Marianne Short serves as executive vice president, UnitedHealth Group, focusing on strategic enterprise initiatives. Previously, Short served as executive vice president and chief legal officer, UnitedHealth Group, where she was responsible for overseeing legal, regulatory and compliance matters across the enterprise from January 2013 until January 2021. Prior to joining the company, Short was the managing partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP for six years, a partner in the Trial department, co-chair of the firm's Appellate and Health Litigation practice groups and a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. From 1988-2000, she was a judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals, authoring more than 900 opinions in virtually every area of civil and criminal law. She has more than 35 years of courtroom experience from her work on the court, the Dorsey firm and the Minnesota Attorney General's Office. Short is a 1973 graduate of the Newton College of the Sacred Heart, which merged with Boston College in 1974, and received her J.D. from BC Law in 1976. An eminently respected attorney, she is ranked among America’s leading business lawyers by Chambers USA.

Kevin J. Curtin was a 1988 graduate of Boston College Law School. He also attended Boston College as an undergraduate (B.A. 1981) and graduate student (M.A. 1987).

After law school, Mr. Curtin served as a judicial law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young, and as an associate at the law firm of Nutter, McClennen & Fish for several years.

For most of his legal career (25 years), Mr. Curtin served with the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office as Senior Appellate Counsel/Grand Jury Director where he supervised the grand jury practice, wrote, and supervised appellate briefs and conducted oral arguments, managed post-conviction matters, advised the District Attorney and bureau chiefs, and served as a member of the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit.

Mr. Curtin was an adjunct faculty member at Boston College Law School where he taught trial practice. He also taught trial practice for the National Trial Advocacy College at the University of Virginia School of Law and in the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School.

Nationally, Mr. Curtin served on the American Bar Association Board of Governors, as a member of the ABA Presidential Task Force on Building Public Trust in the American Justice System, and in leadership positions and a member of the Criminal Justice Section and Committee on Appellate and Habeas Practice and was a member of the House of Delegates.

Locally, Mr. Curtin served on the Massachusetts Bar Association Criminal Justice Section Council and Civil Rights and Social Justice Section Council. He was also on the Board of the Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. 

Internationally Mr. Curtin was a consultant through the NGO Regional Dialogues to the Republic of Uzbekistan where he assisted that developing constitutional democracy with historical law reform efforts.

During his career, Mr. Curtin received a number of prestigious awards, including:

2018 American Bar Association - Norm Maleng Minister of Justice Award

2017 Massachusetts District Attorney’s Association - Prosecutor of the Year Award

2017 Massachusetts Bar Association - Access to Justice Award

2013 Boston College Law School - Public Interest Law Foundation PILF Honoree

2012 Middlesex District Attorney’s Office - Ruth Abrams Outstanding Attorney Award

In January 2021, shortly after his death, Mr. Curtin was posthumously honored by the American Bar Association with a Presidential Citation “for exhibiting the highest standards of the public servant lawyer and for his extraordinary leadership and dedication to the legal profession.”

Ms. Robinson is a transformational leader who serves as the Deputy Chief for the Prisoner & Reentry Legal Services (PRLS) program in the D.C. Public Defender Service’s Community Defender Division. The Community Defender Division (CDD) provides legal advice, social services, and community education and outreach to adults and children who are in the post-adjudication stage of a criminal or juvenile delinquency case arising out of the D.C. Superior Court. Ms. Robinson manages a team of attorneys who respond to the legal and social services needs of newly released individuals and others with D.C. criminal records, assisting them in making a successful transition back into the community.

Further, she serves as the Public Defender Service’s (PDS) liaison to individuals convicted of District of Columbia Code offenses who are serving sentences in the D.C. Department of Corrections, Central Treatment Facility, and Federal Bureau of Prisons, by providing legal information to assist these individuals, monitor their conditions of confinement and provide legal representation in parole, compassionate release, early termination of supervision, and other sentence reduction legal matters.

Before joining the CDD, Ms. Robinson was a senior attorney in the Public Defender Service’s Trial Division handling only the most serious felonies. As a trial attorney, she was also a ​ member of PDS’ nationally recognized Forensic Practice Group, which trains lawyers around the country on forensic and scientific matters. Ms. Robinson is also the Co-chair of the D.C. Reentry Action Network, a coalition of reentry direct service providers, and the Co-Chair of the ABA’s Committee on Reentry and Collateral Consequences. She is also the Director of Social Policy and Advocacy for the Black Public Defender Association.

