Modern Counsel #39

Whether it’s for creators or minority communities, Tyrone Scott helps find a better way through music licensing at SoundCloud P38

AN

ADVOCATE

FOR ARTISTS

Tyrone Scott helps SoundCloud “walk the walk” when it comes to prioritizing creators first in his role as director of business and legal affairs for music licensing P38

Implement

P24

Aditi Suresh is a young general counsel striving to commit to a career in sustainability

P28

Annika K. Martin’s pivot from journalism to law took her from uncovering injustice to actively redressing it

Feature

P52

Brex’s Yeve Chitiga has learned the importance of empathy, prioritizing mental health, and work/life harmony

P56

Darryl Wilson’s passion for diversity has been a staple of his legal career and inspires him as assistant general counsel of litigation at Honeywell

Lead

P68

Teddy Adams reflects on leaving two decades of private practice excellence to lead the legal team at Crown Castle

P72

Pamela Crocker reflects on her willingness to tackle massive change in her tenure at Vanguard as well as a parent

Peter Garritano (Martin), Jaida Moore (Chitiga), Nicki Evans (Adams)

P28

P52

P68

Pivot

P88

Growing up, Barbara Dunlap learned to adapt—a skill that has helped her legal career flourish

P98

Motorola Solutions’ Kaidi Johnson shares the value of being open to new opportunities and staying true to yourself

Focus

P102

Mark Casper draws upon decades of experience to drive in-house excellence at Marvell Technology as executive vice president, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary

P108

Inspired by his diverse experience, Jonathan Cohen now helps PNY customers according to his personal values

Evaluate

P124

Elise Puma draws upon professional and personal life experience to thrive as head of litigation at AB InBev

P140

Randa Soudah details her move in-house, the importance of flexibility, and her twenty-two years of growth at Paramount Global

P88

P108

P140

Timothy Barker (Dunlap), Fernando Herrera (Cohen), Matthew Taplinger (Soudah)

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My six-year-old daughter is a planner.

She recently set a goal to determine what she wants to be when she grows up by the time she finishes first grade. Initially, I told her that she has many years until she has to start considering a profession, but she has always insisted on being one step ahead. Case in point: she already knows she wants to have two kids (preferably girls), drive a pink convertible, and live in a home that resembles her Frozen playhouse.

I’ve grown quite accustomed to her wise-beyond-her-years questions. However, I was recently caught off guard when she asked, “Can I be a mommy and have a job?”

I reminded her that I have been a working mother for much of her life and the entirety of her little sister’s existence. Somehow the conversation turned into a discussion on managing work/life balance and the challenges that moms face in the American workforce. I realized she likely wouldn’t ask this question of her father as he juggles the roles of dad and lawyer every day. My little girl was already wrestling with a concept that was well beyond her years.

Modern Counsel ’s Empowerment issue features attorneys who take an exceptionally thoughtful approach to complex issues in order to ensure representation and fair treatment in today’s workplace. They are passionate advocates for equal treatment and focus on issues ranging from gender, race, socioeconomic status, and more.

From an early age, cover star Tyrone Scott refused to let the outside world tell him what he should expect out of life. In doing so, he has amassed a prodigious legal career across music, film, television, and the intersection of the arts and technology, while gaining mentors and allies along the way.

“I loved the freedom to shape what I wanted my career to be,” the director of business and legal affairs, music licensing at SoundCloud says. “Where others might have expected limitations, I just had this foundational belief that I could do whatever I set my mind out to do.”

Working on this issue gave me renewed hope that gender equality is a realistic aspiration for the future. Perhaps when my daughter reaches the workforce, she won’t have to wrestle with limitations faced by previous generations of women. For now, I will continue to reassure her that it is indeed possible to embrace both motherhood and career.

Brittany Farb Gruber Managing Editor

Implement

Celebrating legal leaders’ latest efforts and achievements, including transactions, expansions, negotiations, and inclusion initiatives

Establish & Implement

Using a hands-on leadership approach, Amanda Evanson keeps her finger on the pulse of her department at Delta Air Lines

By Frank DiMaria

AMANDA EVANSON PREFERS concrete answers and thrives when she can create and execute a plan. For these reasons she never considered law, a profession in which solid answers are in short supply. It’s like the age-old joke, she says, “when you ask a lawyer a question the answer is, ‘It depends.’”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Evanson, who serves as senior corporate counsel of e-discovery at Delta Air Lines, worked in public relations for a few years then searched for her next professional act.

“I’m always looking to grow, do the next thing, and focus on where I’m going,” she says. Evanson focused on law. “I’m one of those people who never really wanted to be a lawyer but fell into the position that I’m in and ended up loving it.”

Evanson earned her JD from Pace University in New York in 2010 and entered the workforce at the height of the Great Recession. Most would be daunted, but not Evanson. She immediately found work reviewing documents and started working on a project at Troutman Sanders just

Amanda Evanson Senior Corporate Counsel of E-Discovery Delta Air Lines

“Everybody wants to work for Delta. You have a better chance of getting into Harvard than you do of becoming a Delta flight attendant.”

as the firm was launching its eMerge subsidiary. “I was in the right place at the right time,” she admits.

She rolled up her sleeves and dug in at eMerge, and soon realized e-discovery was more than just document review. “There’s a whole area of law that focuses on this piece. I really didn’t know it could be a specialty, but was excited to learn it was,” Evanson says. E-discovery allowed her to establish a set of processes and procedures. Even if the facts change, her plan doesn’t.

After eight years with Troutman, she took a position at SunTrust Bank (now Truist Financial), launching the bank’s e-discovery processes. Less than a year later, she was at Delta. “Everybody wants to work for Delta. You have a better chance of getting into Harvard than you do of becoming a Delta flight attendant,” Evanson says. Once again, she was in the right place at the right time.

The attorney establishes and implements the airline’s internal processes and procedures, such as document preservation and collections, and is a member of the litigation team.

“I’m actually in there working for the matters, executing on the processes that we hone and put in place,” she says.

Delta’s litigations run the gamut, from a divorced spouse suing for an ex-spouse’s SkyMiles information to a US Department of Justice investigation to a class action suit. Most cases, however, are tried by outside counsel. “We do a lot of work in-house, but most of our matters are higher profile, especially when you get into the litigation,” Evanson explains. “We use our outside counsel because we are a relatively small team.”

“In the kinds of high-stakes litigation disputes we typically handle for Delta,

e-discovery can be critical to supporting Delta’s legal strategy,” says Mike Mitchell, partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. “Amanda brings hands-on leadership to Delta’s e-discovery unit and delivers enormous value on every matter through her problem-solving and expertise.”

Over the years, Evanson, who has two direct reports, has honed her “hands-on” leadership style. “I want to always have my finger on the pulse and be familiar with the processes we ultimately put in place. I’m not really a set it and forget it leader,” she says.

Before signing on with Delta, Evanson never considered the intricacies involved in getting a jetliner off the ground. She knew, of course, it required pilots and flight attendants and mechanics. But now she has an appreciation of the process and an intimate knowledge of the carefully choreographed ballet required to get a single plane aloft.

“There are so many different departments monitoring everything, from the weight of the planes to the logistics of getting the right airplane into the right gate at the right time. And the weather. All these things are happening simultaneously just to get one plane off the ground,” she says. “There’s literally hundreds of people all over the country working together to make it happen.”

Because her path to her current position at Delta was so “challenging,” Evanson always encourages young lawyers to remain adaptable and create a backup plan. She recounts graduating law school during an economic downturn, getting married during a global pandemic, and having a baby during a formula shortage. “I didn’t make it through all that by not having a plan B,” she reflects. “I hope for the best, but plan for the worst.”

Adam Hibelink

Renewed Energy

After twenty-five years of legal experience, U.S. Venture’s Jennifer Ryan embraces exciting new aspects of her career

By Lucy Cavanagh

JENNIFER RYAN DESCRIBES HERSELF

as a “recovering perfectionist.” She no longer measures her free time in billable hours, embraces her emotional intelligence as an asset, and knows that it does not come at the expense of her work ethic.

Ryan’s ambitions to become an attorney started when she was seventeen years old. After law school, her first experience came from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, DC. She then built her résumé at firms like McGuireWoods, Cameron McKenna, and Patton Boggs, where she practiced energy law and M&A.

After close to ten years in the DC area, Ryan returned to her Midwest roots and moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to work for WPS Energy Services (now part of Constellation Energy). “I accepted the position sight unseen one month after the birth of my second child. I had never been to Wisconsin, but I knew it was probably as close to the opposite of DC as I could get and I was looking for a lifestyle change,” she remembers.

When Modern Counsel last spoke with Ryan, she worked as associate general counsel at Schneider, a transportation and logistics company based out of Green Bay. Since then, she has moved on to U.S. Venture, an innovator and distributor of traditional

and renewable energy products and sustainability solutions.

Now, with twenty-five years of experience under her belt, the opportunity to be associate general counsel at U.S. Venture brought much of Ryan’s expertise together with values that she deeply shares.

“Coming to U.S. Venture felt like winning the lottery,” she says. “This amazing family-owned company is half an hour from where I live. It’s such a diverse company—we’re in energy, transportation, renewables, and sustainability. I was able to take all of my energy experience, plus everything I’ve done in antitrust, intellectual property, transportation and logistics, and in Mexico, and use it all at one company.”

This year, Ryan’s role has allowed her to grow in ways she never expected. With the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT, she has contended with the technology’s impact on their business.

“We just started learning everything we could: ‘What is AI? What is generative AI? What is a large language model? How do these things work? How do they train? What are the potential risks and benefits?’” Ryan explains. With IP under her purview, she had to figure out how to use generative AI while protecting the company’s confidential and proprietary information.

Adam Hilbelink

Jennifer Ryan Associate General Counsel U.S. Venture

Ryan and the team initially drafted a four-page policy that sought to mitigate as much risk as possible. However, they went back to the drawing board to build the policy in such a way that leveraged it as a tool. “We emerged with a threepoint policy: one, don’t use public generative AI for company work. Two, bring new generative AI tools or ideas to the team, and we will assess the risk. And three, if you use it, you own its results,” she says.

In addition to staying hip to AI, Ryan has earned some wisdom regarding personal/professional balance. As a single mother of two, Ryan has learned how to create a better balance for herself, to embrace mistakes and celebrate wins, and to champion her roles both in and out of the office.

The attorney has found that she can strike that balance well at U.S. Venture, where strong company values and culture focus on caring relationships. She is proud to say that she has learned to be truly present with her family when she is off the clock, and she has learned to give herself grace. “Some days you're going to be a better attorney or business partner. Some days, you’re going be a better parent. Most days, you get both,” Ryan says.

Ryan also shares how grateful she is for the leaders, coaches, and mentors she’s had throughout her career. “I wouldn’t be who I am, how I am, where I am, or get to do what I do each day without the people who gave so much of their time to invest in me and help me grow,” she says. “Now, at this stage

of my career, I get to pay that forward with my team, my colleagues and those I coach and mentor. It’s fun to think about where I’ve been and what I’ve done these last twenty-five years, but it’s more fun to think about what comes next.”

Reed Smith LLP:

“Jennifer Ryan’s insightful expertise and unwavering dedication shine through as she nimbly leads her team through complex matters. Her strategic abilities, practicality, and sense of humor/ grace under pressure make working with her a true pleasure.”

—Shannon McClure Roberts, Partner

Ryan Kromholz & Manion SC:

“Jen is a dedicated problem-solver who approaches new projects with an open mind. She thinks critically, creatively, and strategically through each step. It’s a pleasure to work with her and her team.”

—John M. Manion,

President

Eradicating Cancer

In addition to its groundbreaking molecular diagnostic tests, Exact Sciences is committed early-stage cancer detection

By Noah Johnson

EXACT SCIENCES IS A

MOLECULAR diagnostic company that specializes in the detection of early-stage cancer. Its DNA-based colorectal cancer screening test, Cologuard, has found cancer at stages when it’s more treatable. The OncoExTra test has helped physicians understand changes to a patient’s genomic profile. The company’s Oncoguard Liver, Oncotype DX, and Riskguard tests have been just as impactful for those navigating the complexities of cancer.

In addition to these cutting-edge tests, the company has done a lot to eradicate cancer.

Cancer Research

Since its founding, Exact Sciences has successfully sponsored events to raise money to pilot cancer research

that eventually draws federal funding. The company sponsored a trivia night to benefit the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center and raised $100,000.

Nathan Harrill, vice president and deputy general counsel, floated the idea of Exact Sciences sponsoring the event. “I won’t be surprised if the trivia night is the most memorable thing I do this year,” he said in a press release. “This is the first time I’ve joined a board and partnered with others to advance the fight against cancer and drive impact. This will not be the last.”

That wasn’t the only time the company partnered with the Carbone Cancer Center to help fight cancer with fundraising. Another event saw attendees gather at Madison’s Kohl Center in Wisconsin to hear from coaches from

the Badgers and Packers. It generated nearly $900,000 for the center’s research and patient care initiatives.

“Nate is a terrific counselor with an extraordinary range, and he navigates business strategy, litigation, and transactions with impeccable judgment,” say King & Spalding LLP’s Mark Jensen, managing partner, and Mark Polston, cochair of the Life Sciences and Healthcare Industry Group. “Our firm has been honored to collaborate with a world-class team at Exact Sciences for many years, and we look forward to seeing their cutting-edge products continue to improve patients’ lives.”

Expanding Access to Cancer Screening

Through the company’s Focus program, it has awarded thousands of dollars to federally qualified health centers, allowing them to expand access to colorectal cancer screening and create more affordable pathways to follow-up diagnostic care. In May 2023, the company announced that it awarded $1.1 million to eighteen community organizations, health foundations, public health organizations, and advocacy groups.

According to Paul Limburg, chief medical officer at Exact Sciences, the program aligns with the company’s

commitment to improving uptake of colorectal cancer screening. “Awareness and access are critical to increasing screenings, and Exact Sciences is honored to support these organizations that are driving screening uptake and addressing inequities within their communities,” he said in the press release.

What’s Next for Cologuard?

Leaders from Exact Sciences will soon present data on next-generation Cologuard, which was developed in partnership with Mayo Clinic and features novel biomarkers and improved laboratory processes.

The study, which included more than twenty-thousand adults forty years of age and older, is one of the largest colorectal cancer screening trials ever conducted and reflects the racial and ethnic makeup of the US.

“The Exact Sciences team works relentlessly to improve upon the strengths of Cologuard, and we are excited to present results from the pivotal BLUE-C study at the upcoming ACG [American College of Gastroenterology] meeting,” Limburg said in a press release. “The evidence we’ll be sharing speaks to our commitment to patients and high-quality research. Continued innovation is critical when there are 60 million Americans who

are not up to date with colorectal cancer screening.”

At the event Exact Sciences will also host four information sessions at the company’s booth led by Paul Limburg and they will be focused on the evidence presented at the annual meeting.

Partnership with the National Minority Quality Forum

In partnership with the National Minority Quality Forum, Exact Sciences hosted the Flint Community Cancer Screening and Health Fair in Michigan, where about 42 percent of people living in and near the city have identified cancer as their top health concern. Attendees were offered free cancer screening, COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations, and a slew of other health services.

