For Immediate Release
October 20, 2004

Contact:
Elissa Free, (202) 662-9500

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Georgetown University Law Center has honored three distinguished alumni with its annual Paul R. Dean Award. The award, which is named for former Law Center dean Paul R. Dean, is given to outstanding alumni who have exhibited leadership to Georgetown Law and the legal profession.

This year’s recipients:

Peter M. Kirby, L’79

Until his retirement this summer, Kirby was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Winston & Straw, where he represented corporate clients on a wide range of matters. During the course of 25 years of practice, he has represented electric utilities, energy companies, major domestic and international airlines, international pharmaceutical companies, and food and beverage companies.

Throughout his career, Kirby has been particularly active in the energy policy arena and has addressed both U.S. and international groups regarding energy policy trends, as well as electric utility industry restructuring. He recently formed Palisade Holdings, a company that manages a variety of business activities, including real estate investments and various energy projects.

Kirby is a generous philanthropist and an active Georgetown alumnus. He is a member of the Blue and Gray Society and the Hogan Society. He and his brother John have also established the John J. Kirby Scholarship Fund at the Law Center in memory of their father, a 1936 Georgetown Law graduate and close friend of Paul Dean. Kirby’s former leadership roles include serving as an Alumni Senator, a member of the Board of Governor’s Executive Committee, and Chair of the National Law Alumni Board. Kirby lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Carol.

Laura Rothstein, L’74

Following two years of service with the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Ohio Attorney General’s Antitrust Section, Roth stein entered academia in 1976.  Since then, she has served as a faculty member at four law schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Texas before becoming dean of the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in 2000.   

Rothstein has written, lectured, and taught on disability law for more than 20 years.  Much of her work focuses on disability policy related to higher education and professional licensing, including medical licensing, with particular emphasis on issues relating to learning disabilities and mental impairments.  She has also authored casebooks and a treatise on disability law.  Her service work within legal education focuses on issues of ethnic and gender diversity, as well as on disability issues.

Rothstein has lent her support to Georgetown Law in a variety of ways. She is an active member of the Women’s Leadership Committee. In 2001, she participated in the Women’s Forum 50th Anniversary Celebration of Women at the Law Center, during which she and her daughter Julia Rothstein (L’02) served on a mother/daughter panel. Rothstein is also a founding contributor to the Dean’s Scholarship in honor of Judith Areen’s service to the Law Center. She lives in Louisville, Ky. with her husband, Professor Mark Rothstein, a 1973 graduate of Georgetown Law.

Robert F. Ruyak, L’74

Robert F. Ruyak, a partner at Howrey Simon Arnold & White, LLP since 1981, was appointed managing partner and CEO of the firm in January 2000. He also serves as chairman of the firm’s executive committee. With a national reputation, Ruyak is one of the firm’s most experienced and respected jury trial lawyers. He has tried cases covering a wide range of legal and substantive areas, principally antitrust (both civil and criminal), intellectual property (including patent, trademark and trade secret), insurance coverage, international trade, and a variety of commercial disputes.

Ruyak is also a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars addressing the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights,jury trial strategy and tactics, and the use of technology in litigation. He has been a member of the Archdiocesan pro bono Legal Network Board since 1993 and is the recipient of the first James Cardinal Hickey Award for his work with that board.

In addition to his membership on the Georgetown University Law Center Board of Visitors, Ruyak has generously contributed to the Sherman Cohn Endowed Scholarship Fund. He clerked for the Hon. John J. Sirica, former judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, from 1974 to 1976. Ruyak lives in Silver Spring, Md. with his wife Elizabeth Ruyak (G’79).

About Georgetown Law

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world’s leading law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body.