Modern Counsel #21

Bacardi's VP, general counsel, and secretary foments change, welcoming women not only into the "primo" culture of the company but also its leadership ranks P44

MARTIN VOKE IS

Nine more legal executives focused on social good, including Logan Marcus of Appreciation Financial, John Orta of Nextdoor, and Tiffani McDonough Solomon of Louis Vuitton Americas P42

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Martin Voke, head of an all-female legal team at Bacardi, strives to smooth the path for women who aspire to leadership roles at the company and beyond

Contents

Implement Feature

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Michael Buchwald extols the NFL’s diverse, dynamic work environment and emphasizes the importance of flexibility and relationship building

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Tiffani McDonough Solomon leads D&I efforts at Louis Vuitton Americas, where she prizes and helps promote an inclusive environment for all employees

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Textron’s Matt Cairns expounds upon the benefits of big data and the art of closing a case

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Kristie Scott has skillfully navigated the “controlled chaos” of the tech sector over the course of a long career at Cision

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Howard Rosenblum of Walgreens discusses his “reasonable” legal approach and the nuts and bolts of leading a subpoena team

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John Orta of Nextdoor advances the company’s mission of uniting local connections to build stronger, safer neighborhoods worldwide

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Noah Fenceroy has a vision: to revamp the reputation of his hometown of Milwaukee, aided by ManpowerGroup’s extensive job training and career growth programming

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Logan Marcus’s ingrained sense of justice and fairness has guided her since childhood. Today, she applies it to standing up for the little guy at Appreciation Financial.

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Rob Buchwald (NFL), Gillian Fry (Louis Vuitton Americas)

Lead Evaluate

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Kelly Slavitt and her team at Reckitt Benckiser work together on hygiene and sanitation initiatives to further the goal of healthier, happier, more sustainable homes

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Jennifer Daehler Jones ponders IP and technological questions related to AI, OSS, and a host of other futurefacing issues at Autodesk

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Chuck Graf lets curiosity, continual learning, and collaborative problem-solving with company stakeholders steer him toward innovation at Honeywell International

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Michael Moore of Pure Storage imparts leadership lessons on topics such as networking, creating a succession plan, and treating everyone with respect

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Volt’s Alexandra Bodnar is a vocal proponent for diverse teams that mirror the general population, which enable the company to better understand its client base and fulfill its aims

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René Hertsberg takes the time to do things right at Urban Elevator as the company grows, from communicating effectually with clients and business partners to keeping employees happy and engaged

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By staying ahead of ever-evolving data privacy regulations, Match Group’s Jared Sine prioritizes user safety and experience—and sets the stage for users to make meaningful connections

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Heading into the homestretch

of a high-risk pregnancy, I am turning to a time-honored coping mechanism. “Go to the literature,” as Joan Didion writes in The Year of Magical Thinking. “Information is control.” I’m annotating my way through a pile of books on our nightstand, from Strong as a Mother to The Anthropology of Childhood; scanning the What to Expect and Mayo Clinic websites; and perusing scientific studies, journalistic articles, personal essays, and blog posts. Consuming a steady diet of perspectives on parenting helps me feel less alone in my experiences. There is comfort in context, in precedents, in joining a long line of initiates into motherhood.

What’s often struck me in navigating these unfamiliar, choppy waters is how much goes into making a singular human being. Community and connection are critical. The list of people who have helped and supported me thus far is long. Numbering among them are the members of Guerrero’s creative department. They congratulated me with immediate, unreserved warmth when I shared the news of my pregnancy. They treated me with respect and kindness when I ranted, or lamented, or thought aloud about my hopes and dreams for my future daughter. They did the same during a prolonged period in the first trimester when I said nothing at all. And when I worked from home, bedridden for weeks because of what was then an unspecified health condition, they demonstrated, in word and deed, what institutional support can look like.

The anticipated arrival of one person has fundamentally altered the tilt of my world’s axis. I marvel that everyone I see—functional, purposeful, bright-eyed—came about through a process requiring tremendous effort and care. Like tree ecosystems that nourish vast swathes of flora, fauna, and people, society’s interconnected leaves and branches and roots woven thickly together sustain multitudes of individuals. None of us can do it alone. The good news is that we don’t have to. We are all in this together.

This issue’s feature section, Purpose, spotlights ten legal executives who care about the greater good. Purpose is what transforms a job into a calling. The leaders in our Purpose section are called to serve. Turn to page 73 to read about ManpowerGroup’s Noah Fenceroy, whose love for Milwaukee has motivated him to revitalize his hometown by connecting community residents (and job seekers nationwide) to career opportunities. On page 76, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Vaishali Udupa describes how she has charted a rare course as a woman of color in leadership—and spoken up early and often about the need for more diverse representation in law. And on page 44, you will find our cover story on Bacardi’s Martin Voke, detailing his efforts to level the playing field for women at his company and throughout the predominantly male spirits industry.

The truth is that information is not control. We can only control so much of our lives. But we can do our best to ride the waves of change, making informed decisions that benefit ourselves and our world.

Hana Yoo Managing Editor

Implement

Celebrating legal leaders and their latest departmental and corporate efforts and achievements, including transactions, expansions, negotiations, inclusion initiatives, and more

Running the Option

The NFL’s Michael Buchwald on the value of being flexible and building strong relationships

By Billy Yost

FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS, MICHAEL BUCHWALD has been surrounded by what he calls a motivated and extremely talented group of lawyers and other legal staff. That his mentors and colleagues in that group are almost all women may surprise some who view the professional sports industry as one typically dominated by men, but it is just one example of why Buchwald says the National Football League (NFL) is such a dynamic and diverse place to work.

“When you come into this office, you find—behind the Shield and the NFL Films music that greets you in the elevator lobby—an incredibly talented and eclectic group of people with all different kinds of expertise and perspectives,” Buchwald says.

The senior counsel adds that while it may seem from the outside like every-

Michael Buchwald Senior Counsel National Football League

Rob Buchwald

one at the organization comes to work in shoulder pads, the various businesses within the NFL run a much wider range than the field’s one hundred yards. Therefore, the range of professionals and staff you come across is broad. “There are diehard fans, casual fans, and people who just want to bring their extensive skill set to a great organization,” he says.

Buchwald’s own path to the NFL is a perfect representation of that ethos. He says he wasn’t a lawyer who went to sleep dreaming of someday working for the most popular sports league in the United States, a probable dream for many a sports fan turned lawyer. Instead, as an associate at New York-based Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the young lawyer found himself drawn to antitrust work. The rest, he says, just sort of happened.

“It turned out that the antitrust group had a robust sports practice, which emanated from a few partners with long-standing relationships with a number of sports leagues and substantial experience in that industry,” Buchwald says. “I wound up doing quite a bit of work with some of the other sports leagues, and as typically happens, I wound up working on a number of client matters that went beyond antitrust.”

The senior counsel says his colleagues at Skadden were huge allies in helping him take on an in-house role with the NFL, a job he wasn’t entirely sure he was cut out for. “I didn’t really

We congratulate Mike Buchwald on this well-deserved recognition.

Mike, it is an honor and a pleasure to work with you in representing the National Football League. Your friends and colleagues at Covington.

see an in-house role in my future, but the best advice I can give to younger lawyers is to keep your options open, stay flexible, and make the most of opportunities that come your way.” The quality relationships he had built at Skadden ultimately bridged Buchwald into his new in-house role, one that he says has proven rewarding in ways he never could have planned on.

One of the challenges from which Buchwald says he derives a lot of job satisfaction is building relationships and trust among the numerous business organizations under the NFL umbrella. “I often find myself as the only lawyer in the room, and it’s important that I’m providing value from a legal perspective,” Buchwald says. “But in order to provide that value, I need to present it in a way that’s understandable and practical. Even more critically, success in this job requires you to remain humble, to listen openly, and to respect the expertise and perspectives of others. This helps build trust and ensure that the legal advice you provide aligns with the broader goals of the business.”

Buchwald’s astute instincts have earned him admiration across the legal field. “Mike has the perspective that comes with a broad range of experiences, strong analytical skills, and solid judgment,” says Mitchell F. Dolin, litigation partner at Covington & Burling.

DEFINING LEADERSHIP

Congratulations to Michael Buchwald for his exceptional leadership with the NFL.

We are proud to partner with him to craft effective, strategic legal solutions that drive the legal profession and the NFL forward.

“Success in this job requires you to remain humble, to listen openly, and to respect the expertise and perspectives of others. This helps build trust and ensure that the legal advice you provide aligns with the broader goals of the business.”

Pro (Football) Bono

“One of the payoffs in working at a larger firm is the ease of access to pro bono work,” Michael Buchwald says. “In-house, there’s often less of those connections and opportunities unless you really make the effort.” In 2017, the then head of Buchwald’s litigation group reached out to Lawyers Alliance for New York, which helps represent community groups in a multitude of legal capacities. “It’s the type of organization where some of our expertise that we apply on a daily basis can be relevant in a very different way,” Buchwald says. “I think these partnerships are a great path for other in-house lawyers who are looking for these sorts of opportunities.”

“He is an effective and well-informed advocate for his clients, invariably asking hard questions and seeking constructive solutions.”

In working to distill complex ideas, Buchwald says he’s trying to build relationships one department at a time. “Because of what is often pure happenstance, I have a very close working relationship with some departments and am working to build that same relationship with others,” Buchwald says. “Success to me is that internal network growth; working with a new department is sort of like starting over and building trust with a new group of people.”

As the senior counsel cultivates relationships, he says that he continues to be invigorated by the sheer number of different people and ideas he encounters on a daily basis. Such richness and variety of experience make the NFL a fruitful working environment for any professional.

We congratulate our client and friend, Michael Buchwald, Senior Counsel, NFL, for his recognition in Modern Counsel.

Should Safety Be an Option?

Brett Pynnonen keeps the business front and center while addressing Visteon’s most complex questions

By Billy Yost

LAW STUDENTS OFTEN ENCOUNTER A famous thought experiment called the trolley problem. A trolley car is moving toward five incapacitated people lying on the tracks. You can pull a lever and divert the trolley car to another track, but there is also one unconscious person on that track. What do you do? Now, what if the trolley car was self-driving?

Variations of this question arise regularly for Brett Pynnonen. He is the senior vice president and general counsel for Visteon, a cockpit electronics supplier for most major car brands, which is also pioneering autonomous driving technology that will completely change the way human beings travel. His company is involved in the kind of work that is raising huge questions about artificial intelligence, driver engagement, and ethical dilemmas that Pynnonen says are moving from casual conversations into the boardroom.

In his third general counsel role, Pynnonen has a rare pedigree for a company that is trailblazing technologies,

Larry Peplin

many of which do not yet have unified legislation or common standards. Visteon has proven to be the perfect mixture of Pynnonen’s previous technologyand automotive-grounded jobs. “Merging my two prior general counsel experiences at Visteon has been incredibly satisfying,” Pynnonen says. From managing software design elements and processes to running a lean, efficient legal team, Pynnonen feels comfortable while having to stay on his toes.

In three years, Pynnonen has significantly expanded the capabilities of the legal team, emphasizing the absolute necessity of partnering with the business teams at Visteon. “You need to understand what you’re selling, your customers, and how to make judgments about where to allocate resources,” Pynnonen says.

Knowing the business, the general counsel takes a much more realistic approach to risk mitigation. “With a relatively lean legal department, you don’t have the luxury—and your business can’t afford—to have every possible potential risk addressed,” Pynnonen says. Thus, cultivating relationships both with outside counsel and other departments at Visteon is essential for the global company.

“I rely heavily on nonlegal team members around the world,” Pynnonen says. “If I can find a solid HR or finance colleague in a given country, I can connect those people with our outside counsel and then only need to oversee the process, rather than hiring a dedicated lawyer in that country.”

Managing relationships abroad is critical for Pynnonen as nations and governments begin the difficult process of legislating autonomous driving and safety standards. “Traditional automotive risk paradigms are starting to break down,” Pynnonen says. “We’re now entering an era where the driver is becoming less engaged in the active aspects of driving, and we are increasingly placing a higher level of precision on computers and machines than we do for human drivers.”

That is, while humans routinely get in accidents, humans tend to believe machines shouldn’t.

“If I could flip a switch tomorrow and every vehicle was autonomous, we would have an immediate reduction in accidents, but for the foreseeable future, humans will want, and need, to drive,” Pynnonen says.

Brett Pynnonen SVP and General Counsel Visteon

“If I could flip a switch tomorrow and every vehicle was autonomous, we would have an immediate reduction in accidents, but for the foreseeable future, humans will want, and need, to drive.”

Larry Peplin

As the technology continues to develop, Pynnonen believes a sea of fully self-driving cars on the roads is farther off than the evolution of continually enhanced safety features, like automated electronic braking and lane-keeping functionality. Technology will continue to evolve more on a continuum than a “big bang” to allow the driver to engage less and less with the automobile. One of Visteon’s focus areas is helping ensure a seamless, safe, and informed experience for the driver and passengers as control of the vehicle shifts between the person at the wheel and the vehicle.

Nonetheless, Pynnonen says that as the technology has progressed, the questions have gotten harder. “The human is an incredibly sophisticated organism to be [able to] handle all of these multiple sensory inputs while also factoring in prior experience,” Pynnonen says. “Despite the rapid advances in AI convolutional neural network training, it’s going to take a lot of time to get close to what a human is capable of.”

To protect Visteon’s technologies, Pynnonen has strengthened the organization’s IP function. “We’ve become a technology company. Our IP is becoming a greater and greater asset,” Pynnonen says. To stay abreast of autonomous driving news, Pynnonen gets a weekly briefing of autonomous driving litigation, M&A, and legislation from all over the world.

For a general counsel who has to regularly tangle with complex ethical hypotheticals, Pynnonen remains a business-minded attorney. “Success to me is when my team is considered a valued business partner and brought into discussions to add value outside the legal context,” Pynnonen says, “and not only to mitigate risk. My team must understand our business and how our guidance will impact the future of our company.” While the difficult questions remain, Pynnonen appears to be delivering the right business answers at Visteon.

to Brett

Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Visteon Corporation, on this recognition. We are proud to be part of your team.

Squire Patton Boggs is ranked National Tier 1 Corporate Law and Mergers and Acquisitions Law – U.S. News – Best Lawyers Best Law Firms 2019

Congratulations Local Connections. Global Influence.

47 Offices in 20 Countries squirepattonboggs.com

Congratulations

Pynnonen,

A Closed File

Textron’s Matt Cairns is leveraging more than thirty years of defense work to bring fresh eyes to the in-house counsel role

By Billy Yost

Is a Good File

MATT CAIRNS SPENT THIRTY-ONE

years in private practice in New Hampshire, defending corporations, insurers, and individuals in civil litigation. “I was trying cases at all levels of state and federal court as well as administrative agencies,” Cairns says. “Those cases ranged from the absurd to the mundane to the complex.” Working out of a smaller jurisdiction like New Hampshire meant that specialization wasn’t necessarily a possibility; instead, the variety of products, defendants, and plaintiffs offered a more holistic view of litigation. Now associate general counsel for litigation at Textron, Cairns has a chance to put more than three decades of compiled client knowledge into serving just one client.

Since coming to Textron in January of 2018, Cairns says he’s tried to provide a new set of eyes on a role that his predecessor spent sixteen years in. “It’s tough to come in and replace someone who has been here that long,” Cairns admits. “My goal has been to identify the things that have worked really well and keep doing those while also looking for opportunities to adapt to new expectations and new environments.”

Going in-house meant venturing into a new environment for Cairns, who says he’s already learned a big lesson about big data. “One of the things you don’t appreciate when you’re in private

Matt Cairns Associate General Counsel Textron

An Organized Defense

Matt Cairns says being involved in legal organizations has offered him the chance to work with the finest minds from around the world. “I have the distinct privilege and honor to have been the president of the largest of those defense-oriented organizations, DRI,” Cairns says. From that organization along with the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel, the International Association of Defense Counsel, and a host of other groups, Cairns has not only been able to learn from others but also mentor the next generation of lawyers.

Better Together

At Bradley, our attorneys understand that legal matters are more than contests of critical thought; they have real-world implications, which is why we prioritize integrity. It is this integrity that inspires all of us to go above and beyond our clients’ expectations by providing innovative solutions, dependable responsiveness and a deep commitment to success.

practice is just how data-driven your clients are,” Cairns says. “From this perspective, I have certainly started to appreciate the importance of the outside law firms we work with having data to support their evaluations of cases and jurisdictions.” Cairns is working to educate Textron’s outside counsel on the need to provide that data and to be ready to report on key statistics—such as average settlement costs or product liability claims in a given county in a given time period—that can help Textron’s legal team assemble and assess its own strategy.

Cairns has also endeavored to improve Textron’s legal processes. That has included helping to revise billing guidelines, working to redefine the roles of paralegals and assistants, and using technology to better connect with outside counsel. Internally, he has striven to better collect, maintain, and evaluate information. “A closed file is a good file,” Cairns says of the product liability work he oversees. “What we’re trying to do is figure out more efficient ways to get from the notice of claim to the closed file.”

Getting to a closed file might mean early resolution—or it may mean going to trial. “We’re always looking for an exit ramp off the [trial] highway, but sometimes you wind up having to just barrel down the road,” Cairns says.

bradley.com

While improving litigation processes is certainly aided by Cairns’s extensive experience, when it comes to the business of Textron, the lawyer says there is a learning curve. “I’m learning from the finance and insurance departments all the time,” Cairns says. “Just learning about the business is so important because litigation is just a small part of it. You have

representation is made that the quality of the legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers. ATTORNEY ADVERTISING. Contact: John D. Watson, Esq., 205.521.8436, jwatson@bradley.com, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, 1819 Fifth Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35203. © 2019

Bradley congratulates Matt Cairns of Textron

to figure out how it fits into the overall company objective, particularly with a company as diversified as Textron.”

And while it seems that after thirty years of private practice work old habits would die hard, Cairns says he learned a long time ago that defining a win is a lot more than winning a case. “I once lost a case where the plaintiff was asking for a million dollars and they got three thousand instead,” Cairns illustrates. “In all objective measures, even though it says we lost, we won.” Developing his own success metrics at Textron means learning to be more agile, gaining familiarity with the organization, and continuing to find ways to put his thirty-one years of defense experience to work.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP:

“I’ve known Matt for more than twenty years—his approach to litigation is strategic, collaborative, and innovative. He’s always available to mentor young lawyers and does so graciously. It’s an honor to work with Matt.”

—Chuck Stewart, Partner

Nelson Mullins:

“Matt brings an intellectual curiosity to his work, but he also focuses on practical solutions. He manages his outside counsel team to maximize their specific strengths and deliver efficient and effective results for Textron.”

—John Kuppens, Partner

“One of the things you don’t appreciate when you’re in private practice is just how data driven your clients are.”

Ameen Haddad Assistant General Counsel, Technology, Intellectual Property & Cloud Computing Oracle

Using Knowledge as a Service

FOR AMEEN HADDAD, A PRIMARY ROLE of an in-house attorney is the provision of what he calls delivering “knowledge as a service.” Haddad’s knowledge management practice arose out of his role as a senior commercial attorney, supporting Oracle’s On Premise, cloud, subcontract, and other Oracle IT offerings. Specifically, Haddad builds Oracle’s knowledge resources based on his and other Oracle subject matter experts’ experiences, then designs them in a practical and intuitive form that he regularly tests in his own IT negotiations.

Haddad’s devotion to the knowledge management function began soon after joining Oracle in 2003. It was a simpler time in the technology industry. As he describes, “electronic delivery of IT offerings through the cloud had yet to take hold, with technology products (like Oracle’s flagship Database program) still often delivered to customers via physical CDs, which customers would then install on hardware located in their facilities.” Similarly, Haddad’s initial knowledge management deliverables for the Oracle legal team were fairly straightforward summaries of his and other attorneys’ experiences negotiating IT agreements.

By Charlotte Foer

Following the end of the “dotcom” era, technology companies were again exploring new fields and areas of growth, and Oracle was no exception. Early in Haddad’s tenure at the company, Oracle began expanding its portfolio of offerings, both organically and through acquisitions. This expansion included building out a robust, world-class set of enterprise applications as well as releasing cutting-edge hardware products. These changes accelerated with Oracle’s expansion into the cloud, where Oracle has introduced a full suite of “as-a-service”

Assistant General Counsel Ameen Haddad brings together Oracle’s global legal team with knowledge management platforms to support its mission of providing exceptional, curated service to its customers and partners

hosted offerings. The rate of innovation at Oracle has continued to increase in recent years with the company’s introduction of new data services, which encompasses data-driven industries—such as ad tech and marketing tech—as well as other innovative emerging technologies, including machine learning and AI.

This rapid change at Oracle has demanded that all attorneys, including Haddad, expeditiously learn about these new technologies and relevant areas of law to provide comprehensive legal support and to navigate the ever more complex legal landscape. Haddad realized that traditional ways of disseminating knowledge to in-house attorneys—such as “learning on the fly,” static playbooks, and generic training courses— were inefficient and difficult to scale. Additionally, the traditional approach often did not effectively relay specific business and legal risk assessments in a manner that an Oracle attorney must understand.

There had to be a better way. As Haddad explains, “Delivery of knowledge to Oracle’s global attorneys had to be as dynamic and comprehensive as Oracle’s ever-growing lines of business. Like Oracle’s cloud services, this knowledge had to be available ‘on demand’ when needed by Oracle attorneys, with constant updates ensuring that it remained relevant and accurate.”

Luckily, this vision was shared by the Oracle legal team’s general counsel, Dorian Daley, and head of legal operations, Christine Coats. Their support paved the way for Haddad to begin, in 2014, assembling a global team to deliver “knowledge as a service” to the five-hundred-plus members of the Oracle legal department. Haddad’s knowledge management (KM) team, comprising global attorneys and IT and operations experts, launched a custom knowledge management portal called “Legal Connect” through which information is disseminated to, and exchanged by, members of the Oracle legal department on a 24-7 basis. Legal Connect content includes curated resources, many of which are personally authored or reviewed by Haddad, that go beyond simple reference guides or generic practice documents. Instead, they include custom treatise-like discussions on issue spotting, risk mitigation, best practices, and alternative positions.

This curated content is augmented with updates on new laws and regulations, as well as historical infor-

mation, so even the newest members of the Oracle legal department are able to quickly provide consistent, substantive, and effective counsel to the company’s different lines of business. Haddad’s KM team uses the latest technology at their disposal to make the troves of invaluable information easily accessible from anywhere within Legal Connect, including a proprietary “site search” tool that uses predictive technology, as well as Boolean and natural language search options, to aggregate and display the most relevant and useful resources in the quickest manner.

“Knowledge as a service” goes beyond sharing legal information and materials. With this in mind, Haddad and his KM team created Legal Connect to act as the Oracle legal department’s virtual home, where members can learn about one another’s interests and successes. A rotating announcement pane on the portal that displays new hires’ pictures, descriptions of their roles and responsibilities, and hobbies, interests, and other fun facts provides a mechanism for professional recognition of the highlighted attorneys while also providing a “human touch.” As Haddad describes, “these virtual introductions are then followed with days’ worth of recorded video trainings that can be

“This is why attorneys, and their knowledge management practices, need to continue evolving . . . to continue delivering excellent legal services.”

viewed from Legal Connect on demand to better provide an understanding of the varying roles served throughout the Oracle legal department. It also provides a library of primers on various areas of our practice to have our new or transitioning attorneys ‘hit the ground running.’”

