GW Law Celebrates Black History Month

Craig D. Barrett is currently serving as in-house counsel with BDO USA, LLP Public Sector and was previously a senior counsel in the Government Contracts Group at the law firm Crowell & Moring's Washington, DC office. He has served as an adjunct lecturer at the George Washington University Law School’s Public Procurement Law Program since 2021, where he teaches Cost and Pricing in Government Contracts. Prior to working in the private sector, Mr. Barrett served on active duty as a Marine Judge Advocate immediately after the attacks on 9/11. He earned his BA in Philosophy from Brooklyn College, his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s degree in Philosophy with a concentration in Ethics and Public Affairs from George Mason University, completed the Senior Executive Fellows program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and in 2020, completed an LLM in Government Contracts at the George Washington University Law School.

“George Washington University provides a quality education and produces quality professionals, which –along with its premier instructors—contribute to the excellence of its community.  I have relied extensively on our GW community during the course of my career and am indebted to this community for much of my current success. I am proud to be a part of the GW community as both an alum and member of the faculty and look forward to reinvesting back into the same to ensure the success for the next generation of students.”

Charles C. Calloway, Jr. is a partner and member of Chapman's Corporate Finance Department. His practice includes representation of financial institutions and other strategic investors with domestic and cross-border private placements of debt and equity securities in secured and unsecured financings. Mr. Calloway’s experience also includes an active sports finance practice where he has represented term note purchasers in “league-wide” financings for the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB). He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the American College of Investment Counsel (ACIC) and also serves as co-chair of the Transition Process Management Committee.

“GW Law’s bespoke business law and government contracts curriculum gave me the foundation to succeed as a Private Equity and Capital Markets Partner at Chapman and Cutler LLP. As the first lawyer in my family, I stand proudly on the shoulders of the many accomplished and renowned African American GW Law alumni who came before me and am personally committed to paying it forward to the next generation of legal practitioners from underserved communities.”

Danielle M. Conway is the Dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson Law. A leading expert in procurement law, entrepreneurship, and intellectual property law, Dean Conway joined Dickinson Law after serving for four years as dean of the University of Maine School of Law and 14 years on the faculty of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law. Dean Conway’s scholarly agenda and speeches have focused on, among other areas, advocating for public education and for actualizing the rights of marginalized groups and promoting systemic equity in legal education and the profession. Under her leadership, Dickinson Law’s Antiracist Development Institute (ADI) was created to facilitate the dismantling of structures that scaffold systemic racial inequality by using a systems design approach focused on implementing antiracist practices, processes, and policies throughout organizations.

Dean Conway is the co-recipient of the inaugural Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) Impact Award, which recognized her work in co-curating the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project, a webpage for law deans, faculty, and the public that contains resources and information related to addressing systemic racism in law and legal education. Dean Conway is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a member of the AALS Executive Committee, and a director of the AccessLex Institute.

The late Larry D. Harris, JD ‘75, with his impressive professional and personal achievements, embodied the impact that education can have on the trajectory of a life. Born in the Jim Crow era South, Mr. Harris was his family’s first college graduate and its first lawyer. As a GW Law student, he was deeply involved in the newly formed Black Law Student Association, helping to establish and energize the group. After finishing GW Law, Mr. Harris fulfilled his ROTC obligation, serving as a commissioned officer in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps before rising through the ranks in Big Law as an expert in government construction law. Following a generous gift from his family, the Larry D. Harris Memorial Law Scholarship now provides a yearly full-tuition scholarship to recipients who epitomize and reflect Mr. Harris’ passions.

Justin Pierce is a co-chair of Venable’s Intellectual Property Division. Mr. Pierce has significant experience advising companies and their executives on how best to acquire, develop, and apply their intellectual property to achieve their business objectives. He has guided clients through a wide range of issues involving patent litigation, trademark and brand protection, anti-counterfeiting initiatives, copyright, design rights, trade secrets, licensing, and IP-driven transactions. Mr. Pierce is also well versed in strategies for handling rights of publicity, domain name, and social media disputes, and he routinely advises companies with respect to issues involving artificial intelligence.

Prior to joining Venable, he served as an in-house counsel to a major multinational corporation. In this role, he led a government relations initiative that enhanced company intellectual property enforcement efforts in key markets around the world. The experience gave him substantial knowledge of the business and strategy issues that challenge executives and their in-house legal teams.

Mr. Pierce is also an inventor who currently holds a patent and a number of published applications dealing with mobile applications, augmented and virtual reality, gaming, and anti-counterfeiting technology. Prior to law school, he served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, and attained the rank of captain. GW Law provided a global platform upon which to build a great legal career.

Denise Benjamin Sirmons serves as the Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, responsible for leading the EPA’s efforts to advance the business, regulatory, and environmental compliance concerns of small and disadvantaged businesses. Before joining the EPA, she was the Assistant General Counsel for Contracting at the U.S. Small Business Administration, and worked as a litigator for a major national law firm. Ms. Sirmons holds a Master of Laws Degree in Government Procurement Law, with Honors, from the George Washington University Law School. She also earned a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Howard University Law School, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Patricia A. Tobin Government Contracts Award. She has also published articles in the Contract Management Magazine, Public Contract Law Journal, and the Howard Law Journal.

“The Government Procurement Law Program at GW helped me to ‘sharpen my saw’ in my legal career, and the palpable sense of community the faculty fostered during my course of study and beyond continues to motivate me to pay it forward.”