Leadership in Law

Associate Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP James R. Strickland put in five years as a high school humanities teacher before deciding to take up a career in law. “The law was always on my radar,” Strickland said. “As a teacher, I was constantly telling my students to chase their dreams, so I figured it […]

Senior Associate Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP Kristine Gordon was recruited by Taft during her second year of law school and joined the firm as a summer associate in 2017. “I came back as a new graduate in September of 2018 and never looked back,” Gordon said. Her primary focus areas are municipal law and […]

Partner Krieg DeVault LLP Nicole Finelli started her career not as an attorney but as an economic and financial consultant at Arthur Andersen and later KPMG. “My group was hired to value intangible assets for litigation purposes, and I found myself more interested in the legal side than the numbers,” Finelli said. “I decided to […]

Principal Attorney The Bopp Law Firm PC Throughout his decades of service, James Bopp Jr. hasn’t strayed far from his Indiana roots. After starting his legal career as an Indiana deputy attorney general, he formed his own law firm in 1975, which he eventually planted in Terre Haute, his hometown. He’s practiced there ever since. […]

Legal Director American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana Joining the legal profession is something of a tradition in Kenneth Falk’s family. His grandfather, who was born in Europe, became a lawyer in New York City. His father was a patent attorney who for a time served on his local American Civil Liberties Union screening committee. […]

Assistant Division Chief, Family Preservation Division Marion County Public Defender Agency Kristina Frey walked away from a lucrative career marketing medical devices to pursue one of the more thankless and emotionally draining legal practices — child welfare. But she’s excelled at it, becoming one of only two attorneys in the state to earn the child […]

Executive Director Indiana Legislative Services Agency George Angelone has headed the Indiana Legislative Services Agency, a nonpartisan organization within the legislative branch of state government, for 14 years. But he’s been with the agency for a total of 48 — in pretty much every capacity it has to offer. Recruited out of a combined law […]

Partner Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP Trevor Belden has spent his entire legal career at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, having joined in 1999 as a summer associate, when the firm was still Baker & Daniels. He returned after graduating from law school in 2000 and has remained there since. “I’ve been fortunate to […]

Paralegal Plews Shadley Racher & Braun LLP Amber May sees her job as exacting and meticulous but not at all boring. “The work we do is much more interesting than many people realize,” May said. “We work as part of a team toward a common goal and help achieve the best possible results for our […]

Partner Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP Jayna Cacioppo began her career not in law but in retail. “After college I moved to San Francisco to work for Gap Inc. in the corporate office,” Cacioppo recalled. “I loved my four years in corporate retail, but I knew I would regret not going to law school.” She […]

Indiana Securities Commissioner Indiana Securities Division, Secretary of State’s Office Law is a second career for Marie Castetter, who worked full time as a human resources manager while attending the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law’s evening program. In 2003, she took an internship at the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office and “fell in […]

Partner Dentons After getting his undergraduate degree in accounting, Greg J. Duncan tried to land a job with one of the big accounting firms that were focused on tax work but received no offers. A friend planned to take LSAT prep for law school, and Duncan thought it sounded interesting and decided to do the […]

General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer STAR Financial Group Inc. Casey Cox is a master of multitasking, serving as both general counsel and chief administrative officer of Fort Wayne-headquartered STAR Financial Group. As if that weren’t enough, he also serves as corporate secretary to the board of directors of STAR Financial Bank, the company’s wholly […]

Madison County Prosecuting Attorney State of Indiana Rodney Cummings has seen both sides of the law. He spent much of his childhood in orphanages and foster homes and in 1973 was convicted of robbery for stealing a coin collection, earning him three years of probation. Determined to turn his life around, Cummings was mentored by […]

United States Magistrate Judge U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana Law wasn’t U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Dinsmore’s first career choice. “I was planning on a career in the military until the Soviet Union, the primary entity the Army’s heavy armored force was built to defend against, became the former Soviet Union.” Perceiving […]

Paralegal, Intellectual Property Ice Miller LLP As an intellectual property, or IP, paralegal, Erica Clark assists attorneys in the prosecution of trademark and patent property cases, assists in preparing and filing applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and works with foreign counsel in the filing of international patents and trademarks. “I arrived at […]