The key, according to Haddad, is “constant innovation, leveraging the growing expertise of our department and company as well as new technologies in order to improve the way we gather and share information.” For example, Haddad’s KM team recently launched on Legal Connect a proprietary chat bot, which helps members of the legal department identify the subject matter experts both within their department and Oracle’s larger employee population using intuitive, natural language questions. As Haddad summarizes, “Legal Connect is intended to serve as the virtual knowledge management focal point for our global department. It’s built from the ground up for lawyers, by lawyers, and shares vast amounts of information among a large global membership while also creating a sense of camaraderie.”

The breakneck rate of change in the IT industry continues. Haddad explains, “This is why attorneys, and their knowledge-management practices, need to continue evolving, learning about new areas of law and technologies in order to keep pace with our customers’ and partners’ needs and to continue delivering excellent legal services.” Toward this goal, Haddad leads regular collaboration sessions with his global colleagues to create resources for Legal Connect that represent the latest thinking and guidance on legal issues before they become problems. As Haddad reflects, “All this change keeps my job exciting and allows me to keep reinventing myself so that I can best address my clients’ needs both as a practicing commercial attorney and as a ‘knowledge’ service provider.”

For Haddad, the bottom line is that in-house lawyers are the legal knowledge repositories for their companies. Delivering this knowledge as a service to his clients is just part of the job, and in furtherance of the same mission as negotiating complex IT contracts—ensuring that his clients at Oracle receive the very best in legal support.

Orrick:

“Ameen excels at bringing legal and business teams together because he is both a terrific deal lawyer and a thought leader on legal operations. I always appreciate his knowledge management insights from the in-house perspective.”

—Kate Orr, Senior Innovation Counsel

CELEBRATING AMEEN HADDAD Ameen, you are a true leader in legal operations. We look forward to seeing what you do next at Oracle.

– Your friends at Orrick

Thriving on Variation

Kristie Scott is the rare inside counsel who stuck with the enterprise through multiple mergers and acquisitions. But rounding up legal talent in their now global company came naturally to her.

By Russ Klettke

ONCE UPON A TIME, DAILY NEWSPAPERS WERE delivered to our doorsteps, television had a news hour, and phones were just for making phone calls. The rapid convergence of all these media—their content indistinctly presented onto a wide range of digital devices—has happened over barely a generation. Along with uncountable conveniences to media consumers have come commensurate disruptions to the businesses that create it.

The public relations and marketing industries are among those businesses, having become blended, differently monetized, neatly seamless, and increasingly accountable. One person who has intimate knowledge of that is Kristie Scott. An attorney who began her career in technology, Scott is the rare leader who has largely stuck with one media services company as it rode this wave of change—even as it went public, was acquired by a private company, then went public again, and has been on a significant program of mergers and acquisitions ever since.

“The companies in PR and marketing feed off each other,” she says, referring to the evolution and convergence of “earned media” (some call it publicity), public relations, corporate communications, and marketing. Cision, the company where Scott serves as general counsel, is a leading global provider of earned media

Kristie Scott General Counsel Cision

software and services to public relations and marketing communications professionals. Cision’s software allows users to identify key influencers, craft and distribute strategic content, and measure meaningful impact. In the company’s portfolio of services are its PR Newswire division (press release distribution), media monitoring, database management, and analytics that assess value and provide strategic insights.

Cision operates on a global scale with more than 4,500 employees in 22 countries. Founded in Sweden, the company is now headquartered in Chicago. But Scott works from a company office in Beltsville, Maryland—somewhat an indicator of how this company has evolved over time as well as the global and virtual nature of what it does. The graduate of the University of Baltimore School of Law has always been based here, although her current staff of eight attorneys, plus paralegals and contracts administrators, is distributed around the globe.

That said, it is important to note that originally, Scott was working with a company as a computer programmer/analyst with a computer science and engineering degree from Bucknell University. “I went to law school at night,” she explains. “It took four years. I always had the support of the company general counsel, who mentored me along the way.” She adds that with her law degree, she became part of that company’s legal team. By the mid2000s, she was named associate general counsel for Vocus, which was subsequently acquired by a private equity firm and merged with Vocus’s competitor, Cision, in 2014, at which time she was promoted to the GC position.

In case that sounds like a lot of change, well, it was—and still is.

“I thrive on variation, and no two days are the same. Controlled chaos is always part of the tech sector.”

Smart In Your World

“I thrive on variation, and no two days are the same,” Scott says, adding that having previously worked in technology helped. “Controlled chaos is always part of the tech sector.”

To her point, consider the path of company ownership over the past fifteen years. Vocus, her original employer, went public with an IPO in 2005, her first experience with a public offering. Nine years later, in 2014, investors took the company private, and merged it with a competitor in the space, Cision. The “new” company engaged her department and outside counsel in a number of M&A projects to support the mission of becoming a global powerhouse in their industry.

Then, in a somewhat unusual move, the company went public again in 2016 through a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) transaction. Scott explains the SPAC functions somewhat like a holding company using a pool of money to buy an existing company, which then becomes the publicly traded company. “It’s an interesting process, with a shorter time frame for going public than with a typical IPO,” she says. About a year later, the company’s executives rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

“It’s not possible to get this range of experience everywhere,” Scott says. She began when Vocus had about one hundred employees; today, it’s forty times larger. And while she acknowledges the wild evolution of the industry itself drove much of that, she’s been associated with a company that earned its confidence in consolidating smaller, innovative startups into the larger organism that Cision has become.

Importantly, Scott feels the company has maintained a “start-up vibe, much like in the tech sector,” as she describes it. “It’s a bottom-up culture, and we’ve been able to keep a lot of that mentality.” True to that ideal, and arguably in an example of a deft strategic ethos, many of the attorneys reporting to her come from the legacy legal departments of acquired companies. “They bring a lot of value. They know the contracts and understand each of their respective businesses and histories. We learn from them.”

Now Scott sees the internal lines at Cision blurring between HR, finance, product, sales, and legal—to optimal outcomes. “My background in tech, for example, helps me ask about how new acquisitions and technologies will work and integrate with our existing services,” she says, adding, “With this kind of growth and these many new functions, we can’t work in silos.”

Arent Fox LLP is proud to partner with Kristie Scott of Cision Ltd. Kristie’s leadership and vision are part of what make Cision a leader in corporate communications.

A Change of Climate

Sylvia Stein draws on sixteen years of experience in the food industry to keep Modine’s global legal team aligned

By Billy Yost

AFTER SIXTEEN YEARS AT KRAFT Foods (later Kraft-Heinz), Sylvia Stein opted to try something new. Having risen through the organization and steadily widened the scope of her duties, Stein was ready for a GC role. That meant leaving the food industry for a new climate, both geography- and industry-wise. As general counsel at the worldwide headquarters of Modine Manufacturing Company in Racine, Wisconsin, Stein is responsible for overseeing the legal, compliance, and intellectual property functions globally at the thermal management systems company, which includes employees on four continents.

The size of the challenge was not lost on the newly minted GC. At first, it didn’t appear that Stein’s decade and a half of institutional knowledge at Kraft would carry over into the legal issues she would be overseeing at Modine Manufacturing. But a year and a half into her role, the GC says she’s realized that many of the skills she acquired over

Sylvia Stein VP, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary Modine Manufacturing Company Peter Buchaklian/Clic Photography

the years have proven quite transferable. As for the rest, Stein has staked out a wide stable of resources at Modine to fill in any gaps.

Learning in a hurry isn’t a new challenge for Stein. She began her career clerking for the Honorable Ann C. Williams, then sitting on the Chicago-based US District Court. “That role probably shaped what I find most interesting about the law: learning about and working to address a variety of legal issues. You’re reading papers from opposing parties, witnessing the court proceedings, and helping decide significant legal matters,” Stein says. “And you realize that what you’ve learned in class or in a book tends to be quite a bit different from what the actual practice of law is,” she adds with a laugh. “That experience was exciting and a bit nerve-racking at times, and it contributed to my resisting becoming a specialist.”

During that clerkship, Stein became involved with Just the Beginning, an organization that began as a celebration of Judge James B. Parson’s historical integration of the federal judiciary. Today, it serves as a pipeline organization aimed at inspiring young students and increasing diversity in the legal profession and judiciary. Stein continues to serve the foundation to this day as a board member. “That has been a big part of my life as a lawyer and has also shaped how I view my role and responsibility as a black woman lawyer,” Stein says.

Stein says her preference for handling a variety of legal issues led her to roles where that would be more possible, and Kraft ultimately wound up offering a litany of increasing responsibilities that encouraged her ability to grow into roles and quickly shift focus as needed. “I was a lawyer but working on cross-functional teams,” Stein says. “It was really good exposure and preparation for what I do today, as the general counsel of a multinational company.”

Making the move to Modine offered challenges not only in terms of taking on an entirely new industry but a new location as well. It meant maintaining two different houses to avoid upsetting Stein’s high school-aged son in Oak Park, Illinois, while operating out of company headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin. “It was an entirely new legal market, so I joined some of the local bar associations and worked to introduce myself to the community,”

“It’s so important when working on behalf of a public company that, as lawyers, we not only work to do what’s best for shareholders, but to do it ethically and as trusted partners of the business.”

Stein says. “I’m lucky that people have also reached out and invited me to the Wisconsin General Counsel Forum and the Wisconsin African American Lawyers Association.” After a career steeped in a well-connected, Chicago-based market, Stein has embraced starting anew.

In coming to Modine, Stein says her predecessor’s lengthy tenure made her very conscious of getting to know her team and working to integrate her own work style as smoothly as possible. “Part of what I did was really learn and try to exemplify the Modine values and leadership behaviors, which have really good fundamentals at their core,” Stein says. “I focus on maintaining connections, coaching, ensuring alignment, and collaborating well as a team.”

Though Stein’s team is lean, they are global, and staying aligned can be a bit trickier than it sounds. “There are limits to email,” Stein says frankly. “Especially with our teams in Germany and Italy, I emphasized really talking person to person, and that has sometimes meant our Racine team meeting is held at 7 a.m. so our colleagues overseas can give their input at the same time as the rest of us.”

Maintaining effective communication may not always be the first quality lawyers would attribute to themselves, the GC observes. “I’m not sure lawyers are really raised to be team players, but developing that connection and alignment has really been a significant focus for me and my team,” Stein says. “It’s so important when working on behalf of a public company that, as lawyers, we not only work to do what’s best for shareholders, but to do it ethically and as trusted partners of the business.”

We congratulate and are delighted to partner with Sylvia A. Stein Vice President, General Counsel, & Corporate Secretary, Modine Manufacturing Company. Her leadership, strategic thinking, and fresh perspectives are inspiring.

Howard Rosenblum Senior Counsel Walgreens

Howard Rosenblum Takes a Reasonable Approach to the Walgreens

In-House Role

Howard Rosenblum of Walgreens on his one-word legal approach and the ins and outs of leading a subpoena team

By Billy Yost

AS SENIOR COUNSEL AT WALGREENS, HOWARD

Rosenblum says there is one word that best defines the legal team’s approach to litigation, negotiation, and everything that comes in between: reasonable. “When you’re working in-house, deciding to take a case to trial is always a business decision,” Rosenblum says. The senior counsel has more than a decade of litigation experience that he is now able to leverage in his much wider scope at the national pharmacy chain. “When a case comes in, we immediately try to determine if it needs to move on to early case assessment. In other words, is it something we think we can resolve reasonably?” The word comes up often with Rosenblum, highlighting a commitment to negotiation as often as possible, but a willingness to stand the company’s legal ground when necessary.

Rosenblum’s firm experience offered a litany of issues that he said somehow all wound up being applicable in his later in-house role, from medical, legal, and dental malpractice to representing corporate clients in litigation and trials. After rising to the partner level, Rosenblum admits his penchant for lifelong learning got the better of him. “Going in-house always sounded like an interesting way to leverage my experience as a litigator by bringing it to a company setting,” Rosenblum says. “I learned that Walgreens was starting a new litigation group, and I figured, why not see what it was all about?”

As one of the first hires for the newly formed litigation group, Rosenblum says he was able to participate in litigation in a way that just wasn’t ever possible at a firm. “You really can be involved as early as the claims stage and all the way through trial and appeal,” Rosenblum says. “I was still intimately involved in the process, and now I got to also work as part of the business.”

Working with the business, the senior counsel says, is some of the most rewarding work he gets to do at Walgreens. “Whether it’s operations or safety or HR, I’m here to help them accomplish company goals and not just scare them off with legalese,” Rosenblum says. “That requires that I work with our team members and try to respond in a way that’s helpful and nonthreatening.”

That can be difficult; the lawyer’s job means having to review and consider policies and proce -

“I just try to keep everyone on the same page that this is all for the customers, because without them, there is no Walgreens.”

dures that may need tweaking. “I just try to keep everyone on the same page that this is all for the customers, because without them, there is no Walgreens,” Rosenblum says. “Are there things that we can learn from litigation or claims to maybe figure out how to operate differently or provide more training? I try to use those cases as learning experiences for everyone here.”

Rosenblum’s tendency to volunteer for nearly any project has currently led him to oversee Walgreens’ new subpoena team. Rosenblum is leading a team of paralegals who are responsible for the intake of all company subpoenas, primarily made up of third-party disputes where Walgreens isn’t even a concerned party. “These used to come into different departments throughout the company, but we’ve streamlined the process so that they now all come through centrally to the legal department,” Rosenblum says. “Now we’re able to collaborate on potential solutions together, especially if we see the same issue materializing a few times.”

In responding to subpoenas, Rosenblum says a familiar logic is always at play. “I know I’ve used this word before, but as we look to avoid drawing the company into any discovery disputes that we may not even be party to, we are just looking to respond reasonably,” Rosenblum says. “If it’s a subpoena asking for a deeper dive than it should be, we’ll do our best to try to work it out with the requesting party, though sometimes, we do have to push back.”

Rosenblum says his measure of success is simple: if his team continues to grow and develop, everyone will continue to flourish. “This isn’t a ‘do as I say’ team,” Rosenblum says. “And I will always be the first one in line to give them a hand if they need it.”

Burnham Brown:

“Howard Rosenblum, consummate lawyer and business partner, is a pleasure to work with. His deep knowledge of Walgreens allowed us to work effortlessly on its behalf with effective litigation strategy.”

—Paul Caleo, Partner

Spicer Rudstrom PLLC:

“Howard Rosenblum is truly a skilled professional. His approach to legal matters is strategic, practical, and synergistic. He handles the routine matter efficiently and makes the complicated matter straightforward. In short, Howard engenders success.”

—Marc O. Dedman, Member

Burnham Brown is an established law firm with offices in California and Nevada. We are a pre-eminent business counseling and litigation firm, offering clients leading-edge expertise and strategic guidance.

Our extensive experience enables us to offer quality legal representation with the benefit of local knowledge. Our philosophy is to provide a high level of service in an efficient and result oriented manner.

Karon Macdaniel became head of global privacy at AMD and an industry expert for a good reason: because she wanted to

By Billy Yost

You Don’t Know If You Don’t Ask

Karon Macdaniel Director of Litigation & Global Privacy Advanced Micro Devices

Alfred M. Macdaniel, Jr.

KARON MACDANIEL’S ADVICE FOR LAWYERS WHO feel lost on their career journeys, be they firm-based or in-house, is simply to take a step back. “There are so many different opportunities out there and so many emerging areas of the law to try out,” Macdaniel says. “Senior leaders are often receptive to their lawyers taking on new areas, but you don’t know if you don’t ask.”

That phrase perfectly sums up Macdaniel’s career thus far. As director of litigation and global privacy at Advanced Micro Devices, Macdaniel has twice taken the initiative during her career to step into a new and developing area of law—not because she was asked, but because she recognized an opportunity. With responsibilities that to this day are heavily steeped in litigation, the lawyer has also become deeply versed in e-discovery and records management—and, at AMD, global privacy.

Practicing in Texas, Macdaniel’s early litigation experience included the 2003 tort reform bill HB4, which placed a cap on noneconomic damages. “It was essentially a race to the courthouse before that legislation became law,” Macdaniel remembers. “I found the science and medical space interesting because my father is a physician, and it was a great experience early in my career before I moved to Austin.”

While doing product liability defense work in the Texas capital, Macdaniel realized that she needed more from her career. In 2006, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended and brought about drastic changes to e-discovery rules. Still an associate, Macdaniel perceived that the reset button had essentially been hit on e-discovery and records management and that every lawyer’s number of years in the field was now suddenly the same. “You were no longer looking at senior partners who had twenty years of litigation experience who would always be ahead of you,” Macdaniel says. “Everyone had zero years of experience in this space.”

Macdaniel’s new area of focus landed her on e-discovery teams, traveling to and meeting with clients. It also landed the associate on the speaking circuit. “Being on the circuit as a fourth-year litigator is almost impossible, but because I was at the forefront of this area, I was able to really start building it as my area of expertise.”

“

From marketing to IT to contractual issues, I’m who you talk to about privacy.”

warmly congratulates Karon Macdaniel on her well-deserved recognition as a lawyer and leader in the legal profession.

Practicing within records management and e-discovery at a large firm still provided a lot of ebb and flow to Macdaniel’s work process. “We had high rates, and clients often did not want to spend so much on records management and e-discovery programs,” Macdaniel says. “I started talking to people I knew who had gone in-house and thought it might be worth trying out.” A former colleague had come to AMD a year prior, and Macdaniel, having left the aforementioned large firm and commenced working with clients as a solo attorney, started doing contract work for the semiconductor company. Based on her performance, she was offered a full-time position in 2010.

Early on at AMD, Macdaniel was working on litigation matters almost exclusively, but she found it rewarding in a way she hadn’t previously experienced. “What I found so refreshing about in-house work is that you’re not pigeonholed into any specific [type of] litigation,” Macdaniel says. “At the time, it could be anything from breach of contract in Sweden to a tax case in Korea.”

While her plate was certainly full, Macdaniel kept hearing a few lawyers at AMD discussing privacy issues, and the lawyer slowly became convinced that privacy might be yet another burgeoning field in which she could get involved early on—not out of obligation but out of curiosity. “Working on litigation matters, I observed how increasing volumes of electronic data held by companies could create conflicts over who [managed that data] and how that data was used, which in turn sparked an interest in privacy. I eventually asked if they would be interested in me becoming the point person,” Macdaniel says. “They were happy to have a point person, and little did I know what I was actually agreeing to take on.”

Just three years into her new responsibilities, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) dropped. “We knew it was coming, and I had immediately started working with our outside counsel to get compliant,” Macdaniel says. “Now, from marketing to IT to contractual issues, I’m who you talk to about privacy.”

It’s not just GDPR that keeps Macdaniel busy in her global role. “There was a marketing campaign in South Korea, laws to navigate in Singapore, and now the California Consumer Privacy Act, which

could fundamentally change the way states and the federal government handle and regulate consumer data and privacy.”

While global privacy may seem like a full-time job, Macdaniel still spends the bulk of her time as head of all non-IP-related litigation. The lawyer says that both the variety of work and the people at AMD are what have kept her at the organization for so long. “I wouldn’t be able to come to work somewhere if I didn’t enjoy the people I work with, and I consider that an accomplishment on AMD’s part,” Macdaniel says. “Being given the opportunity to pivot into different areas has been amazing.”

Feature Purpose

Through the lens of these leading attorneys’ stories, we explore what corporate responsibility and social good look like in the legal sphere

These ten in-house counsel have chosen to go above and beyond their job descriptions, guided by a sense of purpose. From developing pro bono programs to supporting D&I efforts to directing and refining organizational behavior through an emphasis on shared company values, they have proven their dedication to mission-driven work.

Martin Voke VP, General Counsel, and Secretary Bacardi North America

the

diversity of spirit

Bacardi’s Martin Voke on fostering diversity in a male-dominated industry and making legal another arm of the business

By Billy Yost | Photos by Gillian Fry

APART FROM WHAT HE CALLS

“product testing” in college, Martin Voke had no real job experience upon leaving school, let alone knowledge of the spirits industry. When he went to work as a business analyst for the sales and management side of Bacardi at the business’s Dallas branch in 1990, he would have been hard-pressed to forecast changing fields entirely, all the while remaining at one of the most recognizable names in the spirits world. Now, nearly thirty years later, as vice president, general counsel, and secretary for Bacardi North America, his experiences have helped align legal to the business. He also continually strives to spread the culture of “primo” (the Spanish word for cousin and how those at Bacardi refer to colleagues) at the company and to make a male-dominated industry more welcoming and supportive of women in leadership.

A year into his new career at the company, Voke and eight other up-and-comers were offered the chance to pursue their MBAs—a chance Voke leapt at. Working for Bacardi during the day and attending classes at night, Voke began a close working relationship with the senior general counsel at Bacardi, who was also in a division advisory role for Voke’s Dallas branch. The lawyer knew Voke had always wanted to attend law school, and when Texas Wesleyan (now Texas A&M) opened a night school, Voke’s mentor pushed him to move straight from business school into law school. “He said it was going

to be really hard, but he also said the company would be fully supportive of me,” Voke says. Both predictions wound up coming true.

With a newly minted MBA degree in hand, Voke again worked days at Bacardi, left five minutes early every Monday through Thursday to speed up the highway to night school, took classes from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and then came home to study. “It was my wife Connie that held down the household while I continued my education,” Voke says. “She had the hard job while I was able to focus on my path, which she

“

If you’re good at your job, the sky really is the limit in terms of the roles you can take on here.”

fully supported, sometimes at her own expense. I could not ask for a better partner in life.”

Further intensifying the challenge, the same GC who had encouraged Voke to attend law school now further encouraged the soon-to-be lawyer to transfer from Texas to Florida and take up residence in the legal division of Bacardi North America. “There’s nothing quite like changing jobs, law school, and packing up your new family and moving to Florida all at the same time,” Voke laughs. But he was able to finish his degree in three years and hasn’t looked back since.

“Bacardi has been so great about letting me grow and develop,” Voke says. “If you’re good at your job, the sky really is the limit in terms of the roles you can take on here.” From sales and marketing to litigation, employment matters, contracts, IP, and any other matter that helps the business operate more fluidly, Voke has worked on it.

One of the GC’s biggest projects to date was in the company’s strategic decision to jettison its North American distributor model and open its doors to any and all interested parties. “A lot of our existing distributors and wholesalers at the time were people we had thirty- or forty-year relationships with,” Voke says. “Legal had to help create a standardized request for proposals that was fair and helped all the participants put their best foot forward.” After extensive interviews, research, and deliberation, Bacardi ultimately wound up terminating contracts with twenty-eight separate distributors and brokers and unifying those deals with one distributor,

My hard work is not different than theirs, and they should share in the same benefits equally.”

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, for the majority of the North American footprint.

Prior history indicated that Bacardi would, regardless of the business model it elected to employ, face litigation in response to terminated contracts. Knowing it would face suits in many states, Bacardi filed preemptive litigation to make sure all matters would be argued where its original contracts stipulated, in Florida, not in forty-something different regions and locations. For the legal team, that meant concurrently filing nearly sixty individual state and federal pieces of litigation. “Clearly, this was a difficult process,” Voke says, “but the business result—it’s always about the business—is that we were able to move forward with as little disruption as possible.”

Disruption of another kind has been welcomed at Bacardi. Voke received the Fostering Diversity and Inclusion Award on behalf of judicial events for his efforts to seek more opportunities and equality for women in positions of senior leadership. In the fairly male-dominated spirits industry (although it is getting better), Voke says that making women part of the conversation is vital in helping break down stereotypes and break through glass ceilings. “If you only have men in interviews, it’s all you’re going to hire, and you’re missing that goal of developing a diverse workforce that helps drive us toward better solutions and better decisions.”

