PENN STATE DICKINSON LAW ANNOUNCES COMMENCEMENT SPEAKERS FOR CARLISLE AND UNIVERSITY PARK
February 2025 — Penn State Dickinson Law will welcome two accomplished alumnae to deliver the commencement addresses during upcoming ceremonies at the Carlisle and University Park locations.
Catherine A. Christian ’88 will speak at the Carlisle commencement, taking place on Saturday, May 10, at 1 p.m. at The Forum Auditorium in Harrisburg. Christie B. Tillapaugh ’02 will speak at the University Park commencement, taking place on Saturday, May 17, at 10:30 a.m. at Eisenhower Auditorium in University Park. Both ceremonies will be livestreamed.
A leader in the New York City legal community
Christian, who served as keynote speaker of last fall’s Professional Development Conference in Carlisle, is a highly experienced trial lawyer who serves as partner at Liston Abramson in New York City. She spent more than three decades in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and Office of the NYC Special Narcotics Prosecutor, where she prosecuted high-profile felony and homicide cases.
Christian also served as assistant counsel for the New York State Commission of Investigation, where she investigated corruption, fraud, and mismanagement by public officials.
A well-regarded leader in the New York City legal community, Christian became the first African American and youngest person to serve as president of the New York County Lawyers Association, a bar association of over 8,000 lawyers. She was just the second woman to hold the position, in which she administered a multimillion-dollar annual budget and expanded the bar association’s pro bono program.
As an MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst, Christian makes frequent TV appearances. She co-chaired the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on the Modernization of Criminal Practice, which recommended ways to modernize criminal law practice in New York to improve safety, fairness, equality, access to justice, and technological efficiency in the administration of criminal justice.
In 2015, Christian received the Hon. Sylvia H. Rambo Award, given by the Penn State Dickinson Law Women’s Law Caucus in recognition of her exemplary contributions to the legal profession and society as a whole.
Other accolades and awards Christian has received include the Weinberg Center for Elder Justice Champion for Justice Award, American Bar Association Tort Trial & Insurance Section Liberty Award for Advancing Diversity in the Legal Profession, and New York State Bar Association Kay Murray Award.
One of Pittsburgh’s leading corporate lawyers in the nonprofit space
Since 2023, Tillapaugh has been president and CEO of Dentons Cohen & Grigsby, a member firm of Dentons (the world’s largest global law firm). She started at the firm, which has locations in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, in 2008 and practices in Pittsburgh.
Tillapaugh previously served as chair of the firm’s Nonprofit and Tax-Exempt Organizations Group, earning recognition as a leading corporate lawyer in the Pittsburgh region’s nonprofit space. She worked on several transformative projects and transactions in the sector, representing many community-based and arts-based nonprofit organizations and private foundations.
Tillapaugh also has significant firm management experience, having played an instrumental role in some of the firm's most consequential business decisions. She has served on several management committees, including the Compensation Committee and Oversight and Executive Committee. She previously spearheaded the Dentons Cohen & Grigsby Associates Committee, chaired both the Talent Management and Recruiting and Hiring Committees, and served on the Shareholders Council and the Diversity and Inclusion Planning Committee.
Tillapaugh has more than two decades of experience as an outside general counsel, offering governance and strategic transaction-related counseling for tax-exempt and for-profit companies. Before joining Dentons Cohen & Grigsby, she was in-house counsel at a publicly traded company.
Her accolades and awards include being named to The Best Lawyers in America for Corporate Law and Nonprofit/Charities Law for 2024-’25, the Pennsylvania Super Lawyers list for Nonprofit Organizations for 2023-’24, and the City & State Pennsylvania 2023 Power of Diversity: Women 100.
She also earned recognition from the Pittsburgh Business Times in 2019 as a Woman of Influence and was tabbed as a 2016 Lawyers on the Fast Track selection by The Legal Intelligencer.