From East Coast to West Coast: Four new alumni leaders join the Dean’s Advisory Council

Stephen Korniczky ’87, Marc Brown ’99, Jennifer Oliver ’07 and Aaron Saykin ’13 were recently appointed to the DAC – a group of about three dozen highly committed alumni and other professionals who work with Dean Aviva Abramovsky on curriculum, development, alumni engagement, governmental relations, public service and administration.

Beyond geography, the new members bring to the table a diversity of career experience and practice areas. It’s that richness of experience that the dean draws on to ensure the law school is training practice-ready lawyers who can flourish in a rapidly changing legal marketplace.

“Our DAC members are instrumental to the success of the law school,” says Dean Abramovsky. “They are leaders in the legal profession, and they each offer a distinct perspective on what it takes to prepare our students for success. During these especially challenging times, I am grateful to have access to their expertise and wisdom.”

A few words of introduction …

Stephen Korniczky, a partner with SheppardMullin in San Diego, is a trial lawyer who focuses his practice on litigating patent, trade secret and other intellectual property issues. Over the past 33 years, he has handled more than 200 patent and other IP lawsuits, including a number of high-profile cases. He was lead counsel for TCL Communication Technology Holdings in a cased named a 2018 “Milestone Case of the Year” by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.  The matter is now on petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In his role as a legal recruiter for his firm, Korniczky serves as a mentor for young lawyers. “We’re always looking for good candidates,” he says, “and this is an opportunity to help strengthen UB School of Law’s program and help develop more experienced and talented law students. To the extent that I can attract more UB Law students to the West Coast, I’m all for it.”

His family – including brother Paul Korniczky ’86, an emeritus DAC member – sponsors an annual scholarship at the School of Law benefiting diverse students who are interested in IP law.

“We feel blessed and we feel fortunate in our careers,” Korniczky says.  “So much of our success is a direct result of our law school education.  Now we want to give something back.”

Marc Brown is a partner at Goldberg Segalla and practices in Buffalo and Manhattan. An experienced commercial litigator and a recognized expert in real estate title litigation and coverage, Brown focuses his practice on business and commercial litigation. His practice also includes extensive appellate experience.

His DAC appointment is the latest role for Brown, who notes that he has been active with the law school pretty much since graduation, as part of the Rochester alumni chapter, as president of the GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Group, and most recently as president of the UB Law Alumni Association from 2018 to 2019.

“I am truly honored to be selected by UB School of Law and Dean Abramovsky as a member of her advisory council, and I am looking forward to working with the DAC chair (and my classmate) Chris Wightman, along with the dynamic members of the council, in advising the dean on the law school’s future,” Brown says.

As LAA president he was an ex officio member of the DAC and served on its mentoring taskforce, helping current students with career planning and job hunting – a role he says he enjoys. And he points with pride to the law school’s Advocacy Institute, of which his firm was an early and generous supporter.

Jennifer Oliver is a partner in the boutique law firm MoginRubin LLP in San Diego, where she focuses her practice on antitrust and merger law and complex business and investment litigation, including prosecution of class actions. Jennifer is a J.D./M.B.A. graduate of the School of Law and a certified information privacy professional, and also served as the Vice President of the undergraduate Student Association at UB.  She joined MoginRubin in 2017 after a decade with the New York City firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.  In addition to serving on the DAC, she is currently a regional leader for the UB Alumni Association in Southern California.

“When I moved here from New York,” Oliver says, “I had to make a concerted effort to do a better job at keeping in touch with my network in Buffalo. On the Dean’s Advisory Council, they’ve done a great job of gathering a very diverse group of alumni with a variety of viewpoints. There are just a few of us on the West Coast, and I am excited to represent the West Coast and San Diego in particular.

“I am also happy to see that there are a variety of practices represented -- the judiciary, in house counsel, transactional attorneys, litigators – and now there is an antitrust attorney on the council! I look forward to the opportunity to provide suggestions and feedback to the dean based on my experiences regarding curriculum, job placement, and how to prepare students for work in diverse areas of practice.”

Aaron Saykin is a senior associate with Hodgson Russ LLP in Buffalo, where he concentrates his practice in complex commercial disputes, media law, construction law, municipal and environmental matters. Saykin also has significant experience in Article 10 energy projects in New York, and as part of his growing media law practice advises clients on diverse media-related issues. His appointment to the DAC follows a year as president of the law school’s GOLD Group.

“I really took an interest in trying to help the law school particularly with respect to the admissions process,” Saykin says, and he’ll continue to do so as chair of the DAC’s taskforce on admissions. “That’s one of the most definable and identifiable ways to strengthen and grow the law school. Great schools and universities recruit students for a variety of reasons, and I’m thrilled the law school has really tried to roll out the red carpet for its admitted students.

“What we want to do is try to make our case to the best and brightest applicants who have given us consideration, so they’ll understand how unique a law school it is and how fantastic the education is. We have benefited tremendously over the years by what other alumni have done for us, and that’s the story we want to tell the people coming in.”