Bacardi is well ahead of the game, yet Voke says there is room for improvement in terms of sales positions and senior leadership. “Now it’s about making sure that we’re developing everyone at the same levels,” Voke says. “When those positions come open, we want to make sure that we have that same diversity vying for those positions.” A big focus of the Bacardi Women in Leadership program is helping achieve just that. Through mentoring, training, and development opportunities, the company is looking to unleash the potential of current

Fisher Phillips congratulates Mar tin Voke on his leadership and stewardship of Bacardi Nor th America’s amazing in-house legal team.

It is a privilege to work with Mar tin and the Bacardi team. fisherphillips com

and future female leaders of the business.

Voke’s passion for women’s issues is multifaceted. His own legal team is entirely female, and as a husband and father of a daughter, Voke says he doesn’t want anyone whom he cares about to have to compete in the same unequal capacity that so many other women have endured. As the GC’s own daughter continues working toward her goal of becoming a physician assistant, Voke says, “I want to help smooth her path as well as the paths of others to make sure women have a level playing field—so they can experience the same benefits that I was fortunate to receive. My hard work is not different than theirs, and they should share in the same benefits equally.”

contributions to Bacardi.

Hogan Lovells:

“Martin Voke is the epitome of ‘Modern Counsel’. He is a consummate strategist, while also being an integral member of high stakes litigation for Bacardi. Yet, he still manages to champion and advance women’s rights.”

–Marty Steinberg, Partner, Litigation

Kelley Drye:

“I’ve known Martin for years and I’ve proudly witnessed his incredible dedication to Bacardi and efforts to foster a more diverse and inclusive workplace. I’m happy to call him a friend.”

—Michael Lynch, Partner

human

the side of

compliance

Assistant General Counsel

Nicole Williams’s successful restructuring of ADS’s compliance program centers on an unlikely ingredient: joy

By KC Esper

Sami Roy Photography

Nicole Williams Assistant General Counsel and Director of Compliance ADS

WHEN NICOLE WILLIAMS WAS TASKED with restructuring ADS’s compliance program, she decided to take a new approach. Of course, first, she checked the necessary boxes: analyze the business, reorganize the process to make it applicable to the business’s needs, and create a system that encourages longevity by frequently updating people on new policies and procedures. She explains, “I did a big-picture review with fresh eyes and considered everything from our line of business, our size, location, and the regulatory landscape that affected us. Then I did an analysis of the biggest risks to us and prioritized the initial focus on that.”

To complete the project, Williams used the Department of Justice’s newest evaluation of corporate compliance programs memo as a roadmap to determine best practices when it came to putting together the program, auditing processes, and adhering to compliance. With the help of her fellow assistant general counsel, Williams restructured the program to continually support the unique demands of ADS.

She says that since the program has been implemented, ADS has seen more of an interdepartmental union. “Oftentimes, in other organizations, legal is seen as a roadblock or black hole,” Williams explains. “My main goal is to make sure that our legal department is viewed as something that is here to help other departments accomplish their goals and not shut them down. Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen more and more

Serving Those Who Serve

Nicole Williams says the best part of her job is knowing she is helping make a difference for members of the military and first responders. Both inside and outside the office, Williams takes any opportunity to exercise this passion for fostering positive change, especially through her involvement with the ADS Mission Give Back Foundation, a nonprofit that helps support military families and first responders.

As executive director for the program, Williams organizes fund-raising events that raise money to support military, first responders, and their families and heads the scholarship program, which awards scholarships to high school students who are dependents of military or first responders injured or killed in action. Growing up a military child herself, Williams believes this program supports those who give their all to make a difference in the world. She has witnessed many such people throughout her life.

“My husband is a first responder, and my father is a retired Air Force pilot,” she says. “Their service to our country, along with all other men and women who have served and continue to serve, is inspiring. I’ve seen their sacrifices and how it impacts them and their families. Being able to give back to them is especially satisfying for me.”

people come to ask questions about how to structure or think about a deal, and it’s been great to see everyone work hand in hand with legal.”

Once the more formal process was in place, Williams’s next step took an approach seemingly impossible for a compliance program: having fun.

To support her mission of ensuring the program was long-lasting, Williams created the First Friday program—a strategic way to encourage employees to participate in ongoing training sessions without feeling burdened or bored by the material. “‘Training’ is not a word that most people like to hear,” she says. “We wanted our First Friday program to create a habit of ongoing learning through defining

We congratulate on her accomplishments and well-deserved recognition and pro le in Modern Counsel.

Wiley Rein is honored to continue our relationship with in supporting its mission.

repeating intervals in a microformat, which makes the material easier to retain and quicker to digest.”

Each training session takes less than five minutes and is laced with small elements of humor—a reference to a comedic movie, funny memes, or even games. A training session that came out around Easter, for example, included a mini Easter egg hunt, prompting employees to find the egg in the training for the chance to win a prize. Williams says, “We’ve definitely seen a decrease in the quarterly audits. Now, we can see which areas we need to retrain or focus on, and people are more willing to ask questions for clarification on processes as they see fit.”

Regardless of the task, whether it’s creating a new program or organizing a fundraising event, Williams welcomes the opportunity to learn, to embrace change, and most of all, to have fun while doing it.

wileyrein.com

Wiley Rein LLP:

“Nikki is a tremendous addition to the ADS legal team. She has introduced innovative ways to enhance the company’s ethics and compliance program and roll those innovations out to company employees.”

—Kara M. Sacilotto, Partner

“

‘Training’ is not a word that most people like to hear. We wanted our First Friday program to create a habit of ongoing learning.”

By Anthony Ruth | Photos by Gillian Fry

Tiffani McDonough Solomon Director and Senior Counsel for Employment & Litigation

Louis Vuitton Americas

WHEN SHE ENTERED HER EXTERNSHIP during her final year of law school, Tiffani McDonough Solomon couldn’t have predicted that it would shape her entire career. The premium denim brand 7 For All Mankind had started a new in-house legal department, and McDonough Solomon was the first legal extern, working under Barbara Kolsun, now a fashion law professor and codirector of Cardozo Law’s Fashion, Art, Media & Entertainment (FAME) program.

“Barbara became a great mentor to me,” recalls McDonough Solomon. “It was a milestone experience for me, after which I knew that working as in-house counsel in the fashion industry was ultimately what I wanted to do.” After law school, McDonough Solomon practiced labor and employment law while always looking for ways to direct her work toward retail and fashion. Several years into her career, she heard from Kolsun about a position at Louis Vuitton and made the leap.

Today, McDonough Solomon is the director and senior counsel for employment and litigation at Louis Vuitton Americas, with sole responsibility for labor and employment matters and litigation in the Americas region. In her role, she provides employment and compliance counseling to Louis Vuitton Americas’ operations, including all corporate offices, workshops, and retail locations throughout North, Central, and South America. She also manages litigation for the Americas region and

serves as the senior employment counsel for Louis Vuitton affiliate Berluti.

One of McDonough Solomon’s points of pride is working for a company with a zero-tolerance discrimination policy. “The company really gets it right in this area,” she says. “Being an international brand, they understand the importance that all employees in the workplace enjoy a professional and comfortable working environment. Diversity is core to the success of the company, and the company places a premium on creating an inclusive environment for all employees.”

McDonough Solomon works with Louis Vuitton’s human resources team to ensure that the company is ahead of the curve when it comes to compliance and inclusivity, which includes providing antidiscrimination protections that go beyond what the laws require. For example, although only a few cities and states offer protections to employees against discrimination based on sexual orientation, Louis Vuitton extends protections to all employees based on all protected characteristics. In other words, the company has zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind, including based on an employee’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

McDonough Solomon’s work extends to employee benefits as well. One of her earliest efforts at Louis Vuitton was to develop paid bonding leave for new mothers as well as fathers. “Now it is more common in the

industry, but we were one of the first to lead on this effort and have one of the most generous paid policies I have seen,” she says.

When she was in private practice, McDonough Solomon noticed that most companies need legal mandates to effectuate change, and she feels fortunate to work for a company that is genuinely interested in inclusivity and meeting employees’ needs on a personal level.

“I am pretty passionate about employment legislation and often find myself lobbying my husband over dinner about employment laws in the state,” says McDonough Solomon, whose husband is Jared Solomon, a legislator in the Pennsylvania House. “Fortunately for both of us, we are on the same page when it comes to these issues!”

The other aspect of McDonough Solomon’s role that’s close to her heart is the Louis Vuitton legal externship program, which she oversees and has worked to build into a robust and meaningful experience for law students. Under her leadership, the company has expanded the number of law students it recruits and the number of schools they come from. Her goal for the program is to give students a full understanding of being an in-house attorney in the fashion industry as well as the impact that their work has on the company’s business. “As in-house counsel, in addition to being a trusted legal advisor, you need to be a proactive, results-driven business partner,” she says.

Because of her own externship, McDonough Solomon is cognizant that her program could equally prove to be a turning point for the students

she works with. “I have been very fortunate to have wonderful mentors at each step of my career,” she says. “I could not have accomplished my dream without them. I truly hope to carry that forward.”

Holland & Knight joins Modern Counsel in celebrating

Congratulations to Tiffani McDonough

Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg LLP:

“We’ve been working with Tiffani since she joined Louis Vuitton and continue to be impressed with her talent and dedication, which separates her as a remarkable attorney and an integral part of Louis Vuitton’s success.”

—Peter J. Barack, Cofounder and Senior Partner, Fashion, Luxury & Retail Group

Holland & Knight:

“Tiffani has a deep understanding of her industry. This understanding, along with her proactive approach to preventing legal risks, are a winning combination that drive the most positive of results for Louis Vuitton.”

—Tina Tellado, Partner

Carlton Fields

“One of the most responsive and collaborative in-house counsel I have had the honor of working with, Tiffani fashions a legal strategy to creatively and effectively achieve her company’s needs and goals.”

—Mark A. Neubauer, Shareholder

TIFFANI MCDONOUGH, director and senior counsel for employment and litigation for Louis Vuitton and senior employment counsel for Berluti, for her impressive accomplishments, dedication to the legal profession and her commitment to the community.

It is our privilege to work with Tiffani and her entire team. www.hklaw.com Tina

Louis Vuitton on her achievements and contributions to the labor and employment and luxury goods industries, and for her dedication to Louis Vuitton’s success.

© 2019 Holland & Knight LLP All Rights Reserved

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Copyright

redefining

neighborly the thing

do to

John Orta of Nextdoor oversees the company’s legal function while enforcing the importance of building a community, not just a team

By KC Esper

Orta Chief Legal Officer Nextdoor

John

JOHN AND STELLA CHHAN OWN A DONUT shop in southern California. When a longtime customer noticed that Stella wasn’t coming into the store as much as usual, she asked why. John explained that Stella was recovering from an aneurysm and that he would visit her every afternoon once the donuts sold out and he was done cleaning. The neighbor wanted to help. She posted John’s story on Nextdoor and encouraged everyone in the neighborhood to rush to the shop and buy the donuts so John could visit Stella sooner. In just a few days, John’s story reached the masses. He was able to sell all the donuts by midmorning, then care for Stella for the rest of the day.

Stories like the Chhans’ inspires the group at Nextdoor to make a difference in every neighbor’s life. In a technology-driven world, the app seeks to break the barriers created by media and connect people—to return to the feeling created by the days when neighbors would reach out to each other for help or advice. At Nextdoor, John Orta serves as the company’s chief legal officer. His job oversees every aspect of the company’s legal team, from litigation to commercial agreements, corporate governance to employee relations. He also leads Nextdoor’s corporate and business development functions.

Orta’s multitasking abilities and many other talents have not gone unnoticed. “John’s a great all-around team player, taking on far more responsibilities than a general counsel typically does, such as leading Nextdoor’s business development efforts,” says Cynthia

Hess, start-up and venture capital practice cochair at Fenwick & West. “The company’s CEO and board of directors really appreciate his attitude and willingness to dig into issues and how he works tirelessly to get things done. John and Nextdoor are phenomenal to work with and set a great example.”

Orta always knew he was interested in technology. After going to law school, Orta practiced intellectual property litigation, but after a few years, he decided he wanted to learn more about the business side of the equation and enrolled in business school. He was interested in learning more about how industries change over time, and specifically how they interact and change with technology. As soon as he graduated, however, the first Internet boom came to a crashing halt. Undiscouraged, he was determined to succeed in this new, dynamic career, inspiring him to join his first start-up, iMotors, then work hard to eventually become general counsel at OpenTable and Metromile.

Everything we do and say must lift up the team as a whole, which is the same message that Nextdoor tries to give to neighborhoods who use our app.”

Not only did these opportunities introduce Orta to a world that married technology and legal, but they also allowed him to develop a professional style that he would carry with him for the rest of his career. During these early career experiences, Orta learned a simple but impactful lesson: “You can’t do everything yourself.” In keeping with Nextdoor’s goal of creating community, Orta endeavors to develop bonds that encourage his team to work together. His leadership style thrives on building trust among his colleagues to skillfully, effectively achieve goals.

“Everyone here is your neighbor,” Orta expresses. “We treat each other with respect. Everything we do and say must lift up the team as a whole, which is the same message that Nextdoor tries to give to neighborhoods who use our app: to open helpful discussions that increase the power of community.”

Though Orta has a small legal team, he believes that recruiting the perfect team members is an imperative step to making a company thrive. He says, “Taking time to recruit the right people will provide the biggest benefit to the company over time.” While this may be

the most important step, it is also one that requires a substantial time commitment. Orta says reserving significant portions of time just for recruiting allows a leader to build a team that is unified and committed.

“I recruit honest, responsible people, who I feel comfortable delegating tasks to and who I know will do a good job accomplishing them,” he explains. “They should have the necessary experience, but I should also be able to sense the potential of them to grow within their career and make a difference in the company.”

Since the app was launched in 2011, Nextdoor has grown exponentially in neighborhoods across the country. Now, the company is branded as “the world’s largest social network for neighborhoods,” enabling local connections to build stronger, safer communities. Orta’s work and recruitment efforts have furthered the company’s mission of banding together to accomplish collective goals in neighborhoods around the world. At Nextdoor, the days of not knowing our neighbors have ended. Now, much like Orta’s mantra, we can work together to work better.

“

I recruit honest, responsible people, who I feel comfortable delegating tasks to and who I know will do a good job accomplishing them.”

flying

on

United Airlines’

Matt Wexley follows his

instincts, which has led him to twenty years of impactful work touching the lives of his team and the community—and even strangers

By KC Esper

TWENTY YEARS AGO, WHEN MATT Wexley started at United Airlines, he didn’t realize how impactful his work would be for himself and others. His role as an attorney at United has taken his work beyond the office, often touching the lives of community members and strangers alike. Early in his career at United, Wexley was instrumental in helping employees and the community following a company crisis, stepping outside his job description and serving “as a counselor, advisor, and friend” during this difficult time. Recently, he worked on a pro bono case with a team from United to obtain asylum for a mother and her daughter from El Salvador. He saved them from a dangerous life and helped them gain the right to remain safely in the United States, illuminating their futures in an instant. Over time, Wexley felt himself becoming connected to his job in ways that exceeded doing good work. He was changing lives.

Though Wexley may come across as a natural-born, superhero lawyer, his career path has been marked by spontaneity. “When I graduated from college, I was a psychology major. I thought I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and become an industrial psychologist,” he says. But after taking some time off after his undergraduate studies, he decided to go to law school almost on a whim, because he was interested in helping people and obtaining a law school education. “I’m lucky because I have never had my life carefully planned out. I went to law school with really no idea of what it meant to be a lawyer, but I was open to doing and

“After all these years, I still come in every day ready to do the best job I can to help people and learn new things.”

Matt Wexley

Associate General Counsel, Commercial & Government Contracts United Airlines

learning new things, helping people, and being prepared to do so as much as possible. After all these years, I still come in every day ready to do the best job I can to help people and learn new things.”

For Wexley, having a life unplanned was the perfect way to meet people and stay open to novel experiences. His job at United represents a happy mix of his willingness to learn and his passion for connecting with other people. Over the years, Wexley has used his knack for welcoming the unexpected. He has worked in various departments in United’s legal department, which is unique for a lawyer at the company, and also charted a steady course through the incredible changes faced by the airline industry since he started in 1999. He witnessed the sacrifices United made during its bankruptcy starting in 2002—likewise witnessing the success of United after it emerged stronger than ever, offering brand-new products and customer experience opportunities. Wexley also helped United successfully merge with Continental in 2010: a plan full of unknown prospects that proved to be a tremendous accomplishment after it was complete.

In navigating changes like these every day, Wexley says that his current role as associate general counsel of commercial and government contracts has transformed into one that never assumes a routine. He has developed an appreciation for stepping outside of his realm of expertise to make a difference within the company, and of course, he encourages his team to do the same. In fact, a large part of Wexley’s job is working with his team to help them succeed no matter what challenges they face. He takes pride in developing relationships with his fellow lawyers, coaching them through problems and issues when necessary. With two decades of experience under his belt as an in-house attorney, Wexley serves as a viable resource for young professionals seeking legal advice; guidance on identifying, analyzing and assessing risks; and ways to develop “different options to accomplish what they need.”

He says that the best part of his job is mentoring and coaching. He considers these responsibilities an integral part of his work: “Being a coach is a newer area for me, but something I greatly enjoy. When you make that connection with your group, it’s a really rewarding experience. I was fortunate to work with some wonderful attorneys who taught me, and I like to pass that on to others.” Wexley’s ability to connect with his team members carries over into how he connects with his clients. The secret to successful client relationships, he asserts, is using emotional intelligence to earn trust. Building

Find out why Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 companies are seeking our counsel on thei r IP and IT issues

CHEN MALIN LLP is proud to join in recognizing our friend and client Matt Wexley for his achievements and contributions to United’s successes

a foundation of trust with his clients, following through on commitments, being a problem solver, and providing practical legal advice allows Wexley to better serve their needs because his clients engage him early on as a resource:

“You’re dealing with a lot of people associated with the company that have different backgrounds, skill sets, interests, motivations, and you have to show them what value you bring to them. I try to understand my clients’ perspectives, walk in their shoes, and show them that I understand the pressure they’re under when they ask for my assistance.”

Wexley’s work at United has provided him with innumerable opportunities to experience the variety of life within his work. His willingness to be open with his team members and clients gives him the chance to influence the lives of people who, in turn, impact his own life in exceptionally rewarding ways. Though his choice to become a lawyer was never planned, he says that he would want it no other way.

“You have to stick to what you believe makes you successful,” he says. “If you commit to that and do the best job you can, good things will happen.”

Crowell & Moring is proud to partner with Matt Wexley and the United Airlines team of lawyers to craft innovation solutions to complex legal challenges

Crowell & Moring LLP:

“Matt is astute in his analysis of complex legal issues and level-headed decisionmaking. He truly understands the legal and regulatory challenges of operating in a consumer-driven market. It is our honor to be one of his trusted advisers.”

—Lorraine Campos, Partner

do the right thing,

do what makes sense,

and be kind

Pivotal’s mission emphasizes retaining talent with soul—and GC Andrew Cohen is leading the way

IT’S NOT EASY TO GET ON ANDREW Cohen’s team. “I look for attorneys who are what I refer to as ‘experts and scientists’ as well as being empathetic and outgoing,” Cohen says. “I want someone who is going to be able to have street cred with their client base.”

In looking to adopt a more agile model inspired by Pivotal’s software developers, the GC has worked to cultivate a legal team that doesn’t just create rules and, as Cohen puts it, “throw them over the wall.” Instead, legal engages as part of cross-functional teams, seeking to incorporate legal requirements into standard business processes.

Cohen, who has been at Pivotal since its inception in 2013, says that “there is a lot that legal can learn from agile software developers” who work cross-functionally and begin engagements with a minimum viable product, or MVP, and then continuously iterate and improve. “This is a very disciplined approach that requires you start small, experiment, and not move on until you’ve gone green on the current issue,” Cohen says. For example, rather than legal seeking to write and implement a new policy in a vacuum and then implement it across an entire company, the team might start with a single department and gain input and experience before rolling it out more broadly. It’s a different mind-set.

Engaging directly as part of a cross-functional team can feel riskier, since if something goes wrong, the lawyer is not free to simply point out the compliance failures of others. “However, the power of this approach is that it is more fun to be a part of a team and much more efficient to build compliance into the process,” Cohen says.

Running an agile operation has led Cohen to look for attorneys who are

“ There is a lot of pent-up desire to engage in [communityimpact] work from an in-house perspective.”

Andrew Cohen SVP, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary Pivotal

Management

Compliance Services

Legal Spend Management

Legal Operations Consulting

willing to extend themselves beyond “closed-door” legal work. It makes finding the right attorneys difficult, but those who have joined have thrived personally and professionally, in service of Pivotal’s wider mission.

Cohen himself come to embody Pivotal’s mission, which states: Do the Right Thing, Do What Makes Sense, and Be Kind. He embodies this both in the way that his team practices law and by looking for new ways for his team to engage in pro bono work, including to help the Bay Area’s most vulnerable.

Cohen was recently asked to join the board of Bay Area Legal Aid, a public service law firm focused on serving families living in poverty, seniors, children, youth, individuals with disabilities, immigrants, veterans, and survivors of domestic violence. He is hoping his legal team might be able to put some of their expertise to work on behalf of the organization as well. “There is a lot of pent-up desire to engage in this kind of work from an in-house perspective,” Cohen says. “We’ll start small, try to figure out how to use our expertise to help in meaningful ways rather than feeling satisfied merely with the act of volunteering, refine our experiences, package them up, and hopefully communicate what we learn to other in-house departments.”

Cohen’s personal charity work also literally spans the state of Massachusetts. The lawyer has ridden in the Pan Mass Challenge bike-a-thon every year for the past seventeen years to raise money for cancer research. Overall, the ride has raised nearly $650 million in its thirty-year history and is the highest-grossing charity athletic event in the country. Cohen makes the yearly ride in remembrance of his friend Adam Raskin, who passed away from leukemia at twenty-seven.

Cohen has raised more than $100,000 for research but is quick to downplay his efforts. “These activities are ultimately self-serving,” Cohen says. “This is one of the best ways to make yourself feel good.” The GC’s assessment of his company and his legal team seems to, in fact, also reflect its leader: focused and empathetic.

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“Andrew Cohen is a terrific lawyer who quickly cuts to the chase and adds tremendous value to his business clients.”

—Ram Vasudevan, CEO

for

Milwaukee of good the

Noah Fenceroy is determined to cast his hometown in a different light, with ManpowerGroup leading the way

By Billy Yost

Noah Fenceroy Senior Managing Counsel ManpowerGroup

THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE HAS ALWAYS been home for Noah Fenceroy. It’s where he grew up, and it’s where he returned after earning his bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas. It’s where Fenceroy says he was mentored by his father, his brother, and other male members of his family—a luxury he knows isn’t afforded to everyone in his community.

The senior managing counsel at ManpowerGroup is also aware of the reputation his home city has garnered over the years. The Brookings Institute ranked it as the country’s most segregated city, and Fenceroy says too many are given the impression that Milwaukee may not be the place to come for career prospects and a fair shot at improving their lives. Fenceroy wants to change their minds.

Over the past ten years, Fenceroy has worked on behalf of ManpowerGroup to put people to work in Milwaukee and locations all over the world, helping 275,000 people find jobs in the US every year. “The work I do is extremely rewarding,” Fenceroy says. “I know that I’m impacting individuals’ lives, and because of that work, I’m able to positively affect the community where I grew up.”

