Modern Counsel #38

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Contents

Implement P10 Nicole Fritz proves to be a strong lawyer at Kraft Heinz partly due to the time she spent outside of practicing law

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P28 Flynn Restaurant Group’s Cherise Latortue discusses her risk-friendly litigation strategy as associate general counsel of employment and labor

Feature P56 Senior Managing Counsel Peter Wu leverages his passion for photography to make him a better in-house lawyer at Adobe

P56

P62 Through sheer determination and grit, Steffany Cunningham pushed through a tough childhood to become general

Lead P83 Mark A. Dorfman shares how he helped Leonardo DRS regroup after the company fell short in its initial attempt to go public

P90 Connections in Eileen Salathé Hollcraft’s life paved the way for her to be the veteran attorney she is today at Corteva Agriscience

P83

Courtesy of Cherise Latortue (Latortue), Courtesy of Peter Wu (Wu), Gene Smirnov (Dorfman)

counsel for National Express

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Pivot P106 Dr. Benjamin Gündling serves as corporate and M&A counsel to Freudenberg’s growing diverse portfolio

P106

P113 As senior vice president of legal operations at Cresco Labs, Bill Novomisle works to improve the relationship between in-house and external counsel

Focus P122 Always on the lookout for new challenges, Iris Mok continues to find them as assistant director of patents

P122

at Intel

P138 Karim Adatia helped launch an innovative program at Insight that showcases the valuable work that employees

Indira Sadikovic (Gündling), Suzanne Covert (Mok), Tracy Bosworth Page (Michael)

do on a daily basis

Evaluate P154 As senior vice president and chief brokerage relations Counsel at JLL, Heather Smith Michael uses her extensive litigation background

P170 Kristi Garrett navigated the career jungle gym to become QBE North America’s vice president and associate general counsel of legal, regulatory, and compliance

P154

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The highly anticipated day arrived.

Sheila Barabad Sarmiento

I packed my essentials into a large Ziploc bag that would soon be inspected.

I didn’t have much of an appetite for breakfast, but forced myself to eat a few bites of dry cereal. My parents wished me luck as I drove off to the local community college to take the dreaded LSAT. Despite my nerves, I knew there was a slim-to-none chance that I would actually attend law school. Close to a year of test preparation classes and practice exams led up to this moment. However, in the daily grind of studying, I lost sight on why I wanted to become a lawyer. Initially, it seemed like the natural progression for an English major, and as a chronic overthinker, I began to question the entire game plan. I couldn’t answer the simple question of why I wanted to study law and become an attorney—both important details when deciding on such a large commitment.

I still completed the test, and ultimately attended journalism school to pursue my true passion for storytelling. Admittedly, hours of studying and monetary investment in test prep were spent on a venture that I ultimately did not pursue, but the experience provided an extremely valuable lesson in the importance of following my natural instincts.

Our fifth annual Purpose issue showcases in-house counsel who have incredible zeal for their work. They are committed to a variety of causes and advocate for positive change through their work. Cover stars Kindel Nuno, Daria Russell, Mindy Harper, Shruti Patel, and Paetra Kaufmann exemplify these qualities in their roles at Mattress Firm.

The all-female legal team are in a unique situation. Being a woman in law comes with challenges, but they remain focused on what they’re able to accomplish together. Their shared experience, passion for the practice of law, and collective sense of purpose strengthen their connection and help them provide the best results for their team at Mattress Firm.

“In all of my years, this team feels tighter, closer, more at ease with each other than any team I’ve ever been a part of,” says Nuno, executive vice president of legal, general counsel, and secretary. “There’s a level of trust and respect here that you can’t just manufacture.”

The irony that I’m now managing editor of Modern Counsel isn’t lost on me. I even married a lawyer. However, I know I made the correct decision to sidestep law to pursue my own purpose, and I admire the attorneys benefiting their companies and overall society each-and-every day.

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Celebrating legal leaders’ latest efforts and achievements, including tktktktktkt

transactions, expansions, negotiations, and inclusion initiatives

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Experience Preferred Nicole Fritz proves to be a strong lawyer at Kraft Heinz—partly due to the time she spent outside of practicing law

By Billy Yost

IT ALL MATTERS. THAT SHOULD BE THE

main takeaway from the journey of Nicole Fritz, assistant corporate secretary and senior counsel of corporate governance and securities at the Kraft Heinz Company.

The lawyer earned her undergraduate degree at the prestigious University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism, but didn’t wind up working in journalism. In fact, Fritz completed the required two hundred hours of dental observation required to apply to dental school, but she hasn’t touched any teeth but her own since.

She was a relative latecomer to University of California, Berkeley School of Law, having spent time working in public relations

and marketing before ultimately deciding to pursue law.

And she wouldn’t take any of it back.

“If I could go back and give myself advice, I think I would honestly tell myself to seek out even more experiences,” Fritz says. “I’m not some free spirit who jumped from profession to profession. I’m a super planner and was always very focused on completing my goals. I wish I had given myself the chance to study abroad, just relax a little and experience even more.”

The long road, almost always, is the more interesting one. Fritz wishes more young people would be willing to live in the unknown at least for a little while. This

Flikk Thornton

Flikk Thornton

Nicole Fritz Assistant Corporate Secretary and Senior Counsel of Corporate Governance & Securities The Kraft Heinz Company

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“If I could go back and give myself advice, I think I would honestly tell myself to seek out even more experiences.” advice comes from an attorney who wrote her first résumé on her grandfather’s typewriter at the age of eleven.

Fritz came to the Kraft Heinz Company in May 2020 as one of the most versatile securities lawyers around. The attorney knew she wanted to go in-house at some point and made sure that her résumé reflected the wide swath of skills necessary to be successful inside of a company. She gained this experience by constantly saying “yes,” occasionally to her detriment. Fritz recalls working on small deal teams for two simultaneously launching IPOs. “The partner said the timing would work out fine,” she remembers, laughing. “I was a second-year associate. They wound up launching at the same time.” The young lawyer somehow made it through and considers herself lucky for the trying but informative process.

Having worked through multiple IPOs and gaining intellectual property and M&A experience for public companies, Fritz found herself wanting to be closer to her family in Kansas City, Missouri, and, frankly, wanting to be a part of a company that is recognizable to the average person on the street.

Take the Chance When Nicole Fritz, an avid sports fan, was intent on finding a way to intern with the Pac-12 Conference while in law school, she went into private detective-mode.

“I lightly internet-stalked the general counsel,” Fritz says, laughing. “He used to work for the Kansas City Chiefs, and that’s where I grew up. So, I took a guess on what his email might be and sent a message.”

Fritz got a response, but there was no internship program. Still, she managed to get a meeting and, ultimately, carve out an internship exclusively for her.

Sometimes, you just have to make it happen any way you can.

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“Telling someone you’re a securities lawyer is a real conversation killer,” Fritz jokes. “But saying you work at Kraft Heinz, nobody else has to know anything. You’ve already made a connection; everyone knows this company.”

While her workload is a little more specialized at present, Fritz is able to continue branching out into new areas to keep her in-house skills varied, transferable, and well-informed. That can be tough at times, given the rulings coming out of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are the most prolific and wide-ranging since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

“There are climate change rules, share repurchase rules, cybersecurity rules, insider trading rules, new human capital management disclosures; there is just a lot happening right now, which keeps my job pretty interesting,” she says.

Fritz says she’s encouraged by the growth that Kraft Heinz has demonstrated in a relatively short period of time. The company’s increasing board diversity, its improved proxy statement disclosure, and the shift from its concentrated ownership to smaller and more varied investors

Flikk Thornton

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“Telling someone you’re a securities lawyer is a real conversation killer.”

congratulates

Nicole Fritz Assistant Corporate Secretary and Senior Counsel, Corporate Governance & Securities The Kraft Heinz Company

are signs of evolution at the multinational food company.

The Kraft Heinz securities and corporate governance team also continues to implement best practices, seek out new ways of interacting with its shareholders, comply with new SEC standards, and work cross-functionally due to its small but mighty size.

Fritz’s world continues to expand as well.

The lawyer is busy exploring her relatively new Chicago surroundings; walking her dog; and visiting her nephew, nieces, and extended family in Kansas City. The journey was winding, but Fritz wouldn’t change a thing. It’s made her a better lawyer and a better person.

What’s next? That’s the best part.

Given Fritz’s career up to now, it could be anything.

on her accomplishments and recognition by Modern Counsel

Abu Dhabi

London

Beijing

Los Angeles

Brussels

Munich

Century City

New York

Dallas

Orange County

Denver

Palo Alto

Dubai

Paris

Frankfurt

San Francisco

Hong Kong

Singapore

Houston

Washington, D.C.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP: “Nicole is a dedicated professional and a pleasure to work with. Nicole is a valuable asset for Kraft Heinz because she is proactive and often identifies key issues before reaching out to outside counsel. Nicole is extremely thorough and her ability to get things done is remarkable.”

—Lori Zyskowski, Partner

gibsondunn.com

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Employment International As global employment and labor law lead at Cargill, Jessie Collings-Baurier emphasizes the need to be curious and flexible in order to find success

By Billy Yost

THE CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS OF

Cargill may be tucked away in a town of under five thousand people in the suburbs of the Twin Cities, but the Minnesota-based food corporation is a true global organization, present in over 70 countries and employing over 150,000 people.

The breadth of Cargill’s reach means the legal team needs to be comfortable working wherever there is business to be done—and that is almost everywhere.

Since 2021, Jessie Collings-Baurier has headed up the global labor and employment law team. She joined Cargill in 2011 as a senior labor and employment

attorney. Prior to going in-house, she practiced at Dorsey & Whitney for seven years, primarily as a labor and employment litigator.

Collings-Baurier explains that working for a company like Cargill, with a strong people-first culture and commitment to doing the right thing, is one of the major reasons she loves her job. That culture transcends geography and business, and it allows her and her team to provide proactive advice to Cargill across the globe.

“I was always attracted to labor and employment law because I like people, and I enjoy helping others find the best

possible solutions to complex situations involving people,” she explains.

“Cargill is the perfect place for someone like me because the culture is fully aligned with my principles. The industries in which the organization operates are complicated, allowing me to help tackle complex issues from a people-first perspective.”

In 2017, Collings-Baurier volunteered to move to Cargill’s Belgium location to lead the Europe, Middle East, and Africa employment law team.

While the position was a stretch, the strong people-first culture at Cargill made it much easier for her to adapt

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Excalibur Portraits

Jessie Collings-Baurier Global Employment & Labor Law Lead Cargill

“I was always attracted to labor and employment law because I like people, and I enjoy helping others find the best possible solutions to complex situations involving people.”

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Cozen O’Connor is proud to recognize our friend and client Jessie Collings-Baurier of Cargill.

825 attorneys 31 offices cozen.com

©2023 Cozen O’Connor

“The more flexible you can be about opportunities presented to you and the more inclined you are to dig in and figure things out when you encounter new situations, the more likely you are to be successful.” and concentrate on learning and development for herself and others.

She explains that the time in Belgium was a tremendous gift to and growth opportunity for her personally, professionally, and most importantly, as a leader of people.

When asked what advice she has for developing lawyers, CollingsBaurier emphasized the need to be curious and flexible.

“My experience has been that the more flexible you can be about opportunities presented to you and the more inclined you are to dig in and figure things out when you encounter new situations, the more likely you are to be successful,” she reflects.

This perspective helped her during her time working in Europe, as well as upon her return to the United States just as the pandemic hit.

“Only a few months after I returned from Belgium, the COVID19 lockdown in the US began,” she recalls. “We all remember what a frightening time that was, and employment law advice was so

critical, especially in the early, confusing days of the pandemic.”

Collings-Baurier emphasizes Cargill’s people-first culture in handling the issues that arose during the pandemic, and credits that culture with the ability of her team to guide the organization on complicated issues in the most difficult of circumstances.

As the world continues to adjust to a new normal, she especially looks forward to helping her team focus on new legislation in the US, Europe, and Latin America.

Cozen O’Connor: “Jessie draws on her private practice experience and hones her focus on what really matters from a practical perspective and not theoretical risk.

She has an understanding of Cargill’s values, and she thrives on input from diverse perspectives.”

—The Cozen O’Connor Team

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Building Rapport As chief counsel of global investigations and regulatory compliance at Tyson Foods, building trust and relationships has been a staple of Dak Kees’s career

By Noah Johnson

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DAK KEE S COME S FROM A FAMILY

of storytellers.

“My grandfather was one of those people who could tell a story for half an hour and mesmerize a whole room,” says Kees, chief counsel of global investigations and regulatory compliance at Tyson Foods. “Then, next Christmas, he could tell the same story and still have everyone on the seat of their pants, just listening.”

Kees is like that too. As he reflects on his decades-long career, you can’t help but hang onto every word. It’s not just because he’s had a decorated career filled with interesting stories

from serving as a presidentially appointed US attorney or as a litigator. It’s because of his ability to build a rapport with anyone he meets—a skill that has driven his career success and makes him the perfect fit for his role at Tyson, where he’s the primary source of guidance for investigations, risk mitigation, and matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In his role, he’s helped create an enterprise-wide investigative process to assess and respond to complex regulatory issues that has strengthened the bond between his team and company leadership. It’s also cultivated trust between his team and the various parties

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“I believe that the greatest asset someone can have is their connections.” the best lawyer, you had to put yourself in situations where you’re going to learn something.”

Kees took that knowledge to Walmart, where he served as the director of global ethics and compliance, responsible for managing investigations and implementing remedial efforts. He stayed in that role three years when a

friend called him up a month after the 2016 presidential election.

“I asked him who he thought they would appoint for the US Attorney for the Western District, and he suggested that I throw my name in the hat,” he remembers. Though Kees felt satisfied in his role at Walmart, he says his friend’s suggestion stuck with him. He

Dak Kees Chief Counsel of Global Investigations & Regulatory Compliance Tyson Foods

Courtesy of Dak Kees

impacted by investigations, whether they be witnesses, defendants, or other key stakeholders.

For Kees, a successful investigation and career can be measured by the strength of one’s relationships. “I believe that the greatest asset someone can have is their connections,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many times my path in life has changed for the better because someone I was good friends with was in a position to help me out.”

Time and time again, that wisdom has rang true along his career journey.

After a successful nine years in the US Army that instilled in him a passion for learning, discipline, prosecution, and defense work, Kees and his wife wanted to settle down and have a family. When they returned to their home in Arkansas, he ran into a friend from law school who set up a law firm with his father.

“I told him that I was getting out of the army, we had a meal and by the end of it, they offered me a job,” he recalls. Kees went on to work at the Asa Hutchinson Law Group for four years litigating over thirty federal and state jury trials with a focus on criminal defense, military-international law, personal injury, and real estate. While at the firm, he learned the importance maintaining a positive attitude and never getting rattled under pressure.

“Nothing bothered Asa,” he says.

“He experienced a lot of things in his forty-year career, and he learned from every one of his mistakes. From watching him, I knew if you wanted to be

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Defining Leadership

thought and prayed about it and eventually decided to pursue it.

“I never thought that I was going to get it but a year later, I’m in Washington, DC, meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in this huge conference room, where at the end of it, they shake my hand and say, ‘Welcome to the team,’” he remembers. “I was not expecting that at all.”

His two years at the US Attorney’s office were spent on leading an office of over fifty attorneys and supporting staff in representing the government in federal court. He also focused on white-collar crime, terrorism, and national security matters. “I got insight into how the Department of Justice views the prosecution side when it comes to corporate America,” he says. “Being in those conversations was eye-opening.”

He brought that insight to Tyson in 2020, where he’s helped the company expand its investigation team while beefing up training efforts for his team members.

Kees advises young attorneys to be open to opportunities, force themselves to constantly learn, and make friends along the way.

“You want to spend time learning your craft, but don’t forget to cultivate relationships,” he says.

“You’ll be shocked by how much they will help.”

Vinson & Elkins is proud to recognize Dak Kees for his contributions as Tyson Foods Chief Counsel.

We are proud to assist him in crafting effective, strategic legal solutions that help drive the industry forward.

Jones Day congratulates our friend and client Dak Kees on his well-deserved recognition

by Modern Counsel for his outstanding leadership as Chief Counsel for Global Investigations and Regulatory Compliance at Tyson Foods.

Why Jones Day? Binding energy, conviction, and credibility arising from shared professional values.

Vinson & Elkins LLP Attorneys at Law Austin Dallas Dubai Houston London Los Angeles New York Richmond San Francisco Tokyo Washington

velaw.com

WWW.JONESDAY.COM

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Practice Law Like an Engineer Caitlin Klingenberg puts real value on abstract assets in her role as IP counsel at Vermeer Corporation

By Joseph Kay

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Courtesy of BrownWinick

Caitlin Klingenberg IP Counsel Vermeer Corporation

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CAITLIN KLINGENBERG FELL IN LOVE WITH

mock trial at age twelve. Thrilled by rhetoric, she was also an exceptional student of the sciences, and her father and teachers encouraged her to keep developing her skills. As she prepared to begin her undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa, her father extracted a promise that she would complete an engineering major. That proved wise.

She admits that some pre-law courses were “less stimulating than anticipated.” “The engineering course work was really what I needed at the time,” she reflects. “It set me up well for a career in patent law by providing a very analytical way of approaching a problem, a way to think things through methodically.” At Drake University, she specialized in environmental and agricultural law before entering private practice in Des Moines.

Her familiarity with the sciences and her family background in agriculture eventually led her to her current role at Vermeer Corporation, where she serves as intellectual property counsel. In fact, she’s the only intellecutal property specialist on a legal team of four.

A manufacturer of industrial and agricultural equipment, Vermeer distributes products worldwide from production facilities and offices in Pella, Iowa, a town of just eleven thousand. It’s a privately held enterprise, with four generations of family shareholders, that is now in its seventy-fifth year in business. Part of Klingenberg’s role is to help guide the organization across the century mark by managing and protecting the IP portfolio.

This is Klingenberg’s first in-house counsel role, and she appreciates the opportunity to work closely with business partners to align behind long-term goals. Vermeer’s culture of community and care has made it easy to settle in. “There is a servant leadership culture and

mentality at all levels of this organization,” she says. “It’s rare to find that at a genuine level when searching for in-house counsel jobs, so to see that prioritization of community is really unique.”

In 2019, Vermeer was a client of BrownWinick, and Klingenberg was involved in associate-level IP work. She moved late that year and her commute ballooned to over an hour, so the attorney began exploring other opportunities closer to her new community.

“There is never a good time to make a switch because we have such strong obligations to our clients,” she admits. Her personal sense of loyalty made it a challenge, but she was in the right time and place to step into a brand-new role at Vermeer.

Though she started during an especially isolated, challenging time of COVID-19 pandemic, the work was exciting and demanding from day one. One key to Klingenberg’s approach at Vermeer was to think of IP as a business asset, and she honed this approach at BrownWinick.

It’s important to consider intangibles like IP in tangible terms; the realness of the asset is slippery, but the asset’s value is real. Patent applications and trade secrets are especially difficult to assess appropriately. “It’s hard to comprehend the value wrapped up in the totality of a brand, so how do we explain that in business terms, especially to a client used to dealing with steel and widgets?” she says.

Now, she practices explaining it to her non-legal colleagues as follows: “You wouldn’t let your teenager drive your car without getting insurance, without explaining the rules of the road, or without a curfew,” she says. “It’s very much the same with intellectual property: how do we use this, and what mechanisms do we put in place to protect its value?”

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“It’s critically important that as a profession we remember that the thing that unifies all of us is the ethical responsibility to our client.”

This in-house role has been a good fit because Vermeer’s values are close to her own, Klingenberg explains. It’s a community company, and she sees the “caring culture” in practice each day.

“Nothing gives me pause about being here,” she says. “Our prioritization of people and the ways we care for each other, all of that is very much how I live my life outside of being an attorney.”

Klingenberg reminds emerging legal professionals to value this kind of alignment: to be worthy of the role, one has to weigh more than the prestige and billable hours. “It’s critically important that as a profession we remember that the thing that unifies all of us is the ethical responsibility to our client,” she advises. “If that’s what we’re after, and we’re doing that to the best of our abilities, there’s very little that anyone can say negatively about the profession.”

So, she adds, any legal professional seeking their next role should consider more than finances. Instead, they should think deeply about what type of life they want to lead, and what matters at the end of each day. “That’s what really excites me about the next generation of attorneys,” Klingenberg says. “The awareness, the self-advocacy, the ability to say: this is what matters to me. This is what’s important.”

BrownWinick is proud to support

Caitlin Klingenberg for her outstanding achievements, leadership, and recognition in Modern Counsel

BE BOLD. BE WISE. brownwinick.com

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Energy 101 Patrick Byrd details breaking into the energy industry and practicing with self-awareness at Boardwalk Pipelines

WHEN PATRICK BYRD CHOSE TO GO

in-house in 2012, he admits he knew little about the natural gas space. But coming to Boardwalk Pipelines LP didn’t scare the attorney. It was the kind of uncertainty that he thrives on.

“I literally signed up for a class called, ‘Natural Gas 101: From Wellhead to Burner Tip,’” the current assistant general counsel (AGC) reveals. “I knew I needed to educate myself, so that’s what I did. I sought out long-tenured people in the organization to learn about pipeline construction, gas markets, pipeline integrity, and just embraced not being the expert.”

It’s the best advice he can offer anyone contemplating going in-house. If you don’t take the time to learn your

industry intimately, you’re in for a world of hurt, especially in the energy industry where an issue in Ohio can make waves in Texas. Because Byrd has taken the time to build relationships within his over 1,200-person organization and put in the hours, days, and years to learn industry intricacies, he has been able to grow in amazing ways.

“It comes down to being comfortable with being uncomfortable,” the AGC explains. It’s a phrase he comes back to often, and seems essential for managing the broad range of matters that regularly cross his desk.

Over ten-plus years, Byrd has taken it upon himself to try and be a good steward for an industry that is an easy target for criticism. He sees it in both

the transactional and litigation parts of his role.

“Being a good steward means a lot of different things to me,” he says. “It might be telling the good stories of how we actually go above and beyond to help landowners or affected stakeholders when they need it. It might be taking the time to explain why we’re taking part in a certain transaction, and the benefit it can ultimately provide. This industry is still a very important part of the American way of life, and I believe that story needs to be told.”

The key to operating in an industry that can sometimes be a scapegoat for broader issues, Byrd explains, is operating with a keen sense of self-awareness. It’s not just the energy

indigo_design/Shutterstock.com

By Billy Yost

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industry, or even law. He sees it as essential to being a good person.

“It’s not my job to be a shill for the energy industry,” Byrd says. “I think it’s an industry that is very beneficial, but is not without its issues. It’s important to take a rational approach to complex issues and understand what you’re bringing to the table.”

In the case of Byrd, that’s quite a lot. The attorney spent two years clerking for the Honorable Ewing Werlein, Jr. in the Southern District Court of Texas. That’s where he learned that there wasn’t just one way to practice law. He remembers seeing lawyers who couldn’t care less about pleasantries and other litigators who sought to attract more flies with honey. The experience didn’t just provide him a formal education, it provided him friends for life.

“A clerkship can certainly be a feather in your cap, but I think a lot of people don’t realize that it’s a time when you can make friends for life,” Byrd says. “I still regularly get together with people from those days. The law community isn’t that big when you get down to it, and I think that camaraderie isn’t something that’s talked about enough.”

Byrd would build out extensive litigation experience at Baker Botts LLP and Jones Walker LLP before going in-house in 2012. Now, litigation is just one component of the AGC’s role. Large asset purchases, M&A, and divestitures weren’t a daily part of Byrd’s firm practice, but they are a consistent part of his day-to-day now.

“I leaned heavily on outside counsel while I was learning,” Byrd remembers. “There were a ton of issues that were outside my wheelhouse, but I was able to step in and learn the legal and business implications of contractual provisions and quickly

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started to be able to provide solid advice to help get the job done.”

The saying goes that law firm work is an inch wide and a mile deep. In-house is exactly the opposite. Byrd regularly encounters a dozen different discrete questions a day on topics all over the board. Flexibility isn’t encouraged, it’s required.

External partners have taken notice of the AGC’s multifaceted talents, as well. “Patrick possesses a unique blend of legal expertise, business acumen, and interpersonal skills,” say Terrence K. Knister and James D. “Doug” Rhorer, members at Gordon, Arata, Montgomery, Barnett, McCollam, Duplantis & Eagan LLC. “His ability to navigate complex legal issues, whether in a litigation or transactional context, makes him an invaluable asset. Patrick communicates effectively, fosters collaboration, and has a natural talent for building consensus amongst counsel and internal stakeholders.”

At age forty-three, flexibility outside of his day job doesn’t come quite as easy as it used to. Byrd played soccer at the University of Texas and into adulthood, but after extensive knee surgeries, he doesn’t spend much time on the pitch these days.

Instead, the lawyer can be found playing casual volleyball or chasing his three daughters around the house.

When it comes to being the father of three girls ages thirteen, eleven, and nine, Byrd says he has to rely on his litigation skills more than he’d like, but just like his day job, he’s okay being uncomfortable.

“With daughters, you will be made aware— regularly—that you don’t know anything at all,” the lawyer says, laughing. “They’re challenging me every day, and I think there may be a legal career in at least one of their futures.”

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Preparing to Go All the Way

By Billy Yost

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Flynn Restaurant Group’s Cherise Latortue discusses her risk-friendly litigation strategy as associate general counsel of employment and labor

Courtesy of Cherise Latortue

Cherise Latortue Associate General Counsel of Employment & Labor Flynn Restaurant Group

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“Don’t be afraid to steal those little bits of time you need for yourself. It keeps you grounded and ready for what’s next.”

