Columbus School of Law

John Joseph Barry, '85, died of cardiac arrest while playing golf on Feb. 8, 2001 at the age of 48. Barry had a private law practice in Fairfax, Va. since the mid-1980s where he handled civil and criminal disputes ranging from personal injury to corporate law. In addition to his law practice, he found time to be a substitute teacher for Fairfax County, a soccer and baseball coach, served on the Fairfax County Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee, tutored at Festival Center before taking classes at the Servant Leadership School, and volunteered at Jubilee Jobs (through which he helped secure the bus line from the Falls Church metro to Dulles Airport, to enable working people to travel for only a quarter). He was a tissue donor, provided significant aid for the disadvantaged, was a member of numerous local community organizations and the Chantilly Baptist Church.

Joseph Norman Crowe, '41, of Pasadena, died on December 22 after a lengthy illness. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Crowe was a longtime resident of Silver Spring. He worked as an attorney for Government Employees Insurance Co. and served in the Navy during World War II in the Pacific theater.

Charles R. Esherick, '50, an attorney who retired in 1984 from the antitrust division of the Justice Department where he had worked for 31 years, died July 16, 2000 of a heart attack at the age of 76. He worked for a law firm in New York early in his career and in the early 1950s joined the staff of the Civil Aeronautics Board. He moved to Naples, Fla., from Annapolis in 1993.

William M. Fay, '42, died of cancer on April 12, 2000 at his home in Chevy Chase, Md., at the age of 84. Fay, a senior judge on the U.S. Tax Court, wrote more than 1,000 opinions during his 39 years on the bench. Judge Fay, a former assistant counsel for the Senate Committee on Atomic Energy, had been handling tax litigation for the Internal Revenue Service when President Kennedy appointed him to the U.S. Tax Court in 1961. In subsequent years, he presided at the tax trials of several celebrities, including Liberace, baseball great Maury Wills and actors Jose Ferrer and Maureen O'Hara. He also decided important corporate tax

cases involving Arkansas Oil and Gas Inc., retail food and drug company Albertson's Inc., Hershey Foods Corp., and Tribune Publishing Co.

J. Chase Fielding, founder and retired partner of the Fielding Co., a Washington-based manufacturer's representative for the Pentagon, died on November 23 at his home in Rockville. He had cancer. During World War II, he served in Europe with the 82nd Airborne and 29th Infantry Divisions, becoming a prisoner of war in Normandy and later escaping captivity. Before founding his company, he worked in Washington as a partner in a California-based aerospace concern.

Samuel Francis Ianni, '51, a lawyer who practiced in Hyattsville for 40 years before retiring in 1997, died on November 17 after a stroke. He was a past president and member of the board of directors of the Prince George's County Bar Association. He also had served on the boards of the Maryland State Bar Association and the Family Services of Prince George's County. He served in the Army during World War II and fought with the 75th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge.

Bruce E. Lambert, '50, of Arlington, Va., died of pneumonia and sepsis at the age of 96 on Sept. 6, 2000. An Arlington lawyer and real estate investor who founded the Powhatan and Leewood nursing homes, Lambert was active in the First Baptist Church of Alexandria. A former resident of Independence, Mo., he was an aide to Harry S. Truman when Truman was a judge in Jackson County, Mo. When Truman was elected to the Senate in 1934, Lambert accompanied him to Washington. He remained on his staff until Truman was elected vice president in 1944 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After succeeding to the presidency on Roosevelt's death in April 1945, Truman appointed Lambert director of the Internal Revenue Service for New York and New Jersey. He served until the end of the Truman administration in 1953 and then returned to the Washington area and established a law practice with his wife, Lucille Brockman Lambert. They maintained offices in Arlington until retiring in the early 1990s.

Michael Joseph McCormack, '71, died of cardiac arrest Jan. 9, 2001 at Inova Alexandria Hospital at the age of 56. He was a tax lawyer and certified public accountant who worked in Washington, D.C., for Deloitte & Touche since 1977.

He was a founding member of Deloitte and Touche's mergers and acquisitions tax practice. McCormack, an Alexandria, Va., resident, continued to work five days a week at the firm despite an accident in 1998 that left him a quadriplegic. With no movement from the neck down, he drove a chin-controlled wheelchair to help him get to the office.

George J. Noumair, '56, of Forest Hills Gardens, N.Y., died Dec. 2, 2000. He was a tax attorney for 44 years. He was managing general partner for Whitman Breed Abbott and Morgan from 1972-1995. See page 40.

James P. Parker, former lecturer at the Columbus School of Law, died of cancer on October 29, 2000, at the age of 59. Parker was a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn. He specialized in taxation and real estate matters. He came to Washington in 1966 and began his legal career with the tax division of the Department of Justice, where he was special assistant to the assistant attorney general in charge of the division.

R. Patrick Thompson, '75, died of heart attack on July 19, 2000 at the age of 51. Thompson, of New Rochelle, N.Y., was president of the New York Mercantile Exchange He became president in 1989 after serving as vice president, senior vice president and general counsel. He spent 20 years at the exchange either as a member or executive. During his tenure as president, the exchange firmed its position as a world leader in energy futures and options trading. It took over the Commodity Exchange, a New York-based metals futures market, and started electronic after-hours trading at a new headquarters in Lower Manhattan. Before coming to the Exchange, Mr. Thompson held positions with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a supervisory attorney in the enforcement division of its New York regional office, and as a trial attorney in the same division of its San Francisco office. He also worked as a trader on the Exchange floor.