Fenceroy is especially proud of ManpowerGroup’s partnering with the Milwaukee Urban League to offer the MyPath program, a suite of career enhancement offerings that fast-tracks motivated individuals to increasingly senior roles. Established in 2018, the MyPath program is open to associates— those actively working on a job assign-

ment through the company. The program has the goal of upskilling 130,000 US workers through certification, on-the-job training, and accelerated education programs, helping carve out new and evolving roles for a quickly transitioning work environment rooted more in technology than ever before.

“This is an absolute game changer,” Fenceroy says. “It’s a way for ManpowerGroup to assist individuals with structuring their own career paths who may never have even thought about their lives this way before.”

ManpowerGroup’s collaboration with the Milwaukee Urban League is no surprise. Fenceroy has sat on the board for six years, maxing out his term limit and serving as board chair for almost three years. “That was probably the most rewarding opportunity I’ve had outside of work to help support the city of Milwaukee,” Fenceroy says. “As much as I feel I’ve grown professionally, I don’t think there is anything that’s made me stretch and grow as much as being board chair of that organization. I’m extremely fortunate to be part of an organization like ManpowerGroup that encourages and supports me in such endeavors.”

“

I want young people who go off to college in an effort to better themselves to want to come back home and make a difference here.”

As Fenceroy’s time on the board recently came to an end, he’s subsequently joined the board of the Jewish Family Services. “It’s another organization that has a profound effect on the community in helping those with physical and emotional or mental health issues, those who struggle to take care of themselves, and others who need help finding housing,” Fenceroy says. His tenure with the organization is recent, but Fenceroy is confident he’ll find new ways to help serve those in Milwaukee who are most in need.

Fenceroy says he’s motivated by a desire to reverse the narrative that his home city has had written—and in some cases helped write—about itself. “I want to change the narrative of how Milwaukee is viewed and seen nationally,” Fenceroy says. “We want to be a community where people of color can come and excel and succeed. I want young people who go off to college in an effort to better themselves to want to come back home and make a difference here.”

The lawyer’s own commitment to returning home ultimately meant sacrificing what he initially thought would be a career in sports broadcasting. “I wasn’t willing to move every two years and go wherever the work was,” Fenceroy admits. “I wanted to build a home base and be able to affect a community that I know and love.”

That dedication to changing the lives of those in Milwaukee has spread to Fenceroy’s wife and son, both active members of the community. Fenceroy believes the positive role models he had growing up granted him opportunities that he, in turn, feels is incumbent on him to pass on to those who may not have had the same blessings. And that starts with ManpowerGroup. “What attracted me to coming here is that we are in the people business,” Fenceroy says. “Helping people provide for their own families was a big reason I came here, and it’s a reason I’m still here ten years later.”

—Phil Koutnik, Partner

Vaishali Udupa VP and Associate General Counsel for IP Litigation & Policy Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Gertie Gebre Photography

breaking

cycle the

As Vaishali Udupa has risen to leadership at HPE, she has championed bringing more diverse representation to the courtroom—and the legal profession as a whole

By Billy Yost

HER FIRST YEAR OUT OF COLLEGE, Vaishali

Udupa was on a fast-tracked construction site, building a semiconductor plant. Having graduated as a civil engineer and decided to defer her law school acceptance for a year, Udupa found herself as the only woman on-site who wasn’t administrative staff, trying to convince construction workers that her expertise could streamline processes and make things run more efficiently.

“It was a great learning experience in just having confidence in myself and proving that I was, as a twentyone-year-old minority woman, going to make this project run smoother,” Udupa says. “I had to build trust. It was not easy, but by the end of my time on the project I convinced these male construction workers of my value add.”

The now vice president and assistant general counsel for IP litigation and policy at Hewlett Packard Enterprise says her early engineering experience wouldn’t be the last time she would be the only woman in a room, but in rising to her position at HPE, she has demanded wider representation from her outside counsel. Today, she continues to push for more women and diverse attorneys in the legal field.

Udupa was the only woman in her first-year class at her first law firm. Later, when she moved to one of the top AM Law 100 firms, there were many times when she was the only woman in her Washington, DC, office doing IP litigation.

In her current role at HPE, however, Udupa finds herself in a very different setting. “HPE’s current IP litigation team is all women,” Udupa says. “I know what female and diverse attorneys can do if given the opportunity, so we just need to harness and amplify their talents.”

Udupa says recent trends show that more women than men graduate from law school. However, when examining senior legal roles, female minorities are virtually nonexistent. “If you aren’t being given opportunities to demonstrate your skills in the courtroom or in key positions on a case, when it’s time to make partner or climb the corporate ladder, you won’t be able to check those boxes that senior management is looking for,” Udupa says. “If you are consistently not getting those opportunities, despite proven success, and your clients or management is not fighting for you, it’s just a cycle that is going to continue.”

The lawyer pulls no punches in admitting that she has actively singled out outside counsel who do not do enough to encourage diversity and give women and diverse attorneys the key opportunities that lead to success. “I had a firm suggest they replace a lawyer because she was getting married and ‘had a lot going on,’” Udupa says. “I called around and not only did she do great work, she herself wanted to stay on the case. I called the firm back and told them to never, ever do this again. If the attorney working on my case was a man, this call would have never happened.”

Udupa says the successes she’s seen on her teams at HPE prove the value of employee diversity. More often than not, her case teams are at least 50 percent diverse. One example of their success includes fending off infamous patent trolls in the Eastern District of Texas, the well-known capital of pro-patent-troll judgments. More recently, her HPE team won summary judgment after a contentious lawsuit from Oracle. HPE supported her push for a diverse team handling the matter. Her teams have proven track records of

“

I know what female and diverse attorneys can do if given the opportunity, so we just need to harness and amplify their talents.”

Gertie Gebre Photography

exceptional results, Udupa says. “The more we’re able to prove the power of diversity with data and results, the more we will be able to break that cycle.”

On her team, Udupa has formed what she affectionally calls “the wolf pack,” in reference to a commencement speech retired women’s soccer player Abby Wambach gave about realizing that in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she found herself more aligned with the wolf. “I give my team the rules of the wolf pack: championing each other, leading from the bench, demanding the ball, and making failure your fuel,” Udupa says. She even provides her team with stuffed wolves to remind them of their commitment to themselves and to each other.

Perhaps one of Udupa’s most crowning achievements is having risen to her role without being able to follow in the footsteps of other minority women. She is grateful to all her mentors and managers who truly advocated for her, but none of them were diverse women.

“I didn’t really think about it until recently, when I was speaking to someone who had been in the industry for

“

I give my team the rules of the wolf pack: championing each other, leading from the bench, demanding the ball, and making failure your fuel.”

years and he said, ‘As a minority woman attorney, you’ve done all this without anyone to look up to that looks like you. How?!’” Udupa recalls. “It has not been a smooth road, but my hope is to pave that road and make it easier for those who come after me.”

Bartlit Beck LLP:

“Vaishali stands out among our clients for her ability to see the big picture and find the right solution. She understands what trial lawyers need to get the job done, but she also isn’t afraid to break the mold. We constantly preach collaboration and innovation, and Vaishali has both challenged and enabled us to do more and to be better.”

—Mark E. Ferguson, Founding Partner

Property

Vaishali Udupa , Vice President and Associate General Counsel of Intellectual

Litigation

at HPE, on her continued successes and honor of selection by Modern Counsel!

Vaishali treats HPE’s outside counsel as true partners and values our contributions.

haltom & doan is honored to have collaborated with Vaishali and her entire team on HPE’s greatest successes. It is because of Vaishali’s leadership and strategic decisions that haltom & doan was once again chosen by ALM as Litigator of the Week and honored by Law 360 upon achieving complete trial success for HPE.

lean

but

mean not

City National Bank’s Brace Mullett is a department of one, determined to make legal a solution, not a problem

By Paul Snyder

Brace Mullett General Counsel and SVP City National Bank

Michael Switzer

IN HIS FINAL CASE IN PRIVATE practice before coming to City National Bank, Brace Mullett was part of a team representing RJ Reynolds in the largest consolidated civil action in West Virginia history. There were more than one thousand plaintiffs, and Mullett was responsible for much of the litigation’s administrative, day-to-day case management. “It required a lot of organizational skill, and since it was so early in my career, I was learning on the go,” Mullett says. But in coming to City National Bank, Mullett has found an even greater challenge: assuming all legal duties as a department of one.

With continuously stretching oversight over litigation, contract administration, internal audit, loan review, compliance, the insurance program, and a laundry list of other functions, Mullett has sought to constantly refine legal’s role to better serve the business. He’s also intent on making sure that all of City’s employees see legal as empowering, not imposing.

Mullett says he was compelled to come to City after having worked as outside counsel for the bank. “I got to know the folks here and just came to realize that it was a collection of really quality people,” Mullett says. “[CEO Charles “Skip” Hageboeck] said he had a vision for me internally, and it wound up being the absolute right move for my career.”

Going in-house was a significant move for Mullett, who had cultivated a résumé as a high achiever, representing a number of coal mining companies in addition to working on smoking- and

health-related matters during his firm days. But his work at City has been no less challenging. On December 7, 2018, City announced it had acquired Poage Bankshares and Farmers Deposit Bancorp, essentially taking on two new banks on the same day. Mullett used his old firm, Dinsmore & Shohl, for both deals and says that City is very proud of how quickly both banks were brought onboard and integrated into its processes and practices.

Internally, Mullett says partnering with the human resources department has continued to pay dividends. “One of the core reasons that we’re successful at City in all facets of our business is our outstanding HR department,” Mullett says. “From our director, [Amanda] Mandy Ware, throughout the entire department, we’re lucky to have them.” Mullett says partnering with HR brings an invaluable continuity to the business and constitutes some of the most rewarding work he’s accomplished.

Mullett also says having a strong HR relationship and company culture means City avoids a number of difficult issues that other organizations may have to retroactively combat. But that doesn’t mean that legal isn’t entrusted with a difficult job. “When your job contains elements of risk management, you’re often the bearer of bad news,” Mullett says. “Many times, when people see me coming, they think that something’s wrong.” But Mullett says that by working more closely with the business lines, he’s helped City employees see legal more as problem solvers than just problem identifiers. “We want people

to know we’re here to navigate problems, not just point out their flaws,” Mullett says.

For Mullett to stay abreast of all that legal covers, he says prioritization is essential. It’s a skill he learned early while working in a firm but says it’s more necessary than ever in working to empower City’s employees. “Sometimes there are issues that can be solved without my direct involvement, and other times it’s necessary for me to come in and simply help troubleshoot,” Mullett says. “But at the end of the day, you want the business lines to feel empowered to find their own solutions.”

Working from a departmentally lean perspective isn’t necessarily a rare occurrence at City, Mullett says. “We take great pride in our lean and efficient executive team here,” Mullett says. “Our CEO [Hageboeck] is a PhD economist and asks a lot [of everyone] from the

back room to the business lines.” Mullett says receiving praise from Hageboeck many times comes in the form of being asked to take on new responsibilities, and that trust reminds him that he’s performing up to the high standards he sets for himself.

And while Mullett admits operating with a lone paralegal can sometimes be demanding, there’s a silver lining. “This may sound corny, but I literally learn something every single day,” Mullett says. “And City has been incredibly patient with me, allowing me to grow the position and continually learn on the job.”

Steptoe & Johnson PLLC:

“Brace is incredibly well suited to his role as general counsel and we always look forward to working with him. He is thoughtful, well versed in numerous areas of the law, and has an uncanny ability to see the most practical approach to the wide variety of issues that the bank faces. Brace always works to find a path forward that maintains a culture of integrity and success at City. In addition to his many responsibilities at work, Brace is also a dedicated father and coach to his two sons.”

—Marc Bryson, Member

“

When people see me coming, they think that something’s wrong. We want people to know we’re here to navigate problems, not just point out their flaws.”

legal

a fairer landscape

LOGAN MARCUS CAN’T REMEMBER a time when she didn’t have a strong sense of justice and fairness throughout her life.

“When I was a child and would give my mom a kiss on the cheek, I’d have to give my dad a kiss on the cheek as well, because I didn’t want anybody’s feelings to be hurt,” she recalls.

Now the general counsel and chief compliance officer for Appreciation Financial, a national, full-service retirement planning and life insurance agency based in Henderson, Nevada that has close to one thousand agents and offices in almost every state, Marcus finds that ingrained passion for ensuring that everyone feels justly treated comes in handy. Hailing from a family of lawyers and legal experts, one would assume that her career path may have been a foregone conclusion, but she says she had to discover for herself that it was the career she wanted.

“I attended law school four years after I finished my undergraduate studies because I wasn’t sure I wanted to become a lawyer,” she remembers. “I worked in marketing, sales, and held administrative positions at several law firms, and it was working with the law where I ultimately felt most at home. It just made sense to me.”

By Paul Snyder

Her early legal career included a concentration on criminal defense practice and, ultimately, areas of civil litigation such as copyright infringement, which found her working with high-profile musicians. Most notably, she worked on a precedent-setting case where the clients she represented won the underlying case as well as the appeal. The outcome changed the landscape of musical copyright infringement law.

With a family steeped in the legal profession, Logan Marcus was imbued early on with a sense of justice and fairness that she applies on a daily basis at Appreciation Financial

Despite finding success in this arena, after about six years in litigation, she says she felt her skills weren’t being put to their best use. “I was in search of a way to continue my practice of law while also being able to use my ability to communicate and negotiate, more specifically my people skills,” she says.

“I realized that I wanted to be with the client on the front lines, collaborating and helping to make decisions. Instead, I spent most of my days doing legal

research and writing motions. While this was important work, it left me feeling unfulfilled.”

She continues, “I proceeded to scour legal job platforms, have lunch with general counsel and executives, and learn everything about what it is to be a general counsel. I discovered how it differed from litigation practice in all the ways I was looking for.

“Working as a lawyer representing a business seemed to be the perfect marriage of practicing law and working directly with people. After achieving this clarity of purpose, I was connected to Appreciation Financial’s CEO, Terry Kennedy.” When Marcus took the job, Appreciation didn’t have its own in-house counsel on staff, relying solely on outside counsel, as is common in the financial services industry. Stepping into an undefined role, Marcus essentially had to “create everything from scratch” to build infrastructure to support both legal and compliance work. She found early on that there was much to do.

While she was building a previously nonexistent legal infrastructure from the bottom up, Marcus also had to be careful not to impede the growth of a company that was bringing in an increasing amount of revenue and clientele. This was a tricky balancing act between introducing oversight and compliance without changing too much too quickly.

“There were definitely areas that needed retrofitting, because the company growth was exponential in such a short period of time,” she recalls. “I’m proud of the fact that sales experienced substantial increases during this period, proving that the work to build the legal infrastructure didn’t slow the

Logan Marcus General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer Appreciation Financial Jay Soriano

business side down at all. This was a sizable accomplishment, and the adjustment process was very smooth for both the agents and the employees.” In fact, in 2018, Appreciation ranked 1,583rd on INC.5000’s list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America, and Kennedy won a 2019 Gold Stevie American Business Award for Entrepreneur of the Year for Financial Services. Kennedy was also a finalist for the 2019 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Throughout the period of establishing the legal department within Appreciation Financial, Marcus says she had to remain cognizant of how to keep things palatable for the existing agents and employees. That’s where her long-imbued sense of fairness came into play.

“We all work with people that we love and others that we wouldn’t even want to sit next to on a thirty-minute flight. That said, I pride myself on treating both groups of people the same,” she says. “Whether it’s a brand-new agent or one of our top earners, business is business. I’ve made so many good friends over the years here, but no one receives any special treatment.

“I feel strongly that in order for a company to thrive, there must be a core of justice and fairness on which it is built. This core then becomes the baseline of expectations to adhere to and uphold. People thrive under stability, and it is my greatest duty to ensure that our agents feel supported. This way, they can focus on doing what is most important—helping our clients and providing for their families.”

Aside from ensuring everyone at Appreciation Financial gets a fair shake, Marcus is working to promote this belief system beyond the office

walls. Appreciation Financial encourages fidelity to its mantra to “give back in the communities we serve” through interaction with schools across the nation, which includes everything from makeovers to revitalization projects for local schools in need. The agents and employees roll up their sleeves and give back, and Kennedy himself is always on hand to participate in the effort. Kennedy, on behalf of Appreciation Financial, makes a monetary donation to the school as well.

In addition, furthering the company’s mission of “helping clients make and save money,” Appreciation has immersed itself in a new program called “What Are You Doing After School?”

This program is designed for teachers to help fill in the income gaps in their pensions that they suffer upon retirement.

“Essentially what happens is when a teacher retires, quite often they do so with only 57 percent of the money

they were making, so at the end of their career there’s close to a 40 percent gap,” Marcus explains.

“‘What Are You Doing After School?’ provides teachers and public employees the opportunity to work part-time to add to the income they are already accruing through the savings vehicles our agents provide. This additional income will help to further close that gap upon retirement, so that these community heroes don’t have to live with that deficit. We’ve helped tens of thousands of teachers and look forward to helping many more.”

Getting to provide that kind of boost on a daily basis is something Marcus relishes. “I believe it to be my duty to help people when they feel like no one else has their back,” she says. “I like to be the person that will stand up for the little guy, and I will always make sure I do my very best to correct any injustice that I see.”

“

I feel strongly that in order for a company to thrive, there must be a core of justice and fairness on which it is built. This core then becomes the baseline of expectations to adhere to and uphold.”

Lead

Portraits of today’s top legal executives, the remarkable careers they have cultivated, and the management strategies and best practices they employ to succeed both individually and collaboratively

Teaming Up for a Brighter, Greener Future

Kelly Slavitt uses the power of multidimensional teamwork to help Reckitt Benckiser’s “hygiene and home” business improve household hygiene, sanitation, and access to clean drinking water

By KC Esper

Kelly Slavitt

VP, Area General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary

Reckitt Benckiser Harrison Steg

OUT OF LAW SCHOOL, KELLY SLAVITT WORKED for several law firms, focusing on the art of settling purely legal matters. But as she reflected on the experiences she had during her internships, she realized that there was great value in knowing how to apply law to real-life situations.

She transitioned to in-house positions at ASPCA and General Electric, aided by both her legal knowledge and her business expertise, then moved swiftly into her current position as vice president, area general counsel, and corporate secretary at Reckitt Benckiser (RB).

Thanks to her career journey—and her search for an ideal environment—Slavitt brought several important lessons into her position at RB. First, know your business. Second, innovation in business is critical. And third—perhaps the most influential lesson—recognize the power of strong teams.

“Ask questions, be courageous, and be willing to learn about what you don’t know,” she explains. “It’s important to innovate not just the business, but to also keep innovating yourself, constantly keep your skills up, and recognize when the market is changing.”

To Slavitt, knowing the dynamic nature of the business is crucial in providing it with the best solutions possible. This skill, however, proves to work best when upheld by a close-knit team, all directed by the same goal. “A strong team can achieve so much,” she says.

In her role with RB, she reflects upon teams throughout her life that positively impacted her work to mirror these strategies on the teams she now serves on.

“Being given the opportunity to lead a team has allowed me to think about what leaders I admired did to motivate me—how did I thrive under them?”

Slavitt explains. “I’ve tried hard to manage the different teams that I’ve had over the years in a way that respects what all of their interests are. The key thing for me is promoting their development and helping them be the best that they can be.”

She adds, “I’m training my team to work like ‘mini general counsels.’ I introduce them to a mix of work so they can have career mobility and long-term job satisfaction.”

At RB, Slavitt takes advantage of her opportunity to be part of several influential teams. In addition to leading her own close-knit legal team, she’s part of her business unit’s area management team for North America. This team works cross-functionally to drive the business by pinpointing areas of opportunity and then using valuable resources and techniques offered by different departments to achieve goals. The supply director, for example, may need the expertise of the legal director to resolve a vendor dispute or negotiate a new contract, and the legal director may need the expertise of the research and development director to understand advertising substantiation being challenged by a competitor.

Furthermore, Slavitt stands as a dedicated member of RB’s business unit global legal leadership team, which works cross-geographically. She

“Ask questions, be courageous, and be willing to learn about what you don’t know. It’s important to innovate not just the business but to also keep innovating yourself, constantly keep your skills up, and recognize when the market is changing.”

says, “This team gets stronger each time we share global practices from regional legal directors around the world. It helps us broaden our viewpoints on how to be the best business partners we can.”

Recently, RB underwent a company restructuring, splitting organizationally into two different business units—one branded “health” and the other “hygiene and home.” Slavitt, who now supports the “hygiene and home” portion of the business, currently works with her team to further RB’s mission of creating a cleaner world.

“We want to create a world that has more hygiene and sanitation and where people have access to clean drinking water. We want to make an impact on

Venable Celebrates Kelly Slavitt

Vice president and area general counsel of Reckitt Benckiser

We

the health and happiness of people’s homes,” she explains.

While Slavitt and her team completed the legal aspects of the split, they started thinking about how to make the legal team even better. Eventually, they shared a global proposal with the CLO. The company is already implementing aspects of the proposal, such as using technology and new processes to streamline time-consuming and costly aspects of legal review. They’ve also implemented electronic billing services and database and reporting metrics; used artificial intelligence to help sort through documents; and created e-commerce content-review tiers that allow faster speed to market. These improvements also allow the legal team to work more efficiently, using fewer resources.

Despite the amount Slavitt and her team seek to accomplish day to day, they always

are delighted to recognize the great work of our client and friend.

“I’m training my team to work like ‘mini general counsels.’ I introduce them to a mix of work so they can have career mobility and long-term job satisfaction.”

make an effort to make time to exercise their passions and give back to their community. With her chief legal officer’s help, Slavitt started a global pro bono program to source sustainability-related projects. Now, they’re even extending this program to source these projects directly from the United Nations so that RB can have a greater hand in helping communities gain access to cleaner water and work toward the possibility of a greener, plastic-free planet. Luckily, as these environmental issues increasingly come to light in everyday life, Slavitt says that there is an incredible abundance of sustainability projects

Brooks Kushman applauds Kelly’s innovative leadership, commitment to integrity & professional excellence.

www.BrooksKushman.com

Expertise Spotlight

Barclay Damon’s team of attorneys works across offices and practices that include intellectual property, labor and employment, business and finance, real estate and project development, public finance, and commercial and civil litigation, among numerous other areas, to provide customized, targeted solutions grounded in industry knowledge and a deep understanding of our clients’ business. With nearly three hundred attorneys, Barclay Damon is a leading regional law firm that operates from a strategic platform of offices located in the northeastern United States and Toronto.

Our intellectual property litigation attorneys are trial tested, with decades of combined experience. We help clients prevail in cases involving multimillion-dollar jury verdicts, court orders, and settlements. Our experience includes matters involving patents, copyrights, trademarks, unfair competition, domain names, and trade secrets. The team appears across the country in US district courts, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and other appellate courts, the US Patent and Trademark Office, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the US International Trade Commission (ITC), and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Our geographic platform provides a cost advantage to clients, allowing us to offer fee structures with highly competitive rates while maintaining the quality of representation clients require.

that have helped her team of lawyers grow while also layering its skill sets.

“It’s nice to feel like we’re able to give something back,” she says. “As lawyers, we have to be curious and ask a lot of questions to make sure we’re giving the best legal advice we can. My goal is to continue to develop and motivate my team to be strategic business partners and help move RB forward. We’re updating our skill set so we can keep learning and be the best we can be, both individually and on our teams.”

