Recognizing our Commemorated Honorees
of the C|M|LAW Hall of Fame Class of 2017
This year's 120 Hall of Fame honorees are in three categories and are listed at the link below. Please join us at the October 19 Celebration where all 120 honorees will be inducted.
- Founding Honorees (1897-1945)
- Commemorated Honorees (after 1945)
- Living Legends
Our
Commemorated Honorees all graduated from or made significant contributions to Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and/or Cleveland-Marshall Law School after 1946 and are recognized for their lasting legacies in memorium.
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Class of 1954 (1917-2011)
Russell Adrine was an influential presence during Cleveland's turbulent 1960s and went on to serve on the Board of Tax Appeals and as General Counsel of the Regional Transit Authority.
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Judge Ann Aldrich
(1927-2010)
Ann Aldrich joined the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law faculty in 1968, where she became the school's
first female tenured professor. In 1980 she became the first woman nominated to the federal bench in Ohio.
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Judge Francis M. Allegra
Class of 1981 (1957-2015)
Francis Allegra was an associate at the Cleveland law firm of Squire, Sanders, and Dempsey, where he specialized in tax and bond work. In 1998, he was appointed judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims
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Mary Ann Bagus
Class of 1982 (1944-1987)
Mary Ann Bagus overcame physical difficulties resulting from childhood polio to graduate
cum laude from Cleveland-Marshall. Specializing in probate law, Bagus practiced for almost five years until she died tragically in an auto accident.
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Magistrate Judge Joseph W. Bartunek III
Class of 1955 (1924-2003)
Joseph W. Bartunek was elected to the Ohio Senate first in 1949 and again in 1960. He resigned from the Senate in 1964 to run successfully for the Cuyahoga County Probate Court, but not before he had authored the bill that proposed the creation of
Cleveland State University. Bartunek was a principal advocate of the law school's 1969 merger with CSU.
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Robert T. Bennett
Class of 1967 (1939-2014)
Longtime chairman of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, Robert 'Bob' Bennett served as chair of the Ohio Republican Party from 1988-2009 and 2012-2013 and was instrumental in bringing the 2016 Republican National Convention to Cleveland.
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Elizabeth M. Boyer
Class of 1947 (1913-2002)
Elizabeth Boyer was a staunch advocate for women's rights. She was the founding president of the Women's Equity Action League, a national women's rights organization that was integral in the outlawing of gender discrimination in education.
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Professor J. Patrick Browne
(1935-1993)
J. Patrick Browne was a formidable presence in the classroom and in the courtroom. He came to Cleveland-Marshall in 1969 as a librarian but transitioned to the classroom, teaching Civil Procedure, Motion and Discovery Practice, Appellate Procedure, Sanctions, Equity, Insurance Law, Brief-Writing and Advocacy.
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Class of 1951 (1918-2012)
Lillian Burke was the first African-American woman to serve on the Ohio judiciary. She was appointed to the Ohio Industrial Commission, the highest state government position ever held by a black woman in Ohio. In 1969, she was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Cleveland Municipal Court, a bench on which she served with distinction for 18 years.
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Nona M. Burney, Ph.D.
Class of 1981 (1950-2014)
Nona Burney helped start Cleveland's Martin Luther King Law and Public Service Magnet High School, eventually serving as principal. She became a professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago, where she was named director of the Center for Teaching and Learning.
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Attorney General Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr.
Class of 1973 (1941-2003)
Anthony 'Tony' Celebrezze served in Ohio's state government for 16 years as a senator, secretary of state, and attorney general. A member of the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame, he served in the United States Navy for five years and was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal.
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Chief Justice Frank D. Celebrezze, Jr.
Class of 1956 (1928-2010)
Frank Celebrezze served on the Supreme Court of Ohio for 14 years, where he sought to push beyond the Court's traditional interpretation of Ohio's Constitution, including a term as Chief Justice.
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(1921-2008)
John Drinko was the 23rd lawyer hired by Joseph Hostetler at BakerHostetler. He served as the firm's Managing Partner from 1969-1975 and 1978-1985. Drinko generously established the first endowed chaired professorship at C|M|LAW to support the Joseph C. Hostetler-BakerHostetler Chair in Law.
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Class of 1958 (1929-2015)
Charles Emrick joined Calfee Halter & Griswold in 1965, where he specialized in planning and transactions for privately-held companies and their owners, completing over 100 corporate financings and 200 business acquisitions and divestitures for clients during his 35 years of service to the firm.
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Professor James T. Flaherty
(1928-2012)
James Flaherty joined the faculty of Cleveland-Marshall in 1966 and initiated several programs during his tenure, including the country's first minority and women's affirmative-action admissions programs and the first use of the Federal Work Study Program for a law school.
