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Achievements of alumni of the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law will be commemorated during the law school’s annual Evening of Celebration on May 8. Three individuals will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award (DAA) while one other will receive an Early Career Achievement Award.

The law school will host its awards ceremony on May 8 in the Inlow Hall atrium to honor these alumni, as well as celebrate the students who will graduate during the commencement ceremony May 9 at the Indiana Convention Center.

DAA honorees are:

• Anne Slaughter Andrew, ’83, former United States Ambassador to Costa Rica, and founder and chairman of TerViva in Oakland, California.
• Pamela Carter, ’84, president of Cummins Distribution Business Unit, Columbus, Indiana.
• Robert Wagner, ’67, Lewis Wagner, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Early Career Achievement honoree is

• Jonathan Burns, ’06, associate patent counsel at Google Inc. in Mountain View, California.

Andrew was appointed by President Obama to serve as the first woman U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica, where she served from 2010 to 2013. Since leaving the State Department, she is serving as Chairman of TerViva, an agro-technology company developing environmentally sustainable crops for food and fuel. In addition, Andrew serves on the board of directors of Ad Astra Rocket Company in Houston, Texas, and as an advisor to a number of start-up clean energy businesses. In addition to serving on the board of directors of Earth University, she also serves on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Purdue University – Global Affairs Strategic Advisory Council and the Telluride Foundation in Colorado. She also is an active member of the Council of American Ambassadors. Andrew will deliver the commencement address for IU McKinney graduates during the ceremony on May 9.

Carter is the first woman to lead any of Cummins’ four primary business units. She is retiring effective April 1. She has been an executive with the company since 1997. She first served as the company’s vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. She then held several key posts in Cummins Fleetguard before leading Cummins Filtration. She moved to the Distribution Business Unit in 2007. Earlier in her career, Carter was deputy chief of staff to then-Governor Evan Bayh, and spent some time in private practice at the firm then known as Baker & Daniels before running for elected office. Carter was elected Indiana Attorney General in 1993, holding the post until 1997. She was the first African American woman to hold the office of state attorney general in the United States. Carter is a member of IU McKinney’s Board of Visitors, and received the Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award in 2004.

Wagner has tried more than 200 cases throughout the United States, and is recognized as a respected trial lawyer. His trial work includes the areas of wrongful death, product liability, commercial litigation, insurance defense, auto and premises liability. He also is recognized for his mediation work. Wagner regularly lectures on a range of continuing legal education topics and is a long-term faculty member of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, volunteering several weeks each year to teach that organization’s regional and Midwestern courses. He also teaches trial advocacy for the Indiana Continuing Legal Education Foundation, and has for several years. Wagner also has contributed to the community at large, and has been recognized for that work. He was named a Sagamore of the Wabash by then-Governor Evan Bayh in 1989, and he has served as the chairperson or vice chairperson for the White River State Park Development Commission since 1995.

Burns is associate patent counsel at Google Inc. The 2001 graduate of DePauw University passed the patent bar before attending IU McKinney. He worked in intellectual property law at Hunton & Williams in Washington, D.C., and at what was then Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis before making the move to in-house patent counsel at Google in 2012. He has made the effort to make himself available on multiple occasions to counsel the next generation of IP attorneys currently studying at the law school. He participated in a live virtual meeting via Google Hangout with students through a program sponsored by the Office of Professional Development. He also returned to IU McKinney and met personally with IP students, as well as mentoring students on the staff of the Indiana Law Review.

In addition to the friends and family of the honorees, the 2015 graduates of IU McKinney and their families are invited to the Evening of Celebration. The commemoration begins at 5:30 p.m. May 8 in the atrium at Inlow Hall, followed by a party for students and their guests.