Brooks Kushman:

“Congratulations to Kelly on this well-deserved recognition. I have had the benefit of knowing Kelly for many years, and I am continuously impressed by her innovative leadership and her work to positively impact both her community and the dynamic teams she creates in the workplace.”

—Erica Klein, Shareholder

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP:

“Kelly is a joy to partner with—we value her global, practical, and creative thinking in solving business and legal issues.”

—Robert Platt, Partner

Satterlee Stephens LLP:

“It has been our pleasure to work with Kelly Slavitt for more than eight years. She expects that outside counsel understand the needs of the business and become a partner to reach company goals, just as she partners with the business people she counsels. Her ability to understand and balance complex legal issues with the needs of the business, coupled with her strategic thinking, make her invaluable. Whether we have been working together on an acquisition, a corporate restructuring, a visa, an intellectual property litigation, or day-to-day counseling matters, Kelly keeps focused on both the big picture and small details to achieve results.”

—Mark Lerner, Partner

Venable, LLP:

“ Reckitt Benckiser’s commitment to developing innovative products has afforded me many opportunities to work with Kelly and witness her aptitude for devising creative solutions to practical issues. Her forward-thinking strategies and ability to balance business and legal objectives have allowed RB to maintain its status as an industry leader. Everyone on her team, whether in-house or outside counsel, benefits from her knowledge and inclusive leadership style. Working alongside Kelly is always a rewarding experience.”

—Dominick Conde, Cochair of the IP division

José Ramón González

Chief Legal Officer

QBE North America

José Ramón González channels his culturally diverse background and experiences

to support QBE North America’s legal team and develop the leaders of the future

Our Distinguishing Characteristic

By KC Esper

Matt Furman Photography

“GROWING UP AS THE SON OF IMMIGRANTS, THE desire to succeed and improve was always present in our home,” Chief Legal Officer José Ramón González says. “My parents emigrated from Cuba seeking a better life, as my grandparents had done before; they immigrated to Cuba from Spain a century ago. In effect, we had a double immigrant mentality, where success was always a central theme and obstacles were never an excuse.”

As a first-generation Cuban American, González was raised in a community that focused on achieving excellence, with the goal of paving a better and brighter path than the one his parents had access to before him. In his New York City neighborhood, he was surrounded by immigrants from many countries. The people, backgrounds, and stories at school and at home not only instilled in González a drive to succeed but also equipped him with an innate ability to build relationships and interact with people from all walks of life.

Realizing that he had a knack for using his spectrum of experiences to come up with creative solutions to problems, he eventually found the law as a natural field for him. “My upbringing taught me to be adaptable,” González explains. “The ability to look at things in a different way and understand that there are many valid approaches to take. That flexibility was a key skill I learned early on and carry with me to this day.” He connects this to his success in a private-practice London posting at the New York–based law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges; his work as general counsel at the Bermuda-based, London market start-up, Torus Insurance; and his current role at QBE North America (QBE).

In his position as chief legal officer for QBE and the most senior Latino in the company, González incorporates his global perspective into his work every day. His cross-cultural upbringing and life experiences, along with his communicative style, allow him to develop a deep empathy with colleagues across the globe. Appropriately, he entered QBE at a transitional point in its history. A new CEO came into the business, refreshing the entire management team and warranting a transformation of the legal department as well.

“The skills I already had in place prepared me to take this role. It was that immigrant mentality of having to constantly create my own reality and destiny,” González says. “I wasn’t afraid of the challenge. I was determined to curate a new legal department fit for purpose in an organization that was undergoing quite a bit of change.”

González fearlessly took on the project and completely rebuilt the legal team into one that mirrored QBE’s strategic focus of welcoming the diverse viewpoints of its workforce and supporting the dynamic culture that grows when unique voices are heard. To build a stronger team with a higher profile within the organization, he assembled a team that was connected based on shared values, foresight, and aspirations.

“Many times, leaders end up replicating themselves within their teams. Instead, I focused on bringing together people with diverse ways of approaching problems and who shared similar values, such as being intellectually curious and conscientiously pragmatic. At the end of the process, you end up creating

“The skills I already had in place prepared me to take this role. It was that immigrant mentality of having to constantly create my own reality and destiny.”

a diverse team that’s inherently cohesive because everyone shares a similar world view. This is the type of diversity I strive for.”

González constantly sets the footing for his local and global colleagues to follow his lead. He says, “While finding the right people is important, setting them up for success is equally as important.” González works to guide others toward their respective successes both inside and outside the office, as evidenced in his commitment to organizations such as LatinoJustice PRLDEF (LatinoJustice), the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA), and the Spain-US Chamber of Commerce.

His work with nonprofits has reinforced his belief in the importance of giving back to the community. When González joined LatinoJustice, he “wasn’t looking at the big picture.” At the time, it seemed like a good networking opportunity. Now, seven years later, González says that his experience with the group has been an incredibly transformational journey. “Soon after I joined, I really started to understand the importance of the work LatinoJustice was doing. We use the law to protect the civil rights of individuals that would otherwise be forgotten.”

With the recent tumultuous political events affecting the Latino population, González believes that his influence is more important than ever. As the young Latino community enters the current workforce, his position grants him the opportunity to inspire the next wave of leaders.

“Young professionals should be able to see successful examples within their own community to demonstrate who they can be. For me, it’s very important to be visible in my position—to represent communities like ours.”

Editor’s Note: At time of press, José Ramón González is no longer with QBE North America.

Locke Lord LLP:

“Locke Lord congratulates José Ramón González on his well-deserved recognition. Having long worked with José and his QBE team, we celebrate how he collaborates with outside counsel, his leadership, and his commitment to diversity.”

—Alan Levin, Partner

Locke Lord congratulates José Ramón González, Chief Legal Officer, QBE North America, for his recognition in Modern Counsel.

A Legal Double Rainbow

Crestwood’s Stacey McLey is a litigation department of one in a notoriously male-dominated industry

By Billy Yost

Stacey McLey VP and Associate General Counsel of Litigation Crestwood Equity Partners

STACEY MCLEY IS RARE. SHE IS UNICORN-RIDING -a-shooting star rare. She’s a female lawyer in the oil and gas industry in Kansas City. The vice president and associate general counsel of litigation at Crestwood Equity Partners, who just turned fifty, said her career hasn’t merely been a case of finding herself the only female lawyer in a meeting. At one point, she was the only female lawyer at her firm. Over a long career, McLey has managed to chalk up experience at firms both big and small before going in-house, utilizing a deep understanding of oil and gas litigation and the leadership required to oversee outside counsel. As Crestwood has committed to helping raise the profile of women in oil and gas, McLey has also stepped up to help lead the way as a mentor and example of a successful woman in law.

McLey says that as her career has progressed, experience itself has proven to be one of her most valuable skills. “Fifteen or twenty years ago, with some of the issues that we have come in, I would have thought the sky is falling,” McLey says. “But now, I can take a thirty-page complaint and realize that there are really two issues at play, not twenty.”

In matters where issues seem like they can be immediately addressed, McLey says she’s worked to negotiate with opposing counsel via a limited or directed discovery process. “In many of these commercial business cases, you can’t be overly aggressive and litigious, because these are companies you may want to work with in the future or vice versa,” McLey says.

McLey isn’t able to personally handle every piece of litigation at Crestwood, which is why developing the capacity to lead outside counsel teams has been essential. “There’s only one of me, so I have to rely [on my team] and trust that the projects I delegate are going to be done correctly and to the best of their ability,” McLey says. “I need to find the ‘total package’ when it comes to outside counsel: a team that is hardworking, works well with me, and is efficient with their billable time.” The lawyer’s experience hasn’t come cheap.

While she started her career at prestigious firm Shugart, Thompson & Kilroy in Kansas City, McLey has served in a variety of capacities that ultimately seem to have been the perfect fit for Crestwood. While

litigating on behalf of Ferrellgas, McLey was often awoken in the middle of the night to go investigate gas explosions and other accident-related matters that involved working with metallurgists, accident reconstructionists, and civil engineers to get to the bottom of accident causation. “I had small children at home, and I never knew how often I was going to have to leave,” McLey says. But those hard-earned experiences helped prepare the lawyer for the onslaught of litigation matters she would tackle after going in-house.

One of the enduring lessons McLey has learned entails creativity in solutions. In employment cases, “sometimes just acknowledging and listening to the employee’s complaint can eliminate future litigation.” In other instances, “you learn that removing personal emotions from the situation can get the case resolved more quickly,” McLey says. “It’s only natural for you to be defensive when allegations are made against you, and those emotions can cause some to dig in and fight, hindering the litigation process.”

Crestwood has worked to do more than acknowledge the lack of diversity in the oil and gas industry at large. The Crestwood Women’s Network was formed in 2018 to empower women at the company and to

“ Fifteen or twenty years ago . . . I would have thought the sky is falling. But now, I can take a thirty-page complaint and realize that there are really two issues at play, not twenty.”

Helping Break the Cycle of Suffering

Stacey McLey is a longtime member of the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA), one of the only rape crisis counseling services in the Kansas City area. The organization, which has expanded to eight counties, works to support members of sexual abuse of any gender. From legal advocacy to art therapy for victims, McLey says watching victims heal and ultimately become volunteers for the program reminds her of just how important the work the organization is doing can be. “You realize that this is literally a life-changing organization,” McLey says. “For MOCSA, I’m all in.”

DEFINING LEADERSHIP

Congratulations to Stacey McLey for her exceptional work and leadership at Crestwood. The V&E shareholder litigation team is proud to partner with her to craft effective, strategic legal solutions. We look forward to a rewarding relationship for many years to come.

create a platform that encourages women to take an active role in personal and professional development. “I’m proud to work for a company that has taken these issues to heart and put programing in place that celebrates diversity,” McLey says.

McLey was asked to be a founding member of the organization, representing one of two female vice presidents at Crestwood’s Kansas City offices. “We had five gentlemen at our first meeting,” she says, “and I think they got to experience what it was like to be the minority in the room for once, but we hope they come back and learn how they can be better managers and promoters of female talent.”

Mentoring seems the logical next step for McLey, who has continued to find ways to expand her scope outside of the office, working with nonprofits and her own children’s school activities. McLey says it may not be as exciting as a midnight phone call about a gas explosion, but it’s exactly where she needs to be.

Bryan Rowland General Counsel, Head of Information Security & Strategic Business and Corporate Development Vertex

Story Still Matters

Vertex’s Bryan Rowland on the power of narratives in rebranding legal

By Billy Yost

BRYAN ROWLAND BELIEVES IN THE VALUE OF A good story. Storytelling is a skill that a lot of executive leaders fail to develop, though it has implications far beyond popularity at the water cooler. “You have to be able to tell your story and build a vision,” Rowland says. Since coming to Vertex in 2017, Rowland has crafted a narrative for the company’s legal department, but that’s not all. He’s had to overcome the prevailing idea that his team was only there in a support function. “We had to let people know that not only are these people working very hard for you, but they can do even more if you let us set this department up in a way that gives them a voice,” Rowland says.

In building a new vision for legal, Rowland has also seen his job scope widen considerably. Initially hired as Vertex’s GC, Rowland now oversees information security and is involved in strategic business and corporate development as well—roles Rowland wasn’t sure he was prepared for initially, but personal interests that have subsequently turned into wider responsibilities at Vertex.

It’s evident that Rowland was destined for business development from the way that he speaks about approaching his own law department. “When I first came here, the legal team was not particularly empowered, and they had been without a leader for quite some time,” Rowland says. “I think they felt like they were in service to everyone else, but in the worst sort of way.”

Rowland, whose undergraduate degree in psychology has continually been advantageous in his legal roles, says that building the narrative became absolutely crucial. “I asked them to trust me and to understand that I was going to start having dialogues with the other leaders,” Rowland says. “I asked them to believe me that the narrative could be changed.” In eight months, Rowland says the turnaround was well underway, after legal shone on a high-profile project. Later, when legal rolled out a new contract management tool, there was an incredible amount of pushback from the rest of the organization. “Now the sales folks tell me how much it’s improved the process,” Rowland says.

Part of what makes Rowland’s narrative so compelling is the GC’s honesty about his past work. “Prior to being sold, my last company was struggling with a

wide variety of issues, including activist investors, big litigation, and international issues that had to be legislated,” Rowland says. “I was very fortunate in having seen quite a bit of pressure in a very short amount of time. I’m one of the few people that has truly been through the ringer and able to offer perspective on where we should be focusing our energy to prevent those kinds of matters.”

It’s also given Rowland a keen eye for developing and maintaining talent. “It may sound a little provocative, but all of our skills are replaceable,” Rowland says. “What’s not replaceable is the personalities—and that special sauce that they create when they mix.” It’s developing that ideal balance of chemistry and abilities that interests Rowland. Rowland says businesses who want to plug and play with talented individuals can quickly enter an arms race that no one wins. “You have to look at individuals beyond their résumés,” Rowland says.

While Rowland’s own résumé is impressive in its breadth, he says Vertex finds itself in a position that is new even

“It may sound a little provocative, but all of our skills are replaceable. What’s not replaceable is the personalities— and that special sauce that they create when they mix.”

for him. “We’re in a unique stage, moving from a small start-up to a more mature global company, and we’re looking at issues like global scaling and international talent development,” Rowland says. “I’m looking forward to focusing on these things for the first time.”

Whether it’s his legal team, information security, or business development, Rowland—who has seemed to take on a new job everywhere he’s been every two years or so—says that progress ultimately comes down to empowering every member of his team to feel like they can take risks and establish themselves as future leaders.

“I want them to be part of that journey,” he says, “and I’m excited to see where that will go.” And for Rowland, empowerment happens when everyone is on the same page of the same story.

Stradley Ronon:

“Bryan has a wealth of knowledge and experience in all areas of the law. In addition, he has exceptional management skills, and he possesses sound and practical judgment. He is also one hell of a golfer!”

—Bill Sasso, Chairman

The IP of the Human Mind

Jennifer Daehler Jones is helping Autodesk think about the future of IP in ways well outside of traditional legal

By Billy Yost

MIDCONVERSATION, IT’S EASY TO

forget that Jennifer Daehler Jones is an attorney at all. It’s a point that she herself makes halfway through explaining the complexities of hypothetically attempting to establish who will have claim to IP if artificial intelligence goes on to create an actual product for a customer of Autodesk, the software company where Daehler Jones has worked for the past thirteen years, most recently as director and senior IP counsel.

What may have been a question relegated to science fiction in the last century is an all too real possibility in the future and a point of passion for the attorney. It’s allowed her to dive deeply into areas most often populated by software developers, project engineers, and think tank philosophers, but it’s part of the IP counsel’s day to day at the multinational company, which creates software for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries.

Daehler Jones says part of the reason she has stayed at Autodesk for more than a dozen years is that underneath every new rock of innovation the company unearths is an entire ecosystem of complex head-scratchers, ranging from the practical to the future of work and what can occasionally sound like the plot of a sci-fi film (ironic, given that most sci-fi films today leverage Autodesk’s software services).

The attorney didn’t initially set out to spend so much time pondering the questions of tomorrow. “I started my career in litigation, and that in itself was a little accidental,” Daehler Jones says. “Like many lawyers coming out of law school, I took a job that seemed the most interesting and would offer

Jennifer Daehler Jones Director and Senior IP Counsel Autodesk

Shelby Thorner/Autodesk

TECHNICAL ACUMEN LEGAL SOPHISTICATION

Artegis Law Group is a specialty patent law firm based in the heart of Silicon Valley. Our clients rely on us to provide strategic legal advice and deliver e ective solutions to complex patent problems to protect their intellectual property.

POST

www.artegislaw.com

me the ability to learn and grow.” While she didn’t wind up pursuing litigation as a career, the exposure to IP litigation would be incredibly valuable for the lawyer in coming to Autodesk.

“My prior experience gave me such a grounding in how your best intentions can wind up coming back to haunt you in ways you never anticipated,” Daehler Jones laughs. The young lawyer was also to spend time at a California-based firm doing tech transactional work that would translate well to Autodesk. “I had the good fortune to be working under a partner who really became my mentor,” Daehler Jones says. “Some of the foundational lessons she gave me I still use all the time—things like really knowing your client and working to understand their day to day.”

Coming to Autodesk would provide Daehler Jones with a wide array of challenges that went way beyond the scope of a firm lawyer turned in-house counsel. The highly technical, specialized, and cutting-edge nature of Autodesk’s business required the in-house attorney to develop strong engineering relationships outside of the legal department. “Autodesk’s robust IP portfolios require me to leverage the expertise of our senior technology leaders as well as our

We deliver complex patent solutions with passion, decisiveness, and edge.

“

When we’ve added a concept or an idea to the overall lexicon of company strategy, it’s a really fantastic moment.”

patent committee, which is made up of select and senior architects and senior engineering leaders,” Daehler Jones says. “Making sure that we’re thinking hard about the best way to protect those intellectual property assets, whether through patents, publishing white papers, or through protecting something as secret, all comes down to developing and maintaining those important relationships.”

Fortunately, in enlisting Daehler Jones’s own skill set, Autodesk inherited not only the lawyer’s passion for traditional IP matters but also a wide-ranging curiosity that helps ensure legal isn’t just up to speed with the business; it’s actively pursuing the legal future of Autodesk’s most forward-thinking products. While the lawyer insists that it’s only a small component of her wide breadth of responsibilities, Daehler Jones is able to speak on issues like open-source software (OSS) with a level of credibility that seems well outside the traditional legal lanes. The director says companies that understand the value and opportunities of OSS to fuel proprietary software and form a backbone for common protocols will be able to focus more on what competitively differentiates them. “OSS can become a platform that raises all boats,” Daehler Jones says.

The rub, the director underscores, is that those same companies have to nurture and contribute to OSS to continue to drive innovation. “This is an amazing opportunity for everyone involved, as long as the same companies who are utilizing these OSS packages are helping drive that technology and move it forward,” Daehler Jones says.

In spurring innovation, Daehler Jones says legal must also stay abreast of AI and machine learning technologies as they continue to provide new and complex ripples for IP matters. “What happens when we imbue our products with enough machine learning and AI that the products themselves become a designer, and what does that mean for IP rights for our customers?” the lawyer asks.

At Morrison & Foerster, our commitment to excellence begins with the understanding that our clients’ needs are unique. We are dedicated to finding creative solutions that ensure our clients achieve their business goals.

© 2019 Morrison & Foerster LLP

Morrison & Foerster is proud to salute our friend Jennifer Daehler, Director and Senior Intellectual Property Counsel at Autodesk, for her thought leadership and professional dedication.

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Donahue Fitzgerald LLP

Congratulates

We are proud of our longstanding relationship with Jennifer, and with Autodesk, Inc.

“It’s a fascinating topic, and one that the business is very interested in as well.”

Daehler Jones admits that it might sound strange for the lawyer in the room to be talking about software strategy or the benefits of OSS, but she says it’s a result of Autodesk’s collaborative and highly interactive relationship with its legal function. “At its best here, I feel like I’m able to lead the business on legal topics that can help them create a competitive edge or differentiation,” Daehler Jones says. “When we’ve added a concept or an idea to the overall lexicon of company strategy, it’s a really fantastic moment.”

Donahue Fitzgerald LLP:

“Jennifer is a highly intelligent, pragmatic, and strategic intellectual property attorney. Her integrity, genuine kindness, and professionalism make it an absolute joy to provide her with support as outside counsel.”

—Jonathan Osder, Partner

Morrison & Foerster LLP :

“Jennifer adeptly balances legal acumen with commercial perspective, ensuring the IP counsel function serves to drive Autodesk’s business forward. She’s an outstanding lawyer, and we’re privileged to work with her.”

—William Schwartz, Partner

Jennifer Daehler Jones , Director and Senior Intellectual Property Counsel at Autodesk, Inc., on her well-deserved recognition by Modern Counsel.

Connected, Effective, and Globally Conscious

Katja Tautscher is enabling Borealis Group to participate in the marketplace, no matter the country

By Billy Yost

WITH NEARLY 6,800 EMPLOYEES, plants in Brazil, the US, Europe, the Middle East, and China, and active operations in 120 different countries, Vienna-based Borealis Group is a worldwide purveyor of polyolefin, base chemical, and fertilizer solutions. The necessity for global communication and interaction is absolutely fundamental—and one that Group General Counsel and Worldwide Counsel Katja Tautscher nurtures with her team of twenty-five, including remote employees who work in locations all over the world. Initially driven to pursue a career as a professional cellist, Tautscher put down the bow to better study the letter of the law. She now helps Borealis stay connected, effective, and globally conscious.

Maintaining cohesion can be tough for Tautscher’s global team members, many of whom are the only legal per-

sonnel on-site. “It’s really important to give those members of my team the feeling of belonging,” Tautscher says. “I give them more one-on-one time and am very conscious of those remote high performers when it comes to considering promotions.”

Tautscher has had ample opportunity to foster her team’s sense of belonging since joining Borealis in 2008. Prior to her tenure at the company, she spent her early career working in various law firms based in Europe. “I really learned the nuts and bolts of how to be a good lawyer,” Tautscher says. “But that included the stress and hard work that comes with it.” The GC jokes that her general stress level was cut in half the day she decided to go in-house, as the job seemed a much more suitable fit.

In was in her first in-house role that Tautscher says she found a mentor in her general counsel, who demonstrated the type of leadership that most appealed to her. “He was a real leader who provided such good support,” Tautscher says. “It taught me that in coming from an organization where I was a fee earner to coming in-house in a support function, you really had to learn to be part of a team. Otherwise, you’re just a cost factor.”

That transition can be a very tricky one to navigate, the GC believes. “You have to be humble and listen carefully to what is actually being asked of you,” Tautscher says. “Don’t overestimate the importance of your role. If you do these things, people will start to come to you.” The lawyer jokes that in the firm world, it’s easy for lawyers to become convinced that they’re “God’s gift to mankind,” but that sort of ego just isn’t possible if you want to be an effective in-house counsel.

Tautscher’s own legal team has been

busy on a joint venture between Borealis, Nova Chemicals, and Total. The new company, called Bayport Polymers, includes an ethane steam cracker in Port Arthur, Texas; an existing polyethylene unit; and a new Borstar polyethylene unit in Bayport, Texas. “It’s been years of negotiating agreements,” Tautscher says. “Now it’s finally done, and we’re in the part of the process where we’re actually able to see things get built. Seeing that progress from the legal perspective is something that makes us quite proud.”

As a producer of proliferates of plastics, Tautscher says Borealis is working hard on sustainability efforts, including methods to combat maritime littering. Over the last three years, Borealis purchased two recycling plants in Germany and Austria, respectively, that it is currently working to integrate. These acquisitions, together with projects such as STOP—which creates environmentally friendly, cost-effective waste systems

Courtesy of Borealis Group

Katja Tautscher Group General Counsel and Worldwide Counsel Borealis Group

to reduce plastic in the ocean—are efforts to bring sustainability to the forefront of its practices. “This is something that I can proudly tell my child about,” Tautscher says.

The GC also expressed pride that she has had the opportunity to promote women to positions of senior leadership and recognize younger female professionals with promise. A focus on family has helped shape a more progressive-minded culture at Borealis. “This may be more relevant for Europe, but ensuring that both women and men can back into senior positions after returning from maternity and paternity leave without being concerned is something that is highly recog-

nized and valued at the company,” Tautscher asserts.

The wider progressive culture at the company has helped establish Borealis as a place where high performers want to work, and Tautscher says it’s obvious when she is hiring for a new role. “We don’t overpay and probably can’t compete with larger firms in that regard, but we have developed the reputation that people want to work for us, and that is something I can feel quite proud about.”