The event was held in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service, an opportunity to help people prevent and learn about cancer. “As a Flint native, I’m passionate about this cause and community,” said Kevin Conroy, chairman and CEO of Exact Sciences, in a press release. “Together with local organizations and healthcare systems, we’re building support for Flint’s cancer prevention and detection efforts, and look forward to helping decrease the community’s cancer burden.”

Front Lines of Renewable Energy

Aditi Suresh is a young general counsel striving to commit to a career in sustainability

By Billy Yost

Aditi Suresh General Counsel and Secretary Eni New Energy US

ADITI SURESH

career at the young age of twenty-two. And by the time she was twenty-six, she was managing the restructuring of a company that had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, all by herself in India. So much for a learning curve.

The current general counsel (GC) and secretary at Eni New Energy US (Plenitude) is ten years into a law career that includes major players in renewable and other major energy producers in the space. It’s her first GC role, and she’s there well before most in-house counsel would imagine being so at this stage of their careers. But Suresh,

who grew up in Chennai, India, says her early experience working with an international renewable energy company going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy felt like an extra decade or two of intense experience at a vital time for the young professional.

“It wasn’t just the technical experience, but also the leadership, people skills, and critical decisions I had to make,” Suresh explains. “Those decisions didn’t just affect me or the business, but so many employees and investors. It was so challenging, but it helped me find meaning very early on in my career. It made me passionate about

sustainability, and I’ve tried to live by those values in my personal life as much as I have in my profession.”

In her current role, Suresh says she’s able to help steer Eni’s growth in its increasing investment in renewable energy in North America. The time couldn’t be any more critical as the GC says the earth is in a global crisis and continuing conscious investment is the only way to navigate through.

Luckily, Suresh has deep expertise working across multiple jurisdictions and continents and understands the different approaches that countries are taking to combat climate change and

BEGAN HER LEGAL

the legal and regulatory nuances that come with executing renewable energy projects internationally. “I get to be at the forefront of that effort, so to be able to understand and address those issues from a variety of roles and experiences has been so important for me,” she says.

Suresh’s practice has to be welltuned for both the heavily regulated energy industry as well as the continually growing renewable sector. She believes strong judgment skills are paramount given that so many of her responsibilities lie in making effective decisions that align with the company’s business objectives, essentially weighing the multiple impacts and risk matrix to assess potential legal and ethical ramifications.

“Good judgment is hard to teach, but comes with experiences, both good and bad,” she explains. “Being a leader requires strong commercial skills, and that means employing strong business acumen and industry knowledge. To make a meaningful contribution as a strategic leader, you just have to be creative and proactive in identifying solutions to advance the business. I want to help win the game, not just call the strikes.”

“Aditi is a rising star in the renewable energy industry,” says Marius Griskonis, partner and cohead of energy and infrastructure in the Americas at Linklaters LLP. “She is experienced beyond her years [having worked across multiple jurisdictions]. Aditi always brings an interesting perspective, guiding negotiations to successful resolutions.”

Suresh’s fast-tracked development is also a tribute to the great mentors she had early in her career. As a lawyer, she says the job often requires advocating for decisions that could conflict with

“Good judgment is hard to teach, but comes with experiences, both good and bad.”

business objectives. She was able to find mentors across the business who supported her decision-making and effectively taught her not to be shy about voicing her opinion even if she faced pushback. That advice stuck with her and has helped her advocate for decisions that would ultimately protect the company’s long-term interests.

Given her role and responsibility, it’s no wonder that young professionals in the industry reach out to the GC for advice. Suresh, who moved to New York City in 2018, does her best to get back to each and every contact.

“There are so many international lawyers who have relocated to the United States and are looking for opportunities with that international mindset,” she explains. “I always make sure that I respond to those messages and give them some of my time; even if I’m not able to provide long-term mentorship, I know that I can provide some answers and guidance. I’ve been in that place before when I was transitioning to the US from Asia, and there were people who were willing to help me in my own journey. I’m glad to be able to do the same.”

In addition to her success, Suresh has had to learn to unplug from time to time. She loves nature and being outdoors. She has made a conscious choice to leave her phone behind while walking her beloved dog in order to be present.

“It’s so easy to get overloaded with information,” she admits. “I think that’s why I love traveling so much. I challenge myself to go to a new place and just experience the world around me.”

Only a decade into her career, Suresh is a GC operating on the forefront of renewable energy. It will be a pleasure to see what kind of growth and opportunity another decade will bring.

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The Changemaker

Annika K. Martin’s pivot from journalism to law took her from uncovering injustice to actively redressing it

By Noah Johnson Photos by Peter Garritano

WHEN ANNIKA K. MARTIN ATTENDED

the University of Southern California (USC) in her early twenties, she never anticipated that fifteen years later she’d be a lead attorney on the team holding the university accountable on behalf of tens of thousands of women in historic sex abuse litigation against a notorious USC gynecologist.

But even earlier than that, if Martin hadn’t aced the LSAT on a whim post-journalism school, she might today be reporting inspiring stories rather than living them.

That fateful pivot led her to drive her boundless curiosity and tenacity into working as a plaintiff’s lawyer for victims of environmental negligence, consumer fraud, and sexual abuses nationwide. In cases ranging from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the horrifying USC/Tyndall sex abuse scandal to other complex, high-profile consumer and complex litigation cases, Annika leverages her storytelling skills, her legal training and expertise, and the lessons she learned from mentor and legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky to manifest critical change on behalf of her clients.

Instead of prompting change one reader at a time, the attorney has amplified the process for the benefit of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of victimized plaintiffs via complex mass lawsuits.

“My journalism background has been invaluable in my career, from unraveling

complex narratives, reporting, talking to witnesses, and digging down to find the truth of a story. There are several parallels,” Martin explains. “Oftentimes in our cases, great and actionable injustice has been brought to our attention by journalistic efforts.”

That’s exactly what happened when Martin and her colleagues brought litigation against the companies responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, one of the worst oil spills in US history.

“It was a developing story, and more facts were coming out in the news every day as we were writing the complaint,” she remembers. “We were learning about the causes of the blowout and potential defendants in real time. It was a fast-moving and challenging complaint to write, and I definitely leaned on my journalism skills as I worked on it.”

After several years of litigating the case in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Martin was part of the team that negotiated a complex economic settlement to pay out over $11.6 billion in compensation to those harmed by the spill. “I really feel I came into my own as a lawyer through the experiences of that case,” she adds.

That success not only fueled Martin to take on more complex cases but ones that would allow her to spark institutional change. Today, as chair of Lieff Cabraser’s

“My journalism background has been invaluable in my career, from unraveling complex narratives, reporting, talking to witnesses, and digging down to find the truth of a story. There are several parallels.”

Survivor Advocacy practice group, she leads her world-class firm’s prosecution of institutional sexual assault cases, seeking meaningful change from institutions that enable and protect predators and using class actions in cutting-edge ways to bring justice with a powerful force multiplier.

“It makes sense to use class actions for these kinds of cases because they’re the only way to force the institutional change our clients really want,” Martin says. “Class injunctive relief in the form of policy and procedure changes is the only way to make sure what happened to our clients can never happen again.”

An example of how she and her team have effectively used class actions to help raise the voices of sexual assault survivors was the historic class case against gynecologist Tyndall and USC. The strength and depth of their advocacy led to a groundbreaking settlement program that focused on the needs of survivors by allowing them to choose how, and how much, they wanted to engage with the claims process and tell their stories. Thousands of abused women could choose to tell their stories in writing or through compassionate conversations with a trauma specialist.

For Martin, the program was conceived as a way to help survivors stand up and be heard while also aiding in their healing. The success of the program exemplifies how similar measures can be used in future cases to empower more people to come forward and

Annika K. Martin

Partner and Chair of the Survivor Advocacy Practice Group

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP

Congratulations to our friend Annika Martin for being recognized in Modern Counsel.

Rebuttal is a strategic communications firm with over a decade of experience partnering with the best and brightest in the plaintiffs’ bar and leading their public relations efforts. You win in court. We win in the court of public opinion.

www.rebuttalpr.com

meaningfully expand the application of justice via the civil courts.

“We were careful to craft a settlement claims program that would not be adversarial. Instead, it was created to provide a compassionate path for the communication of their stories in a safe, confidential, and compassionate environment, and the reaction we got was amazing across the board,” she says. “There were women who said they wouldn’t ever have stood up to hold USC accountable if it wasn’t for the settlement program, because they weren’t in a position where they wanted to litigate or felt they could file an individual lawsuit and put their name on it. It really showed that the class action model could provide a formidable and profound new way for abuse victims to access justice that didn’t exist before.”

Martin offers guidance to new lawyers who may feel overwhelmed when they begin practicing: “Take control of your own destiny. Read, learn, and be curious about different areas of law. Stay on the cutting edge of legal technology. Control your own development with CLE [continuing legal education], books, and all of the other resources that are out there. You can set your own curriculum with the rich educational materials you come across. Focus your energy on learning and expanding your knowledge.

“We practice law, and practice implies a commitment to learning,” she adds.

RebuttalPR LLC:

“Annika stands out as an exceptional class action lawyer, with a proven track record of securing justice for those in need. Her leadership and unwavering commitment to serving others, underpinned by her creative approach to legal advocacy, set her apart in the field.”

—Ray DeLorenzi, Partner

Healthcare on the Merge

ScionHealth may be young, but it’s already expanding its footprint across the nation

By Will Grant

THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF LIFEPOINT Health and Kindred Healthcare’s merger in late 2021 heralded the arrival of ScionHealth, a new healthcare system that would operate independently from LifePoint and span across twenty-eight states, seventy-nine hospitals and counting, and thousands of employees.

“As we celebrate what’s next for LifePoint, we also mark the official launch of ScionHealth,” David Dill, chairman and CEO of LifePoint said in a formal announcement on LifePoint’s website. “Like LifePoint, ScionHealth is committed to collaboration, to investing in innovative services that will benefit the people it serves, to making healthcare more accessible, and to supporting healthier communities. While LifePoint and ScionHealth have a great deal in common, we will serve unique populations and communities across the nation.”

ScionHealth was first conceived when teams from both LifePoint and Kindred were working to align the merger and realized that the aligning of those two organizations would benefit from the creation of a new organization focused on community care and health delivery.

According to ScionHealth’s founding CEO, Rob Jay, the community health systems selected from both LifePoint and Kindred’s portfolio were selected because they would greatly benefit from focused attention, resources, and investment. But that doesn’t mean that ScionHealth hasn’t continued to grow at the same time.

In August 2022, OSF Healthcare Transitional Care Hospital in Peoria, Illinois, celebrated a ribbon cutting announcing the opening of a joint venture between OSF Healthcare and ScionHealth. The twenty-nine-bed acute rehabilitation unit (ARU) began accepting new patients in September 2022.

The new ARU specializes in helping adults recovering from loss of function or disability due to stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury, neurological disorders, orthopedic surgery, and other conditions.

In January 2023, that growth continued. ScionHealth completed the

acquisition of Dallas, Texas-based Cornerstone Healthcare Group which included fifteen specialty hospitals, eight senior living locations, and three thousand employees.

“ScionHealth’s expansion, through the acquisition of Cornerstone, demonstrates our platform for growth and our priority in supporting exceptional patient and employee experiences in hospitals close to home,” Jay said in a prepared statement on ScionHealth’s news webpage. “We are excited to add Cornerstone and its dedicated team members to ScionHealth, and eager to leverage best practices from both organizations to continue delivering compassionate, quality-focused care to patients across the country who place their trust in us.”

Awards have followed ScionHealth’s expansive growth. The company earned a 2023 CoStar Impact Award for its new hospital and medical center in Orlando, Florida’s Winter Park neighborhood.

The new sixty-four-bed, long-term acute care hospital spans eighty-five thousand square feet and, at time of press, is slated to open in early 2024.

The plan was selected as Orlando’s “Lease of the Year” due to its scope, and previous difficulty for other organizations looking to capitalize on the space.

The new hospital will lie in one of the fastest-growing markets in the US and is already home to two of the top ten largest hospitals in the country.

“We are proud to become an anchor tenant in the centrally located, accessible, state-of-the-art Upshot Medical Center at Mills Park,” Jay said in a press statement shared on Cision PR Newswire. “This de novo growth strategically expands ScionHealth’s portfolio of specialty hospitals across the country and affirms our commitment to deliver high-quality, patient-driven healthcare solutions in the communities we serve.”

ScionHealth may be young, but its expansion is anything but immature.

These six in-house counsel draw upon personal and professional experiences to build a better future for the industry

38 46

TYRONE SCOTT SoundCloud

ALVINA WONG HOU Gilead Sciences

YEVE CHITIGA Brex

THE BEST KIND OF BLINDERS

Tyrone Scott didn’t have legal role models early on, but the SoundCloud director sees it as a blessing

BY BILLY YOST

PHOTOS BY CASS DAVIS

TYRONE SCOTT

Director of Business & Legal Affairs, Music Licensing SoundCloud

We all need a little more of what Tyrone Scott has flowing through his veins. Despite not having legal mentors or law exposure in his early life, the current director of business and legal affairs, music licensing at SoundCloud just knew he’d build the life he wanted.

“I understand how some people might see it as not having anyone to show me the ropes or advocate on my behalf, but I’ve always seen it a different way,” Scott explains. “I loved the freedom to shape what I wanted my career to be. Where others might have expected limitations, I just had this foundational belief that I could do whatever I set my mind out to do.”

There’s no part of Scott’s explanation that sounds like hubris. He speaks kindly and thoughtfully. The lawyer-to-be, who never had to rely on his parents to push him to get good grades, refused to let the outside world tell him what he should expect out of life. In doing so, he has amassed an already prodigious legal career across music, film, television, and the intersection of the arts and technology, while gaining mentors and allies along the way. That’s what brought him to SoundCloud in 2022.

“I can say with certainty that SoundCloud is 100 percent about putting artists

and creators first,” the director says. “That’s not just a slogan. I actually get to see it day-to-day. I see it in the decisions about functionalities and products that are prioritized by the organization and even how we structure our deals. My interest in coming here was based on the fact that SoundCloud is an organization that walks the walk when it comes to prioritizing creators.”

SoundCloud has been a critical member of the new musical horizon since its founding in 2007. The site is responsible for breaking so many new artists that the company’s name is a literal rap era (just Google “SoundCloud Rap”) that broke huge artists like Juice WRLD, XXXTentacion, Playboi Carti, Post Malone, and Lil Uzi Vert. The platform continues to shape pop culture with viral artists like Ice Spice, Fred again, and Hannah Laing to name a few.

Scott came to SoundCloud with experience at the Orchard, Mass Appeal Media, and Viacom, where he had the opportunity to drive lasting change when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. While at the Orchard, he was asked to serve on a council tasked with finding ways to create more opportunities for people of color and other minorities in the music world.

“I was lucky enough to be able to help put some initiatives in motion that

FULL CIRCLE

During Tyrone Scott’s second year of law school, he was intent on entering the Recording Academy’s Entertainment Law Initiative Writing Contest that includes scholarship money, being published in the American Bar Association’s Entertainment & Sports Lawyer Journal, and tickets to the Grammys.

Not only did Scott win the competition, but Scott’s journey with the organization has come full circle as he was invited to be a professional member of the New York chapter of the Recording Academy.

“Winning that competition was an incredible springboard into the music industry, and I’m so proud to now be a part of this organization,” he says. “It changed the trajectory of my career, and I hope I can do that for someone else someday.”