Ms. Robinson is also the author of PDS’ new 900-page publication, The D.C. Reentry Navigator: Empowering You to Succeed with a D.C. Criminal Record. She is especially passionate about mentoring the next generation of advocates and does so by teaching Criminal Law as an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University. She received her law degree from Boston College Law School and her undergraduate degree (magna cum laude) from the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Ms. Robinson has an enduring commitment to the District of Columbia where she has passionately served people with D.C. criminal records in both the pre and post-adjudication phases of the criminal justice system for many years.

Thomas Jorling earned a graduate degree in Forest Ecology at Washington State University and went on to attend Boston College Law School. With his newly minted law degree, Mr. Jorling served with the Solicitor’s office in the US Department of the Interior followed by service in the Counsel’s office of the Smithsonian Institution. Tom developed a  concern for the rapid deterioration of the environment.  This continuing concern led him to a position as Minority Counsel to the US  Senate Committee on Public Works where he assisted the five Subcommittees in generating their legislative products, especially the Air and Water Pollution Subcommittee. He served in this capacity through the enactment of major environmental legislation, including assisting in the drafting of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972, both Acts sponsored by Senators Muskie, Eagleton Cooper, and Baker.  These laws have formed the cornerstone of national efforts to keep our environment sustainable.    

At the end of 1972, Mr. Jorling became a professor of Environmental Studies and the Director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College, a position he held for fifteen years, interrupted by his service in the Carter administration as assistant administrator for Water and Hazardous Materials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In this position, he was responsible for the implementation of the  Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and RCRA. He was a major driving force behind efforts to clean up the coastal and waterfront area of the country, including Boston Harbor.  His office also formulated the proposal for President Carter that led to the enactment of the Superfund Act.  

Mr. Jorling was appointed by Governor Cuomo in 1987 as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, responsible for the implementation of the environmental and natural resource programs of New York State, including the Adirondack and Catskill Parks, and played a key role in the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act.  

In 1994 Mr. Jorling became the vice president of Environmental Affairs at the International Paper Company, responsible for environmental, health, safety, and forest policy programs of this major manufacturing company with facilities all across the globe, retiring in 2004.  

Mr. Jorling has been active on many non-profit boards including the Board of the National Ecological Observatory Network where he also served for almost a year as CEO of the National Science  Foundation-funded $500 million Observatory. He also travels to top schools throughout the country teaching a seminar in sustainability at the following colleges, Williams College, Columbia University, Yale University, the University of Maine, Arizona State University, Grinnell College, Brigham Young University, and  Boston College.

Arianne Waldron, is an attorney, a business owner, a space creator, and people connector.  After graduating law school in 2014, Arianne worked for a year as an attorney at Goodwin Procter LLP and has been at the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit since 2016.  Arianne currently serves as the Vice President of Boston College Law School's Black Alumni Network (an organization focused on the recruitment, retention and support of Black students and faculty at the law school), is a Director-at-Large for the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (an organization focused on increasing diversity and inclusion in Boston's legal community), and co-chairs the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Task Force for the courts within the First Circuit (a committee that works to ensure that the federal courts are exemplary places to work).  Arianne is also co-owner of District 7 Tavern in Roxbury, an intergenerational community room for music, fellowship, professional networking and civic engagement.

A product of the Boston Public School system and a nearly lifelong Dorchester resident, Arianne immigrated to Boston from Trinidad as a toddler.  Arianne is an alumna of Boston College Law School (J.D.)'14, Boston College Lynch Graduate School of Education (M.Ed.)'14, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (B.A.), and the Boston Latin School. Arianne was recognized by the Boston Chamber of Commerce as one of its 2020 Ten Outstanding Young Leaders and by BC Law Black Law Students Association as their 2021 and 2019 Outstanding Young Alumni.

Arianne is honored to be receiving the Recent Graduate Award and hopes that, in an effort to continue the work of making Boston College Law School accessible to Black law students for years to come, you will consider donating to the Ruth Arlene W. Howe Black Student Leadership Initiative.