THERE WAS A STRONG CHANCE THAT

Cherise Latortue would never leave private practice, and for a very good reason.

“I think I’m one of those rare litigators who is truly passionate about litigating,” she says. “From the very beginning, I wanted to litigate for the rest of my life. That’s why a traditional in-house role never seemed very attractive to me.

Solely negotiating contracts and managing other people would have bored me to death.”

So, how has Latortue spent the last four years as an associate general counsel (AGC) heading up Flynn Restaurant Group’s employment and labor practice?

That’s easy; she hasn’t stopped doing what she loves. She is surrounded by litigators and that work is still the bulk of her time. And the company’s willingness to take a case all the way to trial or arbitration is what makes it a truly unique place to practice law.

Seeing the Long Game

With over seventy-five thousand employees and two thousand restaurants at Flynn (with well-known names including Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Panera, Applebee’s, and Arby’s), Latortue says one litigation case can quickly establish

a precedent that has the capacity to snowball all across the organization.

“The strategy our team moves forward with in litigation is probably much different than most,” the AGC explains.

“We tend to be risktakers. That impacts the way our outside counsel handles our cases and even how we develop our own internal leadership staff.”

Latortue has always been ready for a trial or arbitration, and she’s found an organization that matches her style.

But it’s taken time. The challenge during that evolution has been in helping the broader business understand the legal team’s motivation.

“The litigation team needs to be able to translate our spend into business terms and metrics because it really challenges the way things have been done [in the legal world] for the past twenty years,” Latortue explains. “The agencies are changing, the political climate is changing, the workforce is changing, and we’re seeing all of this from the litigation perspective. We have to challenge ourselves, and retrain the way we communicate and the way we present to help the organization understand those changes.”

Fortunately, change is where Latortue has learned to flourish. Born in Trinidad

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and Tobago, the future lawyer moved to New York City to attend college. From New York City, she moved to Los Angeles to attend University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law. And when coming to Flynn, Latortue moved to the Bay Area where only those who know both cities well understand the often wildly conflicting culture of two Californian cities hours away from each other.

“When opportunities present themselves, whether I was looking for them or not, I’m not afraid to take advantage,” she says. “I think I’ve always been that way. While I’ve had broad goals of where I want to be in my life and career, I’ve also been open to those moments that sometimes drop right into your lap.”

When Opportunity Strikes

That’s exactly how Latortue came to Flynn. While serving as an ambassador for the California Minority Counsel Program, an organization dedicated to increasing diversity within the legal profession in the Golden State, she was introduced to her future general counsel—she just didn’t know it yet. A few years later, the attorney found herself lured to Flynn with the knowledge she wouldn’t have to put her love of litigation to rest.

Latortue’s continued passion for inf luencing the next generation of legal leaders, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, has also endured. The AGC teaches an HR compliance class at USC’s Gould School of Law where she’s able to provide students with a multitude of different professional experiences.

When Latortue isn’t litigating or mentoring on the job, she’s litigating and mentoring at home. The single mother of two says finding time for herself can be extraordinarily difficult, so she intentionally blocks off time on her calendar to get tasks or thinking done that many of us take for granted.

“Life can be very challenging, but you have to not be afraid to open up to people and let them know how you’re feeling,” she explains. “I’ve got a fantastic boss who is always available to talk when I’m feeling overwhelmed. But more than anything, especially as a mother, don’t be afraid to steal those little bits of time you need for yourself. It keeps you grounded and ready for what’s next.”

When it comes to labor and employment law, smart employers turn to us.

BRGS congratulates our inspirational friend, Cherise Latortue, on her recognition in Modern Counsel.

Advice and Counsel Agency Investigations Alternative Dispute Resolution Appeals & Writs Employment Agreements Employment Due Diligence Employment Litigation Class Action Litigation Labor Relations Management Training Policies, Handbooks Trade Secrets Unfair Competition Wage and Hour LOS ANGELES | ORANGE COUNTY | CHARLOTTE

brgslaw.com

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Preferred

Uber has undergone an incredible evolution over the past several years. Meet six members of its legal team who are committed to tirelessly promoting change for the greater good.

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By Billy Yost

Mo dern Couns el

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Riders

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here were the times before, and then there is the now.

Uber’s 2022 People & Culture Report acknowledges the significant changes the rideshare giant has undergone since bringing in new leadership as well as heavily investing in rebuilding an internal culture that had undergone scrutiny.

“It was a pivotal moment in shaping who Uber is today,” Bo Young Lee, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Uber, wrote in a preface to the report.

“Through sustainable changes over time, we have rebuilt and reshaped our culture.”

The report highlighted the continuing change that has helped revitalize the culture at Uber. Women now account for 42.5 percent of the orga-

nization’s global workforce. Employees identifying as members of a racially underrepresented group rose to 23.6 percent globally. Since setting specific targets focused on increasing representation of women and underrepresented groups a year prior both overall and at manager or senior analyst level and above, numbers have risen between one and four percentage points.

Since its first diversity report in 2017, the numbers are far more startling. Women in positions of leadership in the US are up 15.4 percent. Underrepresented groups in leadership positions in the US are up nearly 8 percent.

While Uber certainly has more work to do, the organization continues finding new ways to create pipelines and source talent from nontraditional sources.

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JASON BURCH Director of Regulatory Legal

Jason Burch began his career playing professional baseball. After five years in the Major League Baseball system, he began building his legal practice, ultimately coming to Uber in 2018. He also serves on the board of directors for the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association and Dibbs, and acts as a volunteer for Upwardly Global. The director says

JESSICA CHAN Senior Director of Government Investigations & Special Matter

relaxation isn’t really in his repertoire, and he hits the gym first thing in the morning. In fact, Burch relies on his role to keep his mind active throughout

Jessica Chan came to Uber in 2019 after

the day.

close to six years as senior counsel at the Division of Enforcement of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), investigating offering and investment frauds, including the SEC’s case against Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. Her career stops have included Covington & Burling LLP, as well as serving as a law clerk for the Honorable Shira A. Scheindlin at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The attorney and mother of two is an avid Peloton rider, swimmer, and reality television and financial fraud docudrama fan.

Courtesy of Uber (Burch), Liv Rhodes (Chan)

Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP and

Mo dern Couns el

Change in Action An ideal case study lies in Uber’s legal department where both attorneys who have been with the company for years and those who have joined more recently have come together under the leadership of Chief Legal Officer Tony West to help propel cultural change.

“One of the goals I set out to achieve for Uber’s legal department was to be both a talent magnet and talent academy,” West says.

“When you look at our team, it’s clear we’ve attracted the best and the brightest to our ranks. I’m proud this is a place where folks can come, help build a world-class company, and receive unparalleled professional development that can propel their careers.”

“I think lawyers who join this company, whether they are starting their careers or are senior leaders on the team, embrace the challenge of innovating,” Lando Juarez, senior director of delivery and autonomous products, legal, explains. “Considering how much Uber has changed the transportation and logistics landscape in just over a decade, we have an accelerated view of what can be accomplished in a short period of time. Helping people go anywhere and get anything unlocks so much public good.”

Director of Legal and Trade Compliance Dianna Jones says that when considering making a change, she closely looked at Uber. What she saw was an organization committed to evolving. “I knew I would be taking a risk with people who have integrity, and wanted to be part of righting the ship,” she says. “I knew if we did it right, we could really have an impact beyond the scope of our roles.”

Maureen Frangopoulos, who has been at Uber since 2015, says she feels like she has worked for very different organizations over

the last eight years. The senior legal director of global safety and insurance litigation has consistently believed in the mission, she believed in her team, and she was unwilling to leave when things got hard.

The lawyer knew that to rebuild the culture, she had to focus on creating a safe space for others. She doubled down on development efforts for those around her and helped ensure that everyone felt they had a voice at the table. And she’s focused on being a mentor and an ally to the next generation of lawyers while helping them navigate the legal profession.

“Wilson Elser salutes Uber’s Maureen Frangopoulos and the balance of her formidable safety and insurance litigation team,” says Loren S. Cohen, partner at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP. “Since the very beginnings of Uber’s corporate journey, we’ve enjoyed a front-row seat as Maureen has built her talented and diverse team, instituted cutting-edge policies and procedures, and meaningfully contributed to Uber’s remarkable success.”

“Maureen has a leadership style that is unparalleled,” adds Madeline Baio, partner at Vaughan Baio & Partners. “Over the past six years that I have known Maureen, I have watched her bring together an amazing team of dynamic, extremely talented, innovative, and diverse individuals who are an absolute pleasure to work with. In her current role as global senior director of safety and insurance litigation, Maureen provides big-picture guidance, always with right amount of grit and empathy.”

Senior Director of Government Investigations and Special Matters Jessica Chan had spent time investigating companies as a member of the Enforcement Division of the

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US Securities and Exchange Commission, and admits that the challenge of coming to a company in the midst of a crisis was appealing to her.

“I knew management had changed completely, and I saw an opportunity to make a large impact very quickly,” Chan says. “I went from being on the outside looking in, to actually being able to participate in positive change over time. And in that time, I’ve seen the message of Uber’s mission reach and be better understood by the community. Our approach will continue to evolve, but we’ve made some incredible strides.”

The Signs Along the Road One of the best signs Director of Regulatory Legal Jason Burch has seen is an organization whose early investments in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are starting to pay off.

Diverse candidates are being hired by diverse management. What were initially very concentrated DEI efforts have become almost second nature in their practice.

“When I walk around New York City, I see a melting pot,” Burch says. “When you walk into Uber, nothing changes. That is kind of incredible when you think about it.”

Within the legal team, Uber has worked with other tech companies through the Law in Tech Diversity Collaborative’s summer internship program to identify diverse law students of promise who might be perfect for an in-house role at the technology company.

Even if they don’t immediately go in-house, they’re familiarized with the company, the job, and may be better primed to join the company when they’re ready.

“People get a taste of what it’s like to work here,” Burch explains. “They want to come

back because the work we get to do is novel and complex. And they report back to their friends and other students. This program is really starting to bear fruit, and I’m lucky to participate as an interviewer, mentor, and assigning attorney through the program.”

DEI efforts are not only prioritized within the company, but the company is also committed to holding outside counsel it works with to the same high standards. Chan says the legal team reviews and evaluates firms’ DEI data and goals as well as the progress they are making toward those goals each year. Additionally, Uber requires diverse junior attorneys to be part of presentation teams, ensuring opportunities to interface with clients and grow professionally.

It takes something special to willingly come to an organization undergoing a massive cultural shift, but Juarez says that’s precisely the point. “Whether we’re more established legal professionals or just starting our careers at Uber, I think we’ve all found meaning in what this company can be,” he says. “From the products and services that we are building, to the people developing them the right way—it’s embedded in our culture.

We’re all part of creating something special, and I think you can feel it.”

Jones agrees. She asserts that the changing culture created a specific gravitational pull that managed to attract those who wanted challenging work that would ultimately pay off big. “Not everyone would see this as the perfect role for themselves, but there are certain kinds of people that know they have the wisdom and skills to really help improve an organization,” she says. “I see a lot of those individuals here.”

For Juan Valdivieso, director of litigation, the mission is even simpler: to improve the

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Mo dern Couns el

Maureen Frangopoulos has been with Uber since 2015. The senior legal director built out her litigation and trial experience at firms SmithAmundsen LLC (now Amundsen Davis LLP) and Parrillo, Weiss & O’Halloran prior to going in-house, where she individually tried over forty cases to verdict. Currently, Frangopoulos serves as a charter member of TechGC. The lawyer’s family includes her husband, two children, and a one hundred-plus pound Bernese Mountain dog. Off the clock, Frangopoulos enjoys spending time outdoors and cooking with her family.

MAUREEN FRANGOPOULOS Senior Director of Global Safety & Insurance Litigation

Setting aside an Olympic swimming career that includes representing Peru in the 2000 and 2004 summer games, Juan Valdivieso found time between 200-meter butterfly races to earn his undergraduate degree at Princeton University. After graduating from Harvard Law School, the lawyer devoted his early career to nonprofit and government work (including stints as a law clerk to the Honorable Lucy H. Koh on the

KortneeKate Photography (Frangopoulos), Two Dudes Photo (Valdivieso)

US District Court for the Northern District of California and counsel on Senator Patrick J. Leahy’s Judiciary Committee staff) prior to joining Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. He’s been with Uber since 2019.

Outside of work, Valdivieso and his husband stay active on a swim team, and he has volunteered with the Hispanic National Bar Association. He also led Uber’s summer internship program for first year law students through the Law in Tech Diversity program.

JUAN VALDIVIESO Director of Litigation

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LANDO JUAREZ Senior Director of Delivery & Autonomous Products, Legal

Lando Juarez embraces the challenge of helping innovate and break new ground.

Always in search of a new perspective, he brings plenty of his own to Uber. He joined the legal team in 2019 to work on Uber’s self-driving vehicle aspirations, after spending four years at General

DIANNA JONES Director of Legal & Compliance

Motors (GM). His remit has grown beyond launching autonomous vehicles on the platform to include scaling its new grocery and convenience business.

In addition to her current role, Dianna Jones serves as global cochair of

operated a men’s and women’s clothing

Uber’s Black Inclusion and Advocacy

boutique that he eventually sold. He

group. The attorney has been at Uber

has served on the board of directors for

since 2019, having spent the ten

the First Tee, led the Latino employee

previous years at global consulting and

resource group at GM, and is a past

engineering company Wood. Jones is a

winner of the Hispanic Association

board member of the Corporate Counsel

on Corporate Responsibility’s Young

Section of the State Bar of Texas, and

Hispanic Corporate Achiever award. He

a non-executive director of London-

was recently selected as a member of

based Next 15 Group plc serving as

the Hispanic National Bar Association’s

environmental, social, and governance

PODER25 program, which prepares

committee chair and member of the

Latino legal leaders to serve as

remuneration and nomination and

general counsel. Juarez and his wife

governance committees. In her free

are raising two adventurous children,

time, you can find Jones at University of

and the family loves traveling and

Oklahoma football games and looking

outdoor sports.

after her new puppy.

Courtesy of Uber (Juarez), Ben Krantz (Jones)

During law school, Juarez founded and

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Company Spotlight Wilson Elser is the preeminent defense litigation firm in the United States.

We proudly serve several global insurance carriers as well as leading-edge corporations such as Uber. At any given time, our more than nine hundred attorneys are litigating some one-hundred thousand defense and coverage matters nationwide. Our engagements comprise one-off premises liability matters, large-scale claims programs and most every type of litigation between. We always place the highest premium on winning on our clients’ terms and rigorously adhering to their guidelines. Wilson Elser is ranked in the Am Law 200 and 53rd in the National Law Journal’s 500.

way and means people are moving every day.

It’s a real-world impact that is apparent in every ride and every delivery. And he trusts everyone at the table to help make that difference, inside Uber and out.

In the spirit of improving the experience for drivers, the team helped launch an initiative to encourage more female and nonbinary drivers. Now, in some markets, female and nonbinary drivers can select a preference to receive trip requests from only female riders.

Additionally, to be more accessible for its trans and nonbinary drivers, Uber has recognized that names on driver identification may not reflect their own identity. It has enabled drivers to display their self-identified chosen first name. Valdivieso is pleased that Uber is helping drivers bring their authentic selves to work, just as it does with its corporate employees.

“We believe that this change can play a part in reducing the discrimination many members of the trans and nonbinary communities experience when they are forced to use a name which may no longer match their gender,” according to a statement from Uber.

“Uber’s legal team is a dedicated, innovative, and market-leading advocate for building an inclusive culture, both in-house at the company and in raising the bar on diversity with outside counsel,” says Bob Atkins, partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. “It is a privilege to work with the legal team at Uber,” adds Christopher G. Betke,

partner and cofounder of Coughlin Betke LLP. “These attorneys are smart and strategic, and my admiration only grows for the group as our working relationship continues to progress.”

Across the board, these Uber attorneys have noticed that culture change has led to business change, and that’s attracting bright, committed, inclusive teammates that work together with integrity. They’re becoming the team they promised to be and want to be.

Covington: “Working with the Uber legal team is a case study of cutting-edge legal work while promoting and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion both inside the legal team and in partnership with outside counsel.”

—Kerry Burke, Partner Goldberg Segalla: “Uber has a diverse and dynamic in-house team led by an exceptional leader in Maureen Frangopoulos. The attorneys on Maureen’s team are detail-oriented and passionate about Uber. That passion manifests itself in our daily interactions with the team and the commitment to excellence they bring to all legal matters.”

—John Allen, Transportation Practice Group Chair Taylor, Wellons, Politz & Duhe LLC: “Working with this extraordinary Uber team for six years has shown them to be innovative industry leaders.

They have fostered a collaborative environment to successfully navigate complex and unique claims in their burgeoning field.”

—Paula Wellons and Jared Davidson, Partners WilmerHale: “The Uber team is smart, thoughtful, creative, and strategic—and a pleasure to work with. Uber’s diverse bench of attorneys bring formidable skill and a range of insightful perspectives to advance the company’s interests.”

—Alan Schoenfeld, Partner

Drawing on a Depth of Resources and Experience In Meet a Breadth of Legal Needs

Managing Risk…

So Uber Can Reimagine Our World

Wilson Elser salutes our client Maureen Frangopoulos, Senior Director, Safety & Insurance Litigation at Uber. We value our collaboration with Maureen and her talented team and are proud of our joint efforts to manage risk.

We congratulate the other Uber attorneys recognized by Modern Counsel, Jason Burch, Jessica Chan, Juan Valdivieso, Dianna Jones and Lando Juarez and applaud the significant contributions they’ve made to the company’s remarkable success.

40 Offices Nationwide | wilsonelser.com © 2023 Wilson Elser. All rights reserved. 230-23

Shook congratulates

Uber’s Legal Team as agents of change in equity and opportunity.

ATLANTA | BOSTON | CHICAGO | DENVER | HARTFORD | HOUSTON | KANSAS CITY | LONDON LOS ANGELES | MIAMI | NEW YORK | ORANGE COUNTY | PHILADELPHIA | SAN FRANCISCO | SEATTLE ST. LOUIS | TAMPA | WASHINGTON, D.C.

The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.

“

Our guiding philosophy is to provide our clients with innovative legal solutions without losing our humanity in the process. We love the work we do at gartner + bloom, and it shows in the high impact results we deliver!

KEN BLOOM

We act as risk advisors to help our clients prevent future issues, and we act as litigation advocates to resolve current problems. We are committed to providing best-in-class litigation services at an exceptional value, always in service of the evolving needs of our clients.

Our attorneys create long-lasting client relationships by taking the time to understand the immediate needs, as well as helping to shape the longer-term goals of our clients; in the sole spirit of protecting their best interests.

N E W YOR K • C O N N E C T I C U T • N E W JER S EY • M AS SAC HUS S ETS • FLO R IDA GARTN E R B LO O M . C O M

Change Makers Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is proud to partner with Uber Technologies and its stellar in-house legal team. We commend them on their visionary revitalization of the department, robust leadership and abiding commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Paul, Weiss, Ri�ind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

paulweiss.com

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purpose

THE

Ten in-house counsel promote positive change and live out their passions both in and out of the workplace

ISSUE

modern counsel

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KINDEL NUNO DARIA RUSSELL MINDY HARPER SHRUTI PATEL PAETRA KAUFMANN Mattress Firm

56 62 66 70 74

PETER WU Adobe

STEFFANY CUNNINGHAM National Express

MONICA PA MOYE The Walt Disney Company

SAMUEL KITCHENS Match Group

JOAN CLARKE-NARCISSE Aflac

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modern counsel

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TEAM

How a tight-knit, all-female department supports and nurtures each other to help Mattress Firm sleep soundly By | Billy Yost Photos by | Felix Sanchez

There’s a catch-all email for the legal

litigation counsel at Mattress Firm. “It

team at Mattress Firm. It’s the kind of

might be a single employee at a store in

broad email at the bottom of a website

Nebraska who had to deal with a diffi-

that you won’t message because you’re

cult customer and isn’t sure what to do

absolutely positive no one will see it, let

about it. I don’t know of another large

alone respond to it. If you’re one of Mat-

company where the general counsel or

tress Firm’s 8,200 total employees spread

the SVP of legal is going to respond to

out over 2,300 stores and 68 warehouses

that email within an hour to personally

across the country, it’s likely the only way

help them. Our team is here to support

you know how to contact the company’s

everyone across this company, and every

lean legal department.

single person on this team takes that

“We get all kinds of emails from

responsibility seriously.”

people all over the company,” says

She is speaking of the four others on

Mindy Harper, vice president and senior

the all-female legal team: Kindel Nuno,

purpose

48

OUR TEAM IS HERE TO SUPPORT EVERYONE ACROSS THIS COMPANY, AND EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THIS TEAM TAKES THAT RESPONSIBILITY SERIOUSLY.” –MINDY HARPER

executive vice president of legal, general

with each other than any team I’ve ever been

counsel, and secretary; Daria Russell,

a part of. There’s a level of trust and respect

senior vice president of legal and associate

here that you can’t just manufacture.”

general counsel; Shruti Patel, director and

Outside of the organization, Mattress

corporate counsel; and newest addition

Firm’s legal partners agree the team is

Paetra Kaufmann, senior manager and real

particularly special. “We are honored to

estate counsel.

have a deep and longstanding relationship

Harper, Nuno, and Russell have work and

with the innovative and dynamic Mattress

personal relationships that date back to pre-

Firm team,” says Roxane Reardon, partner

vious roles and their start at the same law

at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. “Their

firm, Fulbright & Jaworski LLP (now Norton

commitment to excellence and strategic and

Rose Fulbright). But Patel and Kaufmann,

collaborative nature truly sets the bar for

the relative newbies, are just as invested as

the industry.”

their superiors, and it shows. This is a legal team that isn’t just high-performing—it’s a

Unspoken Understanding

tight-knit family.

The lawyers understand just how rare of

“I obviously had a say in hiring all

a situation they find themselves in. Being

of you,” Nuno says to her team during a

a woman in law is still more challenging

videoconference. “I hired you because

than it needs to be, and none of these attor-

you’re highly capable, highly competent,

neys have been immune from situations—

and very qualified for your roles. But there

from outrightly hostile to well-intentioned

is something more here. In all of my years,

ignorance—that have thrown obstacles in the

this team feels tighter, closer, more at ease

progression of their careers.

modern counsel

49

SHRUTI PATEL Director and Corporate Counsel Mattress Firm

PAETRA KAUFMANN Senior Manager and Real Estate Counsel Mattress Firm

purpose

50

DARIA RUSSELL SVP of Legal and Associate General Counsel Mattress Firm

MINDY HARPER VP and Senior Litigation Counsel Mattress Firm

modern counsel

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But the team is much more focused on what they’re able to accomplish together, strengthened by their mutual understanding. Their shared experience strengthens their connection and drives better results for their team across Mattress Firm.

“There are always ups and down in an organization, and the fact that Kindel, Daria, and I knew each other already gives us that implicit understanding of having been in the trenches together,” Harper says. “There isn’t a need to manufacture who you are, and I think that gives us more time to do good work across the company.”

Patel says it’s not rare for her to give Russell a call to simply chat about motherhood and life. She also appreciates Nuno, who Patel says is always ready and willing to offer expert counsel.

“There are little things I notice about being on this team,” Patel explains. “The enthusiasm and joy that each one of these ladies brings to KINDEL NUNO EVP of Legal, General Counsel, and Secretary Mattress Firm

the table motivates me in ways I can’t explain, unless you've been here.”

As part of an all-female team, the Mattress Firm lawyers have an unspoken understanding. When one needs to focus on family, such as a sick child, the others step in without missing a beat. “We are here to support each other,” Harper says.

Nuno says it’s part of the reason those catch-all emails get responded to so quickly.

purpose

52

THIS TEAM FEELS TIGHTER, CLOSER, MORE AT EASE WITH EACH OTHER THAN ANY TEAM I’VE EVER BEEN A PART OF. THERE’S A LEVEL OF TRUST AND RESPECT HERE THAT YOU CAN’T JUST MANUFACTURE.” –KINDEL NUNO

EXPERTISE SPOTLIGHT

The lean legal team is able to balance

“Since I started practicing law,

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP,

their own workload while knowing

I’ve had female mentors and really

simpsonthacher.com, is one of the

when it’s time to reach across the

st rong women to g uide me,”

world’s leading international law

aisle to help out.

Kaufmann explains. “I consider

firms. Established in 1884, the firm

“I ask a lot of my team,” she adds.

myself fortunate in that regard.”

is comprised of more than one

“We’re a lean part of the organiza-

Patel, who was taken under the

thousand lawyers. Headquartered

tion, and nobody sees a job as below

wing by a male boss early in her

in New York with offices in Beijing,

their pay grade. When I was told

career, says that she’s found a new

Brussels, Hong Kong, Houston,

that my team was the most profes-

mentor very close to home. “Daria

London, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, São

sional, the most diverse, and the

doesn’t know this, but she has

Paulo, Tokyo, and Washington, DC,

most respected in the organization,

become a really significant mentor

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

it really resonated with me because

for me,” she explains. “I’m very for-

provides coordinated legal advice

I believe it.”

tunate to have found a mentor who is willing to go the extra mile to help

and transactional capabilities to clients around the globe.

A Bond that Remains

me advance in my career.”

The bond that connects these women

There are the informal mentor-

was shaped by a diverse array of

ships like Russell’s, and the more

mentors. Kaufmann says her first

formal like Harper’s work through

in-house boss was one of the first

the Association of Women Attor-

women to attend her law school.

neys Foundation that provides

Additionally, many partners at

scholarships and fellowships for

her first private practice law firm

female law students in Houston. But

were women.

what is made ultimately clear is that

53

INTEGRITY. INNOVATION.

these women are creating the kind of environment that supports and nurtures good lawyers, good work, and good people.

