Nominees for 2023–2024 Section Officer and Council Positions

Section Chair

Laura A. Possessky is vice president of Business Affairs and assistant general counsel with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Prior to joining CPB she ran the law practice of Gura & Possessky, PLLC, and represented clients on intellectual property and transactional matters related to media content and technology convergence. Laura currently serves as the ABA Science & Technology Law Section’s Chair-Elect and Chair of the Long Range Planning Committee. With over twenty-five years in leadership in the District of Columbia Bar, Laura currently serves as a D.C. Bar delegate to the ABA House of Delegates. She was the inaugural Chair of the D.C. Bar Technology Committee, which convened legal and internet technology professionals to provide advisory guidance on IT modernization for the bar and member services. She has served as president of the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia, Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, and Docs In Progress. Laura has frequently lectured and authored articles on the implications of content distribution through digital platforms, including “House of Cards: Will Copyright Issues in Online DistributionTopple Foundations or Revolutionize the Film and Television Industries?’ and “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: Lenz v. Universal and the Future of DMCA Safe Harbor Takedown Notifications,” both of which appeared in Landslide. She was honored with the Woman of Vision Award in 2011 by Women in Film in Video for her contributions to the D.C. film community and the Frederick B. Abramson Award in 2017 for her outstanding service to the DC Bar. Laura received her JD from Georgetown University Law Center and her BA, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania. She is licensed to practice in New York, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.

Section Chair-Elect

Joan R. M. Bullock is the owner of Reformed Law Prof ^SM, a consulting firm with the mission of empowering legal professionals with the critical skills and tools necessary for building a successful and sustainable 21^st-century legal practice. Joan is a Michigan lawyer and CPA who has practiced before the United States Tax Court and provided business advisory services to law firms and various organizations. She has over thirty years of experience in the legal academy as a professor of law and more than a decade of decanal experience spanning three law schools.

Joan currently serves as vice-chair in the Section. She is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a past chair and delegate to the ABA House of Delegates for the ABA Law Practice Division, and a former member of the Council for Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline.

She is the author of How to Achieve Success After the Bar: A Step-by-Step Action Plan and a chapter contributor to The Best Lawyer You Can Be: A Guide to Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Wellness, both published by the ABA Law Practice Division. Joan holds a JD from the University of Toledo College of Law, an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and a BA degree from Michigan State University.

Section Vice Chair

Lois D. Mermelstein is of counsel at Garg Law Firm and also operates her own law office. She currently focuses her practice on patent prosecution, particularly for software, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and other computer-related technologies. Lois also has patent litigation experience, and prior to law school, she worked as a software and firmware engineer and team leader. Lois also writes, speaks, and puts on CLE programs involving AI and other technology-related legal subjects.

Lois currently serves as the ABA Science & Technology Law Section’s Secretary and is a senior editor of the SciTech Lawyer. She is also a past editor-in-chief of the magazine. She serves on the ABA’s Standing Committee on Technology and IT, co-chairs a subcommittee focusing on AI and robotics for the Business Law Section and is Business Law’s liaison to SciTech. She is also chaired Business Law’s Technology Committee.

Lois holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto, an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, and a JD from Washington & Lee University School of Law. She is admitted to practice in Virginia, Texas, and before the USPTO.

Section Secretary

Matthew Henshon is a founding partner of Henshon Klein. His practice encompasses a wide range of issues affecting corporations, including governance, intellectual property and technology licensing, and mergers and acquisitions. His experience includes representing all sides of the privately held, emerging company: founders, investors, and employees.Immediately prior to forming the Allerton Law Group, he served as special assistant and senior advisor to Senator Bill Bradley during Senator Bradley’s campaign for the presidency. During the campaign, Matthew served as “traveling chief-of-staff” to Senator Bradley. He has written multiple law- and business-related articles in legal and business publications, and his political analysis has appeared on the New York Times Op-Ed page.For the four years preceding the Bradley Campaign, Matthew worked at the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow, P.C. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 with a J.D. cum laude, and from Princeton University in 1991 with an A.B. cum laude from its Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. At Princeton, he was a starter at forward for Princeton’s Ivy League champion basketball team (ranked Top 25 in the country) and was twice named a District II Academic All-American. In 1990, he played in the then-most-watched men’s college basketball game in the history of ESPN (Princeton vs. Arkansas, NCAA First Round), a record that lasted for 16 years. He was recently featured in an ESPN 30-for-30 Short entitled “The Billion Dollar Game,” about the Princeton-Georgetown game the previous season.

