David Breach, ’94, and his wife, Emily, established the David A. and Emily A. Breach Law School Scholarship Fund, a need-based scholarship will give preference to students who are from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background or who already have loans—criteria that resonate with Breach, who came to Michigan Law as a transfer student. He talked with the Law Quadrangle about the impact of his Michigan Law degree and the importance of giving back.

Legacy gifts from generous alumni and friends provide the support needed to sustain the Law School’s long-term commitment to excellence.

Most students make sacrifices to attend Michigan Law, but the biggest price Myint Zan paid came after graduation. Zan grew up in Mandalay, Burma, and during his LLM studies in Ann Arbor, the Burmese government invalidated his passport because he had not received the proper permissions to study in the United States. 

“I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I think about it a lot now,” says Jan Kang, ’87. “I could not have taken a second, extremely demanding job in my 40s, and the fact that he was willing to do that to pay for my tuition is amazing. I was very lucky that my parents supported me, so I’m doing my part now by helping those students who need similar support.”

“Michigan Law is very special to me. I have often thought about what my life would have been if not for Dean Proffitt—it could have taken a very different turn. I am indebted to the Law School and do my best to give back, which is one of the reasons why Janet and I established this scholarship. “

Professor Emeritus Douglas Kahn considers Michigan Law to be one of the most important, defining aspects of his life, which is why he documented a bequest to the Douglas A. Kahn Scholarship Fun

A few years out of law school and itching for a new adventure, Hessel Yntema IV, ’13, was working as an assistant city attorney in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in April 2017 when an unusual job advertisement caught his eye. “I thought, ‘I could be an assistant attorney general on Saipan. That sounds like fun,’” Yntema says.

For most of her law career, Neeru Chadha, LLM ’85, served as a legal adviser in relative anonymity in the Ministry of External Affairs in her native India. But in June 2017, Chadha became the first Indian woman elected to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea—the Hamburg-based UN judicial body that was established in 1994 to settle maritime disputes worldwide. She was anonymous no more.

As Hurricane Sandy bore down on the East Coast of the United States in 2012, Damon Vocke, ’89, stepped into his Connecticut yard with his two dogs, Winston and Diva. For Winston, it was business as usual—he seemed oblivious to the approaching storm. But Diva knew something was wrong. She was scared and wanted back into the house, where she then went to hide.

The saying goes, “the writing is on the wall.” But one day in the late 1980s, in a conference room in Colorado’s state capitol building, it was on the chalkboard. The governor closed the doors and announced that no one would be leaving. One by one, he called the municipal representatives to the chalkboard and asked each to write their projection of their city’s future water needs.