That environment is recognized far outside the legal department.

“I can tell you that the law department is highly regarded by the real estate team,” Kaufmann says.

It’s a reputation that Nuno, Russell, and Harper had earned even before Patel and Kaufmann

T RUSTED TRUSTED RESPECTED

F OCUSED FOCUSED Strategic Lawyers Licensed in

TX | OK | NM | FL

arrived, but the general counsel says this iteration of her team is the strongest it’s ever been.

Harper have navigated significant moments in Mattress Firm history, from numerous acquisitions as a publicly traded company to emerging from bankruptcy in just over forty days. Patel and Kaufmann Firm in their own right, each handling aspects of the legal team’s functions with minimal oversight.

“Trust, respect, and strong work ethic are the foundations of this team, and I’m excited to see

Talented Ready Formidable Problem Solvers

what more we can accomplish,” Nuno explains.

Hicks Thomas LLP: “Mattress firm has an outstanding legal team of superstars. As outside counsel for Mattress Firm, we work with them on a variety of matters. They are each talented, extremely knowledgeable, and outstanding partners.”

—John B. Thomas, Partner The Rudnicki Firm: “The Mattress Firm legal department and the Rudnicki Firm are proof that when women lead, the result is a no-nonsense,

100%

and compassionate.”

—Leah Rudnicki, Managing Partner and Founder

Congratulations to Kindel Nuno Daria Russell Mindy Harper Shruti Patel Paetra Kaufmann

Krevolin & Horst is a boutique business law firm comprised of highly credentialed former partners and associates from some of the largest US and international firms. Based in Atlanta, the firm offers BigLaw talent with the responsiveness, agility, and cost effectiveness of a smaller firm.

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pragmatic, and straight to the point approach while still being thoughtful, kind

COMPASSION.

and the legal team at Mattress Firm for their recognition in Modern Counsel as the strong, diverse leadership they embody daily.

Together, Nuno, Russell, and

are strong advocates for Mattress

DEDICATION.

WWW.RUDNICKIFIRM.COM

Litigation | Employment | Corporate (404) 888-9700 | khlawfirm.com

With such a talented legal department that champions diversity, equity and inclusion, we are proud to call Mattress Firm our client.

We are honored to support the women of Mattress Firm Kindel Nuno, Daria Russell,

Chamberlain Hrdlicka is a full-service business law firm, with specialties in real estate law, labor & employment law, corporate law, complex litigation, estate planning, and IP law among others.

Mindy Harper, Shruti Patel, and Paetra Kaufmann in being recognized

by Modern Counsel for their strong, diverse leadership.

Brett Berly brett.berly@chamberlainlaw.com Jim Berry j.berry@chamberlainlaw.com Jack Najarian jack.najarian@chamberlainlaw.com

www.chamberlainlaw.com

www.alston.com

AT LANTA HO USTON P HILAD E LP H IA SAN ANTO N IO

Simpson Thacher Proudly Supports the Work of

The Mattress Firm Team Including Kindel Nuño, Daria Russell, Mindy Harper, Shruti Patel and Paetra Kaufmann

We Applaud Them on Their Vision and Industry Leadership

N EW YOR K LOS A NGELES

BEIJI NG

BRUS SE L S

PA L O A L T O

HONG KONG

S Ã O PA U L O

TOK YO

HOUSTON

LONDON

WA S H I N G T O N , D . C .

56

purpose

IN PURSUIT OF

Senior Managing Counsel Peter Wu leverages his passion for photography to make him a better in-house lawyer at Adobe By | Noah Johnson

modern counsel

57

“Don’t get so consumed by work that you

Cooper Union for the Advancement of

that perspective in my role. It’s a collab-

lose touch with your other interests.”

Science and Art. He started his career at

orative culture, where everyone believes

That piece of advice has not only

Arup, working with architects to design

good ideas can come from anyone

helped Peter Wu maintain a healthy

sustainable energy systems and facades

or anywhere.”

work/life balance throughout his career

for buildings. Wu says he has incorpo-

Adobe’s collaborative environment

but also contributed to much of his

rated his engineering background and

became apparent as soon as Wu stepped

success and even led him to his role as

design thinking into his work through-

into his role in 2019. Right away, he got a

the senior managing counsel of M&A and

out his career.

chance to bring his creative and design

corporate at Adobe.

When a position opened up at Adobe,

thinking to bear in one of his first tasks.

Before joining the company, Wu had

it piqued both his creative and legal

“I was managing the company’s

been using Adobe’s products for over a

interests while providing an opportu-

annual proxy filing and thought, ‘Adobe’s

decade in his spare time as a freelance

nity for him to bring a unique perspec-

a design-focused company, so why

photographer. What started out as a cre-

tive to the software company, where he

does our proxy looks like every other

ative outlet that helped him decompress

supports M&A, corporate, securities, and

company’s?’ I saw an opportunity to not

during law school eventually turned

venture investment matters.

just improve the look and feel but [also]

into a profitable hobby, bringing in

“In this role, I’m involved in strate-

the organization and content to make it

tens of thousands of Instagram follow-

gic conversations about potential M&A

more readable and easier to navigate,

ers and clients from travel, hotel, and

opportunities. I’m able to bring a certain

and have the proxy better reflect Adobe

lifestyle brands.

point of view from my background as

as a company.”

Wu was first an engineer, graduat-

someone who uses our creative tools,”

He went on to modernize the proxy

ing with an engineering degree from the

Wu explains. “I love being able to bring

filing, emphasizing more visuals over

purpose

58

IT’S A COLLABORATIVE CULTURE, WHERE EVERYONE BELIEVES GOOD IDEAS CAN COME FROM ANYONE OR ANYWHERE.” text, and making it more concise and

transactional work from M&A to finance

logically organized, an effort that’s been

to tech transactions. That generalist

his pet project ever since. For him, ini-

background helps me a lot in my day to

tiatives like that show the impact one’s

day at Adobe, where I still get to do a lot

creative interests and hobbies can have

of different things.”

on their professional success. “My career

When he wasn’t working, Wu would

has been a great example of how if you

grab his camera and take to the streets,

make time for your interests, you never

capturing the city and sharing his photos

know how that’s going to benefit your

with his growing Instagram following.

work,” Wu says.

But in 2014, he got a message from the

After graduating from the University

platform that was a turning point for his

of Pennsylvania Law School, he moved

photography career. “They wanted to

to New York to work for Gibson, Dunn &

feature me as a suggested user, one of

Crutcher as a corporate associate. His

the accounts they suggest to new users

years at the firm served as a fantastic

to follow when they first sign up,” he

training ground for how to be a lawyer.

recalls. “I went from two thousand fol-

“We were able to knock on partners’

lowers to over one hundred thousand in

doors and find the work we were inter-

about two weeks. That really opened a lot

ested in,” he remembers. “It gave me a

of doors for me.”

lot of freedom to explore. I got the oppor-

From there, both his photography and

tunity to try a lot of different fields in

legal careers continued on an upward

Adobe

Courtesy of Peter Wu

PETER WU Senior Managing Counsel of M&A & Corporate Adobe

purpose

60

As senior counsel for Adobe, Peter has unparalleled legal and strategic expertise making him a key leader in the technology industry.

He is practical and a great decision maker.

Congratulations on this well deserved recognition.

-Lawrence Lee Partner

trajectory. He went on to work as a corporate associate with Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, where he continued to work in M&A and began representing start-ups and venture funds, while still taking time to travel the world and work with brands, including Google, as a photographer. In 2019, Wu made the shift to in-house, looking specifically for a company that created products he cared about, which he found at Adobe.

“As much as I enjoyed M&A at law firms, I enjoy it even more in-house,” he admits.

“When you’re at a firm, you just parachute in and you’re gone when the deal closes. But it’s really rewarding to be involved with all the

Solutions for a connected world

other aspects when you’re in-house. From the very beginning, we’re involved with strategy, identifying targets, doing the deal, integrating, and seeing new products come to life as

bakermckenzie.com

a result.”

Wu’s partners also praise his work at Adobe. “Peter has been a close colleague of ours throughout a number of transformative acquisitions for Adobe,” add Jake Kling and Steven Green, attorneys at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. “We particularly admire his ability to skillfully navigate and negotiate complex legal and transactional issues in a collaborative and commercial manner. We commend Peter for his well-earned recognition by Modern Counsel.”

He encourages fellow attorneys to think expansively about how they approach their roles. “Look for opportunities to bring your non-legal skills and experiences to your work,” Wu suggests. “I’ve never been told to stay in my lane as a lawyer and in fact, not doing so has helped me add a lot more value.”

Wachtell Lipton congratulates

PETER WU of Adobe for his recognition by Modern Counsel

WLRK.COM

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

purpose

62

Keisha Ebony

STEFFANY CUNNINGHAM General Counsel of North America National Express

modern counsel

A difficult childhood can often limit your professional growth, but through sheer determination and grit, Steffany Cunningham emerged as general counsel for National Express

63

THE ODDS

By | Frederick Jerant

We’ve all met people who were born on third

“My brother, Keith, dropped out of

base and act as though they’d hit a triple.

college so he could help care for me finan-

They never acknowledge the reasons behind

cially,” she recalls. “He and my older sister,

what got them where they are.

Sharon, really played pivotal roles in my

Steffany Cunningham, general counsel at

teen years. Keith later became a successful

National Express, is exactly the opposite. Her

businessman and minister, and my sister is

persistence and natural inclinations have

now a teacher.” Cunningham and her sib-

propelled her to a similar position—one that

lings would later learn of an older fourth

she has had to earn.

sibling, Karen Adams, who has also become

Cunningham grew up on the South Side

an important part of their lives.

of Chicago, in the same South Shore commu-

After graduating from Hyde Park Career

nity where Michele Obama once lived. When

Academy, Cunningham earned a bache-

her birth parents lost custody of Cunning-

lor’s degree in industrial engineering and

ham and her siblings, they were taken in by

management sciences from Northwest-

family friends who taught them the impor-

ern University. At Northwestern, she met

tance of faith, family, and education.

her “brilliant and supportive” husband of

When circumstances changed, however,

twenty-five years, Jason.

Cunningham and her siblings had to fend for

Following her college graduation, Cun-

themselves, but thankfully they also had a

ningham earned her JD from Creighton

great deal of assistance from members of

University School of Law. “Moving into law

their church.

wasn’t as big a stretch as you might think,”

purpose

64

I TEND TO EXPECT THE BEST OF PEOPLE, RATHER THAN ASSUME THE WORST. IT COMES DOWN TO TREATING THEM THE WAY I’D LIKE TO BE TREATED.”

company, and how to find the best possible course of action. “When you distinguish yourself that way, business partners come to you before there’s a problem,” she attests. “They understand that you have a vested interest in their success and can make informed decisions based on your advice.”

The legal landscape for the transportation industry is constantly changing, so her group is overseeing several ini-

she says. “I’ve always seen similarities

legal minds” she had ever encountered,

tiatives to stay abreast of shifting sit-

between the two professions. Lawyers

General Counsel Dorothy Capers and

uations. “We’re constantly working to

are like social engineers, trying to solve

Deputy General Counsel Djenne Clayton.

support operations from a contractual

problems and mitigate risks.”

Cunningham credits the attorneys for

perspective and in implementing corpo-

Originally, Cunningham was shep-

having advocated for her professionally

rate policies and changing regulations

herded toward patent law because of

in an exceptional manner. She reached

that impact our business,” Cunningham

her technical background, but she soon

her professional pinnacle in early 2022,

explains. “We work to provide the busi-

discovered it wasn’t for her. “I wanted

when Capers told Cunningham she’d be

ness with education and tools to protect

to practice in areas that were more

assuming the GC spot for the company.

our interests.”

people-centric,” she says. Her ratio-

“I really didn’t expect that to happen,

Perhaps even more complex are com-

nale for going in-house was simple: it

but I felt proud for having earned the

pliance projects that have far-reaching

would enable her to function as a stra-

opportunity as well as extremely grate-

implications. Because National Express’

tegic partner within an organization,

ful,” she recalls.

parent company, National Express Group

interacting with many people across various disciplines.

Cunningham and her “uber-talented”

PLC, is publicly traded in the UK, the US

team of twenty-four provide legal advice

operation must abide by many of those

Cunningham began her legal career

and guidance across National Express’s

regulations, as well.

in 1998, as a logistics property manager

activities in thirty-six states and several

“There are antibribery specs that

for Sears Roebuck and Company, where

Canadian provinces. While those activ-

cover procurement and other activities

she devised strategic initiatives for the

ities are limited to school, transit, and

and there are global policies that address

real estate property portfolio. Her next

shuttle bus services, her plate is full.

matters as compulsory labor that must be

career stop was the Northern Trust

“We handle litigation, employee rela-

considered,” Cunningham says. “Every-

Company in 2000, where she served

tions, and unions, including collective

thing must be spelled out in contracts

as second vice president of trust real

bargaining, negotiations, grievances,

with our vendors. Additionally, we must

estate services.

insurance, and workers compensation,”

support the business operating in accor-

In 2007, she became a compliance

she explains. “We are also involved in

dance with our company’s ethical values

attorney for the Walt Disney Company

the company’s real estate dealings, such

and in being a good corporate citizen.”

followed by a nearly six-year stint as

as bus depots, as well as contracts with

The company is also making a special

general counsel and director at inter-

customers and vendors, environmental

effort to monitor union environments in

national franchisor DirectBuy. Finally,

matters, and the governance aspect of

order to keep drivers behind the wheel.

in 2019, Cunningham joined National

about 150 corporate entities.”

Express, a premier transportation firm based in the United Kingdom.

Cunningham manages her hard-

And while some legal groups earn

working team by relying on a concept she

the nickname “the department of no,”

learned from a Disney executive: RAVE

Her decision to join National Express

Cunningham takes a more positive

(respect and value everyone). “I have

was based upon having the opportu-

approach—explaining why a proposed

regularly scheduled meetings with my

nity to work with two of the “brightest

action might be detrimental to the

direct reports, but I also sit down quar-

modern counsel

65

terly with their direct reports. It helps me understand how things are going and lets me gauge the current company mood and culture,” she says. “It also gives me ideas on initiatives I can implement to better support our business and create a better work environment for our team.”

Her collaborative team works in a congenial atmosphere, and Cunningham wants them to feel comfortable coming to her for guidance or advice. They often have lunches together to discuss life inside and outside the office environment.

“The team is supportive of one another, and we try to celebrate milestones and accomplishments on our Microsoft Teams channel,” says Cunningham. “This year, we were fortunate to do a team outing working at a local food bank in one of the communities we serve. Our goal is to participate in at least two charitable events annually.”

“Skilled and dedicated team members are a hot commodity,” she notes, “and it’s the most important component of our organization. So, I tend to expect the best of people, rather than assume the worst. It comes down to treating

Congratulations

Steffany Cunningham, for this well-deserved recognition of your exceptional leadership.

them the way I’d like to be treated.”

While there’s no guaranteed path to success, Cunningham offers some tips to improve the odds. “Use every opportunity you can to add to your professional tool belt because, as in-house counsel, you’re going to need every one,” she advises. “Be assertive. Run towards special projects, not away from them. When hiring, surround yourself with teammates who will challenge your thinking, rather than simply and mindlessly agreeing with you. This will create the best environment for growth.”

And, perhaps most importantly, she adds, “As general

Focused on labor and employment law since 1958, our 950+ attorneys located in major cities nationwide consistently identify and respond to new ways workplace law intersects business.

counsel, it is imperative that you serve as a core and active member of the senior leadership team, contributing beyond the legal remit. You must add insight and challenge to commercial topics in order to impact key decision-making.”

Foley & Lardner:

Michael D. Thomas 200 Spectrum Center Drive Suite 500 Orange County, CA 92618 (949) 885-5240 Michael.Thomas@jacksonlewis.com

“Congratulations to Steffany Cunningham on her well-deserved recognition

by Modern Counsel. She has excelled in her position as GC for National Express North America and is the consummate team leader.”

—Daniel Cohen, Partner Jackson Lewis PC: “Steffany brings a dynamic blend of creativity, grit, intelligence, and practicality to her approach. She is committed to the success of National Express and her legal team, and partnering with her is a privilege.”

—Michael D. Thomas, Principal

©2023 Jackson Lewis P.C. Attorney Advertising | jacksonlewis.com

purpose

66

A WHOLE NEW After a decade in private practice, Monica Pa Moye wanted more. She found it at the Walt Disney Company, where she thrives finding new ways to give back.

By | Zach Baliva

It was a tale as old as time. Monica Pa

big city firm life wasn’t the right fit for

Moye was closing in on ten years as a law

her. In 2011, she moved to Los Angeles

firm associate in New York City.

and joined the Walt Disney Company

After graduating magna cum laude from New York University (NYU) School

as an in-house litigator focused on copyright enforcement.

of Law and clerking on the United States

Moye has emerged as principal

Second Circuit Court of Appeals, she

counsel and a key part of Disney’s

had climbed the ranks of major Manhat-

robust internal team more than twelve

tan firms like Sonnenschein and Davis

years later. After managing copyright

Wright Tremaine. She had gathered

infringement cases against illegal

broad litigation experience in royalty

streaming pirate sites in the United

accounting disputes, copyright infringe-

States and abroad for nearly a decade,

ment claims, defamation allegations, and

she moved to general litigation. This

complaints of theft of ideas. The attorney

includes a defamation dispute for a

represented major publishing, entertain-

highly popular docuseries, responding

ment and television companies, well-

to a subpoena from a prosecutor to obtain

known talent, and movie studios.

news gathering materials, litigating a

But after a decade, Moye discov-

multimillion-dollar licensing dispute

ered that the fast-paced, high-billing

before a Chinese arbitration panel, and

Courtesy of Monica Pa Moye

MONICA PA MOYE Principal Counsel The Walt Disney Company

68

purpose

I’M GRATEFUL TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO INTERESTING LEGAL WORK AND TO GIVE BACK TO THE COMMUNITY IN A WAY THAT MAKES A MEANINGFUL DIFFERENCE.”

managing production injuries that occur on production sets around the world.

“Working in-house at a leading entertainment company is a great fit for me because I can use the experience I built at firms but stay active in broad areas of the law that impact what we do here on a daily basis,” she says. “I’m an industry generalist.

While I do have areas of expertise, I get to contribute without feeling siloed or stuck in my profession. I’m always learning.”

For Moye, success has come as she’s learned to balance the demands of work with her obligations at home and in the community. She recalls working on a major copyright infringement case in the final weeks of her first pregnancy. ABC and other television broadcasters were suing Aereo, an online streaming service funded in part by mogul Barry Diller that used tiny antennas to stream live television content to subscribers.

Moye’s daughter was born while the case was pending before the US Supreme Court. A few months later, the justices ruled in favor of the television broadcasters, issuing a landmark copyright decision in 2014.

Her position at Disney is just one of many ways Moye uses her talents. She’s a basketball coach, a diversity, equity, and inclusion advocate, and a lead pro bono lawyer. She is also an adjunct faculty member at University of Southern California Gould School of Law, teaching courses in intellectual property and copyright law.

The Taiwanese American was raised by a single mother who was an accountant at a correctional facility after her family immigrated to the US. For three years, she lived with her family inside San Quentin’s employee housing complex. Moye graduated

modern counsel

69

from high school early, earned her bachelor’s

Before becoming volunteer coach, Moye

degree in women’s studies and politics, and

hadn’t picked up a basketball in almost thirty

spent a year working at a domestic violence

years. Doing so fulfilled part of a challenge

emergency shelter before enrolling at Uni-

she made to herself. “I try to be thoughtful in

versity of California (UC) Hastings (now UC

how I direct my own life. I think that means

Law San Francisco), ultimately transferring

one has to assess their path every few years

to NYU Law School.

and always stay open to trying new things,”

These early experiences have deeply

she explains.

affected how Moye spends her time in and

The principal counsel encourages her

out of the office. She works on various pro-

law students and young lawyers to think

bono initiatives and has represented Los

about how to be thoughtful in carving out

Angeles families who adopt children in the

a meaningful career and a balanced life. As

foster care system by appearing on their

a copyright and entertainment lawyer, she

behalf at adoption proceedings. She also

finds fulfillment using her degree to guide a

advocates for adopting parents to receive

top company while taking on pro bono cases,

benefits and support for children who

and making an impact on schools, public

often experience significant emotional or

sports leagues, and the greater community.

physical abuse.

“I no longer identify myself as a face-

Recently, Moye represented a female

paced New York entertainment lawyer,” she

service member in her application before

says. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity

the US Department of the Navy to upgrade

to do interesting legal work and to give back

her discharge status to honorable because

to the community in a way that makes a

the service member had been the victim

meaningful difference.”

of military sexual violence. Moye is currently preparing an asylum application for an Afghan national who fled in August 2021 after receiving death threats from the Taliban for his prior support of the Afghan National Army.

Moye gives back in a personal capacity, as well. She coaches her two children in public Los Angeles Parks and Recreation sports leagues at a center in a nearby working-class neighborhood. “I believe rec centers serve a crucial public service,” she

Jenner & Block:

says. “As a member of the center’s public

“Monica is a smart, strategic, and skilled lawyer who

advisory board, this is one of the most direct

on protecting Disney’s IP rights, which has been evident

ways to provide services and support to kids and families while fostering community and supporting a healthy lifestyle.”

knows her industry inside and out. She is laser-focused in our work together starting with the seminal copyright case, Aereo. Monica’s industry insights and her ability to manage complex high-stakes litigation are impressive.”

—Julie Ann Shepard, Partner

purpose

70

IT’S A

Samuel Kitchens fulfills his professional purpose as director and senior counsel of litigation at Match Group By | Brittany Farb Gruber

Unlike many of his colleagues, Samuel

investigating and finding the answer to

“When I jumped in, several brands

Kitchens didn’t dream of becoming a

it. Sometimes there’s not an answer but

had different lawsuits pending,” he

lawyer from an early age. He didn’t really

just a best option.”

remembers. “I had to learn quickly, and

watch much Law and Order, and To Kill a

Today, Kitchens serves as director

I have always prided myself on being able

Mockingbird didn’t inspire his career

and senior counsel of litigation at Match

to quickly get up to speed. Learning on

aspirations. He really just didn’t want to

Group. The company’s subsidiaries own

the job was part of that.”

be bored.

and operate a global portfolio of some of

Kitchens began his legal career as

“I guess [the decision] was bit more

the most popular dating apps, includ-

a summer associate at Quinn Emanuel

transactional, if that’s not too dirty of a

ing Tinder, Match, Meetic, OkCupid,

in 2009; he moved into his full-time

word to use,” he says, laughing. “I could

Hinge, Plenty of Fish, and OurTime,

associate role following his gradua-

use my talents as a litigator, and it’s nice

among other brands. Having previously

tion of the University of Pennsylvania

when you’re good at something and it

worked as a litigation associate at Quinn

Carey School of Law in 2010. The young

interests you. The investigatory part of

Emmanuel, one of the attorney’s greatest

lawyer had the opportunity to work on

litigation specifically interests me—being

challenges when he joined Match in 2018

a variety of interesting cases—criminal,

presented with a puzzle, whether it’s a

was learning about the diverse array of

intellectual property, fraud, construc-

legal puzzle or a factual puzzle, then

companies under its umbrella.

tion, and more.

Erin Paris

SAMUEL KITCHENS Director and Senior Counsel of Litigation Match Group

purpose

72

THE INVESTIGATORY PART OF LITIGATION SPECIFICALLY INTERESTS ME—BEING PRESENTED WITH A PUZZLE, WHETHER IT’S A LEGAL PUZZLE OR A FACTUAL PUZZLE, THEN INVESTIGATING AND FINDING THE ANSWER TO IT. SOMETIMES THERE’S NOT AN ANSWER BUT JUST A BEST OPTION.” He reflects his private practice experience

our decisions about the cases and the strategy.

being “immensely helpful” in preparing him for

But, when you’re in-house, the focus is on the

his current seat at Match Group. “It was really

bigger picture.”

fun to be able to hit on a bunch of different

Going in-house was also a personal deci-

cases and a bunch of different subject matters,”

sion for Kitchens. The Central Texas-native was

he says.

living in New York with his wife and newly born

Although the transition in-house wasn’t

first child when he realized the importance of

a huge adjustment for the seasoned litigator,

being close to family during this pivotal time.

there were some noticeable differences. “I’m

After searching for Texas-based positions

not really doing the stand-up-in-court role

for about a year, he found an opportunity at

anymore,” Kitchens notes. “Everyone in our liti-

Match, where he could continue his prosperous

gation group has a big law background, so we are

litigation career.

heavily involved in litigation. We get involved

Kitchens describes himself as a “general

in cases, we examine the cases, and we make

litigator,” and handles almost every piece of

73

Norton Rose Fulbright joins Modern Counsel in recognizing Samuel Kitchens Norton Rose Fulbright for hisModern exceptional joins Counsel contributions in recognizing to Benjamin Setnick for his Match Group.

litigation with the exception of IP litigation. “If it’s not IP, then it gets kind of lumped into that bucket of what I might be responsible for,” he explains.

He has also sought to provide mor e pr o ac t ive a s s i s t a nce throughout his tenure. Kitchens says he has grown to provide more “up-front advice” to the brands and the brand lawyers. “That’s probably the biggest change in my role,” he adds. “When you are an in-house lawyer, your focus needs to be on, ‘How does the decision that we’re making in this case impact the business as a whole, and what litigation we might face down the road?’”

We congratulate Sam Kitchens of Match Group on his accomplishments.

It’s our pleasure to work with Sam and Match Group.