I really think helped the company be more transparent, fair, and equitable,” Scott explains. “That included sourcing more attorneys of color, influencing our hiring practices, and spearheading a sort of mentoring program that’s meant to help minorities work toward leadership roles within the company. This required a huge investment from the company, and I was proud to be able to help get it across the finish line.”

“We have had the pleasure of working with Tyrone as head of BA for our client SoundCloud and continue to be impressed with his business and legal acumen,” says Guy Blake, managing partner at Granderson

“I CAN SAY WITH CERTAINTY THAT SOUNDCLOUD IS 100 PERCENT ABOUT PUTTING ARTISTS AND CREATORS FIRST.”

Des Rochers LLP. “Tyrone is a great and fierce advocate for his client SC, but is also a savvy businessperson and knows how to get to the finish line on even the most challenging deals.”

Since coming to SoundCloud, Scott has coled the company’s LGBTQ+ “QueerClouders” employee resource group. While a great deal of the company’s internal action originates from its Berlin headquarters, the director is proud of the sense of community he and his colead have been able to help drive from the US, including a memorable Pride party at SoundCloud’s New York City offices while the parade was happening just outside on Fifth Avenue, in addition to an industrywide music and tech networking event for other queer employee groups.

“It was a huge networking event that included queer people from SoundCloud, Sony Music, Warner Music, Twitch, Apple, and Spotify, among other companies,” Scott says. “The whole industry showed up to celebrate who we are.”

Scott continues to blaze a new trail in how artists earn royalties, control their intellectual property, and address emerging technology like artificial intelligence, working with artists such as Tekno, Pote Baby, and Remedy Club. He also strives to create a more equitable world for those who may not have the similar confidence early in their careers. The accomplished attorney knows the value of blowing past expectations and barriers, and he’s helping create a world where more people can do the same.

TAKE NO OPPORT UNITY FOR GRANTED

Alvina Wong Hou has made the most of each of her educational and career experiences. Her hard work has landed her at Gilead Sciences, where she continues to learn and grow.

BY NATALIE KOCHANOV

ALVINA WONG HOU FIRST LEARNED the value of education from her maternal grandmother. Like her grandmother, Hou grew up in a traditional Chinese family, in which women and girls often received different treatment from their male counterparts.

“My grandmother is almost ninety, and, to this day, she’s illiterate,” Hou says. “She asked her parents for the chance to go to school and was told no because she was a girl. Growing up, she would always tell me that I was so lucky to get to go to school.”

Her grandmother’s story motivated Hou to become the first in her family to attend college and later pursue her law degree. “Seeing that incremental increase in the ability to advance over the course of just three generations has encouraged me always to keep pushing and to keep looking for opportunities to learn and grow,” she says.

That remains true in the context of Hou’s current role as associate general counsel of litigation and investigations at biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. She has had ample chances to challenge herself in her five-plus years at Gilead, during which time she has not only spearheaded complex cases, but also come into her own as a collaborative leader to her team and partner to the business.

After graduating from Berkeley Law in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, Hou started her career as a visiting attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.

“I represented primarily monolingual Chinese immigrant families in housing rights as well as immigration cases,” she says. “Being able to help individuals who didn’t speak English felt natural to me because it was similar to what I had done for my parents growing up. It also showed me early on in my career that I could leverage the educational opportunities afforded to me to make a real difference in someone’s life.”

Hou went on to specialize in complex commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense at Winston & Strawn LLP, where she practiced for some seven years before joining Gilead. Although she represented clients in different industries at the firm, she credits her extensive training with enabling her to make a successful shift in-house.

Hou currently manages a variety of litigation matters and investigations that see her collaborating closely with outside counsel and key business partners across legal, commercial, and research and development. Her interactions with the latter have made her all the more passionate about her work, including a

ALVINA WONG HOU

Associate General Counsel of Litigation & Investigations

Gilead Sciences

Richard Morgenstein

“ I CAN’T DO THIS JOB ON MY OWN. I HAVE TO RELY ON PARTNERING WITH THE BUSINESS AND OTHERS IN ORDER TO COME UP WITH THE STRONGEST POSITION FOR OUR CASES, AND I TAKE THE SAME APPROACH WITH MY TEAM.”

mass tort case that she has been litigating since the very start of her tenure at the company.

“That case has been a big project of mine,” Hou confirms. “It has been a passion to uphold Gilead’s research and development and the critical role it plays in treating and preventing HIV for millions of people.”

She has played a crucial part in driving litigation strategy throughout her time at Gilead—a fact that she believes speaks to the nonhierarchical company culture. “I was told right away to jump in during meetings. From the beginning, it was expected that I could make a difference in and take ownership over the matters I was assigned,” she says. “At the same time, I can’t do this job on my own. I have to rely on partnering with the business and others in order to come up with the strongest position for our cases, and I take the same approach with my

team. I encourage them to share their opinions because that’s how we get the best output.”

Hou also offers encouragement to peers outside the office, as a mentor to first-generation law students at Berkeley. “I was very self-conscious when I first started law school and people would talk about their parents or other relatives being lawyers. I started to wonder whether I deserved to be there,” she admits. “Hopefully, that narrative can change for others.”

Hou shares lessons with her mentees based on her own experiences as a first-generation attorney, but her advice applies more broadly, as well.

“Don’t let anyone make you think that you can’t do something,” she urges. “I haven’t worked with other litigators who look like me or who have a similar background, but I’ve come to realize that as long as you put in the hard work and the

dedication, somebody will eventually see the value in that.”

Hou also cites the importance of finding a workplace that values authenticity and continuous growth and development, like Gilead does. For her part, Hou remains as committed as ever to learning—and to honoring and living out the dreams of her maternal grandmother in the process.

“Because my grandmother is still alive, there’s a constant reminder for me not to take these opportunities for granted,” Hou says. “And I tell my daughter the same thing. She’s only seven years old, but I want her to dream big and to grow up knowing that she can do amazing things.”

Orrick:

“To every case, Alvina brings a rare combination of sheer intellectual firepower and strategic instinct. Razorsharp, pragmatic, and totally unflappable, Alvina is a pleasure to work with and makes everyone else around her better.”

—Josh Rosenkranz, Partner

Proskauer Rose:

“Alvina Hou is an exceptionally strategic, intelligent, and diligent lawyer and business partner. Her relentless commitment to understanding every facet of a litigation, coupled with her unwavering dedication to furthering Gilead’s mission and business objectives, truly set her apart.”

—Bart Williams and Susan Gutierrez, Partners

A Dedicated Leader

Paul, Weiss congratulates Alvina Wong Hou, Gilead Sciences’ Associate General Counsel, Litigation & Investigations, for her steadfast leadership and success. We are proud of our relationship with Alvina and Gilead Sciences and look forward to continuing to support them in their mission to develop innovative therapeutics for people with life-threatening diseases.

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

paulweiss.com

Congratulates Alvina Wong Hou for her exceptional leadership with Gilead Sciences and recognition in Modern Counsel. We are proud to partner with Alvina in her efforts to drive Gilead and the legal profession forward.

Alvina,

our honor to partner with you to provide innovative counsel to Gilead.

Litigation Department of the Year and IP Litigation Department of the Year finalist (The American Lawyer, 2023)

2-time Appellate Practice Group of the Year (Law360, 2022) + 11 times on the Appellate Hot List (National Law Journal, 2022)

Most Innovative Law Firm – Top 3 For the Past 7 Years –(Financial Times)

Team Orrick

Proskauer is a leading law firm, providing a wide range of legal services to clients worldwide. To learn more about the firm, visit Proskauer.com.

YEVE CHITIGA

Director and Assistant General Counsel

HUN ER

T LEARN G O

Throughout her career journey, Brex’s Yeve Chitiga learned the importance of empathy, prioritizing mental health, and work/life harmony

BY NOAH JOHNSON

Yeve Chitiga approaches her role as in-house counsel with an unceasing desire to learn, understand, and empathize. It’s a trait that’s at the core of who she is, spawning from her upbringing in Zimbabwe, an auditing career in UK and US, and her transition to a legal career in the US.

“When you’re a new person in a different place or a different country, you’re always trying to learn and understand ways of doing things there,” explains Chitiga, who left her home country at

sixteen. “That was true in the UK, in the US, and even when I go and visit my family in Zimbabwe as a diasporan. As a leader, I try to employ that same hunger to learn and that same level of empathy to my internal business clients to understand their perspective and their priorities.”

That innate hunger partially explains why she came to Brex, a fintech company that provides business charge cards. She had been in legal private practice for a near decade when she heard about the company’s origin story and how its

“ IT’S BEEN AMAZING TO SEE THE COMMUNITY COME TO LIFE AND KNOW THERE’S A DEDICATED SPACE FOR BLACK EMPLOYEES. WE’VE USED

THE SPACE TO CONNECT, SHARE ADVICE,

AND SUPPORT EACH OTHER IN WORK AND LIFE.”

twenty-six and twenty-seven-year-old founders came to the US from Brazil to start the company. Even though she hadn’t been a tech attorney, the company’s history and its mission resonated. An opportunity to work at Brex felt like a new world she could explore.

“I had no idea that Brex existed,” the director and assistant general counsel says. “But the founders’ story of building something from nothing was extremely inspiring. Also, the ability to work with extremely smart people drew me in since I didn’t know anything about tech. I knew that I would absorb and learn so much.”

Today, she supports the company’s banking initiatives by providing advice during the entire product development cycle, business operations, and special projects. There’s no shortage of proud moments from her two and a half years

at the company so far, and one of them includes cofounding and coleading the Black employee resource group.

“It’s been amazing to see the community come to life and know there’s a dedicated space for Black employees,” she says. “We’ve used the space to connect, share advice, and support each other in work and life.”

Chitiga’s life experiences have shaped her outlook and her unique career journey has afforded her invaluable insight. When she came to the US to attend Claflin University, South Carolina’s oldest historically Black college and university, she kept her childhood dream of being a lawyer in mind. Despite excelling as a student and campus leader, by the time she graduated with a degree in business administration, she was too burnt out to pursue law school immediately.

She went on to serve as an internal auditor at Wachovia Corporation (now Wells Fargo) in North Carolina and then relocated to the bank’s London office. While it wasn’t Chitiga’s initial plan to work before law school, those experiences taught her what it meant to be a trusted advisor to senior executives. After working during the financial crisis, she decided to pursue her law degree from American University. Upon graduation, she worked for two large international law firms.

Reflecting on her professional journey, Chitiga admits that, like many attorneys in big law, she often threw herself at her work to the detriment of her health—a tendency she warns her peers about today. “You can’t pour from an empty cup,” she says. “You have to seek help, community, and talk with people about what you’re going

ADVICE FOR NEW LAWYERS FROM YEVE CHITIGA

“Young people should use their voice. Don’t be afraid to contribute your perspective in meetings. Oftentimes, you’ll find that the thing you’re saying is right. Trust your instincts and your legal education. You also need to trust your instincts about your mental health, too. Speak up about what is and isn’t working.”

through. It’s about understanding that you must be whole and in a good place to be of service to others.”

Chitiga also offers advice for being a working mother, which she says is one of her “superpowers.” “As women, we’re often expected to work as if we don’t have children and expected to parent as if we don’t work,” she says, referencing award-winning journalist Amy Westerfelt and her book Forget “Having It All.” “We can approach it not with work/life balance but with work/life harmony because balance doesn’t truly exist.”

WilmerHale celebrates our friend and client, Brex’s Yeve Chitiga, whom we admire for her role supporting financial services start-ups and emerging companies, and her unwavering commitment to creating and fostering diversity in the law.

EFFECTING CHANGE

DARRYL WILSON Assistant General Counsel of Litigation Honeywell

Curtis Haynes, Sr.

Darryl Wilson’s passion for diversity has been a staple of his accomplished legal career and inspires him as assistant general counsel of litigation at Honeywell

BY NOAH JOHNSON

Darryl Wilson began his legal path as an observer.

At an early age, the Mississippi native witnessed the importance of diverse legal representation. The aspiring lawyer did not meet many lawyers who looked like him growing up. In fact, Wilson did not meet his first minority lawyer until he was an undergraduate student at Tougaloo College. The combination of those experiences drove him to enter the field with a clear purpose.

“It drove me to get into that space for people of color to see lawyers who look like them and to say, ‘You can be one, too,’” says Wilson, who serves as the assistant general counsel of litigation at Honeywell.

Today, Wilson maintains that same commitment as he spearheads diversity initiatives in the organization and for outside counsel while also serving on boards and committees, like the Young Lawyers Division (YLD) Diversity and Inclusion Team at the American Bar Association (ABA). Wilson is also a member of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession.

He’s excited to see the traction diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is getting in his field and others, despite the challenges ahead for the sector. One of those challenges is figuring out

the right way to advance DEI as more leaders mobilize around it.

“Since it’s such a hot topic, there are a lot of departments and firms who used to struggle with buy-in. [Now they are] seeing different generations take lead and shift toward it,” Wilson says. “The bigger problem now is there’s so many diversity programs that it’s difficult to pick and choose which ones to belong to or which initiatives to drive.”

As far as Wilson is concerned, that’s a good problem and is far removed from the trends he saw when he came of age as a legal professional.

After he graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Law, Wilson worked for a minority-owned personal injury firm. During that time, he realized that the diversity among defense lawyers in Mississippi was lacking. Wilson set out on a path to make a change. After the death of George Floyd, a tragic event that got leaders around the world reflecting on how they could play a part in making positive changes, Wilson accepted a position at a small boutique defense firm as the only Black employee.

“As I moved through those roles, there was this theme of just creating what I wanted something to look like,” he says. “I knew that if there was something I wanted, I needed to take responsibility and take charge.”

Once he broke barriers, he went on to snag a position at Adams and Reese LLP, a larger firm that gave him an opportunity to break into the DEI space. Leaders supported his journey as an ABA YLD member and as a DEI chair for the division. As a result, Wilson got a chance to share and help implement diversity practices at the firm, including helping it partner with the ABA’s Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund, which supports diverse students by awarding them scholarships.

“Having a firm that supported my initiative and my drive for diversity was very key, so much so that I still keep in contact with the firm today as I continue my journey because we shared that commitment,” he says.

Wilson’s next career move was to become an in-house attorney. He believed the shift could help him effect more change in the DEI space and to continue being an example to young lawyers of color. In 2021, he became corporate counsel for Tyson Foods, where he and company leaders made efforts to highlight diverse team members, track diversity data for outside counsel, set up a DEI council, and more.

“It has been an honor to mentor Darryl, and I am proud of the success he has enjoyed in each chapter of his career, including his current role as

YOUR COUNSEL

in-house counsel,” says Clarence Wilbon, executive committee chair at Adams and Reese. “I continue to be impressed by Darryl’s impeccable skill set, commitment to high-quality legal service, and his outstanding work advancing DEI in the legal profession, paving the way for opportunities for future leaders.”

Kean Miller congratulates our friend and client Darryl Wilson of Honeywell on his recognition in Modern Counsel.

When you need sound legal advice, you want more than words in a memo. You deserve attorneys who understand your business, your industry, and your goals.

LINDA PEREZ CLARK, MANAGING PARTNER

As he reflects on his accomplishments, Wilson hopes to provide advice to attorneys of color looking to effect change as he has. His first suggestion is to seek outlets that make you happy and push you to dig deeper.