Tautscher says that while her overall happiness is often channeled through the accomplishments of her seven-yearold son, she knows she has been successful in her own GC role because of those who stop by her office uninvited. “I am regarded as a trusted advisor and a go-to person for many things that aren’t strictly related to my role,” Tautscher says. “I don’t just wear the legal hat here, and it’s something I really enjoy and makes my job quite interesting.”

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman LLP

“Katja is one of the most impressive GCs I know, combining top-tier legal skills with strong leadership and emotional intelligence in a demanding global and multicultural corporation. It is an honor to be a trusted adviser.”

—Gavin Watson, Partner

“ We have developed the reputation that people want to work for us, and that is something I can feel quite proud about.”

How Curiosity Feeds Innovation

Honeywell International’s Chuck Graf emphasizes the importance of staying inquisitive to drive the company toward the future of technology

By KC Esper

THE TEAM AT HONEYWELL International works to invent cutting-edge technologies that provide valuable solutions to challenges in energy, safety, productivity, and global urbanization. Through these efforts, the company has made great strides in paving the way for new markets and industries that advance quality of life across the globe. Recent collaborative efforts by Honeywell have addressed and refined issues in sustainability, maintenance processes, and even petrochemical solutions using plant technologies. As a pioneer in technology solutions, Honeywell constantly evolves while sustaining its connection with each specialty area in the industry. With the introduction of its new CEO, Darius Adamczyk, the company also welcomed change in its manufacturing processes, moving away from creating pure industrial products and toward more software-based technologies.

Over the past fifteen years, Chief Global Investigations and Litigation Counsel Chuck Graf has witnessed the rapid changes of the market and the advancement of Honeywell’s constant innovation. In his position, he reflects the mission of the company by exercising his passion for learning in every case he encounters. He allows his curiosity to guide him to finding answers to big questions and always staying one step ahead of the next big idea. As the company’s first attorney devoted to providing comprehensive legal oversight of internal investigations across the company, Graf provides guidance to stakeholders in Honeywell’s workplace investigations worldwide. In addition, Graf oversees litigation and dispute resolution globally for Honeywell’s performance materials and technology business and handles broader

Chuck Graf Chief Global Investigations & Litigation Counsel Honeywell International

corporate disputes that do not necessarily involve a particular business.

Before he moved to Honeywell, Graf worked in-house for Howrey. He considers this job the foundational starting point to the rest of his career, insofar as it taught him the fundamental skills needed to prepare and try cases, build strategic acumen, and approach litigation civilly. As he moved through his early career, he learned to accept the help and expertise of other leaders and mentors to become a better lawyer himself. At Honeywell, Graf has transferred this philosophy to his current work by encouraging people from

Courtesy of Honeywell International

all key stakeholder functions to become involved in important initiatives to transform Honeywell’s workplace investigations process. Using these assets has uncovered solutions in surprising but rewarding ways:

“Using other people as resources provides an answer that could be transformational with regard to an investigations process. When attempting to transform processes in a large organization, soliciting input early on from key stakeholders both provides better answers and increases buy-in across the organization for the ultimate changes. In our investigations process project, we started by building a team that comprised representation from all key stakeholder groups: someone from our HR organization, someone from our security organization, and people from the legal department. We constantly have to make sure that we’re doing something that is practical—and that people could implement. That way, we’re setting an expectation for what is coming next.”

Graf’s all-inclusive problem-solving approach has kept the team at Honeywell a notch above the rest. He says, “While there’s been a lot of change in our markets, we never feel like we’re making 180-degree turns to stay on track. The company makes wellthought-out decisions and manages change well while still moving rapidly, which allows it to stay ahead of its peers—we see the future before it is upon us and react thoughtfully.”

As much as the company has changed throughout his tenure, Graf makes sure

“It’s extremely important to stay curious beyond just what the facts are.”

to keep his approach fresh and active. He seeks new opportunities to learn about material he’s working with or may become relevant as the company moves toward the future. As the company evolves, so does Graf’s knowledge. He says that learning deeply about the company’s products and markets is imperative to knowing how to successfully solve cases. At Honeywell, material is highly technical, and Graf has built his career on an intense curiosity that has allowed him to quickly master new technologies or industries.

For example, Graf’s first case in his legal career centered on nuclear plant technology—something completely out of his realm. Rather than finding the case discouraging, however, he immersed himself in the new subject matter and realized it was something he enjoyed. This experience taught him how to level with industry experts and adequately guide them through cases.

“It’s extremely important to stay curious beyond just what the facts are,” he explains. “Throughout my career, I’ve dived into learning about different industries so I could keep up with the

congratulates CHUCK GRAF

on the many business contributions he has made to Honeywell

International

We are proud to partner with Chuck and the rest of the outstanding team at Honeywell, and we look forward to assisting with their continued business success.

www.alston.com

Our clients are the front-runners in their industries, and we’re right there with them, providing the advice and representation they need to stay on top. We're proud to see Honeywell recognized for its successes and innovative solutions that address some of the world’s most critical challenges. We look forward to many years of continuing to innovate together and being there every step of the way.

Expertise Spotlight

Leader Berkon Colao & Silverstein

LLP is a premier litigation boutique with a long history of representing clients such as Honeywell International in important litigation matters. The complex commercial litigation team is led by trial lawyer Glen Silverstein. Glen draws upon top-flight trial skills, not only at trial and arbitration but also throughout the litigation process, including depositions, mediations, and hearings, to make a difference in the outcome of the case. In addition to numerous defense-side victories at trial and arbitration as well as other favorable and strategic outcomes, Glen, along with partner Mike Tiffany and the rest of the team, recently won (and collected) more than $100 million for a client and won the rare multimillion-dollar case that was fully tried in the New York Supreme Court Commercial Division. Based in New York, with additional offices in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, Leader Berkon Colao & Silverstein’s twenty-plus lawyers—all litigators—are well positioned to handle major litigation from coast to coast. The firm, which recently celebrated its thirtieth year in practice, acts as national counsel for certain clients, and has long been a thought leader and early adopter in the area of alternative fees and cost-efficient representation.

dynamics and competition within the field. Whether you’re dealing with a narrow issue or something broader, by asking questions and getting involved, you’re able to get in a position where you can give more comprehensive and global, well-formed advice on different problems.”

Many of Graf’s colleagues in the legal field have taken notice of his unique abilities. “Chuck is a great problem solver,” says Glen Silverstein, a senior partner at Leader Berkon Colao & Silverstein. “He utilizes dynamic resources, including litigation evaluation and, if needed, implementation, to work the problem until it’s solved from a business perspective.”

Honeywell’s recent evolutions have prompted new developments in the standardization of internal processes. Much like how Graf’s investigations transformation encouraged the participation of key stakeholders, the rest of the workplace is adopting these same philosophies to include the people who are most affected by various functions. Along with embracing this new mentality, Graf has made it a goal to adopt a more business-oriented approach to his work to become an even more valued advisor, demonstrating his devotion to Honeywell’s mission. He considers joining Honeywell “the best career decision he ever made.” The dynamic of the company has helped him grow beyond his horizons as purely a liti-

“ We see the future before it is upon us and react thoughtfully.”

gator and allowed him to flourish as his role has broadened. With the leadership, expertise, and guidance available to him, he has become a seasoned advocate for Honeywell’s ever-advancing posterity.

Kirkland & Ellis:

“Chuck is that rare lawyer who combines a first-rate intellect with outstanding judgment to deliver consistently excellent results for Honeywell. He’s also one of the most decent people we’ve had the privilege to work with.”

—Craig S. Primis, P.C., Partner

Follett’s Mark Sproat on evolving his own leadership

A Matter of Perspective

and deriving value from the work, not the job description

By Billy Yost

Mark Sproat

EVP, General Counsel, and Secretary

Follett Corporation

IF YOU

ASKED

MARK

SPROAT

WHAT his job title is, he’d need a minute to think on it. “There have been times in my career where I literally didn’t know my title or what I was getting paid,” Sproat says frankly. Sproat says that throughout his career, it’s his responsibilities and opportunities he’s had to solve complex problems that most excite him about his position. “It’s the responsibilities I’ve been entrusted with that have always been much more indicative of my happiness and fulfillment.”

Sproat may also have trouble remembering his title because of its breadth: executive vice president,

Follett marked a key transition. Initially, he had to learn to be a bit less involved. “As is the case with a lot of younger managers and leaders, I had the tendency to want to do everything,” Sproat says. “When I came in, I learned that I absolutely needed to delegate and trust the great people we’ve got here.”

Sproat says he’s learned from amazing mentors like former Hewitt Associates GC Steve Kyono and Hewitt CEO Russ Fradin in developing and growing into his own role.

After coming to Follett six years ago, Sproat realized that the legal function could much better serve the entire

general counsel, and secretary—or in prior jobs, EVP of commercial portfolio management and senior vice president and chief counsel of Aon Hewitt. His current role entails setting the overall legal strategy for a $3.5 billion organization and working closely with the CEO and board, though Sproat admits that typically, success means seeing less of new CEO Patrick E. Connolly. “I like to view my job as keeping issues out of his office,” Sproat says. “In some respects, the less I see him, the better off we are.”

For Sproat, moving to a more hands-off leadership approach at

business if lawyers were embedded within business units. “It’s essential that legal work as part of the team,” Sproat says. “Legal is much more effective if it can be well informed and chime in at business and leadership meetings.”

Sproat also realized that Follett needed to more fully flesh out its privacy and compliance functions. “The landscape has changed immensely when it comes to data privacy over the last number of years,” Sproat says. “Building out these functions required capital, and that was a much easier conversation to have today

“ Happiness is sure a lot more important to me than what it says on my business card.”

than it would have been ten or fifteen years ago.”

Compliance was in place at Follett, but Sproat says its decentralized operations required retooling. The function was assigned to a single individual, and the most essential processes were winnowed down by an executive committee. “We have the resources now to really address this with a targeted approach.”

Sproat has also repeatedly faced down the often difficult process of leadership change within an organization and says that time and experience have proven invaluable for learning how to negotiate working with a new

On Board, On Boards

honest with one another, that relationship should be able to work.”

The EVP may not be entirely sure what his title is, but he says he’s sure that he’s exactly where he wants to be. “I’m not saying I’d work for free,” Sproat jokes. “But happiness is sure a lot more important to me than what it says on my business card.”

Mark Sproat says the work he does outside of his day job is a direct result of his parents’ volunteer efforts in his hometown in rural Illinois. “My mom was on our town library board, and both my parents were active in our local church and worked the polls on election day,” Sproat says. “It’s important to remember my own roots because it hopefully provides you sympathy and willingness to help those who are trying to improve their own lives.”

Sproat himself is on the Chicago Public Library Foundation board and participates in the American Red Cross’ annual Heroes Breakfast.

CEO. “Early on, I’m not sure if I was able to adapt to changes as well as I am today,” Sproat says. “If you’re comfortable with your team and you’re confident in the work that you’re doing, you shouldn’t have to feel like you’re looking over your shoulder.”

In learning to micromanage less, Sproat has achieved a much more reasoned approach to working with leadership. “Getting retrospective, there are certainly times I can remember where the problem may have been 80 percent my own problem,” Sproat admits. “As long as you’re open and

Jenner & Block:

“Mark is devoted to providing the highest levels of excellence for his company. He does so with a creative, hands-on approach to problem-solving and with a work ethic that goes above and beyond the requirements.”

—Craig C. Martin, Chair

Leadership Lessons

Michael Moore’s proactive, forward-thinking leadership approach translates into Pure Storage’s long-term growth

By Hana Yoo

Michael Moore Associate General Counsel and VP Pure Storage

LONG BEFORE MICHAEL MOORE EMBARKED ON A legal path, he kicked off his career as an engineer and the inventor of ten US patents. His first five patent submissions were rejected, but his subsequent ten applications met with success. It was through this process that Moore became familiar with the invention process, which served as an introduction to patent law. Though successful as an engineer, it was the legal process of obtaining patents that he found most intellectually stimulating. Based on this realization, he decided to become a patent agent, transferring from the engineering group of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation to the legal group. “I still love working with technology,” he says, “but I found the combination of law and technology to be a very interesting area to pursue.”

Moore subsequently assumed an intellectual property specialist and later VP role at Rambus, a technology company that designs, develops, and licenses interface technologies, IP, and architectures that are used in computer chips and digital electronics products. Afterward, he transitioned into his current position as associate general counsel and vice president at Pure Storage, a software and cloud company that produces both all-flash storage and related software.

Moore is a natural leader with a deep understanding of the technology, law, and business aspects of Pure Storage. But it is his proactive networking philosophy that makes him a standout among leadership. Moore’s advice to early-career lawyers: make time for networking, have a pro-business mentality, develop a succession plan, focus on mentorship, and cultivate a leadership style rooted in respect and equal treatment for all employees. These principles have set the stage for long-term stability in Moore’s legal team and contributed to the growth of his company.

The Power of Networking Moore instructs his team to get to know as many people as they possibly can within the company and across the industry. “The more contacts you have, the more effective you can be.” Moore regularly has lunch with counterparts from the legal divisions of his competitors. He stresses the importance of maintaining friendly relationships with people in the industry,

even though their companies’ sales and other departments compete with intensity.

“If an issue occurs, it is often much easier, less expensive, and less public to defuse that issue with a phone call to your counterpart at the competitor,” he says, “to address it and nip it in the bud before it becomes a much bigger and public dispute.” The amounts of time, money, and resources saved this way are incalculable but undoubtedly represent a value add for the company. Moore goes as far as to share best practices with others, including competitors, for ways to run a legal group. “It makes the industry better,” he says. He speaks frequently at industry events and publishes widely on industry-related topics as a further means to share these best practices.

Creating a Legal Department of “Yes, But” Legal has a traditional reputation as the “department of no” in many companies, Moore explains. In contrast, at Pure Storage, “We try very hard to lean into yes. We would rather be the department of ‘yes, but’ than the department of ‘no.’ You may have to do things a little differently, but we will get you to a solution.” Moore’s legal open-mindedness and inclination to explore possibilities—perhaps traits inculcated by his training in rigorous engineering practices—have allowed Pure Storage to take advantage of opportunities that could otherwise easily have been overlooked.

“I view leadership as an umbrella. My job, as leader, is to be the umbrella and keep all the rain and distractions off my team so they can do their job.”

The Importance of a Succession Plan

Moore also puts great emphasis on having a succession plan, which he believes is a prerequisite for promotion. “If you are indispensable in the role that you are in and there is nobody else that can replace you,” he says, “you can’t get promoted to a higher level, because who is going to fill your current role?”

All members of Moore’s team are required to have a succession plan in place, which leads to skill set improvement down the management hierarchy. This is important, as the company is growing rapidly and there is a great deal of opportunity for upward mobility within the company.

Building Bridges Through Mentoring

Moore understands the value of instilling leadership skills in people early on in their careers. This ensures that people with management ambitions are prepared for future opportunities. Moore explains how a thirty-minute cup of coffee with someone, a small investment of time on his part, might help them develop contacts and glean important tips that will provide significant long-term benefits. “Serving as a connector of people is a valuable skill,” he says.

With Justice for All

Rather than adhering to a rigid, traditional law-firm structure where employees are sometimes treated differently according to their status, Moore advocates for treating everyone equally well regardless of their position. When hiring, he prioritizes collegiality and ability to work within a team as a fundamental requirement. That’s not to say Moore’s team doesn’t fight hard. The highest compliment opposing counsel have paid him is that his legal team is “tough but fair.” But even the most brilliant individual contributors must “play well with others” and have a net positive effect on the team as a whole.

Moore’s wise investments of time and knowledge and his respectful, people-first leadership style forecast a bright future for Pure Storage. “I view leadership as an umbrella,” Moore says. “My job, as leader, is to be the umbrella and keep all the rain and distractions off my team so they can do their job.”

We congratulate our client and friend, Michael Moore, Vice President and Senior Associate General Counsel, Products and IP, Pure Storage, for his recognition in Modern Counsel.

Austin

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Chicago

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Denver

Fort Worth

Houston

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Mexico City

New York

Orange County

Palo Alto

Richardson

San Antonio

Shanghai

The Woodlands

Washington, D.C.

From Business Partner

to Business Leader

Peter Castelli on mentorship and moving from legal to business . . . and back again

By Billy Yost

IF PETER CASTELLI’S CAREER WERE a shape, it would be a circle. The new senior counsel at firm Winston & Strawn has found a way to go up the legal ladder in an orbit, returning again and again to role models and bosses he’s had along the way. “The mentors I had were extremely important for me, because it’s something I’ve tried to emulate with people I care about or who I think have potential,” Castelli says. “I was lucky enough to have people who nurtured and cared for my own career, and it’s allowed me to experience some things that may be quite unusual for a lawyer.” That’s something of an understatement.

From Legal to Business to Legal

In his twenty years at firm Tate & Lyle, Castelli moved first from legal to business, then from business back into legal, and in the process earned himself the role of “business partner” in a way that few in the legal department are ever able to. “The roles I was allowed to play early in my law career really opened me up for these possibilities,” Castelli says. “Ultimately, it led those leaders at Tate & Lyle to really take a gamble on me running a P&L [profit and loss account].”

Castelli says early experiences working on mergers and acquisitions deals helped provide him with understanding of business outside of his normal roles. “I demonstrated an interest in the business,” Castelli says. “The success of those M&A deals gave me a chance to throw caution to the wind and move into those business functions.”

Over seven years, Castelli amassed business experience that would prove hugely beneficial when moving back into a legal role. “You look at things very differently when you’re running

a P&L than when you’re just advising someone running one,” Castelli says. “It gave me the opportunity to be a business conversation partner and I think really gave me some credibility when moving back into a legal role.”

From Mentee to Mentor

As Castelli prepares for a new position at Winston & Strawn, the lawyer says that he hopes to be able to bring his penchant for mentorship to some of the younger lawyers. “I can provide some perspective of what it’s like to interact with your colleagues on the in-house side,” Castelli says. “There’s always a little bit of conflict in that interaction, and I think there are ways to mitigate that.”

The lawyer also believes that his business acumen will be put to use in

Peter Castelli Senior Counsel Winston &

Strawn

Maureen Miller

his new job. “I want to help them grow their business,” Castelli says. “That will take some time, to figure out just how I can be of value in that regard, but I’m confident there are some areas where I can help.”

Secure Hiring

In his previous position, Castelli hired literally every lawyer (except one) who worked at the firm, and he said it’s provided a great deal of insight into leadership and development. “The key for me is being secure enough to hire people that are smarter than me,” Castelli admits. “You see this with younger managers who are a little more insecure about their own management role, but there is a strength in humility.” Castelli says proudly that virtually anyone who has worked under him was probably a better lawyer than he was, and that allowing those lawyers to flourish is the key to not only effective mentorship but leadership on the whole.

While the firm life may offer some new surprises, Castelli says the same curiosity that lead to his taking on business responsibilities will make him effective in his new role. “While I’m not looking forward to billable hours, I think this is going to be a very interesting move,” Castelli says. “I’ve been really lucky to [have] the opportunity to do a lot of unique stuff, and I know this will be another great challenge.”

Foley & Lardner LLP:

“Pete excelled at helping Tate & Lyle advance its business goals within a complex regulatory and legal framework. His depth of knowledge of the legal and commercial considerations within the food industry made him an exceptional client to partner with.”

—Nate Beaver, Partner, Business Law Department

“The key for me is being secure enough to hire people that are smarter than me.”

is proud to

Legendary

Legalese

Associate General Counsel Nora FitzGerald

Meldrum uses her wide-ranging legal experiences to uphold Texas Roadhouse’s mission of legendary food, legendary service

By Sara Deeter

NORA FITZGERALD MELDRUM HAS found her ideal blend of responsibilities and intellectual engagement at restaurant chain Texas Roadhouse. As associate general counsel, Meldrum leads a team of smart, caring people who are deeply committed to both the company brand and each other. Modern Counsel recently chatted with Meldrum about her path through the legal sector and her passion for the Roadhouse values.

Can you tell us how you got to where you are today? Have any particular experiences from your past career informed your current role?

My career path has been winding and circuitous, but in retrospect, every step prepared me for my current role. Although I come from a long line of lawyers, I wrote my law school admission essay on all the reasons I did not want to be a lawyer. I overcame those reasons and chose this field because I love solving problems. After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, I had no idea what area I wanted to practice in; I only had a sense of the type of law I did not want to practice.

So I joined Patton Boggs (now Squire Patton Boggs), which allowed me to sample a variety of practice areas, from securities to labor and employment, antitrust, immigration, and public policy.

After moving to Chicago, I built my litigation skills at a smaller labor and employment firm called Franczek Radelet. From there, I moved to Northwestern University to become the director of the university’s sexual harassment prevention office; I partnered with a number of different departments to accomplish our shared goals, and that skill set has been critical in my current role.

About a year into my time at Northwestern, my husband and I moved to Louisville and I restarted my career once again, this time at a smaller litigation firm that soon merged with Dinsmore. Although I enjoyed my time at Dinsmore, becoming a partner at a large law firm was never my long-term career goal. I was ready to transition away from active litigation and into litigation management. After securing an in-house role at American Commercial Barge Lines and gaining a better understanding of how businesses operate, the financial/accounting side of risk management, and the best way to navigate internal relationships, I jumped at the opportunity to take my unusual blend of in-house and outside counsel experience to Texas Roadhouse.

What sets Texas Roadhouse apart from other leaders in the industry, both on a corporate level and on the ground with individual customers?

Our culture. We have a very clear mission statement— legendary food, legendary service—and it is supported by succinct core values (passion, partnership, integrity, and fun with purpose). No matter where you go or who you talk to at Texas Roadhouse, we have a strong, shared commitment to living out this high standard in everything we do. We are very fortunate to have the active leadership of our founder, who serves as president and CEO. His passion for our guests and employees is inspiring and drives all of us to approach our roles with the same zealous commitment to our culture and core values.

How do those core values play into the legal team’s role at the company?

We sometimes joke that the litigation team is the

one group in the legal department that no one wants to hear from. After all, if we are calling, there’s a 99 percent likelihood that there’s been some sort of problem.

So, we focus not only on what we do but also how we do it. Are we taking advantage of the space between stimuli and reaction to take a deep breath and collect our thoughts? Are we creating a conversational space where our partners feel comfortable sharing their concerns? Are we speaking in plain English and not overwhelming our partners with arcane legalese or fancy lawyer speak? Are we judging, or are we seeking to understand? While we cannot remove all of the stress of litigation, we work hard to minimize distractions that litigation can cause to regular business operations.

What is one of the most important lessons you have learned over the course of your career, and how do you implement it on your team at Texas Roadhouse?

There is simply no substitute for operational knowledge. When I first started at Texas Roadhouse, I trained by

“It is important to me that my team has a fluent understanding of our business. We simply cannot provide legendary legal service otherwise.”

Nora FitzGerald Meldrum Associate General Counsel, Litigation & Employment Texas Roadhouse

working in every one of our restaurant positions, from baking our fresh-baked bread to chopping broccoli and cutting steak with our on-site meat cutter. It was intense and humbling (I’m definitely better at practicing law than cutting meat), and it gave me a deep appreciation for the hard work that goes into our scratch-based food. It is important to me that my team has a fluent understanding of our business. We simply cannot provide legendary legal service otherwise.

How would you describe success in your role? What signposts do you look for to gauge that success?

I view success in a few ways: Do our partners feel comfortable reaching out and contacting us when they need us? Are we getting results for the brand that are in line with our brand’s business goals? Are we continuing to learn? Does my team feel like they are getting opportunities to learn and develop? Are they finding joy in their work?