K itc hen s ad v i se s you n g lawyers to find something that interests them as that leads to the greatest career success. “Find something that you really like that you can dig into on and be good at,” he says. “If you’re not interested in what you’re doing, it’s eventually not going to be something that you are able to devote yourself to and maintain long-term.”

Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP: “Sam is a terrific litigator and problemsolver. He is a first-class legal writer and editor, really enjoys digging in to the facts of a case, and has a keen nose for finding the evidence and weaknesses that can quickly diffuse a complex litigation matter. Match Group is very well-served to have Sam on its team.”

—Peter Stokes, Partner Wiggin and Dana LLP: Sam’s a supremely talented litigator— intellectually sharp, creative, with an eye for

Wiggin and Dana is a high-end mid-size firm with more than 160 attorneys in Connecticut, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Palm Beach.

Consistently recognized by Chambers USA, The Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation, and Best Lawyers, among others, Wiggin has become the counsel of choice for some of the nation’s most prominent companies.

Our diverse client base includes leading companies in the life sciences, pharmaceutical, technology, e-commerce, consumer products, finance, insurance, defense, aerospace, and manufacturing industries; startups; Big Four accounting firms; hospitals; universities; charitable organizations; and foreign sovereigns.

what really matters—and the ideal in-house partner for outside counsel. We always love working with Sam and his colleagues at Match Group.”

—Nathan Denning, Partner

wiggin.com

exceptional contributions to Match Group.

Law around the world nortonrosefulbright.com

Law around the world nortonrosefulbright.com

74

purpose

BE

Joan Clarke-Narcisse draws upon both personal and professional experience as counsel and head of employment law at Aflac By | Brittany Farb Gruber

BE OPEN

modern counsel

Hailing from Guyana, Joan Clarke-Narcisse

I would imagine that moving to the US

was first exposed to the field of law by her

was a very significant transition. What

father who served as a judge in the South

was that like for you?

American country’s military.

Fortunately, I spoke English, so that transi-

“He would pick me up after school and I

tion was a little bit easier if I’m to compare

spent the afternoons either in his office or

myself to non-English speaking immi-

in the courtroom,” she remembers fondly.

grants who have transitioned to the US.

“I believe those formative years not only

I also moved into a predominantly West

exposed me to the law and made me curious

Indian community in Brooklyn, New York,

about pursuing a legal career, but also

so I was surrounded by people who looked

helped me appreciate the value of operating

like me and spoke with an accent. There

with integrity and ethics, as well as treating

were immigrants from all over the world

all people with dignity and respect.”

in my middle school and high school, so

Today, Clarke-Narcisse ser ves as counsel and head of employment and immi-

we were all from a different culture and a different environment.

gration law at Aflac, a Fortune 500 company

The experience also taught me the

that provides supplemental health insur-

importance of being resilient and recog-

ance products to millions of policyholders

nizing that, in order to be successful and

in the US and Japan. Although she immi-

survive in a new environment, you have to

grated to the United States at the young age

learn how to adapt very quickly. It’s one of

of thirteen, the attorney carries many of the

the reasons why it’s somewhat easy for me

lessons she learned as a child growing up

to move to different cities and new roles

in Guyana.

because I had such a diverse experience as

Additionally, she brings a wealth of

a child. It also is one of the factors that drew

experience to her role, both in the private

me to a company like Aflac, which priori-

and public sectors. Most recently, she was

tizes diversity and providing opportunity to

senior assistant city attorney for the City

women, particularly women of color.

of Atlanta, where she provided employment counsel and handled employment

How have your life experiences

litigation matters. Clarke-Narcisse also

impacted the lawyer who you

worked in private practice at the Tucker

are today?

Law Group LLC, Ballard Spahr LLP, and the

As an immigrant and as a Black woman

now-dissolved Miller, Alfano & Raspanti.

operating in a legal environment—that tends

Modern Counsel spoke with Clarke-

to be predominantly male and predomi-

Narcisse about her accomplished legal

nantly white—I’ve always struggled with the

career, passion for employment law, and

idea, whether real or imagined, of being an

commitment to diversity.

outsider. It was really important for me in

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purpose

Oz Roberts

JOAN CLARKE-NARCISSE Counsel and Head of Employment & Immigration Law Aflac

modern counsel

my roles to ensure that I was in an environment that allowed me to be my true, authentic self.

I am really proud to work for a company that celebrates and champions diversity, and recognizes the value in having people with different backgrounds, different experiences, and different ideas. It is something that’s celebrated within the company, and it’s celebrated within our legal department.

I also served as cochair of Aflac’s Legal Department Diversity Initiative, which was created to help foster and maintain a more diverse and inclusive and equitable environment for the lawyers and professionals on the team as well as improve our diversity among our external legal partners and suppliers.

How has your personal management style evolved over the course of your career?

I’m a new leader at Aflac, and I’m humbled by the level of trust that Assistant General Counsel Tom McKenna and General Counsel Audrey Tillman have placed in me. I view the ability to manage lawyers, especially young lawyers, as an immense responsibility, and I take that role very seriously.

I believe in leading by example. My goal is to empower and to coach my team. I want to ensure that they’re not only developing their substantive and technical legal skills, but also their soft skills needed to be successful in their careers. Given the nature of our work, the level of confidentiality required in our role is very crucial. It’s important for me that I create a safe environment where we can have very open and frank discussions about employee relation issues and share lessons learned.

How have you maintained work/life balance as you climbed the corporate ladder?

I inherited a strong work ethic from both of my parents and my grandmother, so the term “work/ life balance” was not something that was part of my vocabulary. However, I am more balanced today than I was when I was a younger attorney.

It’s also something that I actively practice and try

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to encourage my team to maintain some balance within their lives and prioritize their family or other

Congratulations Joan Clarke-Narcisse on your honored recognition for legal and leadership excellence!

Wong Fleming is proud to partner with Joan and her team at Aflac in the provision of exceptional service and dedication to their employees, sales team, customers, and the community. Since 1994, we have maintained a similar tradition of excellence. Our business-minded values drive who we are and what we do.

In addition to mirroring the global commerce centers and populations that we serve, our lawyers strive to always be responsive, ethical and persuasive advocates for our clients, while balancing their business considerations and priorities with legal necessities. We pride ourselves on not just being lawyers, but business partners for our commercial clients.

personal endeavors.

I believe in starting my day with the right mindset. I start w ith prayer and meditation, which really helps set the course for my day as well as the right energy, tone, and focus. I believe in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and prioritize my family by setting boundaries with my time. As a company, Aflac values employees’ personal time and encourages us to take time off without interruption to unplug from work.

What advice do you have for immigrants who aspire to enter the corporate world?

Be bold, be open to new experiences and development opportunities, and take calculated risks.

When I started my journey, I never envisioned being in my current role. I thought I would be a successful attorney, because I have that drive that I learned from my father, but allowing myself to be open and move to different cities to take on different challenges and roles allowed me to grow in ways that I’ve never imagined.

California | District of Columbia Florida | Georgia | Illinois Maryland | Michigan | New Jersey New York | Pennsylvania Tennessee | Texas | Washington Canada | Germany | Mexico www.wongfleming.com

Wong Fleming: “Partnering with Joan has been a tremendous pleasure. Joan’s ability to mesh steep employment law expertise with the ‘Aflac Way’ values creates unparalleled, inspired, and difference-making results for Aflac employees.”

—Tacita M. Scott, Partner

Lead

Portraits of today’s top legal executives, the remarkable careers they have cultivated,

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and the management strategies and best practices they employ to succeed both individually and collaboratively

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Trust Your Instincts Rite Aid’s Christin Bassett has let her intuition guide her career decisions and success

By Noah Johnson

“TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. TAKE FEEDBACK

from other people, but never drown out that voice that’s telling you what’s right for you.”

That’s a lesson Christin Bassett, group vice president and deputy general counsel at Rite Aid, learned after making a shift from a successful private practice career to an equally fruitful in-house career. She currently serves as acting general counsel and corporate secretary at the health care services and retail provider.

Bassett was partner of a Philadelphia law firm for two years, building on her experience in commercial, intellectual property, and product liability litigation matters. In that role, she went on to co-coordinate the defense of more than 1,700 cases in the city’s mass tort program and manage matters as a firstchair attorney. She was living a young lawyer’s dream, heading down a path to becoming a trial lawyer and supporting efforts that would generate business. But, along the way, she realized that dream wasn’t hers.

“I realized I wanted to focus on the project management piece of it,” she admits. “There were a lot of folks I trusted, including mentors and sponsors, who just didn’t get it. They thought, ‘You’re on this path, you’re doing well, you need to just keep going.’ But I pivoted based on what my instincts were telling me, and I’m grateful for making that decision.”

And it paid off. Bassett went on to several in-house roles, where she gained greater leadership responsibilities, legal expertise, and opportunities to drive legal teams toward success. Since joining Rite Aid in 2021, she created a litigation team from the ground up and is working to build up the entire legal department. Her focus has also been on improving relationships with key outside counsel while reorganizing her department to match the business’s needs.

As an in-house leader for the likes of companies like AstraZeneca and Aetna, she has often managed diverse teams comprised of new employees and individuals who have more

Adam Levinson

Mo dern Couns el

years of company experience under their belt. For Bassett, an important part of doing that successfully is to appreciate each team member and what they bring to the table.

“I make sure that everyone is respecting each other and their opinions because the perspective can be very different but that’s what helps get to the best outcomes,” she explains. “When you have all those perspectives weighing in, there are no blind spots.

Someone isn’t missing something because they’re too new to the team or because they aren’t thinking about something in a new way.”

Bassett began her journey with an unmatched self-awareness and hunger for self-improvement. In college, she majored in English and political science, with dreams of becoming a doctor. However, after volunteering at a hospital, that changed.

“I realized quickly that I didn’t have the emotional stomach for it because I became too attached to patients when I was visiting with them,” she recalls. “So, I started thinking about exploring law.”

She obtained a law degree from the George Washington University Law School and was hired as an associate at Morgan Lewis. During her four years in that role, she gained substantial experience working on briefs, appeals, and other fascinating legal issues, but she wasn’t getting many opportunities to go to court, take depositions, or run her own cases. That ultimately drove Bassett’s decision to leave the firm and head to Reed Smith LLP, where she began as an associate and became partner in just three years.

Her desire to be better drove many of her career decisions as an in-house lawyer too.

She had been at Aetna for seven years when her leadership role was eliminated. At that point, she wasn’t sure what her next steps would be. “I had been applying for litigation leadership roles because that’s what I had always done my whole career,” Bassett reflects. “Companies were coming back and

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Christin Bassett Group VP and Deputy General Counsel Rite Aid

“Take feedback from other people, but never drown out that voice that’s telling you what’s right for you.”

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INTEGRITY. INTELLECT. INSPIRATION. Holland & Knight is proud to be a partner to Christin Bassett of Rite Aid and commends her leadership in the legal industry.

www.hklaw.com Philadelphia, PA | 215.252.9600

Copyright © 2023 Holland & Knight LLP All Rights Reserved

asking if I wanted to be a GC or in a more senior role. I was wondering what they saw in me that I didn’t see in myself.

“I wondered if I was avoiding nonlitigation roles because I was scared, and that wasn’t a satisfying answer,” she adds. “So, I intentionally chose to pursue a nonlitigation role next.”

Following that resolution, Bassett went on to become a corporate attorney for Otsuka Pharmaceutical, an experience that made her an in-house legal generalist and prepared her for where she is today.

“Christin is a thoughtful, forthright, solutions-oriented leader,” says Tracy Zurzolo Quinn, partner at Holland & Knight LLP. “She builds strong relationships with her outside counsel, legal and business teams, and has the confidence to both give and receive constructive feedback. Her team-focused approach to leadership leads to well-informed strategic thinking and decisions that serve her clients’ business needs well.”

She advises young attorneys to take a similar approach to navigating decision points in their careers.

“There might be points in your career where something might not feel like an opportunity but don’t reject it because it’s different or a change,” Bassett says. “Keep checking in with yourself about what you want out of your career, and trust yourself through the process.”

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“What’s the Best That Can Happen?”

Mark A. Dorfman shares how he helped Leonardo DRS respond and regroup after the company fell short in its first attempt to go public

By Noah Johnson

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BOXING LEGEND MIKE TYSON FAMOUSLY

said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

For Mark A. Dorfman, executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary at Leonardo DRS, that reality necessitates taking a resilient approach and understanding the need to weather the inevitable blows that come with trying to accomplish something great.

“As lawyers, we have to be able to predict negative outcomes—to consider the worse that can happen and take all appropriate actions to avoid such results. That’s the bare minimum for any competent legal team,” Dorfman explains. “But at DRS, we also ask, ‘What’s the best that can happen?’ And then we put the same energy into driving towards the achievement of these outcomes.”

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Mark A. Dorfman EVP, General Counsel, and Secretary Leonardo DRS

Lead

He adds, “Lawyers can often be risk averse, but change is inevitable.

Change can be great. And if you want to be a part of a dynamic and growing technology company like DRS, it must be embraced.”

In 2021, the company planned to go public through a traditional IPO. Dorfman and the other members of the DRS team worked for over a year to facilitate this transformational event.

Everything was on track until the final moment.

“We got right up until the last week and then market conditions immediately turned south and required us to

suspend the launch,” he remembers. “I had to make some uncomfortable calls to the New York Stock Exchange and others at the last minute to tell them we were suspending the IPO. It was a very discouraging time for our team, having put in all that work only to fall short on the five-yard line.”

A few days later, Dorfman hosted the DRS executive leadership team for golf and a long lunch in an attempt to regroup and strategize for the future.

The constructive conversation that began that day—and that continued in the months that followed—led to a renewed and successful public launch

Gene Smirnov

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in a more sophisticated, strategic, and efficient manner.

“When the initial offering was halted, it would have been understandable if we had gotten discouraged and simply retreated,” he says. “But when you remain focused on defining and achieving the ideal outcome—when you ask, ‘What’s the best that could happen?’ in spite of early setbacks—exciting things start to transpire. When you have smart people around you, good things happen. And when you approach difficult situations with high energy and a positive outlook, you can feel the excitement build and it becomes infectious.”

That way of thinking generated momentum in the company.

Eventually, that path forward would see Leonardo DRS combining with a publicly listed Israeli radar company. The transaction not only brought the company public through a reverse merger but provided it with strategically significant assets that furthered its integrated sensor capabilities.

Dorfman thinks that transaction has undeniably made DRS a stronger, more focused company.

“While the result itself is awesome, I’m also proud to be a part of a team that not only displayed impressive creativity and business acumen, but real resilience,” he says.

Dorfman’s journey taking DRS public was a fitting culmination to his decorated legal career.

His crash course in navigating

uncertainty started early in his tenure at the company. When he came on board in late 2005, he got a call from his new boss the day before he was to start work.

“She told me not to show up to the office. Instead, I was to fly to St. Louis to help work on the largest M&A transaction the company had ever done,” he remembers.

“From my very first day as a junior lawyer, I was fortunate enough to work on things that mattered most to leadership.”

Being thrown into the fire taught Dorfman a lesson he wishes to impart on young lawyers facing similar circumstances.

“I want them to understand the value of not being discouraged when you don’t know the full story,” he says. “Information isn’t always presented in a clean, linear manner. When I worked on that first deal, I didn’t even know who the DRS team was or how the company worked. I knew more about the target than my own company. But I somehow figured it all out.

“Likewise, you have to get comfortable with getting information in pieces and having to put the mosaic together yourself,” Dorfman continues. “And as you grow as a leader, you should do everything you can to explain to each member of your teams the importance of their role and how it furthers the overall mission of the organization. And, of course, always ask yourself, ‘What’s the best that can happen?’”

Winston & Strawn applauds Mark Dorfman for his vision, leadership, and commitment to Leonardo DRS.

For more than 160 years, Winston & Strawn has served as a trusted adviser and advocate to companies in a broad array of industries. The firm has built a global law practice based on an uncompromising commitment to quality and client service.

NORTH AMERICA EUROPE ASIA SOUTH AMERICA winston.com

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A Time Such as This Lead

William Thro reflects on the creative thinking that helped him navigate the COVID-19 pandemic as University of Kentucky’s general counsel

By Billy Yost AT THE HEIGHT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC,

the president of the University of Kentucky (UK) asked his general counsel for some advice.

“I gave my advice, and the president asked what case law backed it up,” William Thro recalls. “I remember saying, ‘Well, sir, there’s no case law on anything remotely like this.’ The president responded, ‘So, you’re just making it up as we go along?’”

Thro replied, “I know we’re not violating anyone’s rights, and I’m confident a judge

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Mark Cornelison

William Thro General Counsel University of Kentucky

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The Time to Write William Thro will most certainly have a second career should he ever decide to stop practicing law.

The general counsel is already a well-published author on a variety of legal topics, and his first book, The Constitution on Campus: A Guide to Liberty and Equality in Public Higher Education, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2022.

“A lot of people play golf or tennis,” Thro says. “While I try to get some exercise, my real hobby is writing, specifically law review and scholarly articles. It takes up a lot of my weekends, but I love it. I’m happy to be able to share my knowledge with the next generation and hopefully provide some pointers.”

would see this as a reasonable attempt during an unprecedented moment.” It was the best he could advise, and he was right.

The GC’s deep understanding of the law, his previous academic experience and role as solicitor general for the Virginia Office of the Attorney General, and his habitual writings on various aspects of law made him an ideal fountain of knowledge for a massive university facing a once-ina-lifetime event. Despite that experience, Thro constantly found himself having to get creative in ways he never imagined when he came to UK in 2012.

Thro published a short overview of these challenges in an article that appeared in the Yearbook of Education Law’s 2021 edition, aptly titled “A Time Such as This: Courage, Creativity, and the Common Good during the COVID Pandemic.”

The piece was filtered, not through legal precedent or a landmark court case, but the Old Testament’s Book of Esther, what Thro calls the story of an ordinary woman who rose to the challenge of her time to save her people.

“Like Esther, we were ordinary people confronted with a demand to do the extraordinary. Like Esther, those of us who believe in a sovereign God wondered if maybe, just maybe, God had put us in our roles in a time such as this. Like Esther, all of us— regardless of faith—had to rise to the challenges of a time such as this,” he explains.

In practice, it wasn’t always so poetic.

The GC recalls a history PhD who had been hired two years prior to the pandemic to run the university’s Office of LGBTQ+ Resources. “He

wound up running our entire contact tracing operation,” Thro says, laughing. “He did an absolutely fantastic job. He hit a home run. We had to put people in roles that they were not accustomed to.”

And the proof is evident. Thro and his team helped their university colleagues develop many new systems and processes to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Faced with daunting problems for students, patients, and healthcare workers, they developed new systems and processes from scratch.

The result? UK moved all instr­ uction online after an extended spring break, developed a telehealth system in eighteen days instead of the expected eighteen months, created an emergency childcare system for healthcare workers in just one weekend, and designed a new financial aid system to ensure the neediest students could cover unexpected expenses.

To prepare for the return to in-person classes in fall 2020, UK constructed a comprehensive student testing, contact tracing, and quarantine system. The university used physical spaces in new ways including converting a senior citizen center into childcare facility, and the football stadium into a vaccination clinic.

That vaccination clinic wound up providing COVID vaccinations for over one hundred thousand people.

With about 70 percent of the entire state’s three million citizens receiving a vaccine, that’s a significant portion of the entire state getting vaccinated at Kroger Field.

Students, faculty, and staff who elected not to get vaccinated still had some incentive to get the shots. “If you

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were not vaccinated, you had to show up every week and be tested,” Thro explains. “I think a lot of people decided two shots were much more pleasant than repeatedly having a Q-Tip shoved up their nose.”

Additionally, the vaccination sites were placed close to the testing locations, which Thro attributes to helping UK achieve over a 90 percent vaccination rate, well above the rate for Lexington and dramatically above the rate for Kentucky.

Thro’s efforts on behalf of the university’s expansive healthcare operation were well-documented when Modern Counsel first spoke to him in 2015, and continue for a state in dire need of any and every available resource.

But at this very moment, Thro is just grateful that his wife was right.

“Very early in the pandemic, I remember telling my wife just how unprepared any of us were for this,” he remembers. “We were getting predictive modeling telling us that while we had nine hundred beds in our hospital, next month we’re going to have one thousand COVID patients. My wife looked at me and said, ‘Everything you’ve ever done in your career has prepared you for this.’ I hadn’t thought about it that way, but considering all of the various crises, the insights I got from incredibly talented staff, and the creative thinking I’ve had to do on the job; she was right. She usually is.”

Understanding the law means nothing if you don’t understand your clients.

Congratulations to Bill Thro on his recognition in Modern Counsel for his many career accomplishments.

Stites & Harbison is honored to partner with Bill and the University of Kentucky.

Learn more at stites.com.

Stites & Harbison PLLC: “Bill has been a superb general counsel to work with over the years. His deep understanding of the University of Kentucky and the complex issues associated with a public institution allow him to provide strategic advice on critical policy and legal matters every day."

—Janet A. Craig, Chair, Health Care & Insurance Regulatory Service Groups Sturgill, Turner, Barker & Moloney PLLC: “We appreciate the opportunity to work with Bill. His extensive experience as both a constitutional scholar and legal practitioner gives him unique insight and expertise to find creative solutions for the complex legal issues surrounding higher education.”

—Bryan H. Beauman, Partner

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Relationships

James Rice

Build

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Eileen Salathé Hollcraft shares how connections in her life have paved the way to be the veteran attorney she is today at Corteva Agriscience

By Noah Johnson

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WHEN EILEEN SALATHÉ HOLLCRAFT

arrived in Washington, DC, to attend law school at Georgetown University, she had less than $200 in her pocket for food and transportation, no meal plan, and no job.

She had come from a small community in the middle of New Hampshire and had fallen in love with the nation’s capital after a month-long internship in undergrad that a professor helped her snag.

Decades later, Hollcraft is lead counsel of crop protection regulatory at Corteva Agriscience in Indianapolis, where she continues to lean on a skill that took her from humble beginnings in rural New Hampshire to a successful attorney and beyond: building relationships.

“In college and in high school, I had teachers who believed in me, who understood my dream and my financial challenges, who basically said, ‘You are a smart kid and you are driven, so take these steps,’” she reflects.

The relationships she built in her professional career were equally as fruitful, not only opening doors to different career opportunities but also instilling the confidence she needed to step into new legal areas when she took a role as lead regulatory counsel at Dow AgroSciences before it became part of Corteva.

“I didn’t know anything about biotechnology, but quickly the importance of cultivating relationships became apparent, because my clients were initially my lifeline to understanding complex issues from a science, legal, and policy perspective, enabling me to advise the company,” Hollcraft reflects. “Sometimes, the easiest way to an answer is by talking to someone who’s been there before. Clients are often the best source of background and past practice to help me assess an issue and advise the company. I’ll ask, ‘What have you done in this type of situation?’”

Today, Hollcraft advises young lawyers to do the same. To be successful in their careers, she advises them to find someone they want to be like then to “listen, observe and absorb.” “It’s important to acknowledge the expertise others have, learn from them, ask questions, be curious, and never hesitate to ask for a leg up if you need it,” she says.

“As a friend and colleague for over thirty years, I know Eileen to be an extraordinary human being and lawyer,” shares Lynn L. Bergeson, managing partner at Bergeson & Campbell PC. “Eileen’s intellect and empathy enable her to understand the heart of a legal issue, and to anticipate and resolve human and

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social issues that are very much a part of the legal problem-solving equation.”

Before Hollcraft started her legal career, she had a crash course in the importance of relationships early on with her dad. He was a lifelong learner, a musician, a “glass half-full kind of person,” and a people person. “He inspired me to think I could do anything I wanted to do. We literally didn’t know where each meal would come from, but I never thought I couldn’t do something because of money,” she says. “And I was like my dad’s little

shadow—I wanted to do everything he did.”

A childhood of raising pigs, sheep, and tending gardens was accompanied by Hollcraft’s strong desire to be a lawyer. It drove her to maintain good grades throughout high school and paved the way for full-ride scholarships in college and a path to law school.

Along the way, she worked closely with her teachers and mentors, who saw her potential and helped her each step of the way, including a partner from her early career years that she aspired to be like.

“She worked hard, she was brilliant, she was savvy, and she believed in me.

The relationship I built with her kept me with her as she established a boutique firm focused on chemical regulation,” Hollcraft says. “I continue to be in touch with her to this day.”

She went on to spend twelve years with DC-based law firm Bergeson & Campbell before going in-house as environmental counsel at Northrop Grumman for six years, working on issues like chemical reporting, site clean-up strategies, compliance matters, and due diligence. Most of all, she enjoyed the direct link to the business.

After a few years in a role that she loved, Hollcraft felt like it was time for a change. “I had two children and living in DC had a lot of blessings in that the schools were excellent. It was culturally diverse, but it was a really intense environment and where I grew up, it was the exact opposite,” she says. “I wanted my kids to see both sides of the spectrum.”

That prompted the decision to take a position at Indiana-based Dow AgroSciences, even though the only time she had stepped foot in the state was during her interview.

“I drove around and said, ‘This reminds me of home.’ Life comes full circle in a way,” she says. Ultimately, the spin into Corteva in 2019 reinforced this view. “Working for a company that seeks to ‘feed the world’ is a mission I can get behind, as someone who grew up living off the land.”

James Rice

Eileen Salathé Hollcraft Lead Counsel of Crop Protection Regulatory Corteva Agriscience

We congratulate our friend and client, Eileen Hollcraft, for her well-deserved recognition in Modern Counsel. We salute Eileen’s commitment to excellence and look forward to our continued collaboration.