“If you do that, you can have a good spirit as you come to work,” he says. “For me, it’s cooking. I’ve been an amateur chef outside work, diving into culinary arts and creating dishes. Getting in the kitchen helps put my mind at ease.”

Wilson also urges young people to “shoot your shot.” “If you have a dream, don’t be afraid to let people know, ask questions, and lean in,” he says. “That will put you out in front.”

Editor’s note: At time of publication, Darryl Wilson is no longer at Honeywell.

Consilio LLC:

“Darryl is a thoughtful and zealous advocate for his organization while maintaining the same driven attitude and commitment to the Charlotte community. Darryl’s dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion also make him the well-rounded human that he is.” —Canaan E. Himmelbaum, Director, Global Business Development

Driving for success encapsulates the approach Adams and Reese takes, day in and day out, to achieve our business goals and desired outcomes. It reflects our collective mindset of excellence in client service with a determined focus on continuous improvement. For our attorneys and advisors, it manifests as unwavering dedication, professional ambition, and commitment to excel.

We are proud to partner with Darryl Wilson and Honeywell to help deliver impactful and sustainable business solutions.

Driving Innovation Transforming Today for a Better Tomorrow

Founded in 1951, Adams and Reese is a full-service, multidisciplinary Am Law 200 and NLJ 500 law firm with nearly 300 attorneys and advisors. With 20 across offices across 10 states, our legal team represents businesses nationally in more than 50 industries

HOW MOVE MOUNTAINS WITH A TEASPOON TO

Nationwide’s Marilyn McClure-Demers urges others to own their development and own it big

BY BILLY YOST

MARILYN MCCLURE-DEMERS VP and Associate General Counsel of Corporate Litigation & Discovery Management Nationwide

MARILYN MCCLURE-DEMERS IS affectionately called the “general counsel to the world” by her husband. Her friends and professional colleagues’ kids often call her “Aunt Marilyn.”

With the perfect amount of Appalachia charm, McClure-Demers is 120 percent herself. The dozens, if not hundreds, of people she has mentored over the years know the same Marilyn. The fifty-some diverse lawyers and leaders at Nationwide that she has shepherded through extensive leadership development know the same Marilyn. The other leaders of the exhaustive list of nonprofits and networks McClureDemers serves on outside of her day job know the same Marilyn.

McClure-Demers has a penchant for talented people out there who aren’t sure whether they can get to that next step, whatever it might be. She wants them to know that with some faith and fortitude, they can do just about anything. “If there is something you want to do, go out there and do it,” she advises. “You have to have something to believe in.”

One needs to only look at the last few years, a minor sampling, to get some insight to the lawyer who says resolutely, yet somehow playfully, “I never give up, and no one ever outlasts me.”

Since 2020, McClure-Demers has turned down as many board seats and volunteer service roles as she has accepted—and she has accepted a lot . In 2021, McClure was nominated to the American Red Cross’s Tiffany

Circle National Council, an honor she accepted.

McClure-Demers is vice president of corporate litigation and discovery management at Nationwide. She is best known as the go-to problem-solver, strategist, and chief peacemaker, perennially called upon to tackle and lead through the company’s most challenging legal issues. Her colleagues and outside counsel partners know her as a force, and the C-suite considers her a trusted and respected ally.

In 2020, she was also selected to join the board of Lawyers Committee

for Civil Right Under Law, an organization formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the civil rights movement. McClure-Demers also joined her alma mater West Virginia University’s alumni association board in 2020, where she created and was the first chair of the board’s diversity, equity, and inclusion committee.

She also serves as a board member for the nonprofit Turning Point Domestic Violence and created a Women’s Leadership Network (WLN) for her local

Mark Ransom

“ YOU OWN YOUR OWN DEVELOPMENT, YOU OWN YOUR OWN FULFILLMENT, AND YOU OWN YOUR OWN ENGAGEMENT.”

United Way. By sheer will, McClure-Demers along with a handful of founders and WLN members have single-handedly raised over a million dollars with the most recent focus being “tree house,” a home that provides assistance to eighteen- to twenty-one-yearolds who have aged out of the foster care system and/or are homeless.

If McClure-Demers is anywhere near your orbit, your life has probably been affected by her in some positive way. For those she has mentored, she has provided professional advice, helped select the right outfit for a job interview, given solace and support during challenging times, and pledged to help a colleague begin the process of adopting her brother’s child.

Whatever the moment, tears of joy or tears of sadness, McClure-Demers is there. All she asks for is her mentees to take one thing to heart. “You own your own development, you own your own fulfillment, and you own your own engagement,” she says. “People think they need an earthmover to make a difference. I've moved mountains using a teaspoon.”

When it comes to the will of moving mountains, McClure-Demers says her faith is her North Star. In fact, her faith motivated her to grow her presence in justice, diversity, and equity work; mentor lawyers and professionals who are diverse; and partner with organizations that believe in creating societal change for the most vulnerable members of her community.

“I tell lawyers this all time: Be the best lawyer and the best human you can be. You’re in an incredibly noble profession. All lawyers should be leaders in policy and litigation. When you’re the best you can be, the titles will chase you,” she says.

The other side of that coin, however, is that the title should be the least of your worries. Had she waited for a title, the lawyer wouldn’t have successfully partnered Nationwide with the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, and she wouldn’t have worked with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

McClure-Demers is the proof of what being a lawyer can mean. With some imagination, it can mean just about anything. Don’t wait for someone to tell you to grab an opportunity. Don’t wait until you’ve been given the green light to improve your professional or personal life.

This general counsel to the world is moving mountains—and so can you.

United Way of Delaware County:

“Marilyn McClure-Demers is a community thought leader and convener of talent. Tirelessly, she inspires others to create opportunities for growth and systemic change. She is one of United Way of Delaware County’s most prized advocates.”

–Brandon Feller, President

Leadership

requires calculated risks and challenging the status qou. Women leaders in Delaware County, Ohio have been doing just that since 2011. Tackling young adult homlessness is their latest achievement.

With their support, United Way of Delaware County can now offer young adults a safe place to live for up to two years while saving and working toward independence.

For more information, please visit our website. liveuniteddelawarecounty.org

We congratulate Marilyn McClure-Demers on this well-deserved recognition.

Marilyn,

it is an honor and a pleasure to work with you in representing Nationwide.

DRE AM BIG

Raymond Rushing has been on a journey to change the world and has turned those dreams into reality at Cummins

BY NOAH JOHNSON

Raymond Rushing grew up in a small town in Oklahoma with big dreams of changing the world. That natural desire was encouraged by his political activist grandmother, who often told a young Rushing, “If you want to change things in this country, you have to do it through the law.”

As he pursued law, he kept those words close and today, they still ring

true as he serves as corporate counsel of litigation at Cummins Inc. Rushing manages global litigation matters, international contracts, product cases, the bankruptcy docket, and also leverages his legal expertise to advocate for others inside and outside the company.

“When I grew up, we were very, very poor. My mother worked four jobs until I was in sixth grade, and we lived in subsidized housing until high school,” he remembers. “I know

how hard it is for someone to be at the bottom. Helping companies thrive so their employees can provide for their families, make great products, and have better lives drives me.”

At the company, Rushing supports the Cummins Advocating for Racial Equality (CARE) initiative, an effort to undo systemic discrimination through police, social justice, and criminal justice reform and to create economic empowerment for communities of color. By November 2022, CARE had impacted 420 Black-owned businesses, influenced 8 laws, and participated in 32 advocacy efforts. Rushing, who worked on police reform in Memphis, Tennessee, says the initiative adds to Cummins’ long history of advocating for racial equity, an endeavor he’s proud to be part of.

“CARE is a pillar we’re using to combat racism as a company. We have resources a lot of people don’t have, so we have a responsibility to make sure the world is better than when we came in it,” he explains.

Rushing felt the sense of responsibility to make the world better long before he came to Cummins. As an undergraduate student, he had read about the Great Migration, inspired by the influential Black figures who made their way from the south to Chicago in search of more opportunity. After graduating with his bachelor’s degree in African American studies and a master’s degree in human relations, he decided to follow in their footsteps and head to Chicago where he attended the John Marshall Law School (now University of Illinois Chicago School of Law).

From there, he developed a strong legal foundation and knack for building relationships as a judicial extern and federal judicial law clerk. In 2016, he

RAYMOND RUSHING

Corporate Counsel of Litigation Cummins Inc.

Courtesy of Faegre Drinker

Shaping the Future

joined Foley & Mansfield PLLP for his first fulltime role before spending the rest of his private practice career at Faegre Baker Daniels LLP (now Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP) and Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP. While in private practice in 2021, Rushing earned the recognition of “40 Under 40” from the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and the Chicago Lawyer Magazine.

Each of those experiences prepared him to go in-house. “You need to feel comfortable knowing how to direct traffic and find answers if you don’t have them,” Rushing says. “I also learned to be a master negotiator, to not sweat the small things, and to be a good person because it goes a long way.”

Outside of work, Rushing is proud to be the first openly gay president of the Cook County Bar Association, the oldest association of African American lawyers and judges in the country. In that role he passionately works to prepare the organization and its members for the future. “The future is us” is the mantra for Rushing for the 2023-24 bar year.

He brings the same passion to his other ventures, including his wrongful convictions pro bono work.

“Unfortunately, when you have the full force of government on the other side of you, you’re fighting up a hill,” Rushing says. “Regardless of a person’s innocence, with that much weight coming against you, it’s almost insurmountable. I’m passionate about making sure the government works for, not against, the people. This experiment only works if you have people believe in your government, and they’ll only do that when you do the right thing by them.”

Rushing urges his younger colleagues to never stop dreaming and striving for more. “I challenge young people to dream beyond your current circumstance, wish beyond the place you are in,” he says. “Also, be nice. It’s the greatest currency anyone can have. You don’t need to be mean or cutthroat to make it.”

Lead

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

Teddy Adams reflects on leaving two decades of private practice excellence to lead the legal team at Crown Castle

By Billy Yost

Say Yes

TEDDY ADAMS WASN’T LOOKING TO leave a prestigious role at Norton Rose Fulbright. He’d made partner specializing in the firm’s complex litigation and products liability trial division, a tenure that lasted two decades. But a colleague who he’d interned for as a summer associate during law school reached out to him, asking if he would consider joining Crown Castle’s litigation department.

“I got this job through somebody I’d met twenty-five years before,” Adams says. “You never know who you’re going to encounter again and in what capacity. I think that’s why it’s important

treat everyone you meet with respect and kindness.”

Adams says the decision to come in-house wasn’t just a solid pitch from a fellow attorney. It was a chance to get to lean into some areas he had not explored in private practice.

“As you get more senior in a firm, you’re getting paid good money to do the stuff you’re especially skilled at,” Adams explains. “The idea of going in-house seemed like a chance to get paid to learn about things I didn’t know as well. That really appealed to me.”

In February 2023, Adams took over as executive vice president and general

counsel at Crown Castle, a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and leases more than forty thousand cell towers and approximately eightyfive thousand route miles of fiber optic cable across the US. If Adams wanted a chance to grow, Crown Castle was happy to provide an education.

He was suddenly surrounded by lawyers whose expertise had nothing to do with his own: telecommunications, real estate, M&A, procurement, tax, and public policy. The veteran attorney wasn’t just there to do good work; he was learning from and leading fellow lawyers, tax professionals, insurance

Teddy Adams

EVP and General Counsel

Crown Castle

Finding the Time to Serve

Along with supporting a Fortune 500 company, Crown Castle’s Teddy Adams also finds ways to give back to his community and his alma mater. He’s served on the board of trustees at Rice University for eight years and is now a trustee emeritus. Adams also is on the board of directors for Memorial Hermann Health System.

Most recently, Adams joined the board of Houston’s branch of the Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit that provides resources and support to help those experiencing homelessness find permanent housing. The Houston Coalition has helped over twenty-eight thousand people find housing since 2012.

experts, and other professionals and helping them consider the larger organization in which they were operating. He was there to remove obstacles for others and manage risk in a manner that would help Crown Castle achieve its broader goals.

He admits it was a lot to get his head around, but given his latest promotion, Adams has clearly blossomed in an in-house atmosphere.

Humility and Grace

There are moments from Adams’s early years that highlight the qualities that would make the budding lawyer a general counsel. First there was his willingness to do the hard work. During the summers during

his undergraduate studies, he worked on the assembly line making computers at IBM. “My job was to run circuit board components through a machine that would bend their legs so that they would fit onto the board correctly,” he remembers. “It was the lowest-level job there was.”

Then there was the summer in a Frito Lay chip factory. The management training role required the young Adams to work with people who had been doing the job for years if not decades. In his words, he was a “dumb college kid” trying to help people do their jobs better. The college student knew there was no point in trying to charade as a knowit-all. Instead, he was honest, humble,

and worked to establish relationships with those working hard jobs.

“I still think about that job a lot,” Adams admits. “Whether it’s in an office environment or talking to a jury or expert witness, there are so many people who know so much more than you do. Let them know you’re not trying to ‘big time’ them. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, let them know. It’ll go a long way.”

Get Out There

For those who see Adams’s career as one worth emulating, he advises treating people not just the way you would want to be treated but also the way that they want to be treated. And

that kind of interaction shouldn’t be happening while your feet are up on a desk.

“Opportunities come from places you don’t expect, and they never come if you’re just sitting in your office,” Adams says. “Whenever you get invited to those rubber-chicken dinners that you don’t want to go to, or that lunch that you think you’d be better off billing another hour of work, you have to go. Say yes to opportunities, even when you’d rather be doing anything else.”

The GC says whether it’s an opportunity to watch a colleague negotiate, handle a dicey client interaction, select a jury, or deliver an opening statement, just do it. You will undoubtedly learn something that can be applied to your practice, even if it’s just to confirm your belief that it’s something you never want to do again.

Adams has only been in his newest opportunity since February 2023, and says he’ll call himself new through at least February 2024.

“Right now, I’m just spending a lot of time thinking about how I can make a spectacular group even better,” Adams says in his August 2023 interview. “I think that means working together, having candid conversations, and identifying what we know we’re doing well and where we might be able to improve. But I also just spend a lot of time feeling blessed to have such a wonderful team tackling these issues.”

Constant Evolution

Pamela Crocker reflects on her willingness to tackle massive change in her tenure at Vanguard as well as a parent

By Billy Yost

PAMELA CROCKER DOESN’T LOVE change. It’s a curious admission given her continued willingness to place herself well outside of her comfort zone.

The current associate general counsel and head of intellectual property, marketing, and communications legal at Vanguard has been biting off what she might think is more than she can chew for decades now. She skipped multiple grades and was an incoming college freshman at just age sixteen. She had her first child during her third

year of law school, and her son was born weeks before her final law exams.

“In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t advise anyone to make that particular decision,” Crocker says, laughing. “But I was at the age where I wanted to have children and I wanted my motherhood journey to grow just like my career trajectory.”

She may not like change, but Crocker bought her own daughter, now in her twenties, a sign to remind her of the importance of stepping outside her

own comfort zone. The attorney may not love it, but she knows the value taking a calculated leap can bring to a life, not just in terms of financial or career advancement but also in seeking out new experiences that make life interesting.