And finally, do people smile more when they see us coming or leaving? We are in the hospitality business, and that extends to the hospitality we show to our internal partners. Even when times are tough, I want our partners to know we are here for them and have their backs.

Bartlit Beck LLP:

“Nora has a number of qualities that make her one of the top among her peers. She is a leader who brings out the best in her in-house and outside counsel teams—she demands and expects (as she should) excellence, but she listens for ideas from all corners and inspires her teams to want to win for her. She inspires with her own work ethic, strategic thinking, and creativity. She contributes to the team but at the same time gives her team the space to execute on a plan and make tough calls when needed.”

–Rebecca Weinstein Bacon, Partner

Evaluate

A look at the logistical challenges, evolving regulations, industry shifts, and cultural concerns outside the office that lawyers must analyze and navigate to manage their impact inside the office

Volt’s Unifier:

Bodnar VP and Deputy General Counsel Volt

Alexandra Bodnar

Graham & Graham Photography

Alexandra

By KC Esper

AS THE VICE PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY GENERAL counsel of Volt, a global staffing company, Alexandra Bodnar realizes the impact of teamwork. But to her, teamwork is more than just a word implying that a group of people collaborate appropriately. It means understanding the needs of her coworkers, celebrating and welcoming a diverse workforce, and recognizing talented team members, then taking steps to ensure their success.

Throughout Bodnar’s law career, she’s recognized the value that teamwork holds in the field. She started in commercial litigation, eventually changing paths to employment law. “It was interesting to me because the legal issues can’t be analyzed independently from the human dynamics,” she says. She enjoyed the psychology behind each case, pinpointing each problem and figuring out logical solutions. During her practice, she recognized the team sport nature of the field, and once she transferred to Volt, she used this mentality to connect with her fellow lawyers inside and outside the office.

Bodnar’s philosophy is simple: “We’re all on the same team. We’re all aiming for the same goal. I was able to build a very strong team because I respect them, and they respect me.” Over the years at Volt, she forged these steady relationships with her law partners by taking time to understand their motivations and aspirations. She believes this step, though seemingly easy, is integral in crafting a loyal, dedicated team,

Alexandra Bodnar treats legal like a “team sport” to better achieve goals and establish a team as diverse as the population Volt serves

especially in a time when the younger generation of lawyers tends to be more transient. “When you figure out where they want to be in their career, what they want to learn, and what motivates them, you can help them try achieve their goals,” Bodnar says. “I think that fosters loyalty.”

As Bodnar works with her own team to help craft new teams for the clients of Volt, she emphasizes the importance of creating a staff that can learn from each other through both knowledge and experience. In her own practice, she seeks to hire outside counsel members with diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and thought processes. When looking for new outside counsel members, she looks for more than just a basic skill set. She looks at how they, too, prioritize diversity in their practices.

“I’m very focused on making sure that their team is diverse,” she notes. “I want to make sure that diverse lawyers have leadership opportunities and are recognized by their firm for the work they do for Volt. That includes focusing on making sure the firm gives them appropriate financial credit when the firm is receiving that work from Volt because of that lawyer’s skills.”

Bodnar, a strong proponent of a diverse workforce, says that bolstering the success of women and minorities allows the company a chance to reflect the population its serving, and as such, provides it with a keener perspective on what clients really want. At Volt, Bodnar serves as a mentor for strong, female lawyers, encouraging them to take chances, speak boldly, and rise to the occasion of their success.

So, what’s her secret for empowering her diverse team? The first step is creating opportunities for them to be successful. “There’s a fairly even number

of men and women graduating from law school, and there has been for a very long time,” she explains. “But when you look at leadership in law firms, women make up a very low percentage of partners and an even lower percent of equity partners. And there’s no rational basis for that. The same is true for in-house lawyers at the highest levels.”

Bodnar believes that providing opportunities for women and minorities to move up the corporate ladder is the first step in leveling the playing field once they leave law school. Once they recognize the possibility, they’re more willing to reach for it. Kindling this type of motivation at an associate level offers more chances to develop diverse leadership once they have grown in their positions.

“Leadership positions should reflect what the general population looks like,” she says. “As you move up the ladder, you have to reach down and pull other people up—not just for women, but racial minorities and LGBTQ professionals. We have to focus on who in the profession is capable of being a leader and recognize that having leaders from different backgrounds is a strength.”

Not only has Bodnar developed as an advocate for women and minorities in the law field, but she has also used her passion for playing the team sport of law as a business partner and trusted advisor. She views her role as a member of the business team whose

“ Leadership positions should reflect what the general population looks like . . . We have to focus on who in the profession is capable of being a leader and recognize that having leaders from different backgrounds is a strength.”

responsibility is to help the company navigate risk to help achieve its goals. “Those goals can be profitability, growth, new markets, or new business lines,” she illustrates. “All of those goals require successful navigation of a complicated legal landscape.”

Bodnar believes that the combination of her long career as a litigator and employment lawyer before going in-house has helped her be a much better advisor to business strategists. She looks forward to continuing in that role and the opportunities it brings as well as to laying a path toward success for others to follow.

With

IslerDare

“Alex’s successful law firm career gives her a unique understanding of her influence as deputy general counsel. Her commitment to promoting inclusive relationships with diverse outside counsel cultivates truly rewarding partnerships. I am honored to work with her.”

—Jeanne Floyd, Partner

Jackson Lewis P.C.:

“Throughout our professional relationship, Alex has proven herself to be a dedicated and insightful attorney and business partner. She cares about and prioritizes diversity initiatives for Volt. Jackson Lewis is honored to work with her.”

—Guillermo Escobedo, Principal

Cutting CookieCutter Legal

Dart’s Brittany Marvin on the importance of customization and learning the business

THOUGH ONLY SEVEN YEARS INTO her legal career, Brittany Marvin has already set up shop in the deep end. The assistant general counsel at Dart Container has undertaken significant transformation efforts at the organization, streamlining early case assessment practices at Dart while simultaneously partnering with IT to ensure adherence to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect in 2018. The young lawyer says she’s learned being busy is never a substitute for being productive. That may be her legal experience talking—or the fact that she has a three-year-old and a three-month-old at home. Marvin is intent on leveraging all she has learned to keep legal operating as intelligently as possible.

Marvin, who went in-house almost immediately out of law school, says not traveling the common path of firm turned in-house lawyer can be a mixed blessing. “It took a lot of learning and listening to outside counsel to become familiar with the process surrounding day-to-day litigation,” Marvin says. “But I have a very deep understanding of how to work for a business and have that business be my only client, which I think a lot of people can struggle with.”

Marvin says companies increasingly see the value of in-house counsel and their ability to operate in partnership with the business, and she has been willing to lead the way.

By Billy Yost

After her role was expanded to include litigation management three years ago, Marvin says the company’s growth mandated her to reconsider what could be done to simplify the legal function. “We needed to look at our litigation management practices

Brittany Marvin Assistant General Counsel

Dart Container

and see how we could improve upon them,” Marvin says.

While looking into the broadly defined “early case assessment,” Marvin found that the process for information gathering needed to be carefully customized to Dart’s specific organizational needs. “Early case assessment is a systematic way for us to thoroughly analyze new field litigation in a time crunch of often less than sixty days,” Marvin says. “I wanted to make a repeatable process to respond to that time crunch.”

Marvin drafted version after version of an “evolving template” that she believes can ultimately lead to huge savings for Dart. “We’re looking forward to seeing the great effects that it has in

terms of litigation and understanding how our company goals should affect our litigation strategy,” Marvin says.

At the same time, Marvin had been tasked to partner with IT to get Dart in compliance with the strongest data privacy program in history, the GDPR. The role of data privacy on the whole has evolved at a staggering pace in Marvin’s own career. “In law school, I don’t remember there being a single course offered, and now it’s an entirely singular field of practice for many attorneys,” Marvin says. “It was a huge undertaking and extremely daunting.”

By asking what Dart’s organizational goals were and what outcomes they wanted to achieve, Dart and her team were able to approach the project

Kelli Schweizer

For more than 100 years, OBT has earned a reputation in Texas for legal excellence by focusing on our clients’ needs.

We are a general practice firm with diverse areas of concentration. From bet-the-company litigation to complex commercial transactions, let us show you the value of our expertise and skill. We look forward to another century, always committed to your success. www.obt.com

in a tiered manner, prioritizing the most important objectives. Marvin says that a steady stream of vendors promised magical delivery of GDPR-compliant guidelines but that those approaches completely missed the point. “Implementing a privacy program requires a deep understanding of your organization. You cannot take that cookie-cutter approach,” Marvin says.

By breaking down larger goals into smaller and more visible goals, Marvin and her team started netting small victories, which then turned into larger ones. Still, Marvin says that data privacy is becoming an increasingly complicated field. “You can always do more, and that’s the goal: to try and know what you don’t know,” Marvin says. “From where our data is held to how it’s moved, our efforts with GDPR compliance will assist us with future domestic and international compliance requirements, including California’s Consumer Privacy Act.”

Helping build out Dart’s legal function has coincided with Marvin’s building out her family function. The mother of two says that constantly working to maintain the idea of work/life balance proved stressful in and of itself. “I’m working to integrate everything I love into a life that works for me,” Marvin says. “I’m learning to do what I need to do in order to decrease the guilt and just be happy.”

| HOUSTON

WOODLANDS | SILSBEE | AUSTIN

“You can always do more, and that’s the goal: to try and know what you don’t know.”

The Lawyer CEOs Dream About

Kurt Stepaniak partners with KONE’s business, keeping elevator and escalator riders’ customer experience and safety in the foreground

By Will Grant

FOR A COMPANY FOUNDED IN 1910, KONE has certainly been able to stay young. Headquartered in Finland, the globally active company is one of the most well-established names in elevators and escalators, but Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kurt Stepaniak says that KONE has become far more than the nuts and bolts of the products it creates. “The mission of KONE is to improve the flow of urban life,” Stepaniak says. “Our vision is to create the best people-flow experience throughout the life cycle of our products.”

Stepaniak is a CEO’s dream: a lawyer who understands the fundamentals of partnering with the business. He is far more likely to talk about customer experience and communication than contracts or compliance.

While those issues still fall within the purview of legal, Stepaniak has found a way to employ legal not for legal’s sake, but to support the best business decisions. “If you look at the law department’s vision at KONE, it talks about being a true business partner,” Stepaniak says. “There’s nothing that explicitly mentions law or risk.”

To partner with the business, the legal department proactively reaches out to customers in ways that offer a competitive advantage for the company. “We want the riding public to practice safe behaviors in and around our equipment, and so we’ve created a whole portion of our risk management strategy that focuses on communication with our customers about their specific needs, based on the type of equipment and use of the facilities they have,” Stepaniak explains.

That engagement also includes equipment analysis on a customer-by-customer basis, even going so far as to do on-site observations of equipment use. “After we’re able to see it in its environment, we can

make specific recommendations to the customer to enhance the riding public’s experience and safe use of the product,” Stepaniak offers.

KONE also proactively engages employees around training, safe use of its products, and managing people flow to achieve optimal usage. “We’re able to share the best practices we’ve developed that we observed may be able to enhance the customer experience,” Stepaniak says. “By being proactive, the law department is able to have a significant impact when it comes to the area of customer satisfaction.”

While Stepaniak says being customer minded was built into his legal DNA, KONE’s focus has allowed him to make legal a value-adding entity on issues that typically aren’t the concern of the legal department. “We’ve created a really unique competitive advantage that also creates an ancillary effect in terms of promoting safe riding habits, which then reduces risk to the company,” Stepaniak says. The one-two punch creates a positive feedback loop that significantly enhances KONE’s ability to put its customers first.

Being a true business partner is Stepaniak’s critical focus when hiring for his own team. “My philosophy is, I don’t hire great lawyers. I hire great business people who just happen to be great lawyers,” the SVP says. “They have to have that intellectual curiosity on the business side up-front, or they’re not getting hired here.” Stepaniak says he models the behaviors that he considers most important, like giving advice to solve for the best business decision and not just the best legal decision.

While Stepaniak has spent two decades at KONE, he says his job is only becoming more interesting and challenging. “The biggest challenge we

Kurt Stepaniak

SVP and General Counsel KONE

have, because we’re so innovative, is keeping up with that level of innovation from a legal perspective,” the lawyer says. “We’re the only elevator company on the Forbes list of Most Innovative Companies, but always being on the cutting edge means trying to make sure legal is always there enabling and in no way discouraging that innovation.”

From partnering with IBM Watson to provide 24-7 feedback on KONE’s equipment to strategic acquisitions that will further enable technological innovation, the company’s dedication to staying at the forefront of technology will ensure that the 109-yearold company continues to operate with the spirit of a start-up but the infrastructure of an institution. “KONE existed eighty-some years before I came here and will be around another one hundred after I leave,” Stepaniak laughs. “The culture here is that of a winner—it’s a place where people can have great careers.”

“They have to have that intellectual curiosity on the business side up-front, or they’re not getting hired here.”

From Blue Lines to Red Lines

Erin Shoudt has found a way to employ her passions at PAE

By Billy Yost

ACTING AS A PLAINTIFF AGAINST HER undergraduate university wasn’t what drew Erin Shoudt to the law; she just wanted to play ice hockey. Shoudt was the named plaintiff in a Title IX lawsuit against Colgate University in what became a landmark case to establish the first women’s varsity ice hockey team at the liberal arts college. Last year, the hockey team she helped bring into existence appeared for the first time and made it to the finals in the Frozen Four, the NCAA women’s hockey national championship tournament.

Shoudt is proud of aiding in the genesis of the program, and she says acting as a short but scrappy defenseman carried over well in her approach to litigation. The now associate general counsel for litigation and investigations at PAE has found a way to come full circle with her passions, her profession, and a penchant for finding a way to get even the toughest jobs done.

Prior to coming to PAE, Shoudt says her eleven and a half years at the law firm Dentons gave her a litigation edu-

cation that was second to none. “Over time, I became the senior associate that was staffed on the big, complicated cases because my superiors recognized that I could bring order to a case that otherwise seemed chaotic due to its size or complexity,” Shoudt says.

By juggling a large portfolio of disparate and high-profile cases that spanned everything from internal investigations to False Claims Act litigation and securities fraud class actions, Shoudt amassed experience in managing large teams and changing priorities quickly from case to case.

A capacity for operating quickly and flexibly would be a near job mandate for Shoudt upon coming in-house at PAE. Having little experience in government contracting and having never worked for a company or as in-house counsel, Shoudt walked into her office on her first day to a desk, a computer, and a list of pending litigation that was entirely under her purview. It was particularly daunting that at least four of the cases already had trials all scheduled for the same day, just eight weeks after starting in the new position. But Shoudt was not intimidated in the slightest.

“My personality is just one that sees the challenge and just digs in and figures it out,” Shoudt says frankly. “I picked up the phone and just started calling outside counsel to learn more about the cases and what our

next moves would be.” She quickly learned the details of each case, including the types of government contracts and programs at issue, the key personnel involved at PAE (none of whom she had met yet), and the various opponents’ positions. Shoudt is proud that each case was resolved in some way and none of those scheduled trials occurred.

Shoudt says there was a saving grace to the steep learning curve she faced when she entered the new industry. “In a lot of ways, litigation is litigation, and the same rules apply regardless of the industry you’re in.”

While going in-house in a new industry was a huge adjustment, she attributes her success so far to her resourcefulness, affinity for crossing items off her to-do list, and ability to draw on past experiences, regardless of the subject matter. She recalled when she was a general litigator at Dentons, she had to quickly get up to speed on the internal workings of every new client in many different industries. Drawing on that experience, she knew she could quickly tackle the specifics of the government contracts industry, too, and could be successful by applying the litigation experience she already had to the unique issues PAE faced.

In addition, Shoudt understood the importance of gaining the trust of her colleagues. As Shoudt puts it, “because I was coming from a law firm where I did primarily healthcare litigation and going in-house in an industry that was new to me, gaining the trust of my colleagues was particularly important, which I feel like I accomplished by demonstrating that I could quickly get my head and hands around many different matters and bring results.”

At PAE, litigation wasn’t the associate GC’s only responsibility, and Shoudt

Erin Shoudt Associate General Counsel PAE

says she quickly learned the importance of managing insurance recoveries as a policyholder and how important that issue could be from a company perspective. In addition, she was able to enhance PAE’s approach to litigation by bringing her prior knowledge of e-discovery and data preservation issues.

“The biggest thing I’ve realized working in-house is that the company is my client now, and at the end of the day, it’s about how well the company is doing. If I can contribute to the growth of the company through a good settlement, insurance recovery, cost-effective discovery tools, or even pursuing litigation that makes business sense, then I’m doing my job well.”

One of Shoudt’s more notable successes involved a settlement with a bank that included no monetary penalty, a virtually unheard-of proposition. “It was the first settlement of its kind, ever,” Shoudt says. “It was a

“ My personality is just one that sees the challenge and just digs in and figures it out.”

Keely Owendoff Photography

case that was underway prior to my arrival and had cost the company a lot of time and money, and we were able to resolve it on very favorable terms.”

Shoudt has also resolved several other breach-of-contract, workers’ compensation, internal investigations, and False Claims Act matters in only her first eighteen months at PAE. Shoudt understands that it is important to the company to bring matters to resolution, and her role is to find creative, profitable ways to solve problems that arise rather than create them.

PAE has proven such a good fit for Shoudt because of its mission to do development work internationally. As a political science and African studies double major at Colgate, the lawyer initially thought she would be pursuing a career in international development work in Africa after college. PAE’s global presence and development and capacity-building work from Africa to Antarctica and Afghanistan have reinvigorated passion points for her.

“It’s so amazing to me that the passion I had prior to working in commercial law has really come back into play. At PAE, I am able to pursue my law career for a company that has contracts and programs that are interesting and important to me,” Shoudt says.

Shoudt admits her passions have a habit of digging their way in deep. She may or may not have accrued the most penalty minutes on her college hockey team, a testament to an aggressive style of play that has worked well in the courtroom. Her passion for fostering dogs resulted in her becoming a member of the “failed foster club,” composed of people who wind up adopting the dogs they’re only supposed to be responsible for in the short term. It’s a designation of which she is proud. Shoudt is also in the process of restoring a home from the 1800s with minimal aid from her rescue dog, Suzie.

Whether it’s taking on gender inequality in college athletics, renovating a nineteenth-century home, or taking an in-house legal position in a new industry, Shoudt has shown she is up for the challenge.

Brown Rudnick:

“Erin brings a wealth of practical experience to the table, having spent years litigating cases as outside counsel. Combined with her common sense, she is able to manage large matters effectively and efficiently through a successful conclusion.”

—Mark Baldwin, Partner

At Brown Rudnick, we combine ingenuity with experience to achieve great outcomes for our clients. We deliver partner-driven service; we incentivize our lawyers to collaborate in the client’s best interest; and we put excellence before scale.

With more than 250 lawyers and government relations professionals working in a collaborative environment across the United States and Europe, we strive to produce clever, original and inventive solutions.

ingenuity inspires connects creates embraces wins

Refining the Process

Ashland’s Julie Hopkins has seen the company through tremendous evolution,

room

By Will Grant

IN MANY WAYS, JULIE HOPKINS’S twenty-year evolution at global specialty chemicals company Ashland is the inverse of the growing specialization of her employer. As the company has narrowed its focus from having its hand in virtually every step of crude oil refinement—from asphalt to petrol to lubricants to fine chemicals and their distribution—to being a premier name in the specialty chemicals space, Hopkins has become a much more effective generalist and collaborator, conscious of the intricate interplay between employer and employee, individual employees, and counsel and advisor.

The senior group counsel and chief privacy officer says that growth on her own part was easier to achieve when she realized that the only thing inconstant about the inevitability of change was the rate of it. “We’ve gone from laws that have been debated in Congress

all the while working to be the most reasonable person in the

Julie Hopkins Senior Group Counsel, Labor, Employment & Litigation, and Chief of Privacy

for decades to almost total sea changes in the span of twelve to eighteen months,” Hopkins says in a soft drawl. “I’m not sure where everything is going, but it sure is interesting to be a part of it.”

Hopkins came in-house at Ashland in 1999 and was required to “grow up” in her new role almost immediately. “I’d been there barely a year when we had to undergo a significant OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs) government audit,” Hopkins says. “When you talk about needing to take a deep dive to understand your organization, that process really helped speed me along.” The audit’s findings were ultimately very positive for Ashland, and the chance to work face-to-face with C-suite executives was incredibly informative for Hopkins.

While Hopkins says her development was significant, she admits that her capacity to handle stress on the job could, at times, be a serious challenge for her. In the first eight months of 2009 alone (and with the Great Recession in full effect), Hopkins helped integrate a major acquisition the company had done the previous year, designed a furlough program with HR that ultimately saved the company $29 million, fielded a request for a second OFCCP corporate management review audit by providing so much information at

the desk-audit stage that the OFCCP decided subsequent follow-up wasn’t necessary, and last—but certainly not least—gave birth to twins.

While the stress of 2009 would have been enough to rattle the most seasoned in-house counsel, it wouldn’t be the defining test for Hopkins. That came a few years later, the day before her daughter’s third birthday, when the lawyer found out her daughter would have to undergo treatment for cancer. The trying experience of her daughter’s surgery and follow-up treatment transformed Hopkins’s outlook, and she returned to work with a new mind-set.

“I came back with a much better understanding of what it’s like for employees who have demands outside the office that they just can’t drop the ball on,” Hopkins says. “I also came back with a much stronger ability to manage, prioritize, and just be the voice of calm.”

Hopkins quotes Kipling when remembering the best advice she ever received from a friend, a bankruptcy judge, who had seen ordinarily rational people become unhinged once money became involved. “‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . . ’” Hopkins remembers with a laugh. “I always try to be the most reasonable person in the room.”

Hopkins says this approach has made her a better lawyer, a better wife, and a better mother. “You just have to take a step back and realize how quickly everything can change,” she says. “In the midst of change, often the best contribution you can make is to be a steadying influence—a voice of reason and a good advisor.”

That can be a more difficult proposition, she admits, when the nature of in-house work means representing not

“You just have to take a step back and realize how quickly everything can change. In the midst of change, often the best contribution you can make is to be a steadying influence—a voice of reason and a good advisor.”

just the company but its people as well. What does this balancing act require? “You have to be willing to open yourself up and hear from absolutely everyone involved,” Hopkins says. “I’m not here to be a rubber stamp or a contrarian. Ashland’s corporate motto is Always Solving, and asking the right questions to get to the fundamental issue is what allows you to offer the best advice that you can.”

The senior counsel says that she hopes her decades at Ashland have given the company as much as she’s gotten from it. “I was a Girl Scout, and one of our rules is to leave a place better than you found it,” Hopkins says. “I hope that one day after I’m gone from Ashland, there will be some things that are better because I was here.”

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP:

“Julie’s insightful and expansive mind for legal knowledge and concepts makes her a true partner and collaborator who always delivers. We continue to be appreciative of her leadership and look forward to working with her for many years to come.”

—Chuck Roesch and Colleen Lewis, Partners

Tsibouris & Associates:

“Julie uses her expertise to creatively facilitate and promote her client’s objectives. By staying informed about current legal trends, she succeeds at properly balancing her client’s priorities with industry-specific legal requirements.”

