About Adrienne Schofhauser
Articles written by Adrienne Schofhauser
Where There’s a Will
Columbia student Andrea Johnson led a Care-A-Van to Native American tribal landsSpring Break: rural Wisconsin! It was a novel idea, Andrea Johnson knew: persuading fellow Columbia law students to spend their 2011 holiday on Wisconsin’s tribal lands assisting the population with legal issues. The experience, she wagered, would have a profound impact on both the Native Americans in need and the East Coast law students. “I’d researched it and realized how underserved the population is by the legal community,” says Johnson, who graduated this May. “I wanted to get …
Creative Outlet
Parna Mehrbani enjoys the free flow of ideas in intellectual property lawParna Mehrbani has always had a creative bent. Growing up, she played the piano. In college, she took to writing poetry and prose. Now she loves arts and crafts … and practicing intellectual property law. “I get this sort of fundamental pressure between protecting creative rights and allowing for the free flow of creative ideas,” she says. “That fundamental push and pull of IP law. I think it comes from having an appreciation of the creative process. I think it partially comes from …
Love and Bankruptcy
David Stern and Robert Pfister help same-sex couples with that ‘richer or poorer’ vowThe day after the Justice Department announced in early 2011 that it would no longer defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court because the Obama administration considered it discriminatory, Gene Balas and Carlos Morales, a longtime Los Angeles couple, celebrated the traditional way: They submitted a petition for joint bankruptcy filing. “Their financial problems were no different than anybody else’s,” says David Stern, a bankruptcy and civil litigator at Klee, Tuchin, …
Legal Fireworks
Robert M. Howard’s battle to continue a Fourth of July traditionEvery Fourth of July when Robert Howard was young, his parents took him to nearby Boston Harbor, set him atop their station wagon, and together they watched the spectacle of bombs bursting in air above the dark waters. Now an environmental lawyer at Latham & Watkins, Howard is fighting to protect that tradition. In 2010, when the La Jolla Community Fireworks Foundation was sued over environmental issues by the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation (CERF), Howard, a La Jolla resident, …
My Lawyer, the Rocket Scientist
How Neil Armstrong drove Michael Corso from aeronautics to the lawWhen Michael J. Corso answered the phone at his Fort Meyers office last year and the caller inquired: “Michael Corso, Purdue Class of ’71?” the attorney assumed he was being solicited for donations to the school. But the reserved voice went on: “This is Neil Armstrong, Purdue Class of ’55.” Corso couldn’t answer for a few seconds. The Neil Armstrong? “I’m thinking, well, surely this guy’s not calling for a donation,” Corso says. Armstrong, in his 80s, was calling to …
The Winner’s Circle
When the choice is win, place or show, Christina Vassiliou Harvey opts for win-winChristina Vassiliou Harvey learned two things while working for the Navy. First: how to handle the tactical art of negotiation. Second: Lawyers have all the fun. Fresh out of college, Harvey took a civilian job with the Navy’s federal acquisitions team in Philadelphia. As a contract specialist, she purchased items needed for multiple types of aircraft. “I like to say I bought the jets,” she says with a laugh. Actually, her biggest acquisition was ice probes for helicopters. “If you’re …
New Sheriff in Town
Patricia G. Griffith, a Lady Bulldog at UGA, is also a bulldog in courtThe settlement offer on the table was seven figures, but the plaintiffs—three women bringing claims of sexual harassment against their employer, an Ohio car dealership—turned it down. The case was headed to trial. “I was asked six weeks before trial to come in,” says Patricia G. Griffith, an employment partner at Ford & Harrison in Atlanta, who is known across the country as a crisis preventer for companies facing situations that threaten the health of their businesses. The …
Success By Design
The 3-dimensional career of intellectual property attorney Christopher CaraniOn a bookshelf in Christopher V. Carani’s office sits a glass case containing a pair of century-old spoons, one silver-plated and one sterling silver, gifts from a past president of the Industrial Designers Society of America. They’re from the same batch as the exhibits in an 1871 U.S. Supreme Court case, Gorham Mfg. Co. v. White, which was, Carani says, “the only time the high court has ever spoken on the test for design patent infringement.” That ruling put into place a test that …
Mentors
Andrew Zashin: Reminiscing About Robert ZashinIn 1981, family law attorney Robert Zashin co-founded Zashin & Rich, which now has 21 lawyers in Cleveland and Columbus. He passed away in 2010 at age 70, and sons Andrew and Stephen assumed leadership. Andrew heads the domestic relations division. My dad had a certain magic. He was friendly, he was boisterous, he was loud. He was larger than life, but he wasn’t put-on at all. Growing up, I have a very clear memory of [going] to court with him. I don’t remember the case, but he walked …
Mentors
Lisa Orlando Pays Tribute to Suellen OswaldLisa Orlando and Suellen Oswald practice employment defense at Littler Mendelson in Cleveland and have tackled cases together for nearly a decade. They achieved a 2010 defense verdict for the Cleveland Orchestra in a suit by a newspaper music critic. [The critic] had been covering the orchestra for years, and at a point, his editor decided it was time for a change, so she moved him to another position. His claim … against our clients—individual officials and the governing body of the …
Find top lawyers with confidence
The Super Lawyers patented selection process is peer influenced and research driven, selecting the top 5% of attorneys to the Super Lawyers lists each year. We know lawyers and make it easy to connect with them.
Find a lawyer near you