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Judge Charles W. Fleming
Class of 1955 (1928-1994)
Charles Fleming was a senior partner at the firm of Fleming, Hubbard, and Davis from 1968-1976. He was elected Cleveland Municipal Court Judge in 1976 and served on the court for 19 years.
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Class of 1949 (1898-1987)
Samuel Gerber, a pioneer in forensic medicine, is perhaps best known for his work on the Sam Sheppard murder case and the Cleveland Torso murders. A founding member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, he modernized the Cuyahoga County Coroner's office during his 50-year tenure as coroner.
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Professor David B. Goshien
(1937-2010)
David Goshien began his legal career as an attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was briefly a professor at Oklahoma University before teaching tax law and contracts at Cleveland-Marshall from 1968-2008.
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Deborah Lewis Hiller
Class of 1975 (1947-2014)
Deborah Hiller, a past president of the Cleveland-Marshall Law Alumni Association, made a lasting impact on the aging services industry through her work as president and CEO of Eliza Jennings, a nonprofit organization providing a range of services to older adults.
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Aaron Jacobson
Class of 1959 (1922-2010)
Aaron Jacobson earned a purple heart for his service as an Army combat medic in World War II before pursuing a career in journalism, covering legal news. As a result, he developed an interest in law, joining Abe H. Dudnik's (1927) law firm soon after graduating from night school at Cleveland-Marshall.
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Professor Sidney B. Jacoby
(1908-1990)
Professor Sidney Jacoby joined the faculty of Cleveland-Marshall after teaching at Georgetown and Case Western Reserve Law Schools. Prior to teaching, he served as an attorney with the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board and with the U.S. Department of Interior in Washington, D.C.
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Clarence L. James, Jr.
Class of 1962 (1934-2012)
Clarence 'Buddy' James worked as an investigator for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court while attending Cleveland-Marshall's night program. He started his career at Legal Aid of Cleveland, first running its west side office before becoming chief of the civil division. In 1967, Mayor Carl Stokes asked him to become the city's law director.
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C. Lyonel Jones
Class of 1963 (1933-2006)
C. Lyonel Jones, the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, dedicated his life to assuring that no resident of the city would be denied the right to legal protection during his 39 years with the organization.
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Michael V. Kelley
Class of 1981 (1951-2006)
Michael Kelley, nicknamed "Cleveland's King of Torts" by Inside Business magazine, was a founding partner of the Cleveland-based firm Kelley & Ferraro, LLP, one of the largest plaintiffs' firms in the country. Specializing in civil cases involving asbestos and other workplace health hazards, he took many personal injury and wrongful death cases to verdict.
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Betty Klaric
Class of 1984 (1931-2011)
Betty Klaric was one of the first women to enter the predominantly all-male field of investigative environmental reporting. Later in her career, she reinvented herself as a lawyer working for the State Employment Relations Board and as a trial lawyer in the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of the Solicitor.
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Congressman Steven C. LaTourette
Class of 1979 (1954-2016)
Steve LaTourette began his career as a public defender before becoming Lake County Prosecutor. He then served as a U.S. Representative for Ohio's 19th (and then 14th) congressional district from 1995 to 2013.
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Judge John M. Manos
Class of 1950 (1922-2006)
John Manos spent several years in private practice before becoming law director for the city of Bay Village. He was a judge in the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court and then Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals from 1963-1976 before being appointed Federal Judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
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Class of 1954 (1924-2011)
Daniel 'Dan' McCarthy acquired the practice of William Minshall (1938) in 1959, which he grew into the firm of McCarthy, Lebit, Crystal & Haiman (now Liffman). He was also a certified public accountant and used his legal and financial skills in the desegregation of Cleveland schools as the first Special Master of School Desegregation in 1976.
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Judge Joseph F. McManamon
Class of 1950 (1919-2014)
Joseph 'Joe' McManamon worked in private practice with his wife, the Honorable Ann McManamon (1950), for almost 20 years before serving as the civilian head of the police and fire departments as Cleveland's safety director. He began his career on the bench in 1977, serving first on the Cleveland Municipal Court and then on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.
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Dr. Bernice G. Miller
Class of 1951 (1917-2015)
Bernice Miller was the first woman to be appointed to the Ohio Bar Association and the first woman to be elected to public office in Seven Hills. She was instrumental as the first female attorney to initiate spousal abuse laws in Ohio, practicing law out of her Seven Hills office into her mid-80s.
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Dean Howard L. Oleck
Howard Oleck served as a widely respected professor of law, assistant dean, and twice as interim dean at Cleveland-Marshall from 1956-1974. During his tenure, he was faculty advisor for the Cleveland-Marshall Law Review, chair of the ABA Legal Education Standards Committee, and president of the League of Ohio Law Schools.