—Dino Tsibouris, Attorney, CIPP/US

The Right Way,

Not the Easy Way

René Hertsberg adds value to the operations at Urban Elevator simply by not cutting corners

By KC Esper | Photos by Lorenzo De Gregorio

WHEN RENÉ HERTSBERG WAS PURSUING HIS bachelor’s degree in molecular biology, he never expected he would become a lawyer. “I wanted to work in a lab and study cancer,” he says. “After two years in a lab, I realized it wasn’t for me.” Swiftly, he switched gears to become an intellectual property lawyer— entering a specialty that fortuitously benefited from his science background.

In private practice, he especially enjoyed working with businesses, negotiating contracts, and settling disputes. In the fall of 2011, Urban Elevator Service, an elevator service provider established more than twenty-five years earlier by Hertsberg’s father, recruited Hertsberg to join the family business. Urban Elevator Service was making some changes to its operations at the time and hired Hertsberg to both be its general counsel and to help effectuate the coming changes.

everybody wins.” In his role as general counsel, Hertsberg uses this mentality when assessing contracts with new and old clients alike. The goal behind this method is not only to ensure a fair and balanced approach to partnerships but also to prove to clients that they’re willing to work together to make the product the best it can be within a client’s means.

His methodology may seem simple, but it takes time to perfect. Nevertheless, Hertsberg says that having the patience and diligence needed to accomplish things properly is vital when handling contract negotiations. “Finding that middle ground really

Compared to other service industries, the elevator industry is quite conglomerated. In other words, while finding a good plumber requires sorting through sixty names, there are only a handful of elevator companies no matter what town you’re in. “As a result,” Hertsberg says, “it can be rather homogeneous.” Thus, when Hertsberg entered the industry, he set out to do whatever it took to make sure Urban Elevator stood out as number one. Fortunately, the family-owned company was already standing out as a valuable choice because of a rare key ingredient: authenticity.

Hertsberg’s experience in private practice made him aware of the dog-eat-dog nature of legal negotiations. “A lot of times when lawyers negotiate with each other, it’s a win or lose thing,” he explains. “But really, there’s almost always a middle ground, and my feeling is, it’s worth trying to find a place where

varies from building to building and project to project,” Hertsberg says. “When working on a deal, I always try to get our clients to engage with me. I devote time to having conversations with clients about writing contracts that are fair to everybody.”

Of course, finding that perfect middle ground also requires navigating the gray area between business reward and legal risk—knowing what the business can gain from the arrangement while also understanding the nuance attendant to negotiating an intricate installation or service deal. That’s where the company’s mission of doing the right thing shines through.

“A lot of times when lawyers negotiate with each other, it’s a win or lose thing. But really, there’s almost always a middle ground, and it’s worth trying to find a place where everybody wins.”

René Hertsberg

CFO and General Counsel

Urban Elevator Service

Hertsberg explains, “The best way to ensure an optimum outcome is for both parties to be reasonable. It starts with listening to each other’s contractual concerns.”

Luckily, Hertsberg’s dual roles allow him to communicate effectively with all parties involved, strengthening Urban Elevator’s ties holistically. “Working both roles bridges the gap between communicating with corporations, building owners, contractors, and other lawyers,” he says. “When needed, I can get involved in the sales process as CFO, but when I’m working with lawyers and contract negotiations, I’m general counsel.”

By working authentically and communicating effectively, Urban Elevator has built a strong reputation, allowing it to grow organically and attract loyal clients as it expands to new locations. The goal, Hertsberg says, is to bring Urban Elevator’s pragmatic, honest brand of elevator contracting services to other markets across the country. Over the past three years, the company has kept on track with this plan, broadening from its Chicago roots to build three new branches in Texas, Colorado, and Arizona.

Furthermore, Urban Elevator’s reputation for treating people fairly has helped the company increase its unionized workforce. “It’s a matter of effectively growing your labor force,” Hertsberg says. “We found we can

attract the best, most trained people, and we want to keep our team happy and engaged in their jobs.”

Together, Urban Elevator team members work to get things done in a fair and balanced way that echoes throughout the company, in accordance with its mission. From service technicians to fellow executives, each team member works diligently to provide exceptional service with the safety and financial stability of clients in mind, all while learning important, industry-specific subtleties.

“Getting things done correctly means spending the time to do things correctly,” Hertsberg says. “It means properly staffing workflow and making sure that people aren’t being overworked so they have time to do things the right way. It just means doing the right thing, not the easy thing.”

Burke Warren MacKay & Serritella P.C:

“Under René’s leadership, Urban’s customer contracts combine an equitable allocation of risks with careful attention to each customer’s unique needs. We’re proud to be a partner in Urban Elevator’s continued success.”

—Ken Richman, Shareholder

“We found we can attract the best, most trained people, and we want to keep our team happy and engaged in their jobs.”

A Lifeline to Home

Kevin Boyle of Vectrus helps American servicemen and women feel a little more at home

By Will Grant

SINCE 2002, KEVIN BOYLE HAS specialized in government services— that is, managing legal for companies whose primary customer is the United States government. “Much of what we do involves managing operations for the facilities where our war fighters live,” Boyle says. “We have some seven thousand employees, most of whom are in the same locations as those soldiers, and you can’t be successful in a position like this unless you really appreciate and value the mission that our company is performing.”

Now, as senior vice president, chief legal officer, and general counsel at Vectrus, Boyle is using his nearly twenty-five years of experience both in government services and the high-tech industry to serve in what he believes is a privileged role: aiding America’s

Kevin Boyle SVP, Chief Legal Officer, and General Counsel Vectrus

military personnel by “making their home away from home feel a little more like home.”

Boyle has had the good fortune to work mostly for companies on a growth trajectory. “I’ve worked for a lot of companies that have successfully achieved a certain amount of success and are looking to make it to the next level,” he says. “I’ve been lucky to have worked with organizations and led legal teams that were key contributors to getting those companies to whatever their next level was, whether measured by revenue, number of employees, or reducing risk and eliminating barriers to growth.”

Along with a slew of government services positions, Boyle spent time at a series of equity-backed companies that required a deep understanding of corporate strategy, with an eye on process improvement and growth management. “Private, equity-backed companies are on a mission to grow, and I’ve been lucky to be at companies that have grown dramatically.”

Sometime after Boyle joined Vectrus, the company announced that the United States Army had named the company as one of four contractors for LOGCAP V, a historic $82 billion logistics civil augmentation deal. While Boyle isn’t at liberty to disclose specifics due to the deal’s ongoing appeals process, the deal offers a great amount of insight into just how specialized and complicated the world of government contracting can be.

For example, the government allows a protest period in which any interested parties who were not selected for government contracts can have their cases reviewed. “The protest process is a unique feature of doing business with the federal government,” Boyle says. “There are some companies whose reflexive action is to challenge, but it’s

something I’m very selective about.” He says developing a reputation as a serial protester undermines credibility and can hurt when it matters most.

Legal is also able to help Vectrus navigate the exceedingly competitive marketplace of Department of Defense contracting. From work that the company is currently doing—and wants to continue—to generating entirely new areas of business that Vectrus hasn’t yet gotten into, legal is responsible for collaborating with the business development team to assist in pricing processes and providing the right information for bids.

Along with Boyle’s more traditional oversight of ethics and compliance, contracts, and facilities and security at Vectrus, the very nature of the company’s government collaboration requires legal to understand the company’s positioning at all times. “Employing really strong leadership at the top of my teams is key,” he says. “I do one-on-one meetings with each of my department leads every week, and it’s an opportunity for them to engage me to help drive their projects forward.”

Boyle also employs outside counsel with industry-specific expertise to fill in gaps when needed. “These aren’t firms who spend the rest of their day helping retailers,” he jokes. “The firms that I’ve selected to work with are the ones that understand what our business mission is; they have to have a grounding in the business.” The GC keeps several different firms in his orbit because the incredibly competitive nature of government bidding often places expertise-intensive firms in conflicts of interest with their various clients.

“I want to make sure that my team feels value in what they’re doing and that I’m giving them the right opportunities to be successful in their career paths.”

Fulfilling the mission of his organization is certainly enough to make him proud, Boyle says, but there is an added benefit of watching those on his team develop and grow. “I want to make sure that my team feels value in what they’re doing and that I’m giving them the right opportunities to be successful in their career paths,” Boyle says. “That’s really important to me.”

Dentons is privileged to work with Kevin and the rest of the Vectrus team as the global government services company continues to tackle some of the world’s most di icult challenges.

Vectrus’ continued success is a testament to the company’s embrace of innovation and technology and the strength of its legal department under Kevin’s leadership. In an intensely competitive, rapidly changing global economy, Dentons is proud to help Vectrus consistently deliver innovative solutions responsive to its clients’ mission critical needs.

A CLIENT’S NEEDS DON’T FIT NEATLY INTO A BOX.

At Morrison & Foerster, we understand each client is unique. We develop particularized, creative legal solutions to further our clients’ business goals.

Morrison & Foerster congratulates KEVIN BOYLE and Vectrus for their feature in Modern Counsel. mofo.com

Dentons:

“We congratulate Kevin Boyle on this well-deserved recognition. Kevin recognizes that the delivery of solutions is all about teams that serve with passion, dedication to excellence, and commitment to its mission, which he achieves internally and in working with outside counsel on selected matters.”

—Steven Masiello, Chair of Government Contracts team

Morrison & Foerster LLP:

“Kevin Boyle is the perfect fit for a company like Vectrus. He’s intelligent, experienced, and pragmatic. We expect great things for Kevin and Vectrus in 2019.”

—Kevin Mullen, Cochair, Government Contracts Practice Group

Dentons. The world’s largest global elite law firm.*

dentons.com

© 2019 Dentons. Dentons is a global legal practice providing client services worldwide through its member firms and a iliates. Please see dentons.com for Legal Notices.

*Acritas Global Elite Law Firm Brand Index 2013-2018.

© 2019 Morrison & Foerster LLP

To His Credit

By Chip Hooper

FICO IS MORE THAN JUST A CREDIT score. Fair Isaac Corporation has transformed industries with its big data-driven predictive technologies for consumer behavior. Analytic software created by FICO is used to manage risk, fight fraud, and optimize operations. These technologies are employed across the globe and across a wide variety of industries, from financial services and healthcare to automotive and retail to telecommunications, media and entertainment, and the public sector, among others. Founded in 1956, Fair Isaac Corporation introduced the concept of the credit score as an impartial decision management tool. To this day, it plays a vital role in societies all over the world.

The company uses its various technologies to help businesses improve the precision and consistency of their financial decisions. More than half of the top one hundred banks in the world and ninety-five of the one hundred largest financial institutions in the United States number among FICO’s clients.

Given the scope of its operations, FICO must rely on a skilled legal team to navigate the complex intersections of law and technology as it is interpreted by different international governments. In 2004, the company hired Jim Woodward as a senior counsel who

Jim Woodward helps propel FICO’s legal department to success by developing effective internal systems, ensuring compliance with international regulations, and working hand in hand with the business

INSPIRING LEADERSHIP

WEB ADDRESS SPECIFICATIONS

Faegre Baker Daniels congratulates Jim Woodward on his outstanding tenure at FICO. Jim’s institutional knowledge, professionalism, leadership and versatility benefit FICO and all who know and work with Jim.

was in charge of management and negotiations for corporate technology transactions. Woodward’s skills as a transactional attorney drew the attention of C-level executives. He provided expert advice on some of the most significant issues the company had to face.

Based on this stellar record, Woodward was then promoted to vice president and deputy counsel. In this position, he leads the legal department in all matters of litigation, intellectual property, employment, and corporate governance. In addition to managing his in-house team, Woodward oversees teams of outside counsel in international IP and litigation matters.

For Woodward, success at FICO boils down to three essential goals. First, ensure that the company has internal systems designed to effectively execute contracts and manage its portfolio. Thoughtful development of practices and programs within the company is key. FICO has more than 130 patents for analytics and decision management technologies. This level of commitment to the goal and philosophy of the company is the reason it is trusted worldwide.

The second goal is to operate in such a way that compliance with international regulations comes naturally. This is of the utmost importance due to the changing regulation landscapes on the global scale on which FICO operates. Regulations like the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) regulation B are just some of the biggest regulations levied on the industry that require compliance.

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Violation of any of these acts results in serious penalties that would severely damage the company financially as well as reputationally. Additionally, Woodward handles SEC reporting and corporate governance issues.

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Jim Woodward VP and Deputy General Counsel FICO

The third and most important of Woodward’s aims is the cultivation of the department to achieve his previous goals. He has put together a dynamic legal team capable of handling the complicated legal system. The pragmatic, business-oriented focus of his legal team sets it apart. By working in a more hands-on way with business leaders, the legal team members are able to stay on top of the regulations and better manage the portfolio and contracts. Woodward also advises his crew to build close working relationships with their business counterparts.

This leadership philosophy has led Woodward and FICO to achieve incredible levels of success in business, smoothly operating worldwide with the trust of clients and consumers. Woodward’s strict adherence to government regulations on privacy and data management have made FICO an invaluable tool for business and social good. Woodward states his top priority is providing the best legal advice globally. As vice president and fifteen-year veteran of the company, he has more than proven himself in the management of the legal affairs of the company’s credit scoring and analytic business tools.

Faegre Baker Daniels:

“Jim Woodward exudes leadership. He remains calm under pressure, operates adeptly across legal areas, and inspires teammates to provide superior service. He is a tremendous business partner and a pleasure to collaborate with.”

—Morgan Burns, Corporate Partner

750 attorneys | 29 of ces cozen.com

Cozen O’Connor joins Modern Counsel in recognizing the many accomplishments of Jim Woodward, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at FICO.

Forging Relationships

Aileen Schwartz of Hill International discusses how believing in her people motivates them to move mountains

By KC Esper

and

AILEEN SCHWARTZ IS A GO-GETTER.

Early in her career, working in-house was her dream. So, with her first CEO and mentor Stephen Shilling’s help, she persevered to become General Counsel for The Quaker Group, a privately held company specializing in real estate development and construction. Though Shilling would pass away just shy of two years after she landed the position, the lessons he taught her have remained with her throughout her career, fueled her passion for the construction industry, and showed her how to make a difference no matter her role.

After serving The Quaker Group for almost seven years, Schwartz realized it was time to grow in her career and applied for a legal position at Hill International, a publicly traded global construction management and project management consulting firm currently headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since joining Hill International in 2008, she has been promoted three times, moving up the ladder from her first role as Assistant General Counsel to her current, wide-ranging position as Senior Vice President, Senior Corporate Counsel for the US, and Privacy Officer. Schwartz credits her success at Hill International to working with William H. Dengler Jr., Hill’s former General Counsel and now Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer. “Having a supervisor who trusts your instincts, provides you with autonomy to perform

your duties, and supports your efforts makes all the difference,” Schwartz says. The scope of Schwartz’s duties includes litigation management, contract and lease review and negotiation, advising on employment law, human resource investigations, implementation and compliance worldwide with privacy laws, and response to—and prevention

Aileen Schwartz SVP, Senior Corporate Counsel US, and Privacy Officer Hill International

Joe Dunphy

of—cybersecurity breaches. “It’s different every day,” she says. “I have many diverse duties, so one day is totally dissimilar to the next.” While she loves solving every challenge that lands on her desk, she attests that the best part of her job is building and working with a team of amazing people who support her. In fact, to Schwartz, building out both her in-house and outside counsel networks with strong, diverse talent is imperative to her success and the performance of her duties.

“By welcoming a diversity of people, you get a huge range of opinions, thoughts, and creativity on how to problem solve and create alternative solutions,” Schwartz explains. “I always look for the best person for the job with the right expertise, regardless of who they are. Having this diverse workforce both internally, at Hill International, and externally, through other in-house contacts and outside counsel, adds value to everything I do and to the entire team.”

In her practice, Schwartz makes a point to welcome talented people of all backgrounds and beliefs. Likewise, she continually develops relationships with every member of her team, allowing them to contact her at any hour with any problem. “It’s a really good feeling knowing my coworkers and outside counsel feel comfortable reaching out. They know I will respond right away, enabling us to solve problems before they happen,” Schwartz says. “Even though we don’t hesitate to contact one another, we respect each other’s outside lives. This balance is key to working together effectively.” In the same way that she serves as a support system for her coworkers and diverse outside counsel, she is a strong advocate for other female attorneys.

When Schwartz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, women made up more than half of her class. Years later, however, she realized that very few of her female classmates were still practicing law. “It’s a shame that all these brilliant women are not using their legal education,” she says.

Similarly, Schwartz started noticing that women who were practicing in the field weren’t offered the same or equivalent opportunities as their male counterparts. Unjustly, many weren’t

workplace thanks to the efforts of men and women in leadership roles today at more forward-thinking companies. I am confident that young women today will know a different world coming out of school than I ever did and that they will have a lot more opportunities.”

To accomplish her goal of a more equal legal industry, Schwartz started the Women’s Committee within the Association of Corporate Counsel for the Greater Philadelphia Area Chapter. The committee serves as a hub for

promoted because law firms didn’t want to invest in someone who could potentially leave to start a family. The overall lack of female representation and promotion inspired Schwartz to use her experience to become an advocate for female lawyers.

“We’re going to keep working to change the way people see women in the field,” Schwartz explains. “At Hill International, I can accomplish anything I put my mind to. I have opportunities to advance and am not held back because of my gender in any way at the company. I hope to see this more throughout the legal profession.” Schwartz adds, “I believe my daughter, currently in graduate school, will enjoy a more welcoming and supporting

women in legal to have open dialogues about their experiences while providing and receiving support from their female cohorts. “These events allow women to discuss the challenges they have experienced and see how others have been confronted with similar situations. It’s been extremely helpful for younger women in the profession.” Schwartz is also an active member of the Forum of Executive Women and Women Owned Law, organizations that likewise promote professional women.

For Schwartz, watching the growth inside and outside of Hill International inspires her to continue her efforts and gives her hope for future generations of attorneys. As she continues to forge relationships and serve as a mentor for

“

By welcoming a diversity of people, you get a huge range of opinions, thoughts, and creativity on how to problem solve and create alternative solutions.”

her team, she hopes to continue sparking positive change however she can. “I came to Hill right after it went public, so it’s been an incredible opportunity to evolve with the company,” she says. “There is diversity in our leadership and in our departments, and it’s wonderful to see the ways that the company is thriving thanks, in part, to this approach.”

“I have known Aileen for more than twenty years, and she is one of the best attorneys I have ever worked with. She creates pragmatic, disciplined, and principled solutions with a sense of professionalism and ease.”

—George E. Pallas, Managing Partner

Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman PC:

The Right Match

Jared Sine expertly steers Match’s matchless legal department through shifting data privacy regulations

By Hana Yoo and Robert Henry

Jared Sine Chief Legal Officer and Secretary Match Group

NEW REGULATIONS CAN CATCH

unprepared companies off guard, putting them in a precarious position. On the other hand, wise anticipation of developing laws can help secure a company’s future. Fortunately, the latter situation is where Match Group, an international dating services provider with a portfolio of brands—including Tinder, Match.com, Hinge, OkCupid, and others—under its umbrella finds itself. With Jared Sine, Match’s chief legal officer and secretary, at the helm, the legal department is ideally positioned to handle ever-changing legal directives.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in the European Union in May 2018. This regulation dictated that companies require the consent of users for data processing, the anonymization of data to protect privacy, data breach notifications, and the safe handling of data transferred across borders.

GDPR sent ripples across the world in terms of data management regulations, including in the United States, where many states are looking to develop their own individual mandates. This is creating a complicated mess of contradictory rules, which spells disaster for companies that are reliant on data but are ill-equipped to handle the increasing regulations. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), for example, provides similar—but not identical—consumer protections regulations to GDPR. Many other states have looked at the precedents set by CCPA and have begun developing similar acts in their own states.

The legal complexity is amplified for companies like Match, which operates globally and bases its business on the collection of personal data. Both GDPR

and CCPA create liability for such platforms. “GDPR creates a whole new regulatory regime and framework for businesses like ours to deal with,” Sine says. “What data we collect, how we collect it, who we collect it from, what consents we get when we are collecting it, what rights we have relative to the data, what rights other users have relative to their data.”

Therefore, Sine has gone far beyond what is legally required to develop strict data processes and policies for Match. “We don’t want an EU user to be treated differently than a US user. We are going to give those rights to everybody.” This allows Match and its affiliated services to offer consumers the same great experience regardless of the regulations in their country.

These modifications represent an ongoing process, as the duty of a platform to its users and the public is becoming more regulated by the government. Many shields protecting platforms are being removed, and liability is increasing, which has been a major problem for companies that hadn’t put much thought into their data collection and management systems. Many were forced to shut down their websites to EU users, with notices indicating their failure to comply with GDPR, or were hit with large fines. But Match and its affiliates had implemented a privacy program that met GDPR’s guidelines by the time the regulation went into effect.

There is also legislation coming down the pipeline that punishes platforms for illegal content that users post onto it, but because of the measures that Sine and the company have been proactively pursuing for the purpose of improved user experience, they expect to be unaffected when the legislation passes.

“ We want to make sure that we are doing the best we can to try to be in front of these potential changes, but also to do the right thing for our users.”

CALD W ELL CASSADY & CURRY

JARED SINE

Going the Extra Mile for Privacy and User Safety

Match has voluntarily taken responsibility and legal liability upon itself and put forth impressive measures to protect users’ data and both online and offline experiences. These include algorithms to aid in removing bots and bad actors in addition to protecting against data breaches on the back end. The company has developed AI to proactively protect users from damaging images and content posted on the site. It has also created an external advisory council with recruited individuals from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as well as other experts in sexual assault prevention and from antiviolence organizations.

“We want to make sure that we are doing the best we can to try to be in front of these potential changes, but also to do the right thing for our users,” Sine explains.

Match’s emphasis on user protection is evident in its devoting more than ten percent of its total workforce to security. “Instead of taking off-the-shelf tools that third parties have built,” Sine says, “we’ve built our own tools that really understand how our platforms work.” It is this unusual commitment to privacy and user protection that allows Match’s users to trust the brand—and to feel comfortable putting themselves fully out there in hopes of developing meaningful connections.

For Jared Sine, this is what it is all about: the connections. “Relationships are the ultimate social good,” he says. With the rates of suicide and loneliness mounting among young people, the importance of fostering these interpersonal relationships is growing. This focus on getting people together offline, out in the real world, is a unique feature of Match and its affiliates. That is why safety is vital to Sine and his team.

The benefits of these efforts are manifold. Sine notes the results of a recent MIT study showing that “relationships that

is proud to partner with

start online tend to be more diverse, and they tend to be more stable.” In fostering such relationships, the company is “expanding the footprint of diversity and inclusion—all those good things that everybody wants.”

The end result of Match’s devotion to the privacy and safety of its users: it has exceeded the requirements of each privacy act and regulation that has come down the pike. The company’s continued effort to protect users’ data and provide a safe and exciting experience makes it a futureproof service that strengthens the social fabric, stemming the rising tide of isolation by supporting genuine, real-life connections.

Where law and business meet.

Manatt congratulates Jared Sine

General Counsel, Match Group

We are honored to work with the Match Group and Match.com, and we congratulate Jared on being profiled in Modern Counsel.

With respect, your friends and colleagues at Manatt.

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, llp manatt.com

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Peter Castelli, P132 Senior Counsel

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Doug Nash

Intellectual Property Litigation Practice

Area Chair

Barclay Damon LLP

315.425.2828

dnash@barclaydamon.com

An experienced trial lawyer, Doug Nash protects US manufacturers against the significant harm that results from the infringement of intellectual property rights, especially patent rights.

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ADS

Jim Woodward, P165

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FICO

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