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©2023 Crowell & Moring LLP | Attorney Advertising

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A Reason to Stay Chief Antitrust Counsel Jerry Swindell shares how the ever-evolving, interesting antitrust work has kept him at Johnson & Johnson for almost two decades

By Billy Yost

EIGHTEEN YEARS IS A LONG TIME,

and there’s no better illustration of Jerry Swindell’s tenure at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) than his son, who had just come into the world when the current chief antitrust counsel came to J&J in the early 2000s.

Just as his son has grown the past eighteen years, so has J&J’s legal organization.

“When I got here, there were probably 150 lawyers throughout the company who were primarily stateside, and 70 percent of those lawyers were in one building in New Brunswick, New Jersey,” Swindell explains. “Now, we’ve got three hundred lawyers in nearly every country where our products are sold. To paraphrase an old saying, ‘the sun never sets on the J&J legal organization.’”

Swindell admits his main concern coming in-house so many years ago was that he might get bored. The attorney had amassed impressive antitrust and

white-collar criminal experience at firm Vinson & Elkins prior to going into antitrust work on behalf of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He was used to learning about different industries with every project.

But he soon learned, however, that the antitrust issues in pharmaceutical and medtech markets are always evolving.

Emerging antitrust enforcement theories also keeps him on his toes.

Swindell, too, has changed over the past eighteen years. He has been able to grow what was a team of one into a department of three attorneys that he now oversees, tackling J&J’s biggest antitrust and M&A issues. The work has always stayed interesting and is evolving.

Early Advocation

Early in his law career, Swindell’s most defining moment was having the oppor-

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Be Like Ike Jerry Swindell is always looking to the future, but the lawyer likes to spend his free time studying the past, particularly World War II military history. When asked which leader he’s sought to emulate, the lawyer laughs at the comparison but suggests famed General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Eisenhower was inherently likable, an optimist, and trusted by all those around him. He smiled even through his many trials. The consensus he worked to build and the endless balancing of priorities and personalities he was able to manage makes sense for an in-house attorney responsible for working across multiple departments and stakeholders.

Ayanna J. McKay

Jerry Swindell Chief Antitrust Counsel Johnson & Johnson

tunity to represent an elderly woman in Washington, DC, through an organization called Legal Counsel for the Elderly, a nonprofit created by AARP to provide pro bono services for those in need.

“This woman was the target of subprime mortgage lenders and had been cheated out of the equity in her house,” Swindell remembers. “We filed a complaint and, ultimately, through litigation, we were able to negotiate the extinguishment of those predatory loans. She got her house back free and clear and a little money in her pocket for the trouble.”

The process showed Swindell the power attorneys have to make a direct impact on the people who need it the most, to be a voice for those who are often rendered the most powerless by circumstances beyond their control or understanding.

That mission was part of the motivation for Swindell moving to the FTC and provided a clear direction for his turn in-house.

“Part of the reason I’ve stayed at J&J so long is the products that we make,” the chief antitrust counsel says. “It feels good to contribute to the acquisition of products that may take years of effort and significant resources to receive FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] approval and reach patients. I’ve seen products that take six years or more to get to market that ultimately help save lives. That’s a tremendous, tremendous feeling.”

Growing Skills, Future Leaders

Just as Swindell’s work has continued to change at J&J, so have his responsibilities.

The lawyer was used to being the individual performer who got good work done.

But that has changed somewhat over the

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“It’s our view that diverse teams provide us with the best chance to win in court.”

A Trusted Leader Paul, Weiss congratulates Jerry Swindell, Johnson & Johnson’s Chief Antitrust Counsel, for his steadfast leadership and crucial contributions to the company’s strategic initiatives.

Paul, Weiss, Ri�ind, Wharton & Garrison LLP paulweiss.com

last few years. Swindell is still producing great work, but he’s now stepped into a leadership role as well.

“I’ve been practicing for twenty-eight years, so I feel like I know my discipline pretty well,” he reflects. “For the last four years, I’ve been working on exercising my people leader skills, and my priority has become what I can do to help my team grow.” That team includes a lawyer in Washington, DC, and another in Brussels.

“Weil has had the privilege of partnering with Johnson & Johnson as antitrust counsel for more than twenty-five years on some of the company’s most important transactions,” says Jeff Perry, partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. “Jerry has a deep passion for the legal profession and is dedicated to Johnson & Johnson’s mission as well as mentoring and training the next generation of legal talent. He is an absolute pleasure to work with and we look forward to continuing to work together for years to come.”

Swindell has also helped lead diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives both in-house at J&J and on behalf of the company’s outside counsel. He helped develop the J&J Pathways Fellowship, a program designed to increase the diversity of first chair trial lawyers for the company.

When it comes to J&J’s outside counsel, Swindell says there is a profound need for trial lawyers who reflect the juries they are in front of in every jurisdiction of the US. “It’s our view that diverse teams provide us with the best chance to win in court,” he says. “It’s not just the right thing to do, which it is, but it also can be a strategic advantage in litigation.”

Weil is proud to collaborate with Jerry Swindell and Johnson & Johnson to devise business-oriented solutions to complex legal issues.

Strategic business partners.

Innovative solutions.

Service focused.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

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One Good Idea FedEx’s Chuck Webb is a global antitrust lawyer with big ideas for the next generation of lawyers

By Billy Yost

AFTER SIX YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN

prestigious Washington, DC-based law firms, Chuck Webb found himself perusing the wanted ads in the Economist. In 2005, it was a routine he found entertaining, with the variety of interesting roles often in far-off locations.

Webb, a US Air Force brat who’s used to making himself at home in new places, long had been interested in opportunities to gain direct experience practicing European competition law. He saw an ad for the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority, a

government agency that was seeking a legal advisor to help implement the English Channel island’s first ever competition law.

“This wasn’t Springsteen’s Jersey,” Webb interjects with a laugh. “This was Jersey in the Channel Islands.”

The forty-five square-mile, selfgoverning British Crown Dependency was about to welcome a family from the US to its 2005 population of around 88,000. Webb, his wife, and his young children would make the leap to Jersey for a journey that ultimately

Andy Garbutt

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would include one promotion to executive director and five-and-a-half years of service.

“Sure, it was taking a chance, and it was one of the highlights of my career,” Webb explains. “Antitrust law is such a fact-specific subject at the intersection of business and law. It was an opportunity to serve a government agency and implement a completely new legal regime, while learning about the country and its economy as I went. It was amazing and an honor to serve the organization and the people of Jersey.”

It goes without saying that Webb is not your average attorney. Very few would seek out a job in a foreign country. Even fewer would be willing to move their family in the process. But Webb’s relentless pursuit of new experiences, new areas of expertise, and new adventure is what keeps him sharp.

Webb returned to the US, spent time as a law f irm partner, then moved in-house to Walmart, where he’d go on to take another expat assignment in the British Isles. With that much international experience,

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coming to FedEx made sense for a multitude of reasons.

“I’ve always been fascinated with international logistics and supply chains, partly arising from my father’s Air Force career,” says Webb, the lead antitrust counsel at FedEx Corporation. “FedEx is truly global; it’s easier to list the countries where it doesn’t operate. As a result, our antitrust policy and code of conduct are available in thirty-six different languages. I wake up every day looking forward to solving problems and finding solutions

Chuck Webb Lead Antitrust Counsel FedEx Corporation

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for FedEx as part of its world-class legal department and compliance team.”

Webb is able to manage his role by not only having accumulated an incredible amount of experience working across different environments but also knowing when to call in local experts. Lawyers of Webb’s caliber have a well-honed global perspective, but jurisdictional, regional, and national differences make cultivating relationships with local outside counsel crucial.

The lawyer’s leadership is emboldened by a willingness to move forward collectively as a team.

“Once you have an internal debate within your team and reach a decision, you need to go forth together and execute,” Webb says. “You have to have mutual trust in each other to know that everyone is going to hold the line and do their job. Building that trust across your teams is essential.”

Webb has also spent a significant amount of time preparing the antitrust lawyers of the future.

He taught antitrust law at the University of Memphis for three years and hopes to get back to teaching again someday. But, in the meantime, his advice for future lawyers is as important as ever.

Courtesy of Concurrences

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“You might have five ideas, but only one needs to make an impact. People will remember that one good idea that helped the team succeed, not the other four.”

“My advice isn’t about my curriculum or even about antitrust,” Webb says. “It’s just about saying yes to new projects and opportunities. When you’re a young lawyer, you can benefit from having the chance to work on a wide variety of different matters and gain broad experiences that will serve you well no matter what direction your career ultimately goes.”

Additionally, Webb advises young lawyers to make their voices heard. In fact, a young lawyer may have deeper knowledge of a matter from being more familiar with the details of documents or deposition transcriptions, compared with more senior colleagues. He urges those who might be more junior to share their ideas for the team’s benefit.

“Leadership can come from many different levels of an organization,” he adds. “You might have five ideas, but only one needs to make an impact. People will remember that one good idea that helped the team succeed, not the other four.”

Webb believes in a lifetime of learning and personal growth. It might be a class of new students, a new country, or just a new book, but he remains steadfast in never standing completely still.

Axinn is proud to work with Chuck and FedEx to help achieve innovative legal solutions to business challenges.

Axinn: “Chuck is an extraordinary attorney and highly skilled legal and business advisor on domestic and international antitrust issues.

He draws on his twenty-five years of experience in private practice, in-house, and government to provide clear and practical creative solutions. Working with Chuck is an absolute privilege, both because of his talent and kind and inspiring nature.”

—Koren Wong-Ervin, Partner

Antitrust | Intellectual Property | Litigation Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP | Axinn.com

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The Thomas Zoeller leans upon his extensive government experience in a high-stakes role as general counsel of markets and regulations at Norfolk Southern

By Noah Johnson

Advocate

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Casey Thomason/Courtesy of Norfolk Southern Corporation

FROM HIS POLICY WORK ON CAPITOL

Hill to navigating Y2K and 9/11 with government agencies, Thomas Zoeller understands what it means to be an adviser to decision-makers when the stakes are high. For the general counsel of markets and regulation at Norfolk Southern Corporation, the key is to be the “alter ego” of whomever he’s representing—a passionate advocate for his client.

“It’s important that individuals you’re working with understand that you are a team player and have a shared commitment to the goal, whether it’s for the agency, the client, or the company,” Zoeller says. “We all have different roles to play and my role as a lawyer and senior policy person has been to ask challenging and probing questions— not to suggest I’m smarter than anyone, but to offer a different perspective and make sure we’ve collectively thought through all the pluses and minuses of a particular action.”

That wisdom is rooted in one of Zoeller’s first career experiences. After getting his law degree from Seton Hall University, the young attorney began his career in the Federal Election Commission. His time at the regulatory agency furthered his interest in merging his legal know-how with government, leading him to the office of Senator Wendell Ford, where he served as a legislative assistant and counsel.

He spent his days working closely with Ford as they sat next to each other on the Senate f loor during quorum calls, talking about the history of the chamber and the various legislation being considered.

“That relationship fundamentally helped me in all my future jobs, espe-

cially in Washington, DC,” Zoeller ref lects. “You’re always working for someone in authority and a lot of times you have to be the alter ego for that individual. You have to be able to think like them, act like them, and speak like them.”

He continues, “I couldn’t impersonate Ford, but I could get a flavor for how he would communicate. So, when I would write things for him or talk to other people, I would try to bring his persona into that conversation and into that work.”

In addition to being a trusted advisor as well as learning how to be succinct and precise during briefings, Zoeller got a crash course in humility.

“Sometimes leaders agree to something that you advised against, but it’s not my decision to make. My job is to support them,” he says. “If I’ve I told them to go A and they went B, now I’m going to do whatever I can to make B successful. As an advisor, you need to be humble in part because you’re working with larger entities and the larger enterprise is more important than you are.”

Thomas Zoeller General Counsel of Markets & Regulations Norfolk Southern Corporation

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Strategic business partners.

Innovative solutions.

Service focused.

It is Weil’s honor to collaborate with Thomas Zoeller and Norfolk Southern to devise businessoriented solutions to complex legal issues.

weil.com Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

After seven years of advising the senator on transportation, federal government, and telecommunication matters, Zoeller went on to work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FA A) with Jane Garvey where his early work in that role centered around Y2K. As the year 2000 approached, there were concerns over how computers and integrated systems would react to the date change.

In the aviation space, some wondered whether the change would wreak havoc among air traffic control systems, prompting Zoeller and his colleagues to ensure the system would transition smoothly.

He accompanied Garvey to multiple hearings and ultimately became chief of staff.

After successfully navigating Y2K, the FAA and Zoeller had bigger challenges ahead. It would shut down the aviation system completely a year later, amid the 9/11 attacks. Then, it would be tasked with reopening the system with a new security paradigm.

“That had never been done in the history of modern aviation in the United States,” he recalls. “I don’t think you can really describe the level of stress, risk, concern, and number of stakeholders involved in that decision-making from the president on down. It was one of the most intense periods of time.”

Despite how difficult it was to navigate, the experience taught him how to respond during a crisis and prepared him for another highstakes role at the National Transportation Safety Board, where he helped

leaders respond to various accidents.

“You have to be calm, deliberate, and measured in how you respond,” Zoeller explains. “I always remind people that you can’t always control circumstances, but you can control how you react.”

Today, he leverages those experiences at Norfolk Southern, where he and four other attorneys provide legal, political, policy, and business support to the company’s operations and customers. As GC, he’s an accessible leader who believes that the best decisions come when diverse viewpoints collaborate.

Recently, Zoeller’s focus has been on preparing the next generation of leaders in the company through leadership development training. He advises young attorneys to be patient in order to succeed.

“This generation has a sense of urgency to make it quickly to the next level,” Zoeller observes. “But getting experience prepares you for the next level you want to move to.

The higher you move up in an organization, your ability to rely on your experience becomes more important for you to see the bigger picture.”

Eastman & Smith LTD: “Regardless the storm, Tom always seems to be a calm voice of reason. He’s a true asset to Norfolk Southern Corporation. And our firm really enjoys enjoy working with him.”

—Casey Talbott, Member

Pivot

Showcasing Portraits of today’s prominent top legal in-house executives, attorneys whoremarkable the capably adapt careers to changes they have in their cultivated,

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companies, and the management industries,strategies and personal and best and professional practices theylives employ to carve to succeed out newboth paths through imagination individually and collaboratively and reinvention

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Mindful Corporate Development Dr. Benjamin Gündling serves as corporate and M&A counsel to Freudenberg’s growing diverse portfolio

By Billy Yost

WHEN DR . BENJAMIN GÜNDLING

was sixteen, the German Basketball Association gave him the chance to travel around Japan as part of an international exchange program and stay with multiple families for several weeks each in locales ranging from rural farms to city centers. Gündling, a native German, was often unable to communicate with his hosts directly, but it didn’t deter him in the least.

“It gave a young man both an appreciation for an entirely different culture and a higher appreciation for my own,” he remembers. “I think it encouraged a humility in me that has helped me

connect with different cultures and made me adaptable in new places.”

Since first going in-house in 2007 as divisional counsel for an automotive business, the US and German licensed attorney has filled multiple roles within Freudenberg, ranging from serving as commercial global lead counsel for Freudenberg’s medical and consumer businesses to his current leadership in corporate and M&A and the e-mobility business in the Americas.

The accomplished lawyer has stayed at Freudenberg because he has had the chance to tackle M&A and new business development from virtually every

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Indira Sadikovic

Dr. Benjamin Gündling Senior Legal Counsel Corporate and M&A Freudenberg North America

possible perspective, aiding the continuing evolution of a company that initially began as a leather tannery (and now includes chemical, medical, aerospace, automotive, e-mobility, and a medical business) that was founded and remains family-owned since 1849.

Gündling’s tenure with Freudenberg began in Germany, but one of his biggest successes to date came when he first accepted a role that would land him in the US. The lawyer was asked to help establish a regional legal function and evolve a burgeoning medical business from a division to a standalone global business group. Gündling did what he

does best: he helped Freudenberg go on an acquisition spree of about a dozen separate businesses over a handful years that would become the Freudenberg Medical powerhouse of today.

Critical for the long-term success was providing the legal framework for the careful execution of a mindful postmerger integration strategy: forming of sustainable long-term customer relationships, balanced risk mitigation and compliance standards, and retaining innovators and key personnel as well as the attraction of talent.

A significant number of M&A projects for which Gündling provided legal

support come in the way of bolt-on acquisitions, a typically smaller or mid-market company whose integration doesn’t require extension retooling for either organization. That isn’t to say it’s easy, especially given Freudenberg’s appetite for growing its handprint and footprint in sustainable ways.

“We’re always looking for new products, new innovations, smaller companies, or larger standalone future businesses that make sense to strategically add to our existing portfolio,” Gündling explains. “It might help us further diversify or grow into a new market, and that mentality is why we

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“We’re always looking for new products, new innovations, smaller companies, or larger standalone future businesses that make sense to strategically add to our existing portfolio.”

have been able to grow into so many different industries. It’s fun work for me.”

One aspect of Gündling’s M&A work is the creation of carve-outs in line with one of Freudenberg’s guiding principles.

“We don’t make products that harm people and stay away from business that is environmentally not sustainable,” the lawyer explains. “If we’re acquiring a portfolio that might include anything of that nature, we may carve it out or elect not to acquire that business.”

Some of Gündling’s recent work speaks to Freudenberg’s commitment to contributing to a more environmentally sound future. The company recently entered into a multiyear contract with LG Energy Solution for the supply of lithium-ion battery cell modules. The deal will aid Freudenberg’s e-Power Systems Business Group, one of the commercial and heavy-duty application market leaders for emission-neutral energy systems.

“This was a strategic commercial transaction that will allow us to significantly scale up battery systems supply to electric bus, commercial truck, and marine application manufacturers,” Gündling says. “Battery technology is a fast and evolving field, which requires constant innovation and scale. You need to be able to master both, independently or in alliance with strong partners.”

He and his family have relocated to the US, back to Germany, and back to the US again, where they currently reside in Michigan. While the senior legal role in new business development can be very demanding, he is constantly thriving for a balance in his personal life and for his family.

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That continuing work to be a better father, husband, and lawyer seems like an ongoing project. The lawyer says he regularly seeks out feedback, and he hopes his colleagues feel that they can be honest with him about how he can improve.

“You have to have that ability to actually listen to the people who work for you,” Gündling advises. “Otherwise, you risk creating bad habits and becoming willfully ignorant as you progress.”

The lawyer’s last piece of advice is also perhaps his best. It applies to almost anyone.

“Fear is a bad advisor,” Gündling says. “Do your best to remain independent and try to let something good drive your decision-making.”

The senior counsel’s faith is an incredibly important part of his home and family life, and he says it’s helped him better connect to his family and his community. The lawyer is also an avid outdoorsman; after moving to Michigan, his first major purchases were a canoe and a tent.

As he continues to seek out new possibilities for Freudenberg, Gündling also remains on his own path, one informed by not only a willingness to grow humbly but also pride for where he comes from and who he’s become.

He’s found the best solution to feeling like a fish out of water: get back in.

KUDOS to our good friend DR. BENJAMIN GUENDLING on this well deserved recognition.

Klehr Harrison is a dynamic law firm known in the business, financial and legal communities for our aggressive and creative problem solving skills.

Sound judgment.

Practicality. Grit.

Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg LLP: “Ben is a pleasure to work with. He is thoughtful, diligent, and responsive to his outside counsel.

We enjoy an excellent and collaborative working relationship on high-stakes litigation matters.”

—Michael K. Coran, Litigation Partner

BUSINESS LAW AT BUSINESS SPEED®

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Many Tools in His Toolbox Caeden Curtis Drayton uses his multifaceted skills, including technical expertise in IT network security, as senior counsel of IP at Stanley Black & Decker

By Peter Fabris

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Drayton Media

HAD CAEDEN CURTIS DR AY TON

chosen a more direct path to the law, his legal career might have moved faster in his twenties and early thirties. But, over the long run, the senior intellectual property counsel at Stanley Black & Decker Inc. says his educational and early career choices make him a more valued member of corporate leadership.

On any given day, Drayton is confronted with a wide variety of challenges—patent infringement, trademark and branding issues, mergers and acquisitions, advertisement and marketing issues, partnership and licensing contracts, matters relating to entering new geographic markets, and much more. Some tasks even branch beyond those of the typical IP attorney. To address those matters, Drayton draws from an unusually broad range of expertise garnered through formal education and a variety of work settings.

The attorney earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and worked in computer network security, where he used cryptology and artificial intelligence. After earning his JD from Emory University School of Law, Drayton focused on IP-related matters, along with litigation, real estate law, and contract negotiations.

Drayton’s indirect path to law began after a few years in IT. He enjoyed the technical work, but doubted whether a career in the fast-paced IT realm was right for him.

“I would have had to continually update my skills,” he says. “While you have to stay up to date in the legal profession, too, law moves at a slower pace.” By specializing in IP law, Drayton combined his passion

for science and technology with a discipline that helped innovators earn patents and take their inventions into the marketplace.

As his legal career progressed with stints at a few firms, Drayton was exposed to a wide range of IP law, working for clients involved in many IT niches—software, electronic LED and LCD displays, wireless technologies, network architecture, and mobile communications—just to name a few.

His knowledge about how hardware,

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software, and network technology worked under the hood provided valuable insight into patent matters.

Drayton is passionate about this work, and as his career progressed, he jumped on opportunities to round out his legal acumen. Hired by Stanley Black & Decker in 2016 as IP counsel, he broadened his scope with work in litigation, real estate, and contract law, and helped business executives and engineers to evaluate new product ideas, identify protectible design

Caeden Curtis Drayton Senior IP Counsel Stanley Black & Decker Inc.

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“Look for an environment where you are going to be stretched, but not so much that you are in over your head and can fail.”

As one of the leading intellectual property law boutique firms in the U.S., Jordan Intellectual Property Law, LLC (“JIPL”) is focused exclusively to providing strategic guidance, counseling and portfolio management in areas relating to intellectual property law.

At JIPL, we extend the growth of your business by providing high quality services and cost-effective solutions that maximizes the value of your global patent portfolio.

Jordan IP Law, LLC is proud to recognize the accomplishments of Caeden Curtis Drayton and Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.

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features, and work on product road maps, including evaluating products for commercial feasibility.

In his current role, Drayton spends about 80 percent of his time on legal matters and the other 20 percent consulting with business leaders on a host of issues. Legal is responsible for managing a global portfolio of patent and trademark assets related to multiple categories of products, including storage cabinets, workstations, hand tools, pneumatic tools, power tools, and automatic door systems.

Drayton and his team regularly work with C-suite executives, business leaders, marketing directors, and engineers to evaluate new product strategies, identify protectible products, and develop product road maps for commercial expansion.

The company has a storied history of producing tools stretching back to 1843. It has accumulated an extensive legacy of protection for innovative new products alongside branding and trademark elements for product packaging, print, online and video advertisements, and social media.

Drayton offers the example of a line of storage cabinets emblazoned with an American flag and bald eagle. The brand imagery is an important marketing element in the US, and its rights had to be secured

from the artist and protected by copyright. It’s just one case of hundreds that the company’s legal team encounters regularly.

Drayton also tracks cultural trends that impact how ads are perceived by the public and weighs in on the potential risk of bad publicity from the content of marketing campaigns. In recent years, some companies have faced backlash over ads perceived by critics as insensitive to some groups. While these may not be strictly speaking legal matters, they do pose a risk to the company, and Drayton is relied upon by decision-makers for his opinion on these issues.

With a wide breadth of experience, Drayton is eager to offer young aspiring lawyers—particularly those interested in IP—insight from his fourteen years of legal practice. He advises young attorneys to apply for roles that will provide opportunities for the most growth rather than always going for the highest salary. Drayton even admits that he once chose a job post that paid $50,000 less than another with the intent of broadening his horizons more.

“Look for an environment where you are going to be stretched, but not so much that you are in over your head and can fail,” Drayton says. “It will lead to you becoming well-versed in your craft.”

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Effecting Change As SVP of legal operations at Cresco Labs, Bill Novomisle works to improve the relationship between in-house and external counsel

By Noah Johnson

THROUGHOUT HIS DECADES-LONG LEGAL

career, Bill Novomisle recognized a need to improve the relationship between in-house business counsel and the external counsel they work with.

Having sat in positions from both vantage points, the attorney witnessed how both sides would “play hot potato” with risk during project and billing negotiations. It made him realize that, by far, the number-one skill both sides lacked was the ability to scope a project.

“Both need to be able to say, definitively, ‘Here is what we are going to ask each side to do, here is what we expect from each other, and this is what it’s going to cost,’” Novomisle says. “The more we can scope and scope well and communicate around

how things are going based on that, we can fundamentally change the relationship.”

That’s his focus at Cresco Labs, where he serves as a trailblazing senior vice president of legal operations. Novomisle, a former chemist, approaches cost-saving legal service delivery and attorney-client interactions with the same empirical rigor that characterized his multiple-year tenure as a scientist.

In order to drive results at the cannabis company and manage outside counsel, he and his department leverage technology like Brightflag, which allows the team to look at legal invoices and identify areas of potential inefficiency. That data helps the department have better conversations with its key law firms about how they’re

Jorge Garzon

Bill Novomisle SVP of Legal Operations Cresco Labs

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“If you’re a young lawyer and you want to drive change in your industry, you need to understand where the people you want to change are. Why are they the way they are, and why do they need to change?” managing cases, using resources, and whether certain fee arrangements make sense for both parties.

“We use this analysis to educate outside counsel because a lot of times they don’t think of what they do in terms of value add and essential non-value add.

They think of it all as doing what needs to be done in order to service the client,” Novomisle explains. “But, by elevating their thinking, we’re able to elevate the value we get out of their services.”

