Summer 2006 | Class Notes Profiles

Stand-Up Lawyer Heads WBA/WBF
Elisabeth “Lissy” Medvedow ’85

Elisabeth “Lissy” Medvedow ’85 never thought scouting for “talent” would be part of her job description. But that’s exactly what Medvedow, executive director of the Women’s Bar Association (WBA) and Women’s Bar Foundation (WBF) of Massachusetts, found herself doing this spring in organizing “Lawyers Stand Up for the WBF.” The comedy night served as a fundraiser for the WBF’s pro bono work, including the Family Law Project for Battered Women, the Elder Services Law Project and the Framingham Project for Incarcerated Women.

The variety, however, is actually one of the elements that attracted Medvedow to become the WBA/WBF’s first combined executive director in 2003. Though separate organizations, the two have complementary missions: the WBA is a member-service organization providing resources and programming, and the WBF offers desperately needed pro bono services to some of society’s most disenfranchised members.

Looking back over the WBA/WBF’s three-year track record, Medvedow is pleased with progress: membership is up by 33 percent, budget by 20 percent and staff by 150 percent.

“Wherever I go now, people recognize the WBA,” she says proudly. The association sports 22 committees, addressing niche needs from legislative policy to senior partners to new mothers. Medvedow is proud of the organization’s accomplishments: the foundation’s pro bono work and the association’s regional committees from Western Massachusetts to the North Shore.

But she isn’t resting on her triumphs, box office or otherwise. “We still have a ways to go. Women haven’t gained parity in the legal community,” in terms of senior partnerships and judgeships, she points out. “But there’s strength in numbers.” Medvedow’s mission? Increase those numbers by putting more women at center stage.” — Maura King Scully

PHOTO: MICHAEL MANNING

Meeting his Match
Christopher Gassett ’93

Christopher Gassett ’93 thought he had found the one last year when he was named senior vice president and general counsel of Match.com, the online dating service. Sure, his six-year stint as assistant general counsel of The Timberland Company made him feel like the shoe fit. And, when he moved on to serve as vice president and assistant general counsel of the Home Shopping Network, he rejoiced at the thought of no longer bargaining for his needs. But, at Match.com, something just clicked.

Match.com is the world’s first and largest online dating service, boasting more than 15 million registered users and operating 31 Web sites in 18 languages. One of Gassett’s main responsibilities was strengthening the company’s position overseas, which included researching the competitive world of online dating and significant international travel. He even negotiated a contract with Dr. Phil, the ubiquitous pop psychologist, to provide online relationship advice to Match.com’s subscribers.

Did Gassett, who is single, sign on?

“I tried, but I got too busy working,” he laments.

This spring, just when Gassett had settled comfortably into his Dallas office, a new proposal came his way. He was promoted to senior privacy and consumer compliance counsel for InterActiveCorp (IAC), the parent company of Match.com, the Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster, LendingTree and a number of other companies that add up to $14 billion in assets.

Does he miss the puns about working for the Home Shopping Network or Match.com?

“Television retailing is the stuff parodies are made of, but at the end of the day HSN alone is a $3 billion retailer,” notes Gassett. As for Match.com, “it was easy to talk to people about what you do when they recognize where you work.”

And, now?

“I’m policing all of our own companies,” says Gassett, who is responsible for all of IAC’s legal issues relating to privacy and data protection, including ensuring subsidiaries comply with the federal CAN-SPAM Act and do-not-call legislation. “This is an ever-developing area. I’m learning so much.”

PHOTO: KAREN CAMPBELL

He Frets All the Time
J. Rusty Shaffer ’03

Neal Schon of the rock band Journey uses one. So does Gerry Beckley of America. And it was instrumental in Santana’s new sound on the Grammy-winning “Supernatural” album. “It” is Fretlight, a guitar that’s revolutionizing the industry.

Fretlight is the brainchild of J. Rusty Shaffer ’03, a self-taught guitarist who’s also a mechanical engineer. Just out of college, Shaffer wanted to improve his playing skills, but was frustrated by the clunky back-and-forth between how-to books and the instrument. “Why doesn’t someone just put this on the neck of the guitar?” Shaffer remembers thinking.

That was the “ah-ha” moment that ultimately gave birth to Fretlight, a guitar with LED lights embedded in the fretboard, able to illuminate proper finger placement for chords, scales and songs. Connected via USB to a standard PC, the interactive system also allows guitarists of all levels to learn and play a variety of styles, from blues to rock, and country to heavy metal.

Shaffer developed Fretlight in the early ’90s — pre-Internet and pre-Windows. “It was ahead of its time,” he notes. By 1998, with modest sales, Shaffer and his partners decided to table the product “to see if the world would catch up.” And it did: letters began pouring in from disappointed users, looking for an updated Fretlight; simultaneously, USB appeared on the technology scene, making a plug-and-play system possible.

In 2006, Fretlight is going gangbusters. Headquartered in New Hampshire, the company just inked a deal to enter European, Canadian and Asian markets by partnering with a Chinese instrument maker. Now, Shaffer is dreaming big: “My vision is that Fretlight will become to guitars what Dolby is to stereo.” — Maura King Scully

PHOTO: JON CHOMITZ

What Mandatory Retirement?
Sidney Cooley ’41

He may have reached the mandatory retirement age for Massachusetts judges more than 20 years ago, but Sidney Cooley ’41 shows no interest in slowing down. Instead, the former presiding judge of the district court in Westfield, Mass., still goes to work every day at Cooley Shrair, the law firm he founded in 1946 with his brother, Edward. “I’m interested in the young lawyers,” Cooley says. “Of course, they’re all young to me! I enjoy talking to them, helping them on cases. They treat me like I’m made of glass, but I like the activity, the general buzz of being in the office.”

As a Northeastern law student in the early 1930s, Cooley frequently created his own buzz by attending night classes, which were held at a Springfield YMCA, in a tuxedo. “Back then, everyone had jobs and families and none of us could have gone into Boston,” he recalls. “I was a pianist in an orchestra and at 9 [p.m.], I’d go off and play some kind of affair in a bar or a nightclub. I always thought my tuxedo added a little panache to the surroundings.”

Cooley went on to enjoy a distinguished, decades-long career on the bench. Although he doesn’t go to court anymore because of difficulty climbing the steps (“When you’re 92 years old,” he says, “there are some things that simply come with the turf”), Cooley remains a keen observer of the legal scene. An advocate for programs like Scared Straight during his time on the bench, he’s critical of today’s mandatory sentencing which, he says, limits a judge’s ability to use discretion and make decisions that can set someone’s life on a new path.

Cooley, who continues to play piano at local nursing homes, casts an equally critical eye on mandatory retirement. “Doctors, lawyers, judges ... you reach a certain age and it’s ‘goodbye,’ but boy, there are plenty of us out there who still have a lot on the ball.” — Sarah O’Brien Mackey

PHOTO: RICHARD A. NOVAK