Crocker has spent the past decade with Vanguard, continuing to tack on more titles and responsibilities to a role that was initially strictly a chief patent counsel role. The attorney had accumulated extensive experience over seven

years at Kodak that included managing the company’s intellectual property and commercial litigation. Prior to that, Crocker spent almost eight years in engineering. The years don’t seem to add up unless you remember that she went to college at the same time she was eligible to get her driver’s license.

Crocker is hard at work enforcing Vanguard’s IP rights globally and combating online fraud in an era where there have never been more threats and bad actors. “We’re a financial services

firm, and that means we’re investing people’s money for their retirement or their children’s college fund,” she explains. “So, protecting those assets is critically important to us.”

When COVID-19 hit, Crocker says it created a perfect storm of market volatility—people were suddenly being sent home and the world was required to function almost entirely online. Fraud threats also went through the roof. There were entirely cloned websites, employee impersonations via

Pamela Crocker

Associate General Counsel and Head of IP, Marketing & Communications Legal

Dave Moser

Vanguard

Kelly IP congratulates Vanguard's Pamela Crocker on Modern Counsel's recognition of her outstanding accomplishments.

Kelly IP and its team of lawyers are trademark, copyright, and domain name counsel for a broad range of national and international clients, including in the financial services, automotive, software and technology, entertainment, publishing, pharmaceutical, education, travel, lodging, and hospitality fields.

A brand new world

kelly-ip.com

LinkedIn, and even fraudulent job applications requesting sensitive applicant information.

“This part of my job is one that celebrates the silence,” she says. “When things are quiet, we know we’re doing our job well. It’s been a fascinating role, and we’ve all learned so much in a very short period of time.”

Twenty years into her law practice, Crocker is continuing to seek out new opportunities to learn. Just before the pandemic, she was asked to lead Vanguard’s legal engagement committee, a role that would prove to be critical in helping drive employee satisfaction during a difficult and uncertain time.

“Serving on the engagement committee has been an honor. I hope it demonstrates a trust across the organization,” she says. “People are willing to voice their positions and how they feel with us, and we were able to extract themes to share with senior leadership. It means a lot to me to be a trusted conduit for those voices and have a positive impact on our people.”

As Crocker has been elevated higher in her organization, mentorship has become increasingly important. The attorney says that she benefited from a great mentor at the beginning of her career and now, at this point in her career, she’s intent on being that person for as many others as she can.

In fact, growing that next generation of leaders might be the most satisfying part of her role. She recently interviewed a potential candidate for her department, and at the conclusion of the interview, Crocker told the candidate that whether or not she joined Vanguard, she genuinely wanted to be a point of contact, advice, and counsel for the lawyer on her own journey.

“I just told her whether it works out or not, I want to stay connected and help her to grow,” she remembers. “I just love helping people grow. I’ve tried to mentor my own children, and I think that’s really carried over to my professional life. That’s the work that really drives me today.”

The Greatest Asset

Ian W. Sterling applies his legal expertise in structured finance—and what he’s learned about leadership—to his role as Flagstar Bank’s senior vice president and associate general counsel

By Claire Redden

AFTER COMPLETING HIS UNDERGRADUATE at Harvard University and then going on to Columbia Law School, Ian W. Sterling began his legal career in 1997 at Milbank LLP. He later was a mid-level associate at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he was introduced to and focused heavily on structured finance in the run-up to the financial crisis.

“After two decades in the structured finance industry and having gone through the

Ian W. Sterling SVP and Associate General Counsel, Structured Finance & Commercial Lending Flagstar Bank

“I think the best transactional lawyers are structured finance attorneys because they’ve seen everything, and structured finance is so interdisciplinary.”

financial crisis, there’s hardly a complex transactional issue I haven’t seen. As a structured finance lawyer, there’s not much that intimidates me,” he proclaims.

It was a natural transition for him to transfer from Cadwalader to Barclays, which was one of his biggest clients at the time. In the years leading up to the crisis, many big investment banks were structuring residential mortgage-backed securities and Barclays had jumped on the bandwagon.

“I was there from 2005 until 2014, and it was really a pure structured finance experience with a big dose of M&A right in the middle,” Sterling says, referring to Barclays’ acquisition of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

In 2015, after the financial markets had relatively recovered from the crisis, Sterling left Barclays for an opportunity at JPMorgan Chase & Co., a market

Courtesy of Flagstar Bank

leader in the space. And in February 2022, Sterling left JPMorgan to go to Flagstar Bank, where he was hired as a securitization attorney.

“My experience at Flagstar is much more varied and broad. I’m now more of a commercial lending lawyer—basically, anything transactional that hits my desk, whether it’s loans, securities, or anything in between, I can do,” he says. “I think the best transactional lawyers are structured finance attorneys because they’ve seen everything, and structured finance is so interdisciplinary.”

In the twenty-five years of experience he gained working in structured finance at big banks, Sterling went into his current role as senior vice president and associate general counsel at Flagstar with plenty of examples of leaders—some good and some not so good.

“There are a lot of people in my professional network who I would consider mentors, but, in retrospect, I wish I’d had even more,” he reflects. “You see a lot of leaders when you work in a big bureaucratic investment bank with a bunch of managers, and you can learn a lot about good leadership. But you also learn a lot about bad leadership or people who make terrible managers.”

Sterling went into his current leadership role at Flagstar knowing exactly the type of leader he wanted to be: one with integrity and one who always does the right thing for the firm. In fact, one of the things he’s most proud of is the mentorship he’s offered to junior staff.

“What I’m most proud of is identifying those junior employees who might be a bit disaffected

or overlooked and helping them obtain meaningful opportunities for career advancement,” he says. “That happens with a lot of junior employees; no matter who they are, they can fall through the cracks because a lot of managers don’t prioritize retaining them.”

Mentorship and a focus on retention, in Sterling’s opinion, are very important attributes of the best managers. “If your people leave, that naturally causes problems, whether it’s a dip in morale or wasted energy on trying to fill job openings,” he explains. “Retaining talent is important to any organization, but people in senior management sometimes lose sight of that fact. You’ve got to keep your people. Spend a little bit more time keeping them in the information loop, showing you’re interested and vested in their advancement, creating opportunities, and making sure they feel engaged and a part of the team. Otherwise, they’ll leave.”

The advice that Sterling offers to junior-level professionals is only an extension of that sentiment. “You really can’t underestimate the value of your professional network and it can help navigate through your career,” he says. “Your reputation as a professional is paramount. Every day you spend at work is an opportunity to be building your brand—let people know who you are, what you can do, and how you are a valuable asset to the organization.”

With over 900 lawyers in the United States, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP serves clients across a broad range of complex transactional, litigation and regulatory matters. We are known for our strength in the energy, financial services, real estate, and retail and consumer products industries, as well as our considerable experience in more than 100 distinct areas of practice, including privacy and cybersecurity, intellectual property, environmental, and mergers and acquisitions. Our full-service litigation practice is one of the largest in the country, with particular depth in key litigation markets such as Texas, California, Florida and the Mid-Atlantic.

©2023 Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP HuntonAK.com

Hunton Andrews Kurth: Ian leaves nothing to chance. He is very disciplined, methodical and above all, practical, in how he assesses risk and solves problems for his company. He is a consummate team player.

Charting Rocket Ship Growth

Counsel Nicholas Green talks the “second-mover advantage” as Underdog Sports continues its exponential expansion

By Billy Yost

General

THE FANTASY SPORTS SPACE IS booming. According to the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association, 23 percent of all American adults participated in sports betting in 2022 and 19 percent engaged in fantasy sports of some kind. And the numbers continue to grow.

Founded in 2020 by Jeremy Levine and Brandon Stakenborg, Underdog Sports—a fantasy sports, sports content, and sports betting platform— has experienced its own rocket ship growth. Since Nicholas Green took the reins of the fledgling legal department as the inaugural general counsel in 2022, he’s helped grow a company of seventy-five employees to over three hundred in just a year and a half. Whatever the special sauce that’s responsible for that explosive expansion is also what lured the former private practice partner in-house.

This is Green’s first turn as a general counsel, having spent time as a litigator and an appellate lawyer with regulatory dispute and legislative expertise prior to going in-house. He also spent four years as a law clerk on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and US District Court for the District of South Carolina. His pedigree seemed to indicate he was aspiring to have a prestigious life in law, but it couldn’t be any further from the truth.

“My parents didn’t graduate from college, and I didn’t really have a

network of lawyers growing up to learn about the law,” he explains. “Law just seemed like a stable line of work, and I was lucky that it turned out to be something I really enjoy.”

Since taking a chance on law school, Green seemed to be on a rocket ship of his own creation. Prior to going in-house, the law partner was named a “Rising Star in Sports and Gaming Law” by Law360. So, what prompted an attorney seemingly capable of anything to leave private practice?

Nicholas Green General Counsel Underdog Sports

“Law just seemed like a stable line of work, and I was lucky that it turned out to be something I really enjoy.”

“I wanted to be part of the team that’s actually building the business,” Green reflects. “This is a high-growth company where everyone is on deck for a variety of issues. You add value any and every which way you can, and that idea of, ‘Who is a businessperson and who is a lawyer?’ just sort of melds together.”

The attorney says this is an opportunity to work in a disruptive and fledgling industry while also having access to the usual brick and mortar issues that come with the role of general counsel. As a second-wave company in fantasy sports and sports betting, Underdog has the “second-mover advantage,” Green says.

That ideology and emergence into the space may incur a fair amount of turbulence from industry incumbents, but he notes that Underdog is stacked with the vision and talent to continue its exponential growth well into the future. The fantasy and sports betting space is not free of controversy, and that’s why Green says the company takes its role as a responsible gaming advocate seriously.

“In any business that is taking money from consumers, you have an obligation to protect those consumers,” he says. “But I think we have a special obligation in the fantasy sports and betting environment. That’s why we’re making

investments and innovation in the responsible gaming space and why we’ve gone well above what the law requires of us.”

Green says that fantasy sports and sports betting should augment the entertainment experience, not become the experience. Underdog wants to create content and engagement so sports fans can further enjoy a sport they already love. Short-term financial gains are never worth creating a culture of irresponsible gaming, one that can potentially dog an entire industry if left unattended.

That’s a lot on Green’s shoulders. He’s the first general counsel for an organization that is growing as fast as it can appropriately scale. But he remains proud of the legal team he’s helped build and mentor, lawyers he knows can go on to be general counsel someday in their own right. And as a former 24/7 firm attorney, there’s one behavior Green is intent on modeling for his people.

“I don’t make apologies for picking my kids up from school every day at 2:30 p.m.,” he admits. “I don’t apologize for my kids being around when I take a call, and I don’t want my team to either. I think having a family makes me a better lawyer. I hope our team here feels free to take that time when they need it, too. That culture makes all of us better lawyers and advisors.”

“Find a Way to Get to Yes”

Ohmium’s Catherine Budzynski has spent her career embracing new areas of the law and being a business partner first.

By Noah Johnson

WHEN CATHERINE

BUDZYNSKI

interviewed to become chief legal officer at Ohmium, she pitched a philosophy that would become her legal team’s mission statement: “Find a way to get to yes.”

Today, Budzynski oversees Ohmium’s all-woman legal team in a sector where they are hard to come by. The attorneys provide legal services to the global company as it produces proton exchange membrane electrolyzers to make green hydrogen, sitting on the cutting edge of the green energy movement. Despite their legal prowess,

they view themselves as strategic business partners first.

“I believe that above all else in an in-house team, you need to be smart, solution-oriented, and business partners who also have legal skills in your tool kit,” she says. “You have to be openminded and willing to learn about areas you’re not that familiar with. Just say yes to opportunities that come your way, and over time you’re going to build this wealth of knowledge that will create a foundation for your success.”

That mindset has not only helped her team of five navigate the green energy space but also been a North Star for Budzynski’s professional and personal development. Maybe it was born out of her international upbringing. She bounced between the US and Europe fifteen times within the first thirty years of her life—an experience that exposed her to different cultures, locations, and the reality that “only change is constant.”

It also made her adaptable and openminded, traits that she relied on as she made her way through law school and through her legal career. Along the way, she raised her hand to take on work in energy finance, capital markets, marketing, intellectual property, corporate governance, fundraising, product development, and more. She rounded out her experiences in those areas with an executive MBA from Auburn University.

Some are taught that the best or more successful career path is linear. Budzynski is a shining example of how false that notion is. “I have a unique mix of experiences that helped me build the skill set I have today,” she says. “It’s important to use all your past experiences and lean into opportunities saying, ‘This is interesting. I haven’t thought of this before. Let me learn more about that.’ It opens up different areas of the law.”

Her diverse background is what makes her team so strong today. Each member has expertise in different areas and industries. They’ve come together to help empower the business in several ways, including through a self-service resource that’s helped colleagues answer policy and guidelines questions without coming to legal and by developing industry-leading contracts for the sale and maintenance of equipment.

Budzynski and her team have also helped the company complete a $250 million Series C financing round, the second largest Series C financing worldwide in 2023. It’s an achievement that the leader is especially proud of.

“It came at a time when there was very little venture capital funding globally, but because of the industry we’re in and the company we built, investors saw a lot of potential in us,” she reflects.

Courtesy of Catherine Budzynski

Catherine Budzynski Chief Legal Officer Ohmium

“It’s important to use all your past experiences and lean into opportunities saying, ‘This is interesting. I haven’t thought of this before. Let me learn more about that.’ It opens up different areas of the law.”

“My venture financing and capital markets background was critical for getting it done because there are always last-minute things that come up, but I could say, ‘I’ve seen this before—I have a solution.’”

That’s why Budzynski advises young attorneys to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

“Raise your hands, volunteer, and take on new areas of the law; you never know when you’ll need it and what doors it will open for you,” she says. “A lot of in-house legal departments are leanly staffed, so if there’s no dedicated specialist, offer to become that person. It will help you build your skill set, grow professionally and be seen as a team player who can be counted on. Don’t let linear paths get in the way of your success. My career is a great example of that.”

—Praveen Raju, Partner

Core Values

General Counsel Danielle Warner brings years of private practice experience and passion for female entrepreneurship to help FIGS scale

By Brittany Farb Gruber

ON MAY 27, 2021, FIGS ACHIEVED a historic milestone: it became the first company to go public led by two female cofounders. The online retailer of healthcare apparel not only achieved unicorn start-up status but also became an inspiring example for female entrepreneurs nationwide.

Danielle Warner, general counsel at FIGS, watched as founders Heather Hasson and Trina Spear rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange alongside a dozen healthcare workers. Years of hard work and dedication to the FIGS’ mission led up to this moment, but the company didn’t want

to lose sight of its mission to best serve the backbone of the medical industry.

“We were still in the thick of the global COVID-19 pandemic and we didn’t think that it was appropriate to have the spotlight be on the company or our cofounders,” Warner remembers. “The real stars are the healthcare providers that were out there working tirelessly. We really wanted to be able to highlight them and tell their story as part of the IPO.”

The GC describes the moment as a “great rallying cry for the company.”

“Everyone who works at FIGS shares the same passion and feels that they

“Everyone who works at FIGS shares the same passion and feels that they are doing more than just creating the best scrubs.”

are doing more than just creating the best scrubs,” she says. “We’re really here to serve our healthcare community, and it’s been part of the FIGS DNA since it was founded.”

