business School and an affiliate with the Sovereign Investment Lab, a research project at Università Bocconi. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and serves as co-chair of the Shareholder Activism and Engagement Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Corporate Governance Committee.
Prior to joining Case Western Reserve University as Dean, Rose held the J. Gilbert Reese Chair in Contract Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Dean Rose won numerous teaching awards at Ohio State, including the law school's professor of the year award (in 2014 and 2023) and Ohio State's university-wide teaching award in 2022. He also served as associate dean at Ohio State, managing the college's academic affairs from 2016-2020 and leading the college's strategic initiatives, including college rankings strategies and online program development, from 2020-2024.
Rose began his academic career as a visiting assistant professor in securities and finance at Northwestern University School of Law. Before joining Northwestern, he practiced law in the corporate and securities practice group of Covington & Burling LLP’s San Francisco office. He worked as an assistant trader in equity and emerging market derivatives at Citibank, N.A. in New York prior to attending law school.
James R. Willis is a member of the Bar of the State of Ohio. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky and attended and graduated from its public schools.
Willis served in the United States Marine Corps, as a Montford Point Marine, from 1944–1946. He credits that institution with contributing mightily to his abilities and to his success. Following his military tour, he attended West Virginia State College, graduating with honors in 1949, with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Willis received a law degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1952, and almost exclusively thereafter practiced criminal law. Mr. Willis is nationally known as an expert in Constitutional Law. He has argued countless cases at the County, State, Federal and Appellate levels, as well as the Ohio Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court.
Willis personally argued four landmark cases before the United States Supreme Court, i.e., Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89 (1964); Doyle and Wood v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1979); and Martin v. Ohio, 480 U.S. 229 (1987). The Beck, Doyle and Wood cases were argued to victory. The Martin case was decided against him by a majority of 5-4. Additionally, Willis was counsel of record in a fifth case, i.e., Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171 (1987). Willis was trial and appellate counsel for Bourjaily and was successful in getting the Supreme Court to review the case. It was argued, at his request, by Stephen Saltzberg, then of the University of Virginia Law School. Saltzburg was one of the most outstanding authorities on evidence in this country. The Bourjaily case is one of the leading cases in the country on the complicated hearsay/confrontation issues in conspiracy cases.
Additionally, in still another victory over the Ohio Courts, The United States Supreme Court, in 1999, granted certiorari, vacated and remanded Mr. Willis’ case of Smith v. Ohio, 527 U.S. 1018 (1999). This case had been affirmed by the Ohio Supreme Court (when it denied further appellate review) and by the Eighth District Court of Appeals. Sometime later, a Federal Habeas Corpus was granted by the United States District Court in favor of appellant Smith.
Willis has addressed a number of legal associations on various aspects of the trial and appeal of criminal cases. Among these associations are the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference, the annual seminar of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Academy of Ohio Trial Lawyers. Additionally, he was the first and, until 1999 and again in 2011, the only African American to be elected President of the NACDL, the most prestigious association of criminal defense lawyers in the country. Willis also served as a trustee of the National Criminal Defense College, an entity operated by the NACDL. He is a life member of the Board of Directors of the NACDL. In 2008 Willis was given the NACDL’s “Life Time Achievement Award”.
Significantly, Willis has been listed in several publications that purport to identify the “Best Lawyers in America”. In 2003, he was listed by “Black Enterprise” magazine as one of “America’s Top Black Lawyers”. Over the years Willis has accumulated, to his credit, more than five hundred published Opinions.