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Reuben M. Payne
Class of 1953 (1922-2013)
Reuben 'Bear' Payne worked as a Cuyahoga County prosecutor from 1953-1959 and 1961-1969 and is best known for serving as lead prosecutor in the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case
Terry v. Ohio, the landmark Fourth Amendment case that established the "stop and frisk" doctrine.
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Judge Raymond L. Pianka
Class of 1977 (1951-2017)
Raymond Pianka was first elected to the Cleveland Housing Court in 1995. While on the bench, he implemented several innovative programs to achieve compliance with the city of Cleveland's building, housing, and health codes. Before serving as Housing Court judge, Pianka served for 10 years in Ward 17 on the Cleveland City Council.
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Class of 1957 (1932-2008)
Leon Plevin joined the Dudnik firm after graduating from Cleveland-Marshall, which was the predecessor of Nurenberg, Plevin (now Paris), Heller & McCarthy. In 2005, he joined with Frank L. Gallucci III (2000) to form the Plevin & Gallucci firm.
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Timothy J. Russert
Class of 1976 (1950-2008)
Timothy Russert was a television journalist who moderated NBC's Meet the Press for more than 16 years, the longest-running stint in the show's history. He was a senior vice president at NBC News, served as the Washington bureau chief, and hosted a CNBC/MSNBC weekend interview program.
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Edna C. Shalala
Class of 1952 (1911-2014)
Edna Shalala was the first woman of Syrian-Lebanese descent to practice law in Cleveland. When she graduated from Cleveland-Marshall in 1952, downtown law firms were not hiring women at the time, so she established a small but successful probate practice on Cleveland's west side.
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Associate Dean Carroll H. Sierk
Carroll Sierk was a faculty member-and briefly Acting Dean-at St. Mary's and taught at Mercer College of Law before joining the faculty of Cleveland-Marshall Law School in 1968.
Specializing in tax law, he was appointed assistant dean in 1972 and associate dean in 1988, holding the latter position until his retirement in 1996.
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Class of 1934 (1901-1979)
Wilson Stapleton joined the law school faculty shortly after his graduation from Cleveland Law School. Appointed dean of the newly merged Cleveland-Marshall Law School in 1946, he proved an exceptional administrator: increasing the school's financial resources, enlarging its faculty, and expanding its library.
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Class of 1956 (1927-1996)
Carl Stokes was the first African-American member of the Democratic Party elected to the Ohio House. In 1967, Stokes was elected Mayor of Cleveland, the first African-American Mayor of a major U.S. city. He was reelected in 1969. Stokes later became the first African-American television news anchor in New York City.
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Class of 1953 (1925-2015)
Louis Stokes began practicing law in Cleveland in 1953 and argued the "stop and frisk" case of
Terry v. Ohio before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968. He was the first African-American in Ohio elected to the U.S. House, where he served 15 terms. Stokes retired as senior counsel from Squire, Sanders & Dempsey (now Squire Patton Boggs) in 2012.
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Class of 1981 (1929-1988)
Mary Strassmeyer was an award-winning journalist before pursuing her law degree and entering private practice. She wrote an internationally-syndicated cartoon before finding fame with her coverage of Cleveland's high society in her
Plain Dealer column 'Today,' later called 'Mary, Mary.'
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Justice Francis E. Sweeney, Sr.
Class of 1963 (1934-2011)
Francis Sweeney was a judge on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. He moved to the Eighth Appellate District Court of Appeals where he served until 1992. He was then appointed to the Supreme Court of Ohio, where he remained until his retirement in 2004.
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Class of 1953 (1926-2011)
Stanley Tolliver was involved in numerous significant social reform campaigns. Locally, he accused police and prosecutors of misconduct while representing the Glenville riot defendants, college students involved in the fatal 1970 Kent State demonstration, and the organizers of a McDonald's boycott protesting the absence of black franchise owners.
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Class of 1955 (1911-2011)
George White was the first African-American appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. In 1995, he was named the District Court's Chief Judge, making him the district's first African-American Chief Judge. White previously served as a judge on the Court of Common Pleas.
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Class of 1953 (1927-2004)
Bertram Wolstein was a real estate developer, sports team owner and philanthropist who supported numerous charities and nonprofit organizations throughout greater Cleveland over the course of his life. He founded Heritage Development Company and Developers Diversified Realty Corporation, the latter of which became one of the largest developers of shopping centers in the United States.
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If you have news or a story you'd like included in this newsletter, please send an email to
Lee Fisher, C|M|LAW Interim Dean and Visiting Professor of Law
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