Three alumni receive top award from KU Law

Tue, 04/14/2020

Ashley Golledge

LAWRENCE — Three University of Kansas School of Law alumni will receive the law school’s highest alumni honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, this year. The award celebrates graduates for their professional achievements, contributions to the legal field and service to their communities and the university.

Stinson LLP Managing Partner Mark Hinderks; Shook, Hardy & Bacon Chair Madeleine McDonough; and retired U.S. Army Major Gen. Clyde Tate II will receive the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Mark Hinderks has led Stinson LLP as managing partner for 10 years, guiding the firm’s nearly 500 lawyers and 13 offices through multiple mergers. He has driven successful strategic focuses on diversity and inclusion, best practice governance principles, pro bono work and professional service. Previously, Hinderks served the firm's business and government clients as a lead trial lawyer in high profile cases and was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Hinderks is a co-founder of Ethics For Good, an innovative series of annual shows teaching professional responsibility to lawyers. The organization has raised $750,000 for charities, including scholarships for KU Law students. Hinderks graduated from KU in 1979 with degrees in economics and political science. He graduated from KU Law in 1982.

Madeleine McDonough has served as the chair of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP since 2017. A former clinical pharmacist, McDonough represents multinational companies in a range of industries. McDonough advises organizations on preventative litigation approaches, policy and governance issues, emerging international legal developments, creative resolution strategies, risk management, corporate social responsibility and crisis management. Before her election as the firm’s chair, McDonough led Shook’s pharmaceutical and medical device practice. In 2019, McDonough received the Women, Influence & Power in Law Award for Innovative Leadership. The National Law Journal named McDonough one of the nation’s Top 50 Litigation Trailblazers and Pioneers in its inaugural 2014 class. McDonough graduated from KU Law in 1990. She also has an LL.M. in global health law from Georgetown University Law Center.

Clyde “Butch” Tate retired as a major general from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps in January 2014. Tate’s career in the Army spanned 31 years. Previously the associate general counsel of Lockheed Martin Corporation’s Government Affairs, Tate is now the chief counsel of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and a member of the Bureau of Prisons’ Justice Involved Veterans Network. He is a senior adviser to The Strategic Organization, a Kansas City management firm supporting the American Bar Association’s project to develop a national center for military and veteran legal support. With a proven commitment to diversity and inclusion, he was awarded the prestigious Hispanic National Bar Association’s Presidential Award for leadership, advocacy and service. Tate graduated from KU Law in 1982.

View previous Distinguished Alumni Award recipients on the law school’s website.

The law school will also recognize James Woods Green Medallion honorees and members of the Deans Club. Named after the school’s first dean, the medallion recognizes the school’s major financial supporters. This year’s honorees include: