2010 Distinguished Law Alumni Awards

The Distinguished Law Alumni Awards honor alumni who have obtained distinction in their professional or academic careers. Those honored share the same characteristics of leadership, progressive thinking, high standards, uncompromising integrity, commitment, courage, and confidence. Their careers serve as models for Washington University law students and alumni.

  • Dale L. Cammon JD ’75

    2010 Distinguished Law Alumnus
    Dale L. Cammon JD ’75
    Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Bryant Group, Inc.

    Dale L. Cammon is chairman and co-chief executive officer of Bryant Group, Inc. Bryant Group is an independent firm in St. Louis, which specializes in executive benefits and wealth transfer planning. The design and implementation of nonqualified executive retirement programs for closely held and public companies, as well as not-for-profit healthcare institutions, is one of his areas of specialty.

    Mr. Cammon received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois before attending Washington University. He also holds the CLU designation from The American College. His professional affiliations include the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, National Association of Life Underwriters, Million Dollar Round Table, and Missouri Bar Association.

    Civic activities include 25 years as a board member of St. Louis Children’s Hospital and nine years as chairman of the SLCH Foundation Board. Mr. Cammon is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Webster University. Other board memberships have included BJC HealthCare, Greater St. Louis Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, YMCA of the Ozarks, and Washington University School of Law’s National Council.

    Dale and his wife, Kate, reside in St. Louis, Missouri.

  • Frank N. Gundlach, JD '63

    2010 Distinguished Law Alumnus
    Frank N. Gundlach JD ’63
    Senior Counsel, Armstrong Teasdale LLP

    Frank N. Gundlach graduated from Colgate University in 1960 majoring in political science. He received his JD from Washington University in 1963.

    Upon graduation from law school, Mr. Gundlach worked in Washington, D.C., for a congressman from Illinois while he was being processed for a job at the U.S. Department of Justice. He began there in January 1964 as a trial attorney in the Tax Division trying cases around the country. For two weeks in the summer of 1964, he was assigned to the Civil Rights Division, investigating alleged violations in Mississippi of recently enacted legislation and saw firsthand the conditions depicted in the movie Mississippi Burning.

    In 1966 Mr. Gundlach joined the St. Louis firm Armstrong Teasdale LLP, where he is today. He has spent his legal career as a trial lawyer and, at an early age, was elected to the American College of Trial Lawyers, where he has been active in various roles at the local, regional, and national level. He has tried to conclusion more than 100 cases and argued numerous appeals involving high-profile clients covering a broad field of subjects. He has been selected by his peers to be listed in many publications for his trial skills. He is a trustee of the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society and the American College of Trial Lawyers Foundation, where he currently serves as secretary.

    Mr. Gundlach and his wife, Peggy, have three children, Jerry, an airline executive; John, an advertising executive; and Jennifer, a law professor and vice dean; and six grandchildren.

  • Jerry M. Hunter, JD '77

    2010 Distinguished Law Alumnus
    Jerry M. Hunter JD ’77
    Partner, Bryan Cave LLP

    Jerry M. Hunter is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP. Prior to joining Bryan Cave, he served as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board from 1989 to 1993, after being nominated for the position by President George H.W. Bush in 1989.

    Mr. Hunter previously served as director of the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (1986–88) after being nominated and confirmed by the Missouri State Senate. Prior to that appointment, he was employed as labor counsel by the Kellwood Company, a St. Louis-based Fortune 500 corporation (1981–86). He has also been employed as a field attorney by the National Labor Relations Board and as a senior trial attorney by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

    Mr. Hunter received a bachelor’s degree in history and government in 1974 from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff before attending Washington University. In 1987 he was awarded a Danforth Foundation fellowship to participate in the program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

    In 1995, Mr. Hunter was appointed by the leadership of the U.S. Congress to serve a four-year term as a member of the Board of Directors of the Office of Compliance.

    In 1994, Mr. Hunter was elected to the Board of Directors of Kellwood Company, an international marketer of apparel and soft goods. Prior to the purchase of Kellwood by Sun Capital in 2008, he served as chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee, a member of the Executive Committee, and lead director for the Kellwood Board of Directors. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Arbitration Association (1997–2009), where he was also a member of its Executive Committee. He is a member of the National Board of Directors of Boys Hope Girls Hope and a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers Inc.

  • Sheldon M. Novick, JD '77

    2010 Distinguished Law Alumnus
    Sheldon M. Novick JD ’77
    Professor, Vermont Law School

    Sheldon M. Novick is an accomplished educator, author, and scholar. He was born in New York City in 1941 and attended New York public schools, the Bronx High School of Science, and Antioch College. After graduating from college in 1963, he worked for Barry Commoner at Washington University, helping to organize the new Center for the Biology of Natural Systems. He served as associate editor and then editor of Environment magazine from 1969 to 1977. While
    at Environment he attended Washington University School of Law, and after graduating in 1977 left St. Louis to practice law, first as an associate with Milgrim, Thomajan, Jacobs, and Lee in New York City, and then as regional counsel for the USEPA in Philadelphia.

