Neighbors

Kimberly Nobles and Sam Lu were elected as partners of Irell & Manella

LLP, a full-service law firm with offices in Newport Beach and Los

Angeles. Lu focuses on representing high-technology companies in a

variety of intellectual property matters, including litigation and

transactions involving patents and trade secrets. He is admitted to

practice before the U.S. District Courts for the northern and central

districts of California, the southern and eastern districts of New York

and the U.S. Supreme Court. Lu was formerly a faculty member at the

Practicing Law Institute Patent Litigation 1999 seminar. Nobles focuses

on representing high-tech and medical technology companies in patents,

trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks. Her patent litigation

experience includes technologies relating to electronic systems,

communications, semiconductors, computer hardware, software and graphics,

and optical devices. She received her juris doctorate from USC Law

School, where she graduated order of the coif, in the top 3% of her class

and served as the editor of the Southern California Law Review while at

school. She is a registered patent attorney, licensed to practice before

the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Irell & Manella LLP was founded in

Los Angeles in 1941 and has a legal staff of 240 attorneys, about 89 of

which are partners. The firm was recently named New Economy Leader by the

American Lawyer magazine. . . . Two students from Newport Beach attending

Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, Penn., earned spots on the school’s

honor roll for the fall term. Katherine Edrie Rader, a 12th-grader and

daughter of Melinda B. Rader of Newport Beach, and 11th-grader Jeremy

Matthew Katz, son of Dr. and Mrs. Stanley G. Katz of Newport Beach, were

both named to the school’s honor roll. Mercersburg Academy is an

independent, coeducational college preparatory boarding and day school

that has been preparing students for four-year colleges and universities

since 1893. The school had 425 students from 25 states and 19 foreign

countries enrolled in 2001. . . . Kelly Freeman of Newport Beach has

enrolled at Dartmouth College for the class of 2005. She is the daughter

of Kathleen and Alan Freeman. Dartmouth is the ninth-oldest college in

the United States, with enrollment including more than 4,300

undergraduates and 1,200 graduate students in the arts and sciences and

graduate schools of business, engineering and medicine. . . . Julie Diem

Nguyen of Costa Mesa was awarded a doctor of pharmacy degree from Samford

University in Birmingham, Ala., during the university’s commencement

ceremonies Dec. 15. Samford is Alabama’s largest private university,

enrolling 4,400 students from 39 states and 26 nations. . . . Kirsten

Kaylor, daughter of Barbara James of Costa Mesa, received her bachelor’s

degree in political science with a minor in religion at commencement

ceremonies for Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., held Dec. 19. Kaylor

was among 77 students who participated in commencement ceremonies for the

four-year liberal arts institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in

America. . . . Anne Schack has assumed the practice of the Diplomate

American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Newport Beach from James

Stanley, who retired. She is the co-developer of the integrated pain

management department.

* NEIGHBORS spotlights achievements in the community. Please direct

noteworthy information to Bryce Alderton via fax at (949) 646-4170, or

send e-mail too7 bryce.alderton@latimes.comf7 .