The University of Dayton School of Law will honor the following four members of its community in May with special awards during an awards luncheon at the Schuster Center and during the all-alumni dinner, both events a part of this year’s Alumni Weekend, May 15 & 16. For more information about Alumni Weekend or to RSVP, call Lee Ann Ross at 937-229-3793.

Neil Freund, Walter H. Rice Honorary Alumni Award – In 1984 Neil Freund co-founded the Dayton firm Freund, Freeze & Arnold, which today includes more than 60 attorneys. He has tried and won hundreds of jury trials in a variety of practice areas in both state and federal courts. Neil has been selected as one of the Top 10 of Ohio Super Lawyers for the years 2004 through 2009, and has also been recognized as one of the Best Lawyers in America for the past eleven years. Neil received his B.A. from UD in 1967 and went on to earn his J.D. from Ohio Northern. He provides support and insight as a member of the School of Law Advisory Council. Neil, along with his wife Bonnie, also established the Walter H. Rice Jurist in Residence Program, which last year helped sponsor the Mock Trial competition that UD hosted. Neil, a member of the University’s John Stuart Society, is currently serving the School through his leadership on the law school campaign.

James Kelleher, Distinguished Alumni Award – Jim Kelleher is an attorney at Pickrel, Schaeffer & Ebeling, where he practices in the areas of defective product liability, plaintiff personal injury, and civil litigation. After graduating from the University of Dayton School of Law in 1979, Jim served as municipal prosecutor for the Village of New Lebanon, Ohio. He is also a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. Jim is a member of the Dayton and Ohio State Bar Associations, a trustee and past president of the Miami Valley Trial Lawyers Association, and a member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. He is a trustee of the Greater Dayton Volunteer Lawyers Project and a member and past president of the DBA Inns of Court. An adjunct professor at the law school since 1988, Jim is also a seminar lecturer for the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers. Jim has been very active in his support of the School of Law, serving on the Keller Hall Building Campaign and also on the Class of 1979’s 30-year reunion committee.

Rebecca Cochran, Walter H. Rice Honorary Alumni Award – Professor Becky Cochran did not begin her career in law. She directed a Chicago shelter and 24-hour hotline for battered women and children, and because many of the women needed attorneys and went to court against their abusers, started accompanying them to court. She saw what happened in the courtroom and thought, ‘I could do this!’ After graduating second in her class from John Marshall Law School, where she was selected best oralist in the Wagner Labor Law National Moot Court Competition, Professor Cochran clerked for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She later became an associate with a Chicago law firm, Sachnoff & Weaver, where she specialized in commercial and FDIC litigation. After moving to Dayton with her family, Professor Cochran served as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Montgomery County, Ohio, where she worked with criminal appeals cases. Her husband, an English professor, convinced her to try teaching. She has taught at the School of Law since 1991 and is currently a tenured professor and the faculty coordinator for the Road to Bar Passage Program, which raises awareness of the bar exam and emphasizes the importance of practice tests. This year, 100 percent of the students who completed the Program passed the July Ohio bar. Professor Cochran is the 1999 recipient of the University of Dayton’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching. She served as the director of the Legal Profession Program from 1995 to 2004. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Legal Writing Directors for three years and has been a member of the American Bar Association Communication Skills Committee. She was appointed to the Ohio State Bar Association Appellate Law Specialty Board in 2006.

Michael Ledbetter, Francis J. Conte Special Service Award – After serving with the 1st Armored Division in Erlangen, West Germany, Mike Ledbetter earned a B.A. from Bowling Green State University and then a J.D. from the University of Dayton School of Law in 1997. He worked for 10 years as an associate attorney and partner in a Dayton-based labor law firm. In 2006, Mike left to establish his new office where he has represented clients in proceedings in state and federal court, in arbitration proceedings, and before administrative agencies. Mike regularly speaks at conferences hosted by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and has authored articles published in the Foundation’s Benefits and Compensation Digest. Mike serves on the Kessler Scholarship Golf Tournament Committee and coordinates the Alumni Service Day at St. Vincent’s during Alumni Weekend, often bringing his whole family along to serve and put UD’s Catholic-Marianist philosophy into practice.

The Distinguished Alumni Award is given to University of Dayton School of Law graduates who reflect the School’s values of professional integrity and community service through achievements of exceptional merit, honor and influence. The Honorable Walter H. Rice Honorary Alumni Award is presented each year to individuals who are not graduates of the University of Dayton School of Law, but who represent the ideals of the School through exemplary achievement. This award recognizes significant contributions to the legal profession, the community and the School of Law. The Francis J. Conte Special Service Award was created to recognize extraordinary service to the School of Law through donations of time, talent or financial assistance. This award is not reserved for alumni, but may be given to anyone who supports the School of Law.