That passion is what drew Warner to the company in 2019. She spent years in private practice with tenures at Cooley LLP and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, experiences that she credits as providing her with core values that she uses today in-house. First and foremost, she learned the value of customer service.

“You are a service provider at the end of the day. At a firm, you learn about how to work with various clients and their needs, and how to service them in the ways that make the most sense for your client,” she explains. “A big part of that is learning to tailor your work product and your legal advice based on each respective client. The law is often gray. It’s very rare that something is black and white. So, you really need to get to know your clients’ risk tolerance and their business needs to shape the way that you approach your research and ultimately how you give advice.”

In fact, Warner’s client-tailored approach impressed the cofounders of FIGS, a client of hers at Cooley, and ultimately led to them

offering her the role of the start-up’s first and sole attorney.

“I had to become a jack-of-all-trades willing to do whatever needed to get done in order to get projects across the finish line and help the company succeed,” the GC reflects. “It was a huge adjustment and learning curve.

When you go in-house, especially at a start-up, and especially when you’re the only lawyer, you really have to work to develop a network of external resources. It pushed me to step up my networking and my communications with friends

and lawyers that I knew in all various areas of the law and to really hone that legal community that I could rely on.”

Today, FIGS’ legal team remains intentionally lean with four attorneys and one paralegal. “We really believe it’s better to be a team of generalists who are able to easily tackle and adapt to the company’s varying business and legal needs as opposed to having purely specialists,” Warner says. “We’re very collaborative and work well together.”

The GC is also passionate about empowering female entrepreneurship.

Danielle Warner General Counsel FIGS

As an attorney at Cooley, Warner developed a niche practice of supporting women-led companies.

“I felt a sense of pride when we could close a deal after working extra hard on the diligence or fighting longer on the terms to get a result that made the most sense for a company,” she says. “When I came over to FIGS, it was an easy sell. The founders are truly inspiring women to work for, and I was really excited to be working at a female-led organization. It’s really nice to sit at the executive table at FIGS and to see other folks around the table who look like me, who think like me, who have the same life experiences as me, and they are working through the same life challenges as me.”

Warner advises young attorneys to commit to putting in the hours and hard work early in their careers. While it may initially feel difficult and tedious at times, she says that’s how you learn, grow, and unlock new and exciting opportunities.

“Push yourself to take on more, ask more questions, and raise your hand for the toughest deals and the hardest challenges because that will ultimately teach you how to perform at your highest potential and shows you that you can make your way through any tough situation,” she says.

Bird Marella: “Danielle is a tireless and fierce advocate. Collaborating with her to secure a huge trial win for FIGS was a career highlight.”

—Ekwan Rhow, Principal

Pivot

Showcasing prominent in-house attorneys who capably adapt to changes in their companies, industries, and personal and professional lives to carve out new paths through imagination and reinvention

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

How to Evolve with Confidence

Growing up, Barbara Dunlap learned to adapt to different environments and situations—a skill that helped her legal career flourish

By Noah Johnson

AS A CHILD, BARBARA DUNLAP AND HER family moved from North Carolina to Chicago, where they were the first Black family on her street. That meant she’d have to grow accustomed to being the “one and only” in her classrooms and her extracurricular activities. Her uniqueness and adaptability didn’t stop there. It extended beyond her grade school and high school halls to the predominately Black church her father preached at on Sundays and to the cousins she’d frequently visit on the city’s South Side.

Barbara Dunlap

VP of Employment Law & Litigation

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits

“Don’t be afraid of the unknown. Be willing to say yes to something that might be out of your comfort zone.”

She says that chameleonlike ability started in her loving household and helped her navigate the ebbs and flows in her decades-long legal career.

“I learned how to adjust to whatever environment I was in and to maneuver in different spaces because of the foundation my parents gave me,” says Dunlap, who currently serves as vice president of employment law and litigation at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits. “They gave me that confidence and self-esteem to go into situations like, ‘This is different, but I can do this too.’”

That foundation went hand in hand with her interest in law. Her dad had always been involved with civil rights work, and Dunlap would often hear stories about the injustices her parents experienced growing up in the segregated south. The combination of those experiences inspired Dunlap to consider a career as a public defender, where she could make sure rights were being properly protected.

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh with a law degree, that’s what she did. She went on to represent parents in the child welfare system in Cook County, Illinois. It was the kind of work that made for sleepless nights, but it taught her how to be a professional, how to think quickly on her feet, and how to have a thick skin. Despite the ways it developed her as an attorney and a leader, Dunlap came to realize that area of the law just wasn’t for her.

She decided to leverage her legal skills to become a federal

mediator for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where she fell in love with employment law as she conducted negotiations and settled employment discrimination claims. There, Dunlap also met colleagues and leaders from Walgreens, where she went in-house as a senior labor and employment attorney four years later. Those and other career experiences positioned her well to lead at Southern Glazer’s in 2022.

“Mediation helped me better discern where people’s needs are and helped me understand their real interests,” she explains. “In a corporate environment, what is said isn’t always what is needed, so having the tools to ask the right questions has served me well. Walgreens served as a great foundation for being in-house because they had their processes and procedures down to a science.”

When Dunlap stepped into her role at Southern Glazer’s, it was like drinking from a fire hose. She hadn’t worked in the liquor industry, hadn’t previously heard of the company, and needed to understand its employment litigation philosophy in order to properly manage cases. But as someone who spent her life figuring things out on the fly, she didn’t miss a beat. She had virtual one-onones with her colleagues to build rapport and learn while pulling from various sources to get up to speed on the industry.

Today, Dunlap is thriving in the role and oversees immigration, affirmative action, environmental health and safety, and the

“From a policy standpoint to our investigative processes, employees must feel comfortable to speak up, so we can address issues when they arise.”

company’s HR policy and compliance team. In addition to streamlining processes and making them more efficient, she’s focused on taking the company to the next level by “helping to make sure we’re treating our people the best way we can by creating an inclusive and safe work environment.”

“From a policy standpoint to our investigative processes, employees must feel comfortable to speak up, so we can address issues when they arise,” she says. “That’s my job—to create the best work environment possible by following the laws, making sure employees treat each other right, and if not, promptly fix it.”

Young people wanting to follow in Dunlap’s footsteps should be intellectually curious, open to career possibilities, and intentional about their career moves.

“Be ready to take on new things and to take on more,” she advises. “Don’t be afraid of the unknown. Be willing to say yes to something that might be out of your comfort zone.” Dunlap says these qualities have helped her to learn, adapt, and succeed in any environment.

Find Your Path

By Noah Johnson

BRETT MULL IS CURRENTLY THE ASSOCIATE general counsel at Cochlear Americas, but a decade ago, she was a driven law student at Cornell University trying to find a legal path that suited her. Some of her classmates had plans to go into the nonprofit sector, while many others were heading to competitive firms on the East and West Coasts. Mull knew she wanted to practice in her hometown of Denver, but she wrestled with whether she should follow the big law crowd.

“During my summers, I came home trying to figure out what my big law path looked like because that’s what I had most seen, and it was harder than I expected to find a job opportunity out here,” she reflects. “Part of that was learning how to interview and present myself, but it was also challenging because Denver has two pretty good law schools, so a lot of people were looking to get jobs here.”

After she didn’t get the summer job opportunities she wanted, she found herself in a mentor’s office in tears, frustrated and unsure how to move forward. However, the mentor and Mull’s loved ones encouraged her to consider other legal options. Their confidence in her drove her to dust herself off and to broaden her horizon.

She went on to spend a summer and semester at the US Attorney’s Office, where she was exposed to different sides of the law from a government perspective and met another lifelong mentor. After Mull graduated law school, she served as a law clerk to Justice Richard Gabriel, who showed her the value of relationships, integrity, reputation, and owning her unique journey.

From there, she accepted her first private practice role at Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP. The experience gave her a chance to learn from the best litigators in the country. However, seeing their passion helped her recognize that she didn’t derive the same kind of excitement from that work.

As Mull reflects on that journey today, she offers advice to young professionals who find themselves where she was, searching for a place in their field and figuring out their own path.

“If you’re measuring yourself against the people around you and seeing that they seem so

Brett Mull shares her path to Cochlear Americas and provides advice for young attorneys navigating their own professional journeys

Brett Mull Associate General Counsel Cochlear Americas

Paul Wedlake

“If you’re measuring yourself against the people around you and seeing that they seem so much better than you at something, it’s important to look inward.”

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much better than you at something, it’s important to look inward,” she says. “Sometimes you can’t do that by yourself. Sometimes you really need to talk to a good mentor, a good friend, or family member and ask, ‘What do I have to offer?’ There are so many things that go into being a good lawyer. It’s important to think about what your values and strengths are and play to those even if you end up taking a different path.”

Mull was always strong at building relationships with customers, vendors, and business leaders. That ability and the knowledge she gained as a litigator helped her shift in-house as associate general counsel at Cochlear Americas.

“As an in-house lawyer, my understanding of what things look like when there’s a dispute and when there’s risk from a litigation perspective is useful,” she says. “But even when we’re trying to negotiate a contract with the other side, we’re all trying to get to the same place and do what’s best for our customers and our patients who want to hear better. It was a big shift to recognize that even if I’m on the other side of someone else, we’re all working towards the same goal and that aligns more with my values than litigation.”

Mull has been a perfect fit at the company, where she wears several

hats and her workday is constantly changing. She supports Cochlear’s US and Canadian business partners in legal, compliance, and privacy. She supports comprehensive training and new initiatives from business and product teams. Mull also runs impact assessments with the company’s global privacy office, serves as an escalation point for contract negotiation, and advises on litigation and marketing issues.

“I love being a resource for my business partners,” the AGC says. “I like being able to talk to them about their exciting new projects or how they handle certain situations in the field. I also enjoy the compliance aspect, explaining risk, and helping others understand challenges we can overcome together.”

As the company finds new ways to develop new technology for patients, Mull is excited to see them tell their stories.

“Many times, we talk about hearing loss, but with this campaign, we focus on hearing wins,” she says. “It’s been fun to see videos from recipients of Cochlear’s technology who’ve gone from feeling disconnected from others to having access to sound. It’s a hard journey for them and requires a lot of work, but to hear their stories and be part of that initiative highlighting successes is really rewarding.”

Always Raise Your Hand

Randi Donaldson grew her legal career by doing the unexpected—and learning from it. Now, she encourages others to do the same at TD Williamson and beyond.

By Natalie Kochanov

RANDI DONALDSON HAS ALWAYS approached her career with confidence.

“I decided I was going to be a lawyer around the age of nine, and I never deviated from that,” she says.

Even so, Donaldson could never have predicted that she would end up at pipeline equipment and services company TD Williamson (TDW) as senior legal counsel of the Western Hemisphere. Yet each step of the path she followed to get here only unlocked a deeper level of passion for her work. These days, that work sees her bridging the divide between the legal function and the business itself—and making each side stronger in the process.

Donaldson started law school thinking she wanted to practice criminal law. She didn’t expect that plan to change when she opted to spend the summer before her third year in Kansas City to be close to her family. “I got a clerking job with a small boutique construction litigation firm that specialized in representing big general contractors on large construction projects,” Donaldson says. “By the end of the summer, I was fascinated by what their clients did and how the litigation worked on those massive construction projects.”

The attorney has remained steadfast in her commitment to the construction and engineering industry ever since. In fact, some ten years into her litigation practice, she literally wrote the book on the subject.

“West Publishing—now owned by Thomson Reuters—asked me to contribute a book on Oklahoma construction law that would go into their Oklahoma practice series,” she says, noting that she initially saw the book as a client development opportunity. “While I was a litigator, I was certain I would never do anything but be a

Randi Donaldson Senior Legal Counsel of the Western Hemisphere TD Williamson

litigator. Then, about one week after I turned in the manuscript, I got a phone call from a headhunter who was trying to hire an assistant general counsel for a big oil and gas construction and engineering company.”

Donaldson figured that spending a few years in-house would make her a stronger litigator in private practice— except she never went back. “I decided it was even better than litigation,” she says of her first in-house role at Willbros Group. “I could spend all my time becoming an expert in just one client’s business and helping advise them on

matters that would prevent litigation and claims from happening in the first place.” She moved from Willbros over to TDW in 2015, but she hasn’t forgotten her roots. “Everything I did in my litigation practice comes into play whenever I pick up a contract to negotiate it,” Donaldson says. “It also informs how I develop lawyers who work for me. I spend a lot of time making sure that they’re not just looking at the words on the paper, but thinking about the next step—how someone on the other side of an argument might use those words against us.”

Donaldson acknowledges that she holds her team, and herself, to a high standard, but she also trusts them to identify and solve problems their own way. She also strives to help each team member achieve their individual goals. “However long someone works for me, I want them to leave better than they came in,” she says. “I want them to take on as much as they’re comfortable taking on, not just task-wise, but responsibility-wise.”

That includes getting involved in special projects across TDW. “Every opportunity we have to work on a nonlegal project in the business makes us better lawyers,” Donaldson emphasizes. “I’m leading a transformation project for the company on procurement, which is not in any way legal-focused. But I had experience from the negotiation of contracts with suppliers and the handling of supplier claims, and I understood where we had pain points and problems relative to suppliers and material.”

Beyond her work on supply chain and procurement, Donaldson has collaborated on crossfunctional projects to build out an incident investigation and management process, and to evaluate a potential aftermarket services business line for the company. In perfect keeping with this track record, her biggest piece of advice for aspiring attorneys is to step outside of their comfort zone. “Absolutely foundational to my development of skills—not to mention the key to all the most enjoyable parts of my career—has been my willingness to raise my hand,” she says.

That advice is all the more crucial in-house, where special projects offer some of the best opportunities to learn about the business and network with colleagues outside the legal department.

“The closer you are to understanding the nuances of a company’s business, problems, and risk, the tighter your advice can be,” Donaldson says. “Everywhere I’ve worked as an in-house lawyer, I’ve been very proactive, and my team at TDW is no different. We’re at the table, and we’re involved in nonlegal issues every day.”

Large Firm Savvy, Small Firm Service

Perri Dunn PLLC congratulates Ms. Randi A. Donaldson for her achievements and well-deserved recognition! Ms. Donaldson is a consummate professional, and it is our absolute honor and a pleasure to work for her as outside counsel for TD Williamson.

Embrace the Pivot

Motorola Solutions’ Kaidi Johnson shares the value of being open to new opportunities and staying true to yourself

By Noah Johnson

SOMETIMES, LIFE HAS OTHER PLANS. If there’s anyone who understands this, it’s Kaidi Johnson, vice president of legal and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) at Motorola Solutions, where she has the honor of leading beyond traditional functions. She didn’t start her journey aspiring to serve in that kind of role but landed it due to a philosophy that’s helped her thrive at every twist and turn in her career: embrace the pivot.

“There’s a lot that we think about or aspire to do, especially as we get ready to graduate college,” she says. “But it’s important to be open to different opportunities that come your way. Sometimes the niche finds you, instead of you finding it. Be open to new ways you can leverage your skills that are above and beyond what we’ve been socialized to expect.”

Johnson initially had her sights set on going to medical school but realized it wasn’t for her after a difficult organic chemistry class. Remembering the court TV shows she watched growing up in the 1980s, she knew that a legal path was the next logical choice. She pursued it

Kaidi Johnson VP of Legal & ESG Motorola Solutions

and excelled, making her way to University of Baltimore School of Law, where she specialized in business law and advocacy.