A part of that elevation includes “delawyering” some of the company’s processes, he says. This year, the legal department is working to embed legal knowledge into self-service playbooks so the company can review contracts and manage risk more efficiently. They are also working to modernize discovery and to manage complex projects with Macro, a cutting-edge document visualization tool.

“Those tools are driving more efficiency which means that I’m able to bend the curve in terms of legal department costs because we don’t have to grow headcount as quickly as we are in other parts of the organization,” he says. “It also allows us to manage our external spend

and gives us the data to tell our key stakeholders a story that demonstrates and quantifies actual cost savings.”

Before bringing innovative solutions to the legal field, Novomisle was a synthetic organic chemist for Pfizer’s global research and development department, where he was a coinventor on three patents. After several years in that role, he had a decision to make. To advance, he could either go get a PhD in chemistry or choose a different career path. He took a leap of faith and chose the latter, heading to law school.

He went on to practice as a litigator for nine years at two different firms.

Those experiences exposed him to “the inherent conflict of interest that’s created by the billable hour.

“I saw all of the partners constantly trying to balance the pressure they received from management around billable hours, realization, leverage, and utilization versus the demands from their client to be efficient, to be lean, focused and narrow,” Novomisle remembers. “A lot of the partners wanted to have clients that weren’t efficiency focused so they didn’t have to worry about it. And, the more that happened, the more I thought

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Paul Hastings congratulates Bill Novomisle of Cresco Labs on his welldeserved recognition in Modern Counsel

that this is not sustainable and there had to be a better way.”

While those experiences discouraged him from becoming a partner, they inspired him to go in-house to manage litigation, leading him to PepsiCo, where he served as director of legal management and operations.

In that role, he honed his skills around managing legal spend and projects.

Novomisle deepened his expertise at Stikeman Elliot, where he served as the director of pricing and client value. He saw the other side of the in-house and outside counsel relationship by reviewing RFPs from clients. They found that

they often wanted “the inverse of the billable hour,” he says.

“By that I mean they wanted a fixed fee where most of the risk fell on the law firm,” he explains.

“The answer to, ‘you’ve been screwing me over for years’ shouldn’t be, ‘I’m going to screw you over.’

That doesn’t lead to a long-term productive relationship. So, when I observed clients weren’t ready for alternative fee arrangements either, it changed my view of the overall marketplace because I saw what it was like from the sell side and the buy side.”

In 2015, he took those insights to China and Hong Kong, where he cofounded In-Gear Legalytics and then joined Korum Legal to help bring more process improvement, technology, and legal operation expertise to a region void of it.

Four years later, amid COVID-19 pandemic and national security law concerns, Novomisle moved to Chicago to work for Cresco Labs to build legal operations from the ground up.

“Previously, I had primarily worked for much larger and established companies and it was about change management, but at Cresco, there was nothing,” he reflects. “It was held together with a couple of spreadsheets and a whole lot of hustle.

I was able to bring in institutional discipline and best-in-class technology.”

He advises the next generation of leaders to meet people where they are.

“If you’re a young lawyer and you want to drive change in your industry, you need to understand where the people you want to change are,” Novomisle says. “Why are they the way they are, and why do they need to change?”

He adds, “Lawyers aren’t dumb. There are incentive structures underlying the state of the field. Until you understand their motivations, the systems of risk and reward to stakeholders are in, you won’t effect change.”

Jenner & Block congratulates Bill Novomisle for his exceptional leadership and many accomplishments at Cresco Labs. He handles difficult issues with grace, wisdom, and aplomb.

Shape What’s Next Opportunity or challenge.

Both require experience, vision, and judgment.

We congratulate Bill Novomisle for his exceptional leadership and many accomplishments at Cresco Labs.

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The Power of Dreams Michelle Gallardo has made a career out of following her passions and interests, from practicing as a global technology lawyer to promoting diversity and equity in the legal profession

By Natalie Kochanov

WHEN MICHELLE GALL ARDO HAS

a dream, she sets herself on the path to achieving it—even when it means making a major career pivot. One such pivot brought her to HARMAN International, where she fulfilled her dream of becoming a global technology lawyer.

“I joined HARMAN because I understood that technology and software were becoming increasingly important,” the former senior director and senior counsel of global data privacy, data security, and compliance explains. “HARMAN was executing its own pivot into the technology space, so it was a great opportunity for me to advise clients globally in the context of a technology company.”

As she now turns her attention to new dreams, Gallardo reflects on her career journey up to this point, from her earliest inspirations to the lessons she has learned on her way to becoming a leader.

Gallardo grew up in a household with a strong tradition of service. “I think of myself as a servant leader,” she says.

“My parents, a nurse and a policeman, both had jobs that served our community. My dad was the first Latino police officer in the town where I grew up. He was a leader for the Latino community. I was raised with the idea that community service is an important part of life, and I’ve tried to incorporate that idea into my career. It is natural for me that my professional life should include finding opportunities to help people.”

That philosophy has led Gallardo to leverage her legal expertise in support of causes close to her heart. She gained early litigation experience doing pro bono work on behalf of domestic violence survivors. She has more recently volunteered on national projects pro-

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moting diversity and equity within the legal profession.

Much to her surprise, these efforts outside of her day job have fueled her development as both an attorney and a leader. She recommends that all young attorneys look for ways to give back.

“Find opportunities to volunteer in subjects that are interesting to you,” she urges. “It helps develop your confidence and your skill set so that you also become better as a lawyer and a leader.”

In addition to learning through external service projects, Gallardo has been intentional about expanding her knowledge in each role she has held. She first became in-house counsel at Ford Motor Company practicing employment law. “The scale of the company was so much more than I imagined, and it gave me a different perspective on how business operates,” she reflects. “It was an amazing opportunity for me to become more involved in the business and change the trajectory of my career.”

Gallardo was eventually able to pivot into a role as a business lawyer at Ford Motor Company.

She spent eight years as the primary legal advisor for a division of Ford with $6 billion in annual revenue, large enough to be listed on the Fortune 500 as a separate company. While in that position, Gallardo began to recognize the significant implications of technology for the future of all industries. “That’s where I developed the dream of becoming a technology lawyer,” she says.

Moving to HARMAN provided Gallardo an opportunity to become a technology lawyer on a global scale. “As I grew my skill set in that area at HARMAN, I started to understand that the data

Michelle Gallardo Associate General Counsel North American Bancard

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Unconventional

“It is natural for me that my professional life should include finding opportunities to help people.”

approaches. Ingenious results. Workplace Privacy Solutions.

Littler congratulates our friend and valued business partner, Michelle Gallardo, on recognition for her professional achievements.

With a team of workplace privacy attorneys that spans the U.S., EU, U.K. and Brazil, Littler advises employers on a full range of privacy, data security, and data protection issues. Littler is at the forefront of this developing area, constantly seeking new ways to help our clients get the greatest benefit from the latest technology while minimizing their exposure to litigation and government enforcement actions.

321 N Clark St | Suite 1100 Chicago, IL 60654 | 312.372.5520

At Littler, we’re fueled by ingenuity and inspired by you.® littler.com

captured with the technology was just as important as the technology itself,” she adds. With that realization, Gallardo homed in on data as a crucial area of focus for herself and for HARMAN—a move that resulted in the then general counsel appointing her the organization’s inaugural data privacy leader.

“I’ve built a global data privacy program for a multinational technology company with $10 billion in revenue at a time when technology, data security, and data privacy laws are all changing rapidly,” she says.

Fortunately, the rapid rate of change aligns with Gallardo’s commitment to lifelong learning. “To continue to grow and develop as a lawyer, especially in the technology space, you have to be open and committed to learning about new subjects that are relevant to your specialty,” she adds.

Gallardo is looking forward to continuing her work as a technology lawyer, which includes data privacy and data security, in her new role at fintech company North American Bancard. Beyond taking this next step in her career, she also hopes to get more involved in efforts related to equity as it relates to technology.

“I’m very excited to join North American Bancard and focus on fintech at such an important time for the industry. I’m also excited to bring together the two parts of my career: my day job as a technology lawyer and my passion for diversity and equity,” she says.

Recently, Gallardo joined Angeles Investors to support start-ups founded by Latino founders. “I feel really fortunate to be a lawyer who had a dream and who was able to execute it, and I feel even more fortunate that I’ve been able to have a long career with many new dreams.”

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INNOVATION &

Spotlight on seven in-house counsel who are driving their innovative organizations forward

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IRIS MOK Intel

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E M I LY B U R N S Google

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B R I T TA N Y M C E L M U R Y D I E T Z Samsung Electronics America Inc.

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BRANDON EGREN Verizon

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K A R I M A D AT I A Insight

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M AT T H E W M I L L E R Amazon

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ANTHONY BÉGON Trellix

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Iris Mok is always looking for new challenges, and she continues to find them as assistant director of patents at Intel B Y B I L LY Y O S T

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Suzanne Covert

IRIS MOK Assistant Director of Patents Intel

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ris Mok calls herself an “advanced-age mother,” but that’s hardly the case.

The assistant director of patents has pushed herself so hard throughout her career that she never even thought she’d have time to have a family. Through thirteen years doing cutting-edge patent work at Intel, mentoring, coaching, and acting as an angel investor for female entrepreneurs, and even finding the time to engage in pro bono work, Mok seems amazed to be the mother of a school-aged son. But she made it.

“He tests his limits every day, and it makes me appreciate the way I look at the world even more,” Mok says. “I’m always so excited to learn something new, and with him, I get that chance every day.”

The attorney has the kind of curious mind that makes it clear why she’s good at her job. To better learn the world of venture capital (VC) investment, she took on a rotation within Intel Capital, engaging in M&A work and getting a broader handle on the world of VC. “Life is just too short,” Mok explains. “If you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask a question and get yourself involved in a way that will help you learn.

If it’s something you want to do, find a way to do it.”

Her attitude is, at least in part, an inherited one. The youngest of five children, Mok grew up watching her parents operate a children’s clothing store in Hong Kong. Despite a relative lack of education, she saw them start a handful of businesses and learn on the fly how to make them work.

After coming to the US at sixteen as part of a student exchange program, Mok wanted to learn how people worked and lived somewhere outside of Hong Kong.

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She notes with a laugh that her adventurous spirit might have something to do with her zodiac sign, Sagittarius.

After attending several Women in Tech events, Mok began noticing a trend among the women who were pitching ideas and business plans. “It always seemed like women were always pitching to men,” she remembers. “With so much of VC funds going to men anyway, I thought there had to be a way to enable more women to get their ideas off the ground.”

Mok acted as a passive investor for multiple groups, and while it’s not her active role, she knows she’ll ultimately wind up back in the world helping support female entrepreneurs. Prior to becoming a mother, the lawyer was regularly sought out for speaking and coaching engagements, including being invited as a pitch coach at South

by Southwest.

She has also found time to devote legal support to those who need it most. Mok’s continued dedication to pro bono work at Intel is especially impressive. “We have always had a prominent pro bono program at Intel, and I’ve had the opportunity to do a variety of work over the years,” she says.

“It’s important to give back to your community in which you live in. This kind of work keeps you grounded and helps you realize how truly fortunate you are.”

That work has included immigration clinics, legal work on behalf of creative endeavors, record expungement, entrepreneurs, intellectual property clinics, evictions, and family cases. While motherhood shortened her pro bono docket, Mok says she’s excited to reengage now that her son has started school.

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People seek me out for advice, and I get to help translate ideas into something real. I think that’s why I’ve been here so long. I really like what I do.”

At Intel, Mok enjoys getting to be a lawyer that her clients aren’t dreading speaking to.

“People aren’t coming to me with problems so much as ideas and plans,” she explains. “People seek me out for advice, and I get to help translate ideas into something real. I think that’s why I’ve been here so long. I really like what I do.”

That is the most steadfast advice Mok can provide lawyers trying to navigate their own careers: life is short, and there is no point in doing something that makes you unhappy. For Mok, that’s meant branching out, including an expat assignment in Germany early in her in-house career. Now, it’s achieving the necessary balance of motherhood and career.

That learning curve has been much more difficult, but what she has learned probably cannot be repeated enough for any working mother. “I don’t think any mother gives enough time to themselves,” Mok says. “They don’t concentrate on their own health and well-being, and it’s something I’ve certainly struggled with at times, too. But you have to find that time.”

The good news is that if the lawyer has managed to find a sliver of that time, it’s highly likely that anyone can. Her dance card was full before motherhood, and she’s still finding ways to keep her curious mind occupied. Life may be short, but Mok is making the most of it.

Munich | Düsseldorf | Dresden | Singapore | Taipei

Viering, Jentschura & Partner congratulates Intel’s Assistant Director of Patents, Ms. Iris Mok, on her inspiring career path and her recognition by Modern Counsel.

We are deeply honored to be associated with such a brilliant, focused, and experienced attorney and industry leader, who always treats her outside counsel as equal partners. We offer our best wishes for her continued achievement and success! www.vjp.de/en

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MENTORING

Google’s senior trademark counsel, Emily Burns, is on a quest to empower and impact others through teaching B Y Z A C H B A L I VA

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E M I LY B U R N S ’ S CA R E E R WAS AT A

crossroads when she returned from her second maternity leave. After seven years as a litigation and trademark attorney at Cooley LLP, she had discovered that trademark law was where her passion truly laid.

In fact, it was more than a passion: it was a “love affair.” And she wanted it to be a long-term relationship and practice trademark law exclusively. Did that mean having a conversation with her colleagues at Cooley? Did it mean moving to another firm? Did it mean going in-house?

It was then that a colleague and former mentee encouraged Burns to apply at Google. Today, she’s the company’s senior trademark counsel in charge of prosecution, enforcement, and brand counseling for YouTube.

It’s a role custom-made for the selfproclaimed “trademark geek.” Handling all things trademark for the worldfamous brand and video sharing platform gives Burns the opportunity to deal with the complex nuances of intellectual property, infringement, free speech, fair use, parody, and content takedowns on a regular basis.

Doing it at the second-most visited website on the planet means she gets to experience things other trademark lawyers only dream of. In 2021, Burns was part of the team that secured the deal to put YouTube’s name on a new

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sports and entertainment venue from Los Angeles Rams’ owner, Stan Kroenke, in Inglewood, California.

She’s been able to work on nontraditional motion and sound trademarks to protect the animated images and bits of audio that accompany YouTube’s logo as seen by its 2.5 billion monthly users who together consume upwards of a billion hours of video content every day.

When she came to YouTube in 2010, the company was a user-generated content platform. Since then, she’s helped launch several new brands and products like YouTube Kids, YouTube Premium, YouTube Gaming, YouTube Shopping, YouTube Music, YouTube Shorts, and more.

The work keeps Burns energized.

“People think going in-house means your skills atrophy, but it’s just not true,” she says. “Each time YouTube releases a new product, I get to expand my knowledge base, touch new industries, and push the limits of what it means to be a trademark practitioner.”

While this practical and hands-on work has helped Burns develop her career, she says mentoring has played a key role since day one. In fact, Burns was still a summer associate at Cooley when a mentor shared words of wisdom that have stayed with her ever since. “He told me that I’m the one responsible for shaping what I want my

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E M I LY B U R N S Senior Trademark Counsel Google

Being a mentor feels like giving back to a community that has helped me so much in my own career.”

work life to look like and that nobody else would care as much about my career. That helped me realize that I really needed to make purposeful choices,” she explains.

Another mentor and adjunct professor helped Burns discover an interest in teaching by extending to her an invitation to speak in a law school classroom. Burns gave her first lecture and enjoyed it so much that she volunteered to cover classes as needed.

Then, she set a personal goal to become a better public speaker, resolving never to turn down an internal or external speaking opportunity. Soon, Burns was presenting at internal summits and serving as an adjunct professor at the University of California Law San Francisco (formerly known as UC Hastings). She’s been teaching practical skills courses like Trademark

Dan Clark

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Prosecution Seminar and Protecting Trademarks in Tech since 2009.

After benefitting from the power of mentors in her own life, Burns turned her attention to mentoring others. She is currently involved in two Google legal mentorship programs that aim to increase diversity and inclusion within the legal field. The Google Legal Summer Institute brings underrepresented 2L school students to Google’s campus for a week of seminars before participants head to full summer associateships with partner firms.

Additionally, the Outside Counsel Leadership, Education, Advancement, Diversity program is a mentoring program that unites young diverse lawyers with Google mentors for professional development and networking opportunities.

After volunteering in these formal programs, Burns has witnessed their impact firsthand. “I get to see young attorneys become part of our law firm teams and work on our issues together,” she says.

“Being a mentor feels like giving back to a community that has helped me so much in my own career.”

Burns also serves as an adjunct professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law. Teaching law, especially in the technology sector, remains one of her top passions. “Everyone in tech talks about doing things at scale, and I see teaching as mentoring at scale,” she says.

Google has nine products that each have more than one billion users. And while Burns may not have a billion people in her classes, she does get to teach a cohort of students each year. Those students go on to use the practical skills she imparts to them wherever they go.

The attorney teaches those students about the real-world issues trademark lawyers face as she helps support innovative products like YouTube Shopping, which gives users the chance to promote their own products or products from other brands in their videos and live streams. In doing so, Google and YouTube are growing the creator economy. In the meantime, Burns is growing the next generation of trademark geeks.

Protecting and Defending Intellectual Property Rights since 1924

www.grunecker.de

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FROM CLUBHOUSE TO IN-HOUSE Brittany McElmury Dietz shares how her love for softball prepared her to be an in-house attorney at Samsung

B R I T TA N Y M C E L M U R Y D I E T Z Director and Senior Legal Counsel of Litigation Samsung Electronics America Inc.

Lauren Bethany

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rittany Dietz loves a highstake situation. But that passion didn’t start in the courtroom or in a corporation.

It started on the diamond and in a sport that made the former Division 1 athlete the lawyer she is today.

“I played softball since I was ten years old, and it taught me dedication, hard work, and attention to detail,” she reflects. “As a pitcher, I would watch the batters as early as when they were in the on-deck box, whether they had an opened or closed stance, if they’re opening up their hips too early, or dropping their shoulders. All those little nuances made the difference in how you’re going to approach pitching.”

Dietz continues, “That translates nicely to the legal field where no detail is too small as we deal with the nuances of law and facts. In both realms, you just have to make decisions, stand by them, and go 100 percent all of the time.”

Today, as the director and senior legal counsel of litigation at Samsung Electronics America Inc., Dietz often feels like she’s back on the pitcher’s mound as she navigates rapid technological changes and laws.

“You’re constantly anticipating and preparing for what the new

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trend is,” she says. “That environment keeps you on your toes and forces you to adjust.”

Dietz has always had a competitive spirit. In her formative years, she’d often look up local ordinances to help negotiate with her parents on why her curfew should be extended.

Those times sparked an interest in law and debate that continued throughout high school and her undergraduate studies.

When Dietz got to law school, she was leaning toward being a prosecutor until she took a patent course with an engaging professor that changed the trajectory of her career.

“I loved the course; I loved the professor. It was a lot of fun and hands on,” she recalls. “I went on to take an advanced trial-ad course based in IP. It was a blast—I spent my spring break in the federal courthouse in Chicago doing mock trials and cross examinations, and I loved every single minute of it.”

After receiving her law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law, Dietz started her career as an associate attorney at Lathrop & Gage. There, she represented clients in states and federal courts across the country, litigating disputes on matters pertaining to

products liability, breach of contract, shareholder derivative disputes, employment discrimination, and more. She also got her hands on all aspects of the litigation process from initial case evaluation to trial and appeal.

From there, she went on to work at Kelley Drye & Warren and Molzahn, Reed & Rouse, both of which provided her with opportunities in general commercial litigation, patent infringement, product liability, insurance coverage, and insurance defense.

As Dietz ref lects on her years rising the ranks as an early career attorney, she says that she was quick to raise her hand and to “take on every single task.” “Nothing was too small for me to handle—even making copies and fixing jams in the copy machine,” she says. “I dove into everything and tried to teach myself a lot of the procedural nuances and things they don’t teach you in law school.”

Though she spent much of those early years saying yes to various tasks and projects, she also had to learn how to say no. “Whether it’s saying no because your plate is full and you’re at capacity or when you don’t trust something, it’s OK to

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Being in-house, there are a lot of teaching moments and I really love that part of it.

You’re teaching the business about the law. You’re making it all palatable to people who aren’t lawyers.” stand your ground and disagree with it,” Dietz says.

In 2019, she came to Samsung in her first in-house role as litigation counsel focused on class action, commercial, antitrust, and general litigation work.

She was drawn to the company because of the opportunity to expand on her love for teaching. Having spent her career mentoring kids with nonprofits, she wanted to have the same level of impact on a business.

“Being in-house, there are a lot of teaching moments and I really love that part of it,” Dietz says. “You’re teaching the business about the law. You’re making it all palatable to people who aren’t lawyers.”

The attorney’s advice for young attorneys who want to be successful is to not be afraid to take risks. “The greatest risk is not taking one,” she says. “Don’t be afraid to try; speak up and participate.”

We congratulate our friend and client, Brittany McElmury Dietz, for her welldeserved recognition in Modern Counsel.

We applaud her many professional accomplishments and commitment to serving others.

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BRANDON EGREN Associate General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary Verizon

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ROLLING WITH THE

PUNCHES Brandon Egren’s early career challenges helped him become a lawyer capable of tackling almost anything at Verizon B Y B I L LY Y O S T

N O O N E WO U L D H AV E FAU LT E D

Brandon Egren for walking away from a legal career. Graduating from law school in the depths of the economic recession, his entire incoming class at Dewey & LeBoeuf was deferred for more than a year due to a slowdown in work. When he was finally able to begin his career in private practice in early 2012, the venerable firm promptly imploded.

“It makes for an interesting conversation now,” Egren says, laughing.

“But at the time, it felt like a defeat. I had been waiting so long to begin my law firm career, and when Dewey & LeBoeuf collapsed, it felt like it was over before it had even started.”

The current associate general counsel and assistant corporate secretary at Verizon now considers those tumultuous early years an asset, both because of the skill he was able to acquire navigating challenges and the practical and varied experience he was ultimately able to amass.

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I had been waiting so long to begin my law firm career, and when Dewey & LeBoeuf collapsed, it felt like it was over before it had even started.”

A D E FA C T O G E N E R A L I S T

Despite being deferred, Egren was able to secure a secondment at an organization he had long admired: New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Over the course of almost two years, he worked on a wide array of projects for the world-renowned organization.

Egren was unintentionally becoming an in-house generalist, reviewing artist and consultant contracts, advising on nonprofit law and governance, and handling intellectual property and real estate matters. “It wasn’t what I had planned or anticipated, but if I could do it over again, I wouldn’t do it any other way,” he reflects. “Lincoln Center was the perfect place to begin my career.”

But the lawyer knew he’d need law firm experience to reach his career goals. He would go on to build out a specialization in capital markets and securities law at Hogan Lovells in Washington, DC, and Jones Day in New York. Egren found public company advisory work at both firms incredibly rewarding, engaging in extensive research and solving issues that required creative thinking. He

also gained international exposure, working closely with Jones Day’s international offices to advise overseas clients on US corporate and securities law.

Egren’s hectic early years turned out to be more valuable as he developed in his career. When he interviewed for an in-house corporate governance position with Verizon in 2017, the lawyer’s variety of experience, resilience, and f lexibility impressed his future leadership team and landed him the job.

P R O X Y A N D P R E P A R AT I O N

Since coming aboard as staff counsel, Egren has been promoted and seen his responsibilities increase meaningfully.

His work includes overseeing subsidiary governance, stock ownership reporting, and insider trading compliance matters, but perhaps his most notable achievement has been his role in the preparation and execution of the telecom company’s annual proxy statement and shareholder meeting, a rigorous process that takes place over many months each year.

“As I’ve moved more into leadership roles, I’ve found that the work on

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the proxy statement really brings together many different layers of requirements and considerations,” he explains. “You have to comply with securities law disclosure, state corporate law, and stock exchange requirements, and an important goal is to effectively communicate information that a wide range of investors looks for in a proxy statement.

This process also requires the skillful coordination of different teams, workstreams, and timelines.”

Egren has now navigated six proxy seasons at Verizon. However, just as he was finding his footing, Verizon’s 2020 annual shareholder meeting, the first meeting for which Egren led the drafting of the proxy statement, was upended by the onset of the pandemic. The in-person event that takes months to plan suddenly had to be moved online. “Like most companies, we had to pivot on a dime,” he recalls. “Many time-tested aspects of the meeting had to be reimagined to adapt to the reality that everyone would be at home in front of their computer screens instead of interacting together in the same room.”

Despite the challenging circumstances, Verizon’s first virtual shareholder meeting was a success.

It’s yet another case of Egren rolling with the punches. For lawyers earlier in their journeys, he has wise words. “Sometimes, unexpected turns in your career path can have surprisingly positive outcomes,” he says. “It can be extremely valuable to learn how to deal with upheaval. In this line of work, things are constantly changing, and I regularly find myself needing to jump in and simply draw upon my knowledge and perspectives to adapt quickly to challenging situations.”

It might be difficult today, but today’s seemingly insurmountable challenge may well become the source of tomorrow’s success.

We are proud to work with Brandon Egren and the talented team at Verizon.

Congratulations to Brandon on his achievements and his recognition by Modern Counsel.

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EMPOWERING

Karim Adatia helped launch an innovative program at Insight showcasing the valuable work that employees do on a daily basis

Treyvon Thompson

BY N OA H J O H N SO N

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K A R I M A D AT I A SVP and Deputy General Counsel Insight

INNOVATORS

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nsight helps organizations achieve business outcomes amid a constantly changing technological landscape. In doing so, it’s no surprise that the company’s engineers, architects, and consultants often grapple with tech problems that haven’t yet been solved.