Section Council

Dr. Rouget Frederic (Ric) Henschel is a partner in Potomac Law’s Intellectual Property group. Ric’s practice focuses on counseling clients in patent matters, representing clients before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), litigation, and licensing. Specifically, his practice includes procuring domestic and foreign patents, validity and freedom-to-operate opinions, Patent Term Extension (PTE), due diligence investigations, negotiating and interpreting patent licenses, and post-grant proceedings. His experience includes technologies such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, foods, and cosmetics.

Ric served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Randall R. Rader (retired) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Within the ABA Science & Technology Law Section, Ric currently serves as co-chair of the Precision Medicine Committee.

Ric is the author of Chapter 1: “The State of the Law of Claim Construction and Infringement” in the treatise Drafting Patents for Litigation and Licensing, 3rd Ed., BNA Books (2018). A frequent public speaker, he has served as a faculty member of the Patent Information Users Group, the Pharmaceutical Education & Research Institute, and the Asia Pacific Legal Institute. On behalf of the Federal Circuit Historical Society, he has moderated panel discussions to provide videotaped oral histories of the late Chief Judge Howard T. Markey and the late Judge Marion T. Bennett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Ric received his JD from Georgetown University Law Center, his PhD in Organic Chemistry from City University of New York, and his B.S. in Chemistry from City College of New York.

Section Council

Kaniah Konkoly-Thege currently serves as Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, and Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Quantinuum. In these roles, Kaniah oversees the global legal and government affairs for Quantinuum, including litigation, labor and employment, intellectual property strategy, contracts, export control, data privacy/security, and compliance. Additionally, she monitors legal, legislative, and regulatory trends applicable to emerging technologies. Prior to that role, Kaniah served as General Counsel for Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies, LLC. Before Honeywell, Kaniah was a senior attorney for 12 years at the Department of Energy and Department of the Interior. More recently, Kaniah has served as Chair of the QED-C Law TAC, Vice-Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Vice-Chairman of the Open-Source Software Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Science and Technology Committee. She recently co-authored “The Legal Implications of Quantum Computing,” and has lectured and taught several CLE courses on quantum computing and the law.

Section Council

Sarah E. McMillan is a multidisciplinary litigator representing regional, national, and international clients in matters relating to product liability, toxic torts, construction, professional liability, and insurance defense. Sarah helps clients and their insurers to assess and mitigate risks and vigorously defend them, when necessary. Sarah is an Honorary Research Faculty Member at the University of Aberdeen School of Law, where she was formerly a faculty member. While on Aberdeen’s faculty, Sarah was a visiting professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of Maryland School of Law. With a continuing interest in legal education, she has been involved with Tulane Law School’s Civil Litigation Boot Camp Intersession program since its inauguration. Sarah has been involved with the ABA Science & Technology Section since 2017 as a member of the SciTech Lawyer Editorial Board and SciTech Book Publishing Board. She has authored articles and co-edited issues for the SciTech Lawyer and has served as an author liaison for the Book Publishing Board.

Section Delegate

Lucy Thomson, Esq., CIPP/US, CISSP, is the founding principal of Livingston PLLC in Washington, D.C. She focuses her practice on cybersecurity, global data privacy, and compliance and risk management. A career attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, she managed and conducted complex litigation in the Criminal and Civil Rights Divisions. She subsequently worked as a senior principal engineer and privacy advocate at CSC, a global technology company. Appointed the Consumer Privacy Ombudsman (CPO) in more than 35 federal bankruptcy cases, she currently serves as the CPO in one of the largest cryptocurrency bankruptcies, Celsius Network (S.D.N.Y.).

Lucy is a past chair of the ABA Science & Technology Law Section, a founding member of the ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, and a member of the House of Delegates (since 2004), elected by the D.C. Bar. She is the author of books/chapters on the security and privacy challenges of emerging technologies and critical infrastructure, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare, and elections. She received a master’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and holds a JD degree from Georgetown.