Alumni Awards
In addition to honoring Professor Travis H.D. Lewin, we are proud to announce the recipient of this year's Outstanding Alumni Service Award is Sherman F. Levey L'59. The Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award will be presented to The Hon. Deborah H. Karalunas L'82. We look forward to celebrating the contributions of these two special alumni at the Law Annual Dinner on Friday, October 2, 2009.
Award Descriptions
OUTSTANDING ALUMNI SERVICE AWARD - This award recognizes outstanding volunteer alumni service to the College of Law and will honor an alumnus/a who has spent significant personal time and effort to assist the College of Law in realizing its vision and goals. This alumnus/a and will have held a leadership position with the College of Law.
MR. LEVEY has had an active career in the private practice of law, teaching, and community service. He received his B.S. degree from the Syracuse University College of Business Administration in 1957. He "double registered" at the College of Law where he was an Associate Editor of the Law Review and received his J. D. degree in 1959. He was a co-founder of the Rubin & Levey law firm and successor firms, with a law practice concentrated in the areas of estate planning, estate administration, tax planning for individuals and closely-held businesses, and tax controversies with the Internal Revenue Service and New York State Department of Taxation. For the last 13 years he has been counsel to the law firm of Boylan, Brown, Code, Vigdor & Wilson, LLP.
In addition to his law practice, he served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Cornell Law School from 1983 to 1987. He also taught several courses at the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester. From 1989 to 2007 he served as Visiting Professor of Law and member of the faculty at the Syracuse University College of Law, where he taught a variety of tax related courses. He was also the founder and first Co-Director of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic, a position he held until 2007. He has served as Chair of the Board of the Jewish Home of Rochester, and Chair of the Board of the Jewish Home Foundation, Vice-Chair of the Board of the Park Ridge Hospital and Park Ridge Health System, Vice-Chair and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the George Eastman House Museum of Photography, and has served as a member of the Boards of a number of other charitable organizations. He has also served as a member of the College of Law Board of Visitors and Board of Advisors.
He is a member of the American Bar Association, New York State Bar Association, Monroe County Bar Association, and the Estate Planning Council of Rochester. He is a Fellow in both the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and the American College of Tax Counsel. He is married to Deborah Ronnen, and has three children and three step-children, one of whom, Lynn S. Levey, is a member of the faculty of the College of Law.
DISTINGUISEHD ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD - This award honors an alumnus/a whose professional accomplishments represent a notable level of alumni achievement. This awardee will have demonstrated a strong long-term commitment to the College of Law, its students and its alumni.
JUSTICE DEBORAH H. KARALUNAS obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University in 1978 and graduated cum laude from Syracuse University College of Law in 1982. At the College of Law, Karalunas was a Research Assistant and a Teaching Assistant. She also was a member of the International Law Review, Moot Court and the Justinian Honor Society.
Following law school, Karalunas clerked for United States District Court Judge Howard G. Munson in the Northern District of New York. In 1983, Karalunas joined the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King in Syracuse, New York where she later became a partner. During her 20 years in the litigation department of that firm, Ms. Karalunas represented a variety of corporate, municipal and individual clients in the state and federal courts of New York and other states. Her practice included intellectual property, commercial, employment, antitrust, ERISA, environmental and personal injury litigation.
In 2002 Karalunas was elected to serve as a Supreme Court Justice in the 5th Judicial District. She presides over a panoply of civil cases including personal injury, commercial, intellectual property, constitutional and environmental. In 2007 Karalunas was appointed presiding justice of Supreme Court, Commercial Division, Onondaga County.
Justice Karalunas has been an active member of various bar associations. In addition to serving as chair of several committees and sections, she served on the Board of Directors of the Onondaga County Bar Association and the Central New York Women’s Bar Association. Justice Karalunas also was the President of the Central New York Women’s Bar Association. She currently serves as Secretary of the Judicial Section of the New York State Bar Association.
Karalunas lectures frequently for state and local bar associations on many substantive law and trial practice topics. She also is a regular guest speaker, lecturer and moot court judge at Syracuse University College of Law.