Time and time again, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Karim Adatia witnessed his colleagues rise to the occasion, creating solutions that didn’t exist before to help businesses address their most pressing challenges. It got him thinking about whether the methodologies that were developed and used in those solutions could be patented and brought to market.

“When I speak to our innovators, oftentimes they don’t know that what they’re working on can be impactful beyond the specific client challenge they’re trying to resolve,” Adatia shared in the spring 2023 issue of Insight’s Tech Journal. “They’re so wired to solve a problem and look for ways to do things better, they don’t step back and see there’s widespread commercial value to it that could be a novel and useful new way ahead for entire industries.”

While the inventors didn’t always see the impact their work could have, Adatia did. That’s why in 2018, he and company leaders held an event in Boston with its technical experts to talk about their work. That meeting not only generated five invention disclosures but also was a catalyst for Innovate@ Insight, a program to encourage the company’s inventors to turn their ideas into patented intellectual property.

I feel like I’ve found my dream job. I get to practice law in an environment where they appreciate what the legal team is doing.

We’re not viewed as an obstacle.”

Inventors who participate in the program fill out disclosure forms, which are first reviewed by Insight’s attorneys before drafting and filing a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office. So far, the company has submitted more than one hundred patent applications for innovations in the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, edge data processing, advanced analytics, and computer vision solutions—all of which have had a wide-ranging impact on business outcomes.

One solution manages data from any edge device and intelligent system into a single dashboard, helping organizations gain real time insights that align with policy and compliance standards while improving processes.

Another enables businesses to accelerate their ability to manage and express enterprise data, minimize their maintenance burden, and remove complicated data ingestion strategies.

Beyond the impacts it has had on businesses, the program has given Adatia’s legal team an opportunity to partner with the company’s inventors, foster better business relationships, and empower innovation at the company.

“Our inventors are creating things that not only bring value to our customers but to automate, create efficiencies and outcomes at Insight in a way that we weren’t able to do before,” Adatia explains. “It’s been exciting for me because I’ve had a chance to speak to some of the smartest people in the tech space and not only file patent applications but leverage the process as a catalyst from a cultural standpoint.

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There has been a shift in how inventors view their work and the value they’re bringing. We’re able to shine a light on their activities and bring attention that these inventors aren’t used to.”

The passion Adatia has for empowering Insight’s employees trickles down to his own legal team. He allows his staff space to take ownership of their work and always finds opportunities for them to expand on what they already know.

“As a leader, coaching, developing, and helping others find their path within the company is very important,” he says. “I’ve taken the things I’ve learned and tried to coach people in the same way. The importance of asking good questions, knowing your audience, and building relationships.”

Adatia draws those lessons from his previous experiences as an associate at Osborn Maledon, vice president of operations and general counsel at Great Alaskan Holidays, and his thirteen-year career at Insight, where he’s previously served as senior corporate counsel, director, and associate general counsel. Since Adatia came to Insight, he’s learned a lot from the company’s culture and having access to the business.

“I feel like I’ve found my dream job. I get to practice law in an environment where they appreciate what the legal team is doing. We’re not viewed as an obstacle,” he says. “I’ve also had the space to make mistakes and learn that’s OK as long as you learn from them.”

Adatia offers important and simple advice for young in-house attorneys seeking success in their careers: know what you don’t know.

“You start with knowing what you don’t know, and you have to go find the answers,” he says. “To find the answers, you have to talk to people, and you have to be curious. When you seek out people to find the answers you need, that process can be fulfilling in building strong relationships with the business. Being humble and curious, having a growth mindset, giving myself grace and space not to be perfect, and understanding the importance of being around a strong team have helped me be a better leader.”

Kinney & Lange, P.A. is a full-service intellectual property firm practicing in all aspects of intellectual property law that is driven by our core values of dignity, respect, teamwork, stewardship, and excellence. Genuinely engaging with clients is a hallmark of Kinney & Lange. We don’t just talk, we listen. Since our formation in 1978, we have secured, licensed and maintained national and international intellectual property rights for our clients, ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to start-up businesses and individuals.

Kinney & Lange, P.A. 312 South 3rd Street Minneapolis, MN 55415 info@kinney.com | (612) 339-1863 www.kinney.com

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THE DEAL NEGOTIATOR Amazon’s Matthew Miller negotiates complex deals for MGM Studios’ consumer products and experiences business, including video games, digital collectibles, and more

BY FR A N K D I M A R I A

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Onelia Miller

MATTHEW MILLER WAS WORKING FOR A

boutique estate planning firm in Chicago when he packed up his car and drove to Los Angeles with aspirations of working in entertainment law.

“I took a snapshot of where I wanted to be in ten years. I was a huge film and music guy—movie theaters and concerts were my escape,” he remembers. If he was going to put in the hours and expend the mental energy necessary to be a lawyer, he wanted to practice in an area that sparked his passion. To Miller, that meant he needed to be in Los Angeles.

Mission accomplished. Today Miller is corporate counsel at Amazon where he heads up the legal group supporting the day-to-day operations of MGM Studios’ global consumer products and experiences business. When the young estate planning attorney arrived in Los Angeles in 2006, he had one entertainment law class under his belt and no job prospects.

“I was not dialed in by any means,” Miller says of the city and industry where relationships are king. In hindsight, it might have been a bit reckless.

“I’m confident my parents thought I was absolutely crazy,” Miller reflects. “It was such a good position I left . . . the partners were great lawyers and even better human beings, and I felt they were grooming me to lead the firm one day.”

To establish a safety net, Miller enrolled in an LLM program in entertainment and media law and worked remotely for the firm he’d just left. But a series of informational interviews yielded no jobs and few leads. “These are coveted

M AT T H E W M I L L E R Corporate Counsel Amazon

The last thing you want is for your video game deal to prevent the creative executives from being able to do something in the franchise’s next film.”

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positions,” Miller notes. It didn’t matter that he got his JD from Northwestern or that he worked for reputable firms in Chicago, instead it came down to one fact: Miller did not have the experience to offer entertainment legal services immediately.

With his savings waning, Miller thought he would have to head back to Chicago and resume his work in estate planning. Feeling he had nothing to lose, Miller emailed the managing partner of the first firm he worked at—someone he hadn’t spoken to in years. “His background was in civil litigation, so I’m not certain what I was expecting in terms of a response, or that he’d respond at all, but he once told me to reach out if I needed anything, so I did.”

To Miller’s surprise, he received an immediate response and was connected to a former Paramount attorney, who in turn got him another informational interview, only this one was with an MGM attorney who’d become his boss for the next sixteen years. “A month later, and I would have been back in Chicago,” Miller adds.

In his current role, Miller is the head attorney responsible for structuring, and overseeing the contracting process and operations for all initiatives related to MGM Studios’ global consumer products and experiences business, including video games and integrations, digital collectibles, traditional merchandising, publishing, and location-based

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I realized over the years that if you don’t ask people for things, they won’t know what you want or how to help.”

entertainment. Miller is particularly fond of the work he does in the video game space, where he negotiates complex licensing arrangements for the use of MGM’s IP in fully branded video games, like the recent Creed VR game and the rerelease of GoldenEye 007, and for integrations into existing third-party games, like when you see RoboCop appear for a limited time in your child’s favorite battle royale game.

Such deals tend to be heavily negotiated. “I love them,” Miller says. “It’s cool to be able work on these world-renowned franchises

that I’m also a huge fan of personally, like James Bond, and to help bring to market new products and experiences featuring the IP that keep fans engaged beyond the film release window.”

While working to help his business clients get products and experiences to consumers quickly, Miller notes that protecting MGM’s IP remains front and center. “Because consumer products and experiences represent only a subset of rights for an individual film or franchise, you need to be careful that you don’t end up compromising to get a particular

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deal done and then come out of that deal with lesser rights in the overall IP than when you went in,” he explains. “It sounds simple in theory, but when you are negotiating a video game deal that involves the intellectual property of multiple parties, you need to be on your A game. The last thing you want is for your video game deal to prevent the creative executives from being able to do something in the franchise’s next film.”

Luck played a significant role in Miller fulfilling his dream, but his well-honed networking skills shouldn’t be discounted. “Networking didn’t always come natural to me,” he admits.

“I’m a personable guy, but I’m also not comfortable asking people for things. I realized over the years that if you don’t ask people for things, they won’t know what you want or how to help.”

When mentoring younger lawyers, Miller stresses the importance of networking, which he describes as a “never-ending process,” seeking out mentors and asking for help when you need it. Miller also notes that the practice of law often feels like a fear-based profession.

“As a lawyer you’re expected to have answers and be right. There’s not a lot of room for ‘I don’t know,’” he says. He advises young lawyers to balance that fear by taking calculated risks and believing in their own capabilities. “Practicing law can be humbling. Don’t give yourself too many high fives, but don’t kick yourself too much either. No matter what, just stick it out.”

Covington commends

Amazon, MGM, and

Matthew Miller Senior Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs - Distribution, Operations & Marketing at MGM

for their leadership and dedication to innovation.

www.cov.com

InfoLawGroup is built on client relationships, like our longstanding partnership with MGM. We are proud to work alongside Matt Miller and the entire MGM legal team.

© 2023 Covington & Burling LLP. All rights reserved.

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i n n o vat i o n & t e c h n o l o g y

FACE-

TO-

FACE Anthony Bégon appreciates the value of seeking out something new and challenging the status quo at Trellix B Y B I L LY Y O S T

ANTHONY

BÉGON’S

VA R I E T Y

OF

experiences is perhaps his greatest asset as a legal leader. The first-generation American is the son of two Haitian parents and spent his childhood as a military brat. He was born in Alabama, lived in Germany and, eventually, Lynn, Massachusetts, and has sought out opportunities that would put him face-to-face with people from all walks of life.

The current director and head of litigation, trade compliance, and ethics and compliance at Trellix spent his younger years traveling the Caribbean, East Africa, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Cambodia, among others. “I didn’t have many resources, so I would just get out there and meet people and connect,” Bégon remembers. “You embrace the culture, and you find that your life changes in the process.”

Prior to law school, Bégon spent time working in fundraising, once again finding essential growth and success in connecting on a one-to-one level. It was an early exercise in aligning priorities that would serve him well in private practice.

The future lawyer got in-house experience at UnitedHealth and 3M, and intensive face time with judges in the courtroom at the Ramsey County Attorney’s office. It was a speed run of an entire legal career in just three years.

Those experiences are probably the reason Bégon was thrown into the deep end in his first firm role. “I got to experience in two years what a lot of attorneys don’t get to until their sixth,” he says.

“Whether it was trial teams or visiting client sites, it filled me with the confidence and foundation to work on more

modern counsel

Stephanie Marchant

ANTHONY BÉGON Director and Head of Global Litigation, Trade Compliance & Ethics and Compliance Trellix

I got to experience in two years what a lot of attorneys don’t get to until their sixth.”

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i n n o vat i o n & t e c h n o l o g y

Counseling the Next Generation Anthony Bégon is at a place in his career where he’s focused on helping the next generation of lawyers develop into the best versions of themselves. The lawyer has planned on writing three insightful LinkedIn articles, the first of which was published in June 2023 and focuses on young attorneys communicating as outside counsel. Having been on both sides of the equation, Bégon provides expert counsel and advises responsiveness, leveraging brevity as an asset, and actively participating.

“A lot of being effective as outside counsel comes down to knowing who

complex cases and help advise my clients through difficult situations.”

Bégon’s diverse background and international experience also fueled his aspiration to work for a global company like Trellix. Since going in-house, Bégon has tackled commercial litigation, white-collar defense, government investigations, complex litigation, employment law, an IPO, and spin-off.

However, he suggests that his most lasting contribution may be influencing the next generation of legal minds. He has served as an adjunct professor at University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law for two years and currently serves as a board member for Big Thought, a nonprofit seeking to equip youth in marginalized communities with the skills and mindset to pursue a successful future.

Bégon understands the struggle of being surrounded by people who do not look like him.

“We’ve been battling diversity numbers in law for twenty years and it doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere,” the director says. “The pipelines don’t appear to be working yet. I know how exhausting it can be to try to be the sole spokesperson for an entire community of people, but I also feel that responsibility. I’m at a place in my career now where I feel more comfortable giving back to my community and being a mentor to all young attorneys, but especially those from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.”

With three children, the director understands the kind of environment he wants his kids to grow up in. He wants them to experience a world where people seek out those with different backgrounds and experiences. It’s an innate part of Bégon—to both seek out those experiences and help others do the same.

you’re dealing with,” Bégon says. “If you can understand what’s important to the company and its strategy, I

Bell Nunnally: “Anthony is a hardworking, highly intelligent, and productive attorney.

think you’ll be ahead of a lot of firms

As a litigator, he was uniquely cool under pressure. Trellix is extremely

out there. It’s rarer than you think.”

—Randy Lindley, Partner

fortunate to have such a talented individual on their team.”

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

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Evaluate

Work/Life Balance As director and senior counsel at Charter Communications, Kimberly Steuterman proves it’s possible to have a range of goals and objectives

By Noah Johnson

D E S PITE A S U C C E S S F UL L AW Y E R

career, Kimberly Steuterman constantly asks herself what she wants her life to look like. The director and senior counsel at Charter Communications brings years of private practice and in-house experiences to the American telecommunications and mass media company, and she has been asking herself the same question since early in her career.

“Early in my career, I didn’t see too many women who I admired both in their career and in their personal life,” says Steuterman, a mother of three. “It’s challenging to build a legal career while also trying to maintain a life outside of work. I felt like I never had a good idea

of what that looked like. I realized pretty quickly that I was going to have to be my own example.”

Steuterman’s approach to balancing competing priorities in her career and at home has been less about work/life balance and more about work/life integration. She says the endeavor has been as rewarding as it has been difficult and has provided her an opportunity to maintain an open mind and constantly reflect on where she wants to be in the future and how she wants to get there—a reflective process she urges young attorneys to prioritize, too.

“People always ask, ‘Where do you see yourself in ten years?’” she explains. “But

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Mo dern Couns el

Kimberly Steuterman’s Career Timeline

2005 Works as a law clerk for Onder, Shelton, O’Leary & Peterson

2004 Graduates College of Charleston an English and communications degree

2007 Obtains law degree from St. Louis University School of Law and works as an attorney for Helfrey, Neiers & Jones

2013 Becomes an attorney for Stinson Leonard Street LLP

2016 Becomes staff counsel for Safety National

Kimberly Steuterman Director and Senior Counsel Charter Communications

Jennifer Korman

2020 Joins Charter Communications as senior manager and counsel

2022 Promoted to director and senior counsel

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Evaluate

Charter Communications by the Numbers Nearly

500 million IP devices

connected to its network

32 million

video subscribers

customers in

41 states through its

Spectrum brand

14.9 million

$54 billion in annual

revenue (2022)

6 million

mobile lines

8.8 million voice subscribers

More than

800,000 miles of network infrastructure

Source: Charter Communications

when they ask, most think career wise.

I would challenge others and myself to ask, ‘Where do you see yourself holistically in ten years? What’s your day to day like? What’s your family like? What kind of community things can you be involved in and how do those things work together?’ Look at the big picture.

“As lawyers,” she continues, “we can be very myopic and only think of the task at hand about how we’re going to handle this issue or win this case.

But you can’t lose the forest through the trees.”

Steuterman’s interest in law stemmed from a high school English teacher who gave her a solid foundation in writing. When she got to college, she wasn’t sure what she wanted do, but her talent for English eventually made law school a natural next step after receiving her undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston. Though she

didn’t have any lawyers in her family, she received more legal exposure through internships.

“I learned about being motivated, being hardworking, and advocating for people at a personal injury firm,” Steuterman reflects.

After law school, she went on to work for Helfrey, Neiers & Jones, managing all aspects of litigation including research, drafting, arguing dispositive motions, and witness preparation in addition to defending depositions for several years. There, she got more hands-on experience and continued to hone her legal skills.

That experience paved the way for a role at Stinson Leonard Street LLP, where she took on a wide range of clients from individuals to privately held enterprises to international corporations. She practiced complex commercial litigation with a focus on school

funding litigation, contract, and closely held business disputes. It was another eye-opener for Steuterman.

“It was truly a luxurious way to practice,” she recalls. “I was coming from this small firm, with these small clients who basically wanted to do the bare minimum to a big firm with million-dollar cases and clients who were willing to pay us to chase down every last detail.”

In 2016, she decided to move in-house at a specialty insurance company, where she managed company litigation and provided legal support to claims, finance, credit risk, premium audit, and risk control business units.

The highlight of this role was managing an eight-week jury trial on a bad faith insurance case, resulting in a complete defense verdict.

Those experiences prepared Steuterman for her role at Charter Communi-

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cations, where she takes pride in her team and the work they do.

“Our team is really good at recognizing all of our various streng ths and weak nesses.

Everybody works differently and everybody thrives differently, and that’s really important to utilize for the overall success of the group,” she says. “It’s easy in a big corporate job to wonder how meaningful your work is. I like to think about building relationships with my coworkers. How can I provide support so that they can achieve their business and personal objectives, while also mitigating the overall risk to the company?

“It often comes together in a deal that involves a piece of litigation, a business deadline, and a contract renewal—those projects are fast-paced and thrilling to work on,” she continues. “But at the end of it, when I think about the relationships I’ve developed over the life of the project, those are what make me the most proud.”

Patterson Belknap: “Kim brings her sharp intelligence and

SIDLEY CONGRATULATES

KIM STEUTERMAN OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS on her recognition by Modern Counsel.

AMERICA • ASIA PACIFIC • EUROPE

decisive manner to every issue. And she does it all with a wry sense of humor. As outside counsel, you can’t ask for anything more.”

We congratulate and celebrate Kimberly Steuterman, Director, Senior Counsel at Charter Communications, for her recognition in Modern Counsel.

We are proud of our partnership with Kimberly and the entire Charter Communications Legal team.

sidley.com

Patterson Belknap is a New York City based law firm with approximately 200 lawyers. Patterson Belknap delivers a full range of service across more than 20 practice groups in both litigation and commercial law.

—Saul Shapiro, Partner Sidley: “Kim is diligent, whip-smart, and delightful.

She is able to develop and execute creative and strategic solutions for the company when faced with some of its toughest problems.”

—Margaret Allen and Penny Reid, Partners

Attorney Advertising – Sidley Austin LLP, One South Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60603. +1 312 853 7000.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. MN-20598

For more information, please visit www.pbwt.com.

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Guiding Light Heather Smith Michael uses her extensive litigation background as senior vice president and chief brokerage relations Counsel at JLL

By Pat Milhizer

HE ATHER SMITH MICHAEL HAS A

service philosophy that starts with a question.

“How can I help? A lot of people view legal as the impediment to doing what the business wants to do,” she says. “I always take the approach of, let me give you advice and let me show you the risks. But how can I help you get where you want to go?”

Michael is senior vice president and chief brokerage relations counsel at JLL, a global real estate company that helps clients buy, sell, build, occupy, and invest in properties in the industrial, commercial, retail, and hotel sectors.

In her role, Michael assists business leadership with engaging and onboarding real estate brokers and brokerage teams for the company. She negotiates those initial agreements and the separations that can spark litigation. She also assists with issues related to broker ethics, licenses, and regulations and manages high-level broker-related litigation. It all comes with an approach that can prevent a crisis or mitigate one before it spirals.

“The litigation background is such an asset when negotiating contracts and generally advising on risk,” she explains.

“I know what can go wrong because I’ve been on the other end of this. I negotiate

Tracy Bosworth Page

Heather Smith Michael SVP and Chief Brokerage Relations Counsel JLL

Tracy Bosworth Page

156 Evaluate

Mo dern Couns el

contracts with an eye to what’s the worst-case scenario. What are the risks, and how can we minimize them?”

Her path to a legal career started in a place where the lights are bright and the audience is focused: the stage.

Growing up in Miami, she started dancing at five years old and joined a professional children’s theater company at age twelve to perform at schools and charity events around South Florida.

“You get to miss school and get paid,” Michael reminisces.

It was her life, six days a week, until knee injuries ended her performances when she was just sixteen. She never strayed too far from the theater, attending Broadway shows and other performances throughout her life.

The experience fueled her ability to work with a diverse group of people, be a professional, take direction, and engage in projects with serious focus.

“You aren’t afraid to get in front of a big group of people and talk,” says Michael, who sits on the advisory board of Theatrical Outfit, a theater company in downtown Atlanta.

Michael earned her law degree at Emory University School of Law in 1995 and started her career in Miami at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, primarily handling securities litigation. Licensed in Georgia and Florida, she moved back to Atlanta to live closer to her soon-to-be husband and joined Long Aldridge & Norman (now Dentons) to work on securities and commercial litigation and domestic relations matters.

She moved to King & Spalding to handle high-level commercial litiga-

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“I know the business well, and I like being involved in the decision-making, the advising, getting to know the business and its leaders, and getting to know what they need and what they value.” tion and then Arnall Golden Gregory to represent clients in commercial litigation, securities litigation, professional liability matters, real estate litigation, and bankruptcy cases. In 2013, she moved in-house at JLL. It’s a move that Michael, now the mother of two teenagers, wishes she had made sooner.

“This is what I was meant to do.

What I was missing when I was working for a law firm was the connection with the client and their business. While I really liked being surrounded by smart, interesting people and walking down the hall and saying, ‘What do you think about this?’, I felt there was a disconnect,” she says. “I wasn’t involved in the process and strategy—and wasn’t getting a deep dive into the clients’ busi-

ness. I was there to provide a service but didn’t feel like a partner.”

At JLL, Michael was part of the team in 2019 that onboarded and integrated hundreds of new brokers when JLL acquired HFF Inc., a leading capital markets firm. She helped navigate the existing broker employment agreements and compensation plans to create a new compensation plan for the combined entity, while honoring obligations to legacy JLL brokers.

That same year, she worked with the legal and human resources teams to convert more than six hundred JLL leasing brokers from employee status to a quasi-independent contractor status provided by the tax code for qualified real estate agents. The successful

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2650 ATTO R N E Y S 44 LO C AT I O N S˚

FrankGecker LLP is proud to partner with

Greenberg Traurig

Heather Smith

congratulates Heather Smith Michael on this well‑deserved

Michael and JLL.

recognition & applauds her commitment to serve as Senior Vice President, Chief Brokerage Relations Counsel for Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

Greenberg Traurig, LLP

GT_Law

GreenbergTraurigLLP

GT_Law

Representing creditors, committees and trustees in complex commercial bankruptcy and insolvency matters.

conversion provided tax benefits to the brokers and cost savings to JLL. “I’m providing greater value than I was before,” she says. “I know the business well, and I like being involved in the decision-making, the advising, getting to know the business and its leaders, and getting to know what they need and what they value.”

She appreciates the culture at JLL and the foundation of civility and professionalism. “You’re not just there to serve a purpose.

You’re there to bring your whole self,” she attests.

Michael advises young attorneys to “follow the path that seems right to you.”

“Sometimes we think, ‘This is what I have to do.’ And that’s not necessarily true,” she observes.

“Find people who support you and your goals. If you’re not finding that, you always have choices. You always have options. I didn’t always know that as a more junior lawyer. It’s really about developing relationships. Follow what is important to you and find people who support that vision. That will take you further than, ‘I have to go to this law school and work for that firm.’”

W W W . G T L A W . C O M Greenberg Traurig is a service mark and trade name of Greenberg Traurig, LLP and Greenberg Traurig, P.A. ©2023 Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Attorneys at Law. All rights reserved. Attorney advertising. Contact: Tracy L. Gerber,777 South Flagler Drive | Suite 300 East, West Palm Beach, FL 33401 | 561.650.7900. °These numbers are subject to fluctuation. Images in this advertisement do not depict Greenberg Traurig attorneys, clients, staff or facilities.

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Greenberg Traurig: “Heather is a strategic thinker and zealous advocate. Her wisdom and experience,

fgllp.com

combined with her ability to stay levelheaded under pressure, makes her a great business partner.”

—Elizabeth E. Moum, Shareholder

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Chart Your Own Path W. R. Grace & Co.’s Viktoriya Shpigelman has stayed true to herself while adapting to change and overcoming challenges throughout her career

By Natalie Kochanov

VIKTORIYA SHPIGELMAN DIDN’T GROW

up around attorneys, but the law has long held a fascination for her. She attributes her initial interest to immigrating to the US at the age of eight from Soviet-era Ukraine, where rules and norms looked quite different from what she encountered in her new home.

“My family came to the US because of the intense religious discrimination that we experienced in Ukraine. Even as a young child, I was exposed to it on a daily basis,” Shpigelman says. “Coming from a very different political system and background helped me appreciate and be very inquisitive about how the legal system and the government in the US work.”

Her curiosity set Shpigelman on a career path that has carried her to W. R. Grace & Co., a specialty chemicals and materials company with operations around the globe. Since joining Grace in 2019, she has transitioned from a litigation practice to a fully commercial role—that of assistant general counsel to multiple business units. All the while, she has continued to carve out time, as she has done throughout her career, for the causes that matter most to her.

Viktoriya Shpigelman Assistant General Counsel of Specialty Catalyst, Refining Technologies & ART W. R. Grace & Co.

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Shpigelman got her start in the business transactions group of Washington, DC-based firm Venable LLP. As the 2008 financial crisis unfolded, however, she pivoted away from business transactions, first to appellate matters and ultimately to litigation. A decade into her tenure at Venable, she began to consider moving in-house.

“I felt I was in a unique position where I had the business transactions background as well as the litigation background,” she reflects. “I thought I could use both of those to help a company avoid the litigation quagmire.”

