Professor Emeritus Luke K. Cooperrider, ’48, died December 25, 2013, at the age of 95. He was born in rural Ohio and earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard before serving in the Signal Corps during World War II. Cooperrider met his wife, Ginny, who preceded him in death in 2007, when he was stationed in Hawaii.
The Law School lost its oldest African American alumnus on February 4, 2014, when the Hon. William McClain, ’37, HLLD ’02, died in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was 101.
Joseph Sax, a pioneer of environmental law, died March 9, 2014, at the age of 78. He was a professor of law at Michigan from 1966 to 1986. Although he later joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, he said of Michigan, “It is the place where I grew and prospered professionally, and it shall always be my intellectual home.”
“Michigan has given me incredible professional opportunities and keeps me connected to my family and classmates,” says Nicole Allen, ’08, an associate at Jenner & Block in Chicago. “Since Michigan attracts smart, well-rounded people doing different, interesting things, it’s a powerful network.”
Bill Goodspeed, ’83, built his career on the belief that you can do business and do good. He’s eager to help Michigan Law students understand the same. Goodspeed recently documented a $250,000 bequest to the Law School—$125,000 for clinics that serve indigent populations and $125,000 for the Zell Entrepreneurship and Law (ZEAL) Program.
Michael Levitt, ’83, has been successful in finance largely because he follows a simple adage: Invest in what you know. The advice also guides him as a volunteer for and donor to the University of Michigan. Levitt serves on the University’s Investment Advisory Committee and is the alumni trustee for the Law School’s Cook Trust.
For some, law school can represent turmoil and uncertainty. For David Patterson, ’74, all of that was behind him by the time he finally set foot in the Quad. Patterson earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1968; the very next day, he had to report for his draft physical back home in Ohio.
As the director of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC), Professor Nicole Appleberry, ’94, sees firsthand how tax issues affect domestic violence survivors. “Domestic violence is about power and control,” Appleberry says, “and when a woman leaves a domestic violence relationship, she is particularly vulnerable, especially from a financial standpoint.”
The Law School exhibit commemorating the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—and challenging its myths—may have come and gone, but the conversation it inspired is continuing with the publication of the project’s scholarly contributions in The Journal of the Civil War Era, Vol. 3, No. 4.
This year, the Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) Section on Women in Legal Education recognized Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon with the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award. MacKinnon, the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at U-M and the long-term James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard, is only the second woman to receive the honor, after Supreme Court Associate Justice Ginsburg herself.
