Alumni Awards Recognize Exceptional Ohio State Law Grads
Moritz College of Law recently celebrated several outstanding individuals at the 2024 Alumni Awards. Each year, these awards recognize alumni selected from a deep and exceptionally well-qualified pool of nominees.
This year’s awards and winners included:
Outstanding Recent Alumni Award: Cheyenne N. Chambers ‘14
This award recognizes a recent graduate whose accomplishments exemplify outstanding professionalism or loyalty to the College community.
Cheyenne N. Chambers graduated cum laude in 2014. At Moritz, she served as parliamentarian of the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and executive editor of the Ohio State Law Journal. Months after her graduation, Chambers founded a scholarship for first-year BLSA students at Moritz.
Chambers is a former law clerk to the Honorable Paul J. Watford of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and a former partner at a civil rights law firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Currently, she is a senior trial attorney within the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
Inclusive Excellence Award: Nimesh Patel ‘95
This award honors a graduate or friend of the College who has advocated on behalf of marginalized communities, furthered the goals of diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice, or as an alum of a diverse population, has trailblazed a path for those diverse professionals who will follow by making a difference through their legal education.
Nimesh Patel is the chief diversity, equity & inclusion officer for Akin, a global AmLaw 50 law firm. Patel works closely with the firm’s chairperson and Management Committee and is responsible for leading the firm’s global DEI strategy, including efforts related to recruiting, professional development, advancement, and strategic partnerships. He has more than 20 years of experience advancing DEI issues in both the private sector and the federal government. During the Obama Administration, Patel served as the first chief DEI officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with 230,000 employees worldwide. His experience also includes being an associate in the employment practice of two global law firms, with a specialty in corporate diversity counseling. He started his career as an Honor’s Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, including serving as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section.
Patel’s leadership experiences include currently serving as the president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) Law Foundation, as well as former president of NAPABA, former board member of Asian Americans Advancing Justice: AAJC, and former vice chair of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.
George V. Voinovich Humanitarian Award: Marty Glick ‘64
This award is presented to alumni who, like Senator Voinovich, has devoted significant time and energy to causes and projects that benefit the greater community and the welfare of humanity.
After graduation from Ohio State, Marty Glick joined the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department working in Mississippi and Louisiana on voting rights cases (including defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act) and as a team member in the prosecution of the killers of the three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964. He joined California Rural Legal Assistance in Salinas in 1966 and later was its executive director in San Francisco from 1972-1974. Included in his work with CRLA is the celebrated class action Diana v. State Board of Education, which resulted in removal of an estimated 15,000 farmworker children from classes for the “mentally retarded” to which they had been assigned based on culturally biased, English-only IQ tests. That and other prominent CRLA cases are recounted in the book he co-authored, The Soledad Children. In Glick’s forty-plus years with the Howard, Rice and Arnold & Porter firms, he led many pro bono and public interest cases. He is now the longest serving member of the board and a pro bono litigator with Public Advocates. Glick was an associate professor of law at Stanford University from 1974-75, and director of the California Employment Development Department from 1975-79. In 2014, he received the prestigious annual American Bar Association Litigation Section John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award, given for career pro bono and public service achievements.
William K. Thomas Distinguished Jurist Award: Elizabeth Merrill Welch ‘95
This award is presented to a current or former judge whose personal integrity and commitment to fairness, freedom, and equality exemplify the highest ideals of the judicial system.
Justice Elizabeth M. Welch joined the Michigan Supreme Court on January 1, 2021. She currently serves as the Justice liaison to data gathering and transparency work and the Michigan Judicial Institute. She is a co-chair of the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Commission, co-chairs the Justice for All Commission’s Data Workgroup, and serves on the Justice for All Commission’s Resource and Communications Workgroups.
Justice Welch has a long history of serving professional and nonprofit boards. She currently is vice president of the Steelcase Foundation, a trustee of the Grand Valley University Foundation, and an active member of the National Association of Women Judges. Prior to her joining the Court, Justice Welch was a trustee on her local school board and worked for more than 15 years on public education and voting rights policy.
Justice Welch has received several awards in recognition for her public school and other community work. She and her husband Brian Schwartz live in Grand Rapids and have four adult children.
Distinguished Alumni Award: Linda J. Fisher ‘82
This award recognizes alumni for their exceptional achievement or outstanding service to the College or community.
After graduating from the Moritz College of Law, Fisher pursued a career in environmental law at the United States Environmental Protection Agency where she ultimately served in several key leadership positions, including deputy administrator and assistant administrator of the Office of Pesticides and Toxics Substances. She was vice president of government affairs at Monsanto “of counsel” with the law firm Latham & Watkins. Later, Fisher became chief sustainability officer and vice president of safety, health and environment at DuPont. While at DuPont, the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future awarded Linda with the Businesswomen’s Sustainability Leadership Award.
In addition to her professional accomplishments, Fisher has served on the board of several corporations and environmental and educational organizations.