Shpigelman came on board at Grace as a replacement for the company’s retiring long-time litigator. She inherited a dynamic role with global reach, yet she found herself craving the chance to bring her transactional expertise to the table.

Since broadening her practice to encom-

pass commercial support for the specialty catalyst business—and later the fluid catalytic cracking and hydroprocessing— she has gotten to do exactly that.

Although her current role is technically outside the litigation realm, Shpigelman still finds plenty of opportunities to put on her litigator hat in the course of her commercial dealings. “I’m the first stop for dispute resolutions with our customers, so if there is a dispute, I can use my litigation skills to help the business,” she confirms. “I can also counsel my internal clients, even during the negotiation process, on best practices through a litigation lens.”

Beyond looking to prevent litigation from the earliest stages of contract negotiations, Shpigelman counsels her internal clients on strategies for the business at large. “In my time at Grace, there have been a lot of transitions within the

Mikhail Shpigelman

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company,” she notes. “I’ve had to weather those transitions and help my internal clients weather those transitions, while also keeping the trains moving and on time.”

Fortunately, Shpigelman has never been one to back down from a challenge. “As the only attorney in my immediate or extended family, I had to figure out how the legal profession operates, how law firms operate, and how in-house legal departments operate—all without having the benefit of a family mentor to rely on,” she says. “I had to make my own way in the legal profession.”

For Shpigelman, charting her path has always included contributing to projects outside of work, from volunteering at nonprofits like House of Ruth and HIAS to fundraising for her native Ukraine amid the ongoing war against Russia. “My husband is also originally from Ukraine, and we’ve tried to keep the family history and knowledge alive by passing that down to our children,” she adds.

“When their schools have culture nights, we’re always there representing Ukraine and Ukrainian culture and trying to teach others that the country is more than just what you hear on TV.” Between her community involvement and her fast-paced legal practice at Grace, Shpigelman has managed to strike a meaningful balance between the personal and the professional. She advises aspiring attorneys to remain flexible and open to possibilities. “You may think your career is going to look one way, and then it takes a very different turn from what you anticipated,” she says. “Give yourself permission and liberty to explore various areas of the law. You might have strengths in areas where you didn’t think you did.”

Shpigelman is proof that unexpected challenges can lead to exciting opportunities—and to fulfilment in both work and life.

Akerman LLP: “We are grateful for the opportunity to work with Viktoriya. She fosters a team-first attitude that drives collaboration and success, while elevating and empowering everyone involved.”

—Ryan Roman, Partner

Viktoriya Shpigelman represents that rare combination of talents that comprise exceptional lawyers – legal acumen, judgement, wisdom, integrity, and most importantly empathy.

Akerman is proud to support the great work Viktoriya does for W. R. Grace & Co.

Ryan Roman Partner, Litigation Fort Lauderdale, Miami 305 982 5543 ryan.roman@akerman.com Michael Marsh Partner, Litigation Fort Lauderdale, Miami 305 982 5507 michael.marsh@akerman.com 700+ Lawyers 24 Offices akerman.com ©2023 Akerman LLP. All rights reserved.

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A Hands-On Leader Director and Senior Attorney Vanessa Houston helps her colleagues at American Airlines adapt to change by staying proactive

IN HER DUAL ROLES AS DIRECTOR

and senior attorney, Vanessa Houston focuses on labor and employment litigation matters for American Airlines.

As a leader in a legal area that’s continually evolving as it relates to compensation, benefits, work hours, time off, and more, Houston takes pride in being proactive, helping her colleagues understand what’s coming through trainings and drafting employee policies and procedures. Recently, there

has been no shortage of issues coming across the attorney’s desk.

Here are two issues making waves at the state and federal levels: The CROWN Act

In 2023, the Texas Labor Code prohibited race discrimination on the basis of an employee’s hair texture or a protective hairstyle associated with race, including include braids, locks, and twists. Twenty additional states

have passed a similar law, called the CROWN Act—an acronym for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.

The law gained traction in 2020 amid a series of instances, including two Texas students who were told to cut their hair or be disciplined.

“I am incredibly thankful to the Governor for signing the CROWN Act into law,” Texas Representative Rhetta Bowers said in a statement. “The

marchello74/stock.adobe.com

By Joseph Stark

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A Timeline of Vanessa Houston’s Career

2010 Pursues her JD at University of Kentucky College of Law

2007 Attends Marshall University, studying political science and psychology

2013 Accepts her first position as an attorney at Dinsmore & Shohl LLP

2019 Works as an attorney at Seyfarth Shaw LLP

2022 Accepts an in-house position at American Airlines as director and senior attorney

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Vanessa Houston’s Volunteer Experiences •

Mentor at the Big Brother Big Sister Foundation Inc.

•

Mentor at Dress for Success Louisville

•

Associate board member at Maryhurst

•

Attorney volunteer at Reily Reentry Project: Expungement Clinic

•

Fellow at the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity

•

Volunteer at the American Heart Association

CROWN Act is a civil rights law that will improve the lives of countless Texans, and it will be appreciated by more people than we can imagine.”

With more than 900 lawyers across 17 offices, Seyfarth provides advisory, litigation, and transactional legal services to clients worldwide.

Seyfarth is a full-service law firm rooted in serving the labor law needs of airlines and railroads.

We continue that tradition today, offering all aspects of labor, employment, and benefits law services for carriers and their service providers.

www.seyfarth.com

Artificial Intelligence and Employment

According to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chairwoman Charlotte Burrows, more that 80 percent of employers are using artificial intelligence (AI) in some form of their work and employment decision-making. That’s why lawmakers around the US have been weighing the benefits and risk of leveraging AI in employment matters.

While there is there is no federal law or regulation in place, many have proposed and enacted bills to regulate the use of AI in the hiring process and in the workforce.

Federal agencies have also been focused on the matter. In May 2022, the EEOC published guidance to help employers comply with the American Disabilities Act (ADA) while using AI in the workplace. In the following January, that agency issued a draft enforcement plan that placed AI-related employment discrimination at the top of its priorities. The US Department of Justice has also posted ADA and AI-related guidance.

New York City has been one of the places to go the farthest on its AI regulation journey. In July 2023, New York City began enforcing a law that prohibits employers or employment agencies from using automated employment decision tools to make employment decisions unless the tool is audited for bias each year. Employers must also publish a public summary of the audit and notify applicants and employees who are screened by the tool.

Seyfarth Shaw LLP: Vanessa is an incredible person, talented labor and employment attorney, and an up-and-coming leader in the airline industry and her community. As her former colleagues, we are proud to see her featured. Congratulations, Vanessa!

Mo dern Couns el

Finding Her Match Katie Dugan is taking her employment law career to the next level and building new relationships at Match Group

By Karen Schwartz

tktktktktktktktkt

KATIE DUGAN, VICE PRESIDENT AND

senior counsel of employment at Match Group, grew up knowing she wanted to be a lawyer. She watched her father, also an attorney, in court while she was in high school and college, and thought it was amazing.

“I knew right away I wanted to go to law school,” she reflects. “Through the lens of my dad and all the things he had done in his life and career, I thought it would be a great education and open up so many doors and opportunities.”

Dugan attended Seton Hall Law School, clerked for a judge in New Jersey, and went on to accept a job with a regional law firm. “I felt a deep connection to employment law,” she says, explaining that much of it is tied to interpersonal relationships and has lots of emotion behind it. “I felt, if this is what I’m going to do for my career, I want to do something I really love.”

When a coworker went on maternity leave, Dugan stepped into her employment law compliance focused role, working on

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Katie Dugan VP and Senior Counsel of Employment Match Group

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trainings, separation agreements, handbooks, and more. “I really liked it and realized it was a different skill set than being a litigator,” she says. “I wanted to do more of that work.” She moved to another law firm, where her practice consisted of half compliance and half litigation, and then sought an in-house role.

Dugan relocated to Los Angeles and got her first in-house role in 2017 with toy-making giant Mattel. Her work there prepared her well for her current job at Match. “I was used to working with a variety of stakeholders on various issues including policy, procedures, and day-to-day employee relations issues,” she says. She went on to work at SaaS company Yext in December 2020 before accepting her current role at Match in 2023.

Having practiced almost ten years before going in-house, Dugan says she brings a depth of substantive experience as well as an understanding of risk analysis. “When you go in-house, people are looking at you to provide valuable input on important decisions. People want to hear what you have to say, they want your partnership,” she says.

“Working in private practice gave me the confidence to make my opinion known and to help support the businesses.”

Similar to her days at Mattel, Dugan has a number of brands to attend to, all with different needs. “It’s really just prioritizing and understanding what’s urgent, who you need to get back to, what fires need to be put out first, and long-term planning in terms of what bigger initiatives and projects you want to get done,” she says.

She aims to move ahead with progress on trainings as well as update international policies and employee handbooks at quarterly or

Courtesy of Katie Dugan

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“If you keep aligned with longer-term projects and initiatives, there’s so much value you can add beyond the dayto-day partnership.” yearly intervals. “If you keep aligned with longer-term projects and initiatives, there’s so much value you can add beyond the day-to-day partnership,” Dugan explains.

At Yext, which has employees in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, India, and beyond, she learned about ownership of the various elements under the umbrella of global employment. “It was only me. I was really digging into the weeds on the global employment piece,” she says. “I’m excited to share my knowledge of working in-house across different companies, bringing that knowledge here to see what, if anything, can be done better.”

Today, the lawyer and mother of three says she’s excited about Match’s mission, its focus on human connection, and people finding a spark.

Relationship building is also important to being successful in her job, she adds, because partnership with stakeholders makes her work go smoothly. “You want them to come to you for advice,” Dugan says. “I’m not just telling them what my legal advice is and walking away. I’m partnering with them on every aspect to make the best decision they can.”

As the sole labor and employment attorney for Match at present, Dugan

says she’s enjoying meeting the new people and tackling the new issues as well as exploring any process improvements she can make. “I love diving into things,” she says, “I love just looking at ways I can improve processes and also ways I can upscale the skill sets of the people around me.”

Being a good listener is a key skill for the role, she explains. “You can understand what the issues and the problems are, and it also helps you build trust and relationships among the different business partners,” Dugan says. “Being on the management side versus a plaintiff’s attorney, I help people make decisions that aren’t just legally correct but are the right thing to do.”

Unconventional approaches.

Ingenious results.

Littler congratulates our friend and valued business partner, Katie Dugan, on recognition for her professional achievements.

Labor & Employment Law Solutions littler.com

EQT Plaza 625 Liberty Avenue | 26th Floor Littler Mendelson PC: “Katie is a great business partner who is attuned to the employment issues that may arise and impact an organization. Littler is proud to celebrate Katie’s achievements and recognition in Modern Counsel.”

—Elaine Baker, Shareholder

Pittsburgh, PA 15222 | 412.201.7600

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“There Isn’t Always Just One Right Way” Throughout her career, Brigette Koreny has sought learning and growth. She continues this mission at Enviri Corporation and as a mentor for young professionals.

IN HER FORMATIVE YEARS, BRIGETTE

Koreny believed that becoming a lawyer would allow her continue to learn and grow. Decades later, that conviction has held strong within her assistant general counsel for Enviri Corporation (formerly known as Harsco Corporation), a global market leader providing environmental solutions for industrial and specialty waste streams.

Koreny is proud to help the company find creative and workable solutions.

“Our businesses are focused on trying to help their customers solve their most pressing sustainability challenges, and my role is to support those efforts,” she says.

In her work, she collaborates with a cross-functional global team of legal and nonlegal professionals and greatly values others’ views, knowledge, and experience. She strongly believes that asking questions, soliciting feedback on different options, and developing a solution that all the key stakeholders are aligned on leads to better outcomes.

“Of course, as legal counsel, I have to ensure that we are achieving our objectives in a legal and ethical way,” Koreny explains. “But just because you’ve always done something a certain way doesn’t mean that’s the right answer in the new situation. In this profession, it is often better to listen before you speak, a

skill which lawyers aren’t always good at. I believe that you have to approach things with an open mind and realize that there isn’t always just one right way.”

Koreny joined the company in 2019 to execute on the company’s transformation strategy to become a global, single-thesis environmental solutions business. In addition to advising on various acquisitions, divestitures, and strategic equity investments to further this strategy, she also works with individuals at all levels of the organization—from site personnel to the board of directors—on a wide variety of other legal matters. “There’s never a ‘boring’ day at the office,” Koreny jokes. Since

whyframeshot/stock.adobe.com

By Noah Johnson

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joining the company, she has taken on new responsibilities every year.

Her desire to work on complex, challenging projects that would never become routine prompted her to pursue a joint JD/MBA program and then to seek out a role as an M&A associate. In part, Koreny credits her MBA education for being able to take a business-minded approach to her work and not just provide an answer to a specific legal question.

She started her career in Pittsburgh at a mid-sized law firm, which allowed her to take on more responsibility and have more client interaction earlier in her career than many of her big law peers. When two of the partners she worked with closely decided to move their practice to a larger firm, she transitioned with them, armed with experience and a hunger for more.

“Starting at mid-sized firm and then transitioning with partners that already knew my work was the best of both worlds,” Koreny reflects.

“The move gave me a bigger platform and the opportunity to interact with and learn from more lawyers who helped me further my legal skills.”

In addition to supporting the company’s vision, Koreny has a passion for mentorship that stems from the many individuals who’ve helped her throughout her career.

She pays it forward by offering her time and guidance to young professionals both within her company and as president of the Pitt Business Alumnae Council.

She has come to realize that being the mentor can often be even more rewarding than being the mentee. In fact, she often finds herself leaving conversations with up-and-coming

professionals feeling recharged and with a different perspective that she wouldn’t get from speaking with her peers.

“Early in your career, you have that excitement and fire that you can lose after a while if you’re not careful.” she says. “You become so used to the day-to-day that you forget why got you into it. They challenge you to look at things differently. If you’ve been doing something the same way, you can fall into that trap of saying, ‘This is just the way it’s done.’ There’s a lot to gain from at least having others challenge your thinking.”

Koreny advises young people to take time to build broad, diverse professional relationships with people at all levels of your organization as well as with individuals outside of it.

“A lot of young professionals often assume that building a professional network is finding people with the right job title and who exert a lot of apparent power, but you often learn the most from the people you may least expect,” she says. “If you take the time to get to know individuals and learn how they add value to the organization or project, not only will you make better decisions, but you will also build a network that is much more willing to help you and that sincerely wants to see you be successful.”

Squire Patton Boggs: “Brigette has a broad knowledge of many complex areas of law, and her commitment to delivering the highest quality outcomes is apparent in everything she does. We are so pleased to work with her and the Harsco team!”

—Michele Connell, Global Managing Partner

We are honored to work with Brigette Koreny and the Harsco team. We applaud her outstanding contributions and commitment to excellence at Harsco and in the broader legal community.

Squire Patton Boggs is a full-service law firm.

Combining sound legal counsel and a deep knowledge of your business enables us to resolve your legal challenges, whether they are local, regional or global. We provide unique insight at the point where law, business and government meet, through a connected team of experienced, highly regarded lawyers and public policy advisors.

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Evaluate

Expect the Unexpected How Kristi Garrett navigated the career jungle gym to find a perfect fit as QBE North America’s vice president and associate general counsel of legal, regulatory, and compliance

By Joseph Kay KRISTI GARRETT HAD TO STEP OFF THE

career ladder in order to climb it. Long before she held her current role as vice president and associate general counsel of legal, regulatory and compliance at QBE North America, she spent years digging into areas of the legal profession that she found less fulfilling. Along the way, she discovered the kind of role that demanded her best skills and offered her favorite challenges.

Today she provides legal support to QBE’s underwriting business units and is the portal through which those clients access legal expertise. “I get a unique opportunity to really understand the business and what we’re trying to do together,” Garrett explains. “The role itself is really rewarding, and building these relationships is a great way to spend my day.”

Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, QBE is a multinational insurance and reinsurance firm with operations in twenty-seven countries. The North American division consists of four units—including specialty, commercial, crops, and reinsurance—and reports annual gross written premiums over $7 billion. Garrett came to QBE in 2021 after years in private practice.

“QBE values not just what you do but how you do it,” Garrett says. “This allows for the freedom and confidence to capitalize on skills that I’m good at and enjoy: strategizing, issue spotting, and problem-solving.”

Because the insurance industry is highly regulated, the VP must keep abreast of ever-changing laws at multiple jurisdictional levels while also providing clear, actionable support to her

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Kristi Garrett VP and Associate General Counsel of Legal, Regulatory & Compliance QBE North America

Andrew Collings

QBE North America

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Evaluate

“You can’t control everything, in your job or at home. Be OK with it being scary. Each time you face it, there’s a little bit less panic and anxiety.

Uncertainty is to be expected.”

non-lawyer colleagues. It’s important to optimize the flow of information; when people repeatedly come to her with the same questions, it’s time to ask why. Then, they can distribute that information from a central place.

When business partners can help themselves, the whole enterprise moves more efficiently.

It’s also crucial to build trusting relationships throughout the organization. QBE’s leadership is flexible and engaged; Garrett finds that her opinion is valued as she helps others navigate business gray areas inside of legal strictures. “Earning small wins and having recurring conversations has been critical as it led to the business seeking out my expertise more and more. It’s not an example of one thing—it’s building that relationship, building trust, and having them make time for us,” she explains.

Garrett remembers assuming that an in-house role may be easier than a private practice one. That hasn’t held

true for her. While the position gave her a more flexible work/life balance, the job itself is at least as difficult, if not more, in its own ways. “The most challenging thing is to take these legal questions and answers and distill them down for business. What can I say as a digestible piece of information that’s not going to dilute the law?” she says.

“At a firm, I was primarily a lawyer for lawyers. Now, I’m a lawyer for business.”

She also didn’t expect to go in-house.

Throughout law school, Garrett had internalized the private practice ladder model: summer associate, associate, partner. But several surprises steered her in a different direction and along the way she discovered it wasn’t a ladder at all but, as they say, a jungle gym.

Her first position was at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae (later Dewey & LeBoeuf), which earned headlines as the largest law firm collapse in American history. After a few years, Garrett took an early career sabbati-

cal to rethink her course. “I thought I was on a certain trajectory,” she recalls, “but I decided I needed to push pause on that path.” She moved to Budapest, Hungary, where she used her skills to support a legal nongovernmental organization. Her time away from Dewey made her question what she really wanted, and she realized she wasn’t quite done with law firm life.

Not long after returning to Dewey, Garrett faced a new challenge: becoming one of over a thousand lawyers to climb out of the Dewey bankruptcy wreckage in search of a new job.

Her next role ultimately landed her in London, where she pivoted to an entirely new practice area. She didn’t enjoy fighting with outside counsel and was quickly losing interest in litigation.

“I changed my practice entirely, eight years into my career. It felt like I went down to the bottom rung, but that was really just a move in my jungle gym,” she says. It was during this period

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that she got exposure to insurance regulatory work.

Her collective experiences helped her rediscover the legal work that empowered her.

Ref lecting on that sometimesvertical and sometimes-lateral movement, she highlights a couple of lessons that continue to guide her work today. First, setbacks will happen, but resilience can be learned. In London, for example, Garrett had to adapt quickly to unfamiliar systems and norms, and she had four and a half successful years there.

Second, chaos can be scary, but it’s OK to be afraid, and time spent in that discomfort will reduce that discomfort in the future. Garrett, a mother of two, practices managing uncertainty throughout her daily life. “You can’t control everything, in your job or at home,” she adds. “Be OK with it being scary. Each time you face it, there’s a little bit less panic and anxiety. Uncertainty is to be expected.”

We Applaud You.

Congratulations to our friend and client

Kristi Garrett

Vice President, Associate General Counsel

on this recognition of your legal accomplishments and contributions to QBE North America

Foley is proud to support Kristi Garrett and QBE in achieving their legal and business goals.

For more information about Foley, please contact JillAllison Opell Partner | New York City jaopell@foley.com Kevin Fitzgerald Partner | Milwaukee kfitzgerald@foley.com Ethan Lenz Partner | Madison elenz@foley.com Morgan Tilleman Partner | Milwaukee mtilleman@foley.com

FOLEY.COM

Foley & Lardner LLP: “Working with Kristi is always so enjoyable.

She is smart, hardworking, thoughtful, and just a pleasure to work with. Most importantly, Kristi knows how to think outside the box to solve problems.”

—JillAllison Opell, Partner

www.lockelord.com

Locke Lord LLP is honored to have worked

© 2023 Locke Lord LLP

with Kristi for many years on transactional and regulatory and compliance matters, and admire her creativity, leadership, and drive.

©2023 Foley & Lardner LLP | 23.43902 Attorney Advertisement | 90 Park Ave., New York, NY 10016 | 212.682.7474

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Index

People & Companies Karim Adatia P138 Insight

Steffany Cunningham P62 National Express

Kristi Garrett P170 QBE North America

Christin Bassett P80 Rite Aid

Brittany McElmury Dietz P130 Samsung Eletronics America Inc.

Dr. Benjamin Gündling P106 Freudenberg North America

Anthony Bégon P146 Trellix

Mark A. Dorfman P83 Leonardo DRS

Mindy Harper P46 Mattress Firm

Jason Burch P32 Uber

Caeden Curtis Drayton P110 Stanley Black & Decker Inc.

Eileen Hollcraft P90 Corteva Agriscience

Emily Burns P126 Google

Katie Dugan P165 Match Group

Vanessa Houston P162 American Airlines

Patrick Byrd P26 Boardwalk Pipelines LLP

Brandon Egren P134 Verizon

Dianna Jones P32 Uber

Jessica Chan P32 Uber

Maureen Frangopolous P32 Uber

Lando Juarez P32 Uber

Joan Clarke-Narcisse P74 Aflac

Nicole Fritz P10 The Kraft Heinz Company

Paetra Kaufmann P46 Mattress Firm

Jessie Collings-Baurier P16 Cargill

Michelle Gallardo P118 North American Bancard

Dak Kees P19 Tyson Foods

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Mo dern Couns el

Samuel Kitchens P70 Match Group

Kindel Nuno P46 Mattress Firm

Caitlin Klingenberg P22 Vermeer Corporation

Roxane Reardon

Brigette Koreny P168 Enviri Corporation

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Cherise Latortue P28 Flynn Restaurant Group Heather Smith Michael P154 JLL

Co-Head of the Global Capital Markets Practice 212.455.2758 rfreardon@stblaw.com Roxane principally represents issuers and investment banks engaged in IPOs, and other registered and 144A offerings and private placements of equity, equity-linked and debt securities.

Daria Russell P46 Mattress Firm Viktoriya Shpigelman P159 W. R. Grace & Co. Kimberly Steuterman P150 Charter Communications Jerry Swindell P94 Johnson & Johnson William Thro P86 University of Kentucky

Marisa Stavenas

Matthew Miller P142 Amazon

Partner

Iris Mok P122 Intel Corporation

mstavenas@stblaw.com

Monica Pa Moye P66 The Walt Disney Company Bill Novomisle P113 Cresco Labs

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP 212.455.2303 Marisa advises on complex capital raising, investment and liability management matters, including debt and equity issuances, IPOs, structured investments, tender and exchange offers and reorganizations.

Shruti Patel P46 Mattress Firm

Juan Valdivieso P32 Uber Chuck Webb P98 FedEx Corporation Peter Wu P56 Adobe Thomas Zoeller P102 Norfolk Southern Corporation

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BOB

FOR YOUR The Purpose issue highlights attorneys who are advocates for positive change. Many of their employers are also committed to a variety of causes.

GOOGLE

TYSON FOODS Launched in 2016, Tyson Foods’ Upward Academy is an in-plant education program designed to provide life skills and professional development opportunities to its frontline workers in Springdale, Arkansas, at no cost. It’s also working to expand to include access to more than 175 programs from over 35 of the nation’s top universities and learning providers.

Illustraly/Adobe Stock (Aflac, Google), Nuthawut/Adobe Stock (Tyson Foods)

AFLAC For the past eighteen years, Fortune has ranked Aflac one of the “World’s Most Admired Companies,” and for good reason. The financial services and insurance company prioritizes making employees feel valued and inspired to give back. Additionally, Aflac is committed to reducing its environmental footprint and improving communities, cities, and the planet.

Climate action is at the center of Google’s corporate social responsibility efforts. As a carbon neutral company, the tech giant has unified its practices, partnerships, and products around the mission to foster sustainability at scale. Google also partners with nonprofits, research organizations, governments, and businesses in order to build tools that accelerate change.

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AMAZON Amazon is committed to a variety of initiatives, including combating housing and food insecurity, providing education support for underrepresented and undeserved communities, promoting environmental sustainability, maintaining a transparent and equitable global supply chain, and providing all employees with ongoing training and educational opportunities.

THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY

Hurca!/Adobe Stock (Amazon), VectorMine/Adobe Stock (The Walt Disney Company), ANDRII /Adobe Stock (Johnson & Johnson)

The century-old Walt Disney Company boasts a commitment to operating with integrity and responsibility as well as investing in its employees and social responsibility. In 2022, Disney spent $800 million with diverse suppliers, directed $140 million to programs serving underrepresented communities, and hired 12,500 veterans through its Heroes Work Here program.

JOHNSON & JOHNSON Johnson & Johnson’s Health for Humanity 2025 Goals were created to focus its citizenship and sustainability efforts where the company believed it could achieve the greatest impact. Its goal states, “We blend heart, science, and ingenuity to profoundly change the trajectory of health for humanity.”

Initiatives include championing global health equity, empowering employees, and advancing environmental health.

You’ve Built It Now Share It American Builders Quarterly highlights leaders and projects on the cutting edge of today’s US building industry.

For editorial consideration, contact info@americanbuildersquarterly.com

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