About nine months before graduation, she was hit with a heavy curveball—the death of her father. Unfortunately for Johnson, that devastating blow was the first of many.

“When my father died, there was so much going on, so I ended up taking a year off between finishing law school

and studying for the bar,” she says. “When I did go on to take the bar, 9/11 occurred as I awaited the exam results, so I struggled for a while to find a job since there was a huge hiring freeze across all sorts of disciplines. There was such uncertainty and turmoil in the economy.”

Despite these challenges, Johnson never wavered. She eventually got an opportunity to work on real estate closings and serve in various contracts

manager roles at the likes of Northrop Grumman, VT Griffin Services, and Pfizer. Those experiences gave her exposure to support legal teams and sales organizations in compliance functions across several industries. But as she grew more senior in her career and in those roles, she felt a need to be more strategic in shaping her career.

“I had a lot of experience in federal contracting, but every time our teams ran into issues, they would always

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defer to the attorney who didn’t have a single day of experience with the subject matter,” she remembers. “That frustrated me. I told myself, ‘I’ve been doing this long enough. Before the title didn’t bother me, but clearly it’s an issue.’ So, I looked for other opportunities and that’s when I found Motorola.”

Johnson has been thriving ever since. In her role, she’s been able to expand on her legal expertise by supporting various functions, including supply chain, procurement, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and more.

“I’m fortunate that they’ve recognized my different talents and that I offer more than just arguing about words on paper,” she says. “They appreciate my leadership, my ability to develop talent and build strong teams, my empathy, and my relatability. I think that’s why I’ve been given such a chance to take on leadership roles outside of the traditional legal roles you’d expect.”

Johnson is particularly proud to be a thought leader in ESG and sustainability, spaces that often lack representation from people of color, particularly Black women.

“I’m super proud of being a representative in that space and offer perspective,” she says. “A lot of people will talk about sustainability and environmental issues and not appreciate some of the challenges facing underrepresented communities. We can say, ‘Stop using single use plastics,’ but if you’re in certain parts of the world, where you’re having trouble getting clean or drinkable water at all, it’s a luxury to say, ‘I’m not going to drink out of this water bottle.’”

Young attorneys looking to learn from Johnson’s career should not only embrace the pivot but stay true to themselves.

“If you’re asked to represent a client or support ideologies that aren’t consistent with the law or your passions, you need to realize that the opportunity in front of you won’t be the only one you have,” Johnson advises. “The skills you have are marketable and there’s no need to compromise your integrity or deviate from your true self. A more rewarding opportunity is not too far away.”

Manufacturing FOCUS

Five attorneys who are lending their legal expertise to the exciting field of manufacturing

SPEAK Purposefully & CARRY A BIG RACKET

Mark Casper draws upon decades of experience to drive in-house excellence at Marvell Technology as executive vice president, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary

BY BILLY YOST

MARK CASPER TENDS TO LET HIS work and his results do the talking. So, it may not be widely known that as a first-year associate, he litigated two cases through trial as “second chair.” In both trials, his clients won, and one case ultimately wound up as a published appellate opinion.

It may be even less known that Casper is a world-class tennis player and athlete, and that his son Luke was a top five tennis recruit in the country in 2021 and currently plays for Texas A&M University.

“I guess I never talk much about myself,” the executive vice president, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary says, laughing. “I’m not the kind of person that needs to let everyone in the room know about me. I would rather talk about and learn about others than talk about myself. The other side to that is when I have something to say, my team knows it is meaningful.”

Before leading teams of his own, Casper amassed ten years of law firm experience. His first lawsuit, a real estate litigation case involving California’s unique antideficiency statutes,

was a complicated enough matter in its own right but would be made exponentially trickier when two months before trial, the senior partner on the case left for an in-house role.

The trial had been put on hold many times already, and the judge refused to push it out any further. “We brought in a trial lawyer from another office,” Casper remembers. “He was very skilled but did not know about the underlying facts or events. It was an amazing experience for me.

“As a first year associate, I not only drafted all of the motions but argued them as well, cross examined witnesses, interfaced with a difficult client, and was incredibly active in the courtroom against seasoned counsel,” he continues. “I feel like I got to experience a whole career along with lot of stress and anxiety in that first year.”

A few months later, he repeated this experience in US Federal Court in a matter where a plaintiff attempted to pierce the corporate veil of Casper’s client. Again, he had tremendous success in this trial with his client prevailing.

MARK CASPER EVP, Chief Legal Officer, and Corporate Secretary Marvell Technology

Achille Bigliardi

”I would rather talk about and learn about others than talk about myself. The other side to that is when I have something to say, my team knows it is meaningful. ”

The young attorney ran into the judge in a grocery store one night after his team successfully won the case. The judge said the rest of the attorneys had certainly been more polished than the young Casper whom he called “rookie,” but that he did a great job in court and held his own. However, despite the kind words, Casper knew the courtroom wasn’t for him.

“It’s not that I didn’t like it, but I didn’t want my career to have that kind of specialty,” the EVP explains. “I learned how to be an effective litigator and outside counsel, but I wanted to be more interactive and collaborative with people and continue to develop new skills. As outside counsel, I didn’t like the handoff of a case or a matter. I wanted to have full and extreme ownership from the beginning to the end.”

Casper then went on to practice in complex commercial real estate transaction before going to Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati to practice corporate work for technology clients and ultimately went in-house to serve as Maxim Integrated’s (now part of Analog Devices) first corporate

attorney. He was ultimately appointed general counsel and held that position until Analog Devices acquired Maxim.

Over the last twenty years, Casper has perfected his in-house practice. Since joining Marvell Technology in 2021, he has had the opportunity to drive his department as a true business partner, and the lawyer has high expectations for his team.

Casper says a legal department shouldn’t be mere conduits or middlemen, but, instead, add value and be solution-oriented. “Problems are meant to be solved with practical solutions, and we need to be businesspeople as well as lawyers,” he says.

Given his experience on both sides of the aisle, he is strategic about utilizing outside counsel. “Internally, our job is to be better than outside counsel,” Casper says. “We have to know the issues better inside-andout. We have one client; our outside counsel has hundreds of clients.”

If a case requires subject matter expertise, such as a cross-border M&A transaction or a complex commercial dispute, Casper will engage outside

counsel. But in those situations, he says internal counsel still needs to be an active and integral part of the process where outside counsel is acting as an extension of the internal legal team. Full and extreme ownership of the matter resides with the internal legal team.

The second situation arises when the internal legal team is simply too busy and stacked with work to cover a particular issue within the time deadlines required. Ideally a rarity, Casper admits that this is an issue all internal legal teams face at some point or another.

“Sometimes we need some additional horsepower to get through a hard push,” he says. “But again, we need to work closely with outside counsel to ensure deliverables and timelines are met in a way we expect. Our internal team is still an active participant and must own the project and the deliverables.”

Finally, if an issue poses a significant amount of risk and has the potential to have visibility at the board level, outside counsel may be sought to help

We congratulate MARK CASPER on his recognition for outstanding contributions as EVP, CLO, and GC for Fortune 100 semiconductor companies over many years. Ropers Majeski is proud and excited to work with Mark and his entire legal and business team on a variety of legal issues.

validate the company’s position and processes as well as ensure that the legal team is thinking strategically about resolving a particular problem.

Outside counsel from Weil, Gotshal, and Manges LLP have worked with Casper for nearly fifteen years, both at Maxim Integrated and Marvell. “Mark is a highly effective general counsel who really knows how to manage his in-house legal team and work collaboratively with outside counsel,” says Craig Adas, Silicon Valley office managing partner. “He’s able to bring everyone together with his results-oriented leadership style.”

When it comes to Casper’s passion for tennis, he’s found a way to integrate both his work and personal life. He brought in tennis coaching legend Dick Gould to speak to his legal team about developing and maintaining successful teams, winning, and other crossover lessons from the tennis world. During the fireside chat, the legal team asked to get into the mind of a man who won seventeen NCAA men’s tennis titles along with “coach of the decade” titles from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.

Another tennis tip Casper uses in his professional life is to never leave the office feeling badly about his performance. “I was trained to never leave the tennis facility feeling upset about my game,” he reflects. “If I struggled with my serve in a match, I stayed late and hit hundreds of serves until I felt better about it. If I did not move well during a match, I stayed after and ran sprints. I do the same thing today at work.”

The attorney attributes much of his success to the strong support system and loyalty he has at home starting with his wife, Stephanie, of twenty-nine years and their seven children along with the recent addition of a grandson who lives with them. “My lucky number has always been seven, but now I am thinking it should be eight,” he says.

www.ropers.com

—Michael Ioannou, Partner

Ropers Majeski PC:

“Mark is a stellar example of what all CLOs and GCs should aspire to be. He combines a steady, personable management style with a keen intellect and expertly navigates the realities and challenges of the worldwide semiconductor industry.”

STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNERS.

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS. ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT.

WEIL CONGRATULATES MARK CASPER OF MARVELL TECHNOLOGY ON HIS WELL–DESERVED RECOGNITION IN MODERN COUNSEL.

JONATHAN COHEN Associate General Counsel PNY Technologies

Fernando Herrera

Integrity OF

With a diverse résumé including service in the Israeli Defense Forces and the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office, Jonathan Cohen now helps PNY customers according to his personal values

BY FRANK DIMARIA

WHEN HE WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL

Jonathan Cohen toured concentration camps in Poland as part of the March of the Living program, a global program where students and Holocaust survivors walk from Auschwitz to Auschwitz Birkenau to commemorate the lives lost.

Standing on that ground where so many suffered and with history staring him in the face, feelings of frustration, obligation, and responsibility welled

up and surfaced. “Almost to the point where it’s a calling,” Cohen says. “You just know you have to do something because something’s off. You feel uncomfortable in your own skin because you know you have to do something, and you’re doing nothing.”

When he arrived home in the US, he informed his grandparents, both of whom survived the concentration camps, that he was enlisting in

the Israeli army. He deferred college and three days after graduating high school, Cohen flew to Israel and served in the Israeli combat infantry for twenty months.

Upon returning to the US, Cohen graduated from Muhlenberg College, and earned a JD and MBA in 2018 from Touro Law Center and Graduate School of Business in New York. He landed a job in the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office where he prosecuted hundreds of domestic violence cases in a high-octane, high-stakes environment.

“I wanted to stand behind a cause I could align with every day,” he reflects. “Respect for women was heavily imparted in my family. Growing up, integrity was one of the values my parents instilled in me, and I do my best to live up to every day.”

In 2021, after five years of combined public service on two separate continents, Cohen joined PNY Technologies, a leading designer, manufacturer, and supplier of memory upgrade modules, flash memory cards, and GPUs. It proved a perfect fit. “PNY gives me a platform to service customers in a way that aligns with the same values I was brought up with,” he says. “Having the

opportunity to hold these responsibilities in a different spirit, I feel fulfilled and aligned.”

Cohen redlines contracts, works in business development, develops program initiatives, recruits potential hires, manages distributors, and leads the security team while interacting with a variety of departments. “I don’t see PNY in a vacuum. I see the entire landscape,” he explains.

This exposure permits him to view PNY as a legal entity in the form of a corporation. Cohen creates strategies that optimize the business and eliminate communication gaps between finance and sales.

Cohen, who struggled with reading comprehension and critical thinking as a child, calls himself an empathetic leader and works to be relatable. “That’s the tone I take because I believe that in overcoming the struggles, I had to understand and recognize when someone does not understand me. To understand why words and articulation are so important,” he says.

Given his personal struggles, Cohen aspires to give back so others don’t have to struggle with similar issues. In that spirit, he hosts a podcast, Inside the

”Growing up, integrity was one of the values my parents instilled in me, and I do my best to live up to every day.”

Inspired , and offers online courses that coach individuals in presentation, public speaking, and job interview skills. His mission is to share strategies and lessons he’s learned.

Cohen warns young lawyers about the dangers of internalizing rejections and allowing them to weave into the fabric of their identities. He says he’s created “an undeniable trail of evidence and it’s unreasonable for me not to believe I am who I say I am.”

“I’m someone who went to schools that people never heard of. I have three degrees, two of them are graduate degrees. I had learning disabilities growing up, and here I am working for a corporation. I prosecuted domestic violence cases and I’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars in philanthropic endeavors, not because of where I went to school, but because of who I am and how I was raised,” Cohen reflects.

We applaud the accomplishments of our client and friend Jonathan Cohen and are proud to partner with the entire PNY Technologies team.

READY Anything FOR

Brad Stoll succeeded in his career by remaining open, trying his best, and being prepared for the next opportunity. Today, he relies on his decades of experience as chief counsel at Vontier.

BY NOAH JOHNSON

VONTIER, A GLOBAL INDUSTRIAL technology company focused on smarter transportation and mobility, has to be prepared for inevitable shifts that come with managing a portfolio of eight operating companies with unique market dynamics.

It helps to hire someone like Brad Stoll, chief counsel of mobility technology, who’s responsible for all legal support related to the company’s fueling solutions business and for legal support in the Americas across Vontier’s portfolio of businesses. s.

He came to Vontier comfortable with navigating through uncertainty, a quality that has fueled his success along a curveball-filled career path. In fact, it’s what drove him to the law as a high school student, despite not knowing the practice areas he’d

choose. It is that characteristic that brought him new job opportunities after his post-law school plans fell through. It’s what kept him hungry and optimistic at each career impasse and fork in the road.

Stoll brought that mentality to Vontier in 2022 and encouraged legal operations to be agile, a vital quality for a company at the precipice of gasoline and alternative fuels.

“The company has invested a lot of money into new product development and R&D [research and development] every year, and I think that’s been the trend for a long time. That means we have businesses at the ready for everything from EVs [electric vehicles] to compressed natural gas to hydrogen and things that aren’t even ready for the market yet,” Stoll says. “When you

look around the company at every level, you can see branches and teams just ready for when the next thing pops. If it’s hydrogen, we’re all ready. If it’s a change in how EVs are charged, we’re all ready for that, too.”

In the legal department, Stoll and his colleagues have played their part by helping to support acquisitions and divestment transactions that have strengthened the company’s forward-thinking strat-

egies. He has also turned toward contract management tools and artificial intelligence to automate certain processes and make them more efficient.

“It’s not enough that your supply chain or finance department is optimized or operating at peak performance,” Stoll attests. “The expectation now is that the legal department is not just supporting lean operations in the business but being lean itself. It’s an initiative

we’re taking very seriously, and we’re making great strides. It’s allowing our small legal team to do a lot more work with fewer people because of the way we’re structured and the tools we’re using.”

Prior to his current role, Stoll gained commercial litigation experience in private practice and in-house roles at Konecranes and Victoria’s Secret & Co. As he grew professionally in those roles, he kept a watchful eye toward his leaders, observing

BRAD STOLL Chief Counsel of Mobility Technology for the Americas Vontier

JC Penney

” You can’t imagine what will lead to the next opportunity, but the best way to move through it is to do everything as best as you can and be as pleasant of a person that you can be.”

different parts of their management styles to prepare him for his current role. Today, he describes his leadership philosophy as one that values empowerment.

“I make sure that the people who work with me know what their roles and responsibilities are and have the tools to do those things, and that I made the way smooth for them to have success in their role,” Stoll says.

