Fabbri to Prosecute Entwistle

The high-profile prosecution of Neil Entwistle, a Hopkinton, Mass., resident charged in the killings of his wife and baby, is being handled by Michael Fabbri ’83, chief of the Framingham Regional Superior Court Trial Team for the Middlesex District Attorney’s office. Fabbri has tried homicides, violent felonies and drug cases during a more than 20-year career in Massachusetts. According to a profile in The Boston Globe, he is known as fair, reasonable and calm under pressure.

PHOTO: ALLAN JUNG/AP

Leifer Triumphs in Lead Paint Case

The remedy in most litigation involves money damages for injuries that have occurred — in the case of disease, compensating rather than preventing it. Neil Leifer ’81 and a legal team including his colleagues at Boston-based Thornton & Naumes and the Rhode Island attorney general, have turned that model upside down. In Rhode Island v. Lead Industries Association, the plaintiffs alleged the presence of lead throughout the state resulted in a public nuisance — directly harming or threatening to harm tens of thousands of children, hundreds of thousands of housing units with lead paint, and ultimately every Rhode Island citizen. The jury agreed, finding three companies liable for creating a public nuisance by manufacturing, distributing and marketing lead-based paint products. “What makes the Rhode Island verdict exceptional is that the abatement remedy would eliminate lead-based paint, a known risk to health, and thereby prevent disease. We have shifted the ‘risk of harm’ from the public to the producer,” said Leifer, who specializes in complex toxic product litigation. The court is considering how to implement the verdict — evidence at trial indicated as many as 250,000 units built before 1978, when lead paint was banned, would require abatement. The average cost is $10,000 per unit.

Orner Publishes First Novel

Peter Orner ’96, an award-winning author, has published his first novel. Inspired by his own experience in Namibia as a volunteer teacher, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (Little, Brown and Company, 2006) follows Larry Kaplanski, a displaced Cincinnatian who’s gone to Africa to teach English. The long days, dry heat and cold nights create a surprisingly fertile environment for the imaginations of its inhabitants. The monotony is broken by the return of Mavala Shikongo, a combat veteran from Namibia’s war for independence. She’s returned to the school with a son and no husband. She is young, modern, mysterious and the only single woman at the school. All of the men immediately fall in love with her. Orner’s short story collection, Esther Stories, received the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Goldberg Prize from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. It was also a New York Times Notable Book, a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award finalist, and a Book Sense Pick.

PHOTO: KRISTIN HEPBURN

Summer 2006 | Class Notes

1979

Joseph F. Frankl was appointed assistant general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) Division of Operations-Management in October 2005. He is responsible for supervising eight regional offices, with jurisdiction over 11 southwestern and western states and Puerto Rico.

1983

Renardo “Rick” L. Hicks joined the law firm of Stevens & Lee in Harrisburg, Pa. He is the former managing partner of Anderson, Gulotta & Hicks, also in Harrisburg. He represents and counsels telecommunications, water, gas and electric utilities and other companies in matters before governmental and regulatory agencies and state and federal courts. He also works on legislative matters, vendor and supplier diversity issues and minority and women-owned business certification.

1984

Wanda J. Cochran, who worked for 15 years as an assistant city attorney in Mobile, Ala., and continues to serve as general counsel for Mobile’s police and firefighter retirement plan, was hired in March by the Orange Beach City Council, on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, to serve as interim city attorney. She took over after the most recent city attorney was charged with bribery and ethics violations.

1985

Marielena Fina received an LLM in dispute resolution from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She is a member of the District of Columbia and Florida bars.

1990

Charles F. Thorne III and Susanna Walsh are happy to announce their marriage on September 23, 2005, in North Woolwich Methodist Church, Woolwich, Maine. They currently reside in Woolwich, but are in the process of moving to Monticello, in northern Maine.

1991

Kristin G. McGurn has been named a partner in the Boston law firm of Seyfarth Shaw. She handles commercial litigation, with emphasis on securities and employment.