GARY COAD Gary Coad always wanted to be a lawyer, but he knew his chosen specialty – patent work – required expertise in the hard sciences, so he majored in chemistry at Mercyhurst, graduating in 2009. He was always on the lookout for intersections between science and law while he was here. He
- Mercyhurst for preparing her for law school at the State University of New York at Bufalo . “While I think it is hard for anything to truly prepare you for your frst y ear of law school, I think the classes of ered by the Political Science Department had me better prepared than most of my frst year counterparts. I would like to give a very grateful shout out to Dr. Clemons, Dr. Federici, Dr. Morris and Dr. Ripley!” She adds that Dr. Michael Federici is tougher than most law school professors she encountered. “He pushes each of his students to their edge, asking them to independently analyze complicated political, and legal, issues in his classes, not just accepting his thoughts or arguments as ‘true’ solely because he says so.” She also credits the tough love provided by department patriarch Dr. Randy Clemons. “He relishes forcing his students to think outside the box, reminding them that there is rarely a ‘right’ answer, and teaching them to look at every situation through multiple lenses before determining a course of action. This is exactly how you are asked to think in law school.” - KAITLYN FAUCETT Three years into her legal career, Kaitlyn Faucett ’09 says she’s grateful to
recalls a seminar class with department chair Clint Jones, Ph.D., where each student had to give a presentation on an area of research. “So I spoke to a group of future scientists on the basics of patent law,” he says. Gary attended the Franklin Pierce Law Center (now the University of New Hampshire School of Law), a school well- known for its patent curriculum. After graduating in 2012, he joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, a highly regarded fr m with about 1,200 attorneys in 20 ofc es around the world. The fr m handles complex corporate, litigation, regulatory, tax and restructuring challenges for clients. Gary works in patent litigation, representing clients who allege new products or services have infringed on their patent rights. He’s based in Washington, D.C. “The law is an incredibly crowded feld and a v ery hard market to enter,” he says. “But as a scientist you have something few others have.” He’s made an open of er to mentor Mercyhurst students interested in following his path to the law. Gary and his wife, Myumi (a patent litigator at another D. C. fr m), live in Alexandria with their two small dogs. When he’s not at work, he says you’ll fnd him on the golf c ourse.
Kaitlyn’s been licensed to practice in Texas since 2012 and New York since 2013. For the last year she’s been an associate at Levinthal Wilkins & Nguyen, PLLC, a Houston-based litigation fr m that handles business and commercial disputes, as well as catastrophic personal injury actions. “I absolutely love my job!” she says. Before joining LWN, she served as in-house counsel for a boutique oil & gas company where she primarily examined title and managed the company’s litigation.
- Kaitlyn and her boyfriend, Ryan, live in Houston with their one-and-a-half-year old Doberman Pinscher, Royal. In her free time, she enjoys running, hot yoga, Bufalo spor ts, and a fair amount of mindless reality TV. Determined to give back to aspiring attorneys and law students, she’s active with the Houston Bar Association, the Texas Young Lawyers Association, the New York Bar Association, and Phi Alpha Delta.
TINA FIELDING FRYLING Tina Fielding Fryling ’92 is not only a practicing attorney, but also has a hand in teaching the next generation of lawyers. An associate professor of criminal justice at Mercyhurst, she’s been teaching classes like Constitutional Law for several years, and is best known around campus for the mock trials her students stage each term. Starting this year, other teachers around the country are using a textbook she authored titled Constitutional Law in Criminal Justice . The 636-page book examines the provisions of the U.S. Constitution that guide the investigation of crimes and of threats to public safety and national security, as well as how those provisions have been interpreted by the courts. It features open-ended scenarios based on actual cases that allow students to explore situations they’ll face in the criminal justice system. Tina, a Wattsburg native, majored in criminal justice at Mercyhurst and then headed to the University of Dayton School of Law. After graduation, she clerked for Erie County Judge Fred Anthony and worked for a local law fr m, gaining experience in areas of the law from juvenile justice to civil litigation to bankruptcy.
She then pursued a master’s degree in administration of justice at Mercyhurst and stayed on to teach. Never one to stop learning, she says she’d continue taking classes now if she had the time. Instead, on top of her class load, she maintains a solo legal practice in criminal, bankruptcy and family law, and handles appeals for the Erie County Public Defender’s Ofc e. Tina’s the mother of four kids ages 8-14. In her spare time, she used to play the trombone and she takes Irish dance lessons.
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