    In 1987, Mr. Novick moved to Vermont, where he began his long association with Vermont Law School, as scholar in residence and adjunct professor of law and history. He has taught constitutional law, environmental law, and legal history. With two colleagues, Mr. Novick founded the Community Development Law Center, which provides assistance to small not-for-profit and locally owned enterprises.

    Mr. Novick’s publications include The Careless Atom (1969), the first account of the hazards of civilian nuclear power, which has appeared in numerous editions in four languages. His Law of Environmental Protection received the American Book Publishers 1987 award for the best book on a legal subject. His Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award in 1989. Mr. Novick is editor of the Holmes Devise Edition of The Collected Works of Justice Holmes (1994). His two-volume Henry James (1996, 2007) received favorable, front-cover reviews in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He is currently at work on a study of James Madison’s constitutionalism.

    Mr. Novick and his wife, Carolyn Clinton, live in Norwich, Vermont. They have a son, Michael, and Mr. Novick has a daughter, Melia Bensussen, from a previous marriage.

2010 Distinguished Young Law Alumni Awards

The Distinguished Young Law Alumni Awards honor alumni who graduated from the School of Law within the past 25 years. The recipients exemplify achievement and commitment to the ideals embodied in a School of Law education.

  • Monica J. Allen, BA '80, MA '85, JD '92

    2010 Distinguished Young Law Alumna
    Monica J. Allen AB ’80, MA ’85, JD ’92
    Associate Vice Chancellor and Deputy General Counsel, Washington University

    Monica J. Allen is associate vice chancellor, deputy general counsel, and chief litigation counsel for Washington University. Ms. Allen is a three-time Washington University graduate. In addition to her
    law degree, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in comparative literature. Following law
    school, she served as law clerk for the Honorable Jean C. Hamilton, JD ’71, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

    Before joining the University’s Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and General Counsel, Ms. Allen was a partner at Haar & Woods LLP, where she specialized in complex litigation, focusing on the defense of legal and medical malpractice claims and a wide variety of business and commercial disputes. From 2001 through 2007, Ms. Allen was an adjunct professor at Washington University School of Law, where she taught Pretrial Practice and Procedure and Comparative Professional Ethics: Law and Medicine. Ms. Allen also served as senior attorney at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where, in addition to bank regulatory issues, she handled employment and other general corporate matters.

    As deputy general counsel at Washington University, Ms. Allen advises University leadership on a myriad of laws and regulations governing higher education. Her practice areas also include fair employment, commercial transactions, student affairs, and campus security. As the University’s
    chief litigation counsel, Ms. Allen has managed litigation involving employment disputes, construction contracting, trust and estate issues, and scientific research.

    Ms. Allen is active in Central Reform Congregation’s education outreach program with the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center and serves on the congregation’s tikkun olam steering committee. She has spent many exciting hours on the sidelines of lacrosse and football fields, cheering on
    her sons, Evan Sandel and Jeffrey Rothenberg.

  • Robert L. Newmark, JD '94

    2010 Distinguished Young Law Alumnus
    Robert L. Newmark JD ’94
    Partner, Bryan Cave LLP

    Robert L. Newmark is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP. He graduated from Princeton University in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Before attending law school, he worked as a management consultant for several years with a strategy boutique known as Strategic Planning Associates, which later became Mercer Management Consulting and is now known as Oliver Wyman.

    When Mr. Newmark graduated from Washington University School of Law (Order of the Coif) in 1994, he became the third generation in his family to do so, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Melvin L. Newmark, JD ’36, and father, Michael N. Newmark, JD ’62. Also
    during law school, Mr. Newmark met his wife, Kara Turner Newmark, JD ’94.

    After graduation, Mr. Newmark practiced with his father and his uncle, Thomas M. Newmark, JD ’80, at Gallop, Johnson & Neuman before joining his current firm in 1999. He has an active practice advising large and small corporate clients, both public and private, on transactional, governance,
    and strategic matters. He regularly engages in M&A transactions and fund formation work for such clients, and for private equity clients and their portfolio companies. Mr. Newmark currently chairs the Recruiting Committee for the St. Louis office of Bryan Cave.

    Mr. Newmark has served as an adjunct professor at Washington University School of Law for more than 10 years, and is proud to have several former students as his colleagues. He is a past board chair of the National Conference for Community & Justice of Metropolitan St. Louis, and a past secretary and president of the Princeton Club of St. Louis. He is currently co-chair of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations and president of the St. Louis Region of the American Jewish Committee, where he also serves on the national Board of Governors. He is an avid supporter of the
    Clayton School District, where he has served as treasurer of several school board campaigns and where he recently served as co-chair of a district-wide bond initiative.

    Mr. and Mrs. Newmark reside in St. Louis with their three children, Isabella (11), Tyler (8), and Zachary (5).