Washington University in St. Louis School of Law celebrated the outstanding achievements of six individuals at the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner April 9 in the Crowder Courtyard of Anheuser-Busch Hall.
Kent Syverud, JD, dean and the Ethan A.H. Shepley University Professor, presented the awards.
Four alumni received Distinguished Law Alumni Awards, and two received Distinguished Young Law Alumni Awards.
Distinguished Law Alumni
Dale L. Cammon (JD ’75) is chairman and co-chief executive officer of Bryant Group Inc., an independent firm in St. Louis that specializes in executive benefits and wealth transfer planning.
Cammon’s professional affiliations include the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, National Association of Life Underwriters, Million Dollar Round Table and the Missouri Bar Association.
Civic activities include 25 years as a board member of St. Louis Children’s Hospital (SLCH) and nine years as chairman of the SLCH Foundation Board. Cammon also is 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.
Frank N. Gundlach (JD ’63) is senior counsel at Armstrong Teasdale LLP. He began his legal career in the U.S. Department of Justice as a trial attorney in the Tax Division trying cases around the country. For two weeks in the summer of 1964, Gundlach was assigned to the Civil Rights Division, investigating alleged violations in Mississippi of recently enacted legislation.
In 1966, Gundlach joined Armstrong Teasdale. He has spent his legal career as a trial lawyer and, at an early age, was elected to the American Academy of Trial Lawyers. Gundlach has tried to completion more than 100 cases and argued numerous appeals involving high-profile clients covering a broad field of subjects.
He is a trustee of the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society and the American College of Trial Lawyers Foundation, where he serves as secretary.
Jerry M. Hunter (JD ’77) is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP. Prior to joining Bryan Cave, he served as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board from 1989-1993, after being nominated for the position by then-President George H.W. Bush.
In 1994, Hunter was elected to the board of directors of Kellwood Co., a St. Louis-based Fortune 500 corporation. The next year, he was appointed by Congressional leadership to serve a four-year term as a member of the board of directors of the Office of Compliance.
Hunter previously was the director of the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. He has served on the board of directors of the American Arbitration Association and is a member of the national board of directors of the Boys Hope Girls Hope and a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers Inc.
Sheldon M. Novick (JD ’77) is an accomplished educator, author and scholar. After graduating from the law school and practicing law in New York City, Novick served as regional counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Philadelphia.
In 1987, Novick began his long association with the Vermont Law School. He has taught constitutional law, environmental law and legal history. With two colleagues, Novick founded the Community Development Law Center, which provides assistance to small not-for-profit and locally owned companies.
Novick’s publications include The Careless Atom (1969), the first account of the hazards of civilian nuclear power that has been published in numerous editions and in four languages. His Law of Environmental Protection (1987) received the American Book Publishers 1987 award for the best book on a legal subject. His Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1989) was short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award and received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award in 1989. He is at work on a study of James Madison’s constitutionalism.
Distinguished Young Law Alumni
Monica J. Allen (AB ’80, MA ’85, JD ’92) is associate vice chancellor, deputy general counsel and chief litigation counsel for Washington University. Before joining the university’s Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and General Counsel, 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.
Allen also served as adjunct professor at the School of Law, where she taught “Pretrial Practice and Procedure” and “Comparative Professional Ethics: Law and Medicine.”
As deputy general counsel at WUSTL, Allen advises university leadership on myriad laws and regulations governing higher education. Her practice areas also include fair employment, commercial transactions, student affairs and campus security. 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.
Robert L. Newmark (JD ’94) is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP. When Newmark graduated from the 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).
After graduation, Newmark practiced 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.
Newmark chairs the Recruiting Committee for the St. Louis office of Bryan Cave. He has served as an adjunct professor at the School of Law for more than 10 years.
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 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.