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Class Note Winter 2024-2025

David Calzone co-founded Calzone Hiser PLLC in January 2024 with Susan Hartmus Hiser, ’91. The firm, located in Metro Detroit, provides neutral mediation, arbitration, investigation, and Title IX hearing officer services. Throughout his career, Calzone has practiced on behalf of public and private sector employers in the areas of employment discrimination, labor litigation, labor arbitration, appellate litigation, mediation, and complex class action litigation. He is a former director and shareholder of Vercruysse Murray & Calzone PC and is a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

Alec Rogers has joined Ford Motor Company’s Washington, DC, office as a government affairs executive and director of tax and finance policy. His appointment follows 18 years as senior director for Xerox Corporation and a decade on Capitol Hill, where he was senior counsel to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Before working on Capitol Hill, Rogers was in private practice in Birmingham, Michigan, and Washington, DC.

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

Benjamin Zainea was selected by Michigan Lawyers Weekly as a 2024 Go To Lawyer for business transactions. He is an attorney at the Grand Rapids-based law firm Mika Meyers PLC. Zainea specializes in transactions, mergers and acquisitions, business formation and succession planning, general business and real estate law, estate planning, commercial lending, and manufacturing. 

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

Richard D. McLellan has endowed the Richard D. McLellan Prizes for Advancing Free Speech and Expression at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, an educational nonprofit based in Mecosta, Michigan. The prize will award a total of $75,000 annually to support writing, creative work, and other actions that advance the First Amendment principle of free expression. 

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

Jim Olson, LLM, has published a new book, People of the Dune (Mission Point Press, 2024). The novel covers a legal battle over the mining of a coastal dune on a freshwater inland sea. As a lawyer, Olson has represented citizens and communities in courts for five decades and authored articles, papers, and blogs on law and the environment, water, and natural resources. In 2010, he founded For Love of Water, a nonprofit law and policy center, to protect the public commons in water, lands, and communities.

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

Robert M. Meisner is a member of Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s Class of 2024 Hall of Fame for his contributions to the field of community association law, including his role in drafting the 1978 Michigan Condominium Act and amendments to the law in 2001. Meisner is the principal founding member of The Meisner Law Group PC in Bingham Farms, Michigan.

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

Ralph Wellington received the 2024 Award for Exceptional Service from Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts for his commitment to supporting low-income artists and small arts organizations through volunteer legal services. Wellington is of counsel at Dilworth Paxson in Philadelphia, where he is a partner in the litigation department and focuses on class actions, aviation and railroad law, business and corporate disputes, art law, and trusts and estates.

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

R. Joseph Kimble has published the second edition of his book Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law (Carolina Academic Press, 2023). Also, he recently won the Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to improving legal communications, for his contributions to the field. Kimble has been editor of the “Plain Language” column in the Michigan Bar Journal for 36 years. 

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

John K. Villa recently received two recognitions from Chambers USA: 2024 Star Individual in the law firm defense category and Senior Statesperson in the financial services regulation category. Villa is a partner at William & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where he specializes in the defense of law firms and companies in cases involving malpractice, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and securities violations. He is co-chair of the firm’s financial services and banking group and served on the firm’s executive committee for 15 years. 

Class Note Winter 2024-2025

Larry D. Thompson has published Quiet Counsel: Looking Back on a Life of Service to the Law (Disruption Books, 2024), a memoir that chronicles his career in public service, corporate law, and academia. Among other significant roles in the public and private sectors, Thompson served as a deputy US attorney general from 2001 to 2003, led worldwide legal and government affairs functions for PepsiCo, and specialized in political corruption and drug trafficking prosecutions as a US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.