As he reflects on the career experiences that turned him into that kind of leader, Stoll believes his success is a result of “remaining open to what comes down the road.” That’s what he urges young lawyers to do on their way to the top.

“Not every opportunity is the right next move for you to pursue,

but being open to next steps at all times is important,” he advises. “I couldn’t have imagined this career path when I was fresh from law school, but it’s been extremely rewarding. You can’t imagine what will lead to the next opportunity, but the best way to move through it is to do everything as best as you can and be as pleasant of a person that you can be.”

AUDIO & Innovation

David Schuler talks “reveling in the ambiguity” of the law, leading trusted teams, and driving global excellence at Bose

BY BILLY YOST

WHEN DAVID SCHULER CAME TO BOSE Corporation in 2006, he was initially slated with supporting one line of business for what might be the most well-known name in audio. That line of business was the company’s noise reduction technology (NRT), audio technology that was at least a decade ahead of every other competitor.

With NRT and the still-active QuietComfort headphone series (first launched in 1999), Bose was able to not just deliver premium sound to its customers via the most comfortable headphones in the game, but it could actively cancel out noise around the listener to make a plane, train, or

crowded place feel like the perfect listening space of a small and intimate room. That listening experience has become standard, but Bose was there before everyone else.

Seventeen years later, Schuler now acts as vice president and chief intellectual property counsel at Bose, ensuring the company that has built its reputation on sterling audio, cutting-edge proprietary tech, and is rated one of the most trusted names in audio continues to thrive.

Schuler spent nearly six years building out his IP and patent focus in private practice before ultimately going in-house at Bose. Trained as an engineer, the

”I’m particularly proud of the IP team we’ve built at Bose. We have an extremely engaged team, and they’re so talented and highly motivated.”

lawyer-to-be spent five years working in the energy sector before deciding to go to law school. It’s his second career where Schuler would truly flourish.

“I was lucky in my initial practice at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault because they really encouraged attorneys to try different practice areas,” Schuler explains. “We didn’t get slotted into specific practice groups from the jump, and they discouraged us from sitting for the patent bar too early to allow us time to figure out what we really wanted to do. It really helped me build a strong legal foundation.”

After moving on to boutique IP firm Fish & Richardson, Schuler eventually went in-house with one of his firm’s longtime clients, Bose. With the company celebrating its sixtieth anniversary in 2024, Schuler has a lot to celebrate over his seventeen years in-house. For the chief IP counsel, it starts with his team.

“I’m particularly proud of the IP team we’ve built at Bose,” Schuler says. “We have an extremely engaged team, and they’re so talented and highly motivated. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to do when it comes to protecting our differentiating technologies and a name that is so heavily trusted.”

In 2021, Bose was acknowledged as a “Top 100 Global Innovator” by Clarivate, citing its commitment to new ideas, problem-solving, and creating new economic value on a global scale. Schuler says the distinction is a reflection of his team’s commitment to protecting its brand and support of tech innovation that has kept the name Bose front-of-mind for audiophiles and casual listeners alike for more than half a century.

Schuler’s recent promotion has required him to transcend his practice area and take on a more enterprise leadership role to help lead and drive company initiatives. “It’s a world beyond IP and patents,” he says, laughing. “I’ve gone from leading a highly functioning and cohesive team to something much more wide-ranging. But I’ve had excellent mentors, managers, and leadership opportunities as I’ve risen within Bose.”

Outside the Office

David Schuler has learned to love and live within the ambiguity of the law, but he also takes the time to make a concrete difference in his world. Up until the pandemic, Schuler was an extraordinary minister of holy communion for his diocese, providing a vital component of the Catholic mass for those who are hospital bound.

Ever the engineer, Schuler is also a committed science fiction fan who might just help find the next great Bose initiative in some spaceage thinking.

For lawyers who are just beginning their IP careers, Schuler has a great deal to offer. The two qualities he looks for in new attorneys are maintaining an open mind and demonstrating a commitment to lifelong learning. Given the always-changing landscape of IP, being up to date on the latest tech breakthroughs is just part of the job.

Schuler also remembers a comment from his torts class in his first year of law school that still sticks with him to this day.

“Our professor encouraged us to revel in the ambiguity of the law,” Schuler remembers. “I always think about that in contrast to my earlier career in engineering. In engineering, there are right answers and objective truths. In law, there is a lot of ambiguity and advocacy on behalf of your client. You have to be able to wrap your head around that because it’s a different world to live in.”

—Mike Rader, Shareholder, Litigation Practice

Wolf Greenfield: “Wolf Greenfield commends Dave Schuler for his leadership and vision in protecting Bose’s intellectual property.”

RIGHT WHERE Supposed She's

Boeing’s Erin Shencopp builds on her experience, and she encourages lawyers to seek out new experiences

BY BILLY YOST

TO BE

IT’S BECOMING MORE COMMON FOR lawyers to find their way in-house earlier in their careers. For some attorneys, it makes sense. Quickly realizing a desire to devote time to one client across an array of issues can be a blessing of sorts when so many attorneys spend years trying to figure out exactly what they want to do.

Other attorneys, like Erin Shencopp, have a longer path to finding that working in-house is the right fit

for them. For Shencopp, the experience she gained before going in-house cannot be overvalued. The senior counsel for antitrust and competition at the Boeing Company has worked across numerous issues and areas of law from virtually every side of the equation, which makes her a dream candidate for any in-house role.

It’s no wonder that Shencopp wound up at the most famous aerospace and defense manufacturer in

ERIN SHENCOPP Senior Counsel of Antitrust & Competition

The Boeing Company

”For a long time, I was driven by outward factors while climbing up the ladder. . . . It felt good at the time, but it came with personal sacrifice. . . . I wish I would have listened more to my inner voice and figured out what was truly right for me.”

the world. The organization has its pick of the very best, and Shencopp is a logical addition to Boeing’s world-class law department.

The daughter of a lawyer and a law professor, Shencopp’s future in law may have been clear from the beginning, but it didn’t start out that way. Shencopp graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics, not because it was easy or familiar to her. “For me, it was a serious challenge,” she explains. “It wasn’t something where I had this natural ability. It was interesting to me, so I committed to just figuring it out.” While Shencopp could have used her economics degree for a career in business, she chose law school at the University of Michigan.

Following school, Shencopp clerked for the Indiana Supreme Court, getting exposure to constitutional law, tort issues, and even death penalty cases straight out of the gate. From there, she

pursued an interest in criminal law at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.

While many junior associates would have been in a basement doing document review (granted, the lawyer says she also did her fair share), Shencopp was involved in criminal investigations regarding economic sanctions. On those matters, she got to work with remarkable senior lawyers at the firm and developed critical legal skills. “I was a junior lawyer, but I was being sent to Europe to conduct witness interviews and got to interact with government officials,” she remembers.

But she wanted to get back to the Midwest and moved to Chicago to join Jones Day, where she worked for over twelve years. The attorney initially focused on commercial litigation, but her work on a “pay for delay” Federal Trade Commission investigation and a monopolization case cemented her passion for antitrust law. It was the

perfect combination of economics and the law for Shencopp. “The antitrust team was also an exceptional group of people who I loved working with,” she says.

By 2017, Shencopp made partner and established herself as a highly regarded attorney in the antitrust bar. However, the feeling of completion so many attorneys hope to find upon making partner just wasn’t materializing for Shencopp.

“For a long time, I was driven by outward factors while climbing up the ladder,” she admits. “I wanted that A-plus report card. It felt good at the time, but it came with personal sacrifice. In retrospect, I wish I would have listened more to my inner voice and figured out what was truly right for me. I got to work with amazing colleagues and clients, but I had only really ever worked at a firm. It was time for a change.”

So in 2020, Shencopp left private practice to join the Antitrust Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. The lawyer got to work on the extensive Google search monopolization case for Illinois, and then as a special assistant attorney general for the State of Colorado.

Perhaps because of her own initial trepidation of changing her career path, Shencopp hopes more young lawyers will try new experiences to figure out what is right for them.

“Practicing law is so different from what you experience in law school,” the attorney says. “Say ‘yes’ to every new opportunity that you can, even if it’s an area of law you don’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. It may turn out to be the most fascinating thing you’ve ever done.”

In all of her roles, Shencopp has sought out trusted colleagues. “It’s hard enough to be a lawyer,” the senior counsel explains. “You want to make sure that you feel good about who you’re spending so much time with. You want those people to have your back.”

That has continued for Shencopp since joining Boeing in 2022. She thoroughly enjoys the breadth

Jones Day is proud of our partnership with Erin Shencopp and Boeing, our shared culture of collaboration, and our mutual commitment to delivering superior solutions and value to the clients and customers we serve around the globe.

McGuireWoods helps clients gain and maintain a competitive edge.

We congratulate Erin Shencopp for her leadership, innovation and service as Senior Counsel, Antitrust & Competition, at The Boeing Company.

1,100 lawyers | 21 offices www.mcguirewoods.com

of antitrust work she gets to do at Boeing given the scope of the company’s operations. Shencopp values interacting with all of Boeing’s business units, from commercial airplanes and services to defense where she provides counseling on antitrust questions, compliance training, and supports Boeing’s M&A activities. She has also been able to delve into broader regulatory advocacy at a time when the antitrust regulatory environment is more fluid than ever, at least since the lawyer has been practicing.

“Transitioning to an in-house role at Boeing has been a fulfilling experience for me,” Shencopp says. “I feel privileged to work with incredibly smart, kind lawyers and to help support the mission of the company.”

While Shencopp wishes she would have listened to her inner voice sooner, she is grateful for all of the experiences she has had. And they have all helped prepare her for her current role, which is right where she is supposed to be.

Jones Day:

“Erin is a highly skilled antitrust lawyer with a team-first approach to advocating for Boeing’s strategic priorities. She is also a pleasure to work with because she is smart, business savvy, and very effective.”

—Pam Taylor, Of Counsel

McGuireWoods LLP:

“I have had the pleasure of knowing Erin for many years. She is a smart, insightful lawyer and I appreciate opportunities to work with her.”

—Amy Manning, Partner and Chair, Antitrust Practice Group

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

The Business Partner

Elise Puma draws upon professional and personal life experience to thrive as head of litigation at AB InBev

By Brittany Farb Gruber

ELISE PUMA LIKES A CHALLENGE.

IN fact, she views every challenge as a fun opportunity.

“My title may have litigation in it, but I find that I’m working on a variety of issues that come across my desk,” the director of litigation and regulation at AB InBev says.

Although she may be a member of the legal team, Puma views herself a pivotal business partner to every department of the multinational brewer. The twenty-five-member legal team spans the globe and manages everything from corporate mergers and

acquisitions to compliance, intellectual property, and procurement.

The attorney admits there was a steep learning curve when she joined AB InBev in 2021. “It’s a whole new language in-house,” she explains. “Corporate speak is something that was a big change for me. Saying words like ‘align’ and ‘cross-functional’ was not something I was used to.”

However, Puma quickly caught onto the lingo and flourished in her role. She credits much of her successful transition to her foundational, hands-on legal experience at Thompson Coburn LLP.

Elise Puma Director of Litigation & Regulation

AB InBev

“I was very fortunate to be at a law firm that got me involved from day one,” she says. “I handled client contact, I was in the courtroom arguing substantive motions, and I helped prepare and take depositions early on. I feel very lucky for that.”

Perhaps the most valuable preparation, though, was the experience she gained outside of her professional life. Puma grew up in what she describes as a “very volatile environment” due to her father’s emotional and physical abuse. She believes this led her to be a more empathetic, perceptive person.

“As a kid, I could pick up on mood changes and shifts in attitude around the house,” she remembers. “I knew when I had to play my cards right and be careful and guarded. Not that this is something a kid should ever have to go through, but, somehow, I managed to come out of it quite resilient. I use these skills now in processing how people are feeling and judging how things are going in a negotiation.”

Puma was tested again when she was in law school. Just one week into her summer internship at Thompson Coburn following her 2L year, her mother suddenly passed away. The aspiring attorney found herself appreciative of the firm’s flexibility and willingness to pay her for the time she needed to take to focus on her family.

“It all caught me off guard,” she reflects. “But the firm told me to go do my thing and come back when I was ready, despite them not knowing me well at all. While this was personally challenging in many ways, professionally, it was an eye-opening moment to how loss should be supported in the workplace but is often not.”

Today, Puma uses these lessons of prioritization as a working mother with

“I believe that you should never stop learning. I want to mentor because I want to continue to grow, evolve, and learn.”

two young daughters. Although she admits that “it’s a balancing act that’s never actually balanced,” she urges fellow moms to give themselves grace “when you’re not perfect in everything you’re doing all the time.”

“I would drive myself crazy for the longest time when I first had kids because I never felt like I was 100 percent in any bucket that I was carrying,” she says. “But now I’m OK with that. We’re all juggling a lot of different things, and you just have to make sure you know which ball is glass and which ball is plastic so that you’re not dropping the glass one. They may be different on different days, and they certainly are for me.”

Perhaps Puma’s favorite part of her senior role is providing mentorship to law students and young attorneys at AB InBev. In fact, she helps lead the company’s internship program in conjunction with Washington University School of Law. “I just love that part of my job is getting to work with students and exposing them to more areas of law that you don’t necessarily see in the classroom,” she says. “I believe that you should never stop learning. I want to

mentor because I want to continue to grow, evolve, and learn.”

She also strives to pay it forward given the mentors she had as a young attorney. “I’ve had a number of fabulous mentors, including strong women litigators who came up in an era where there weren’t many female role models,” she says. “I’ve tried to just be a sponge.”

That sense of duty is what defines Puma. While the challenges she faced in her professional life may pale in comparison to what she overcame at such an early age, she now serves as the voice and mentor for her colleagues, her family, and, most importantly, herself.

Congratulations to our colleague and former Thompson Coburn attorney Elise Puma for her recognition in Modern Counsel.

Thompson Coburn:

“We are extremely proud of alum Elise Puma. She was an associate here for over six years and then was promoted to global director of litigation and regulation at AB InBev after just a year.”

–Amanda

Hettinger, Partner

Thompson Coburn LLP is a full-service law firm with more than 400 attorneys nationwide and experience in more than 50 areas of the law.

TOTAL COMMITMENT®

Devon Largio

Senior Counsel of Commercial Litigation

McDonald’s Corporation

Janelle Jaqueline

Every Experience Counts

Devon Largio highlights her broad purview as a senior counsel of commercial litigation at McDonald’s and her desire to keep learning

By Billy Yost

WITH DEEP FIRM AND IN-HOUSE experience, seasoned attorney Devon Largio is able to succinctly point out one of the most overarching differences between practicing as a law firm litigator and finding success in-house. The current senior counsel of commercial litigation at McDonald’s Corporation spent nearly twelve years Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where she litigated on behalf of countless clients.

“When you’re at a firm, your job is to win the litigation for your client,” Largio explains. “But when you go in-house, it’s not just about a particular litigation. Your job expands and becomes about broadly protecting the company’s reputation and enabling the business.”

It’s also not just about reacting once an issue arises. Witnessing firsthand where litigation goes wrong, and just how far that can resonate down the line, is part of the reason she’s so good at her job now. To succeed in-house, it’s also about using those experiences to advise on how to mitigate risk while remembering that you are part of the business, too.

“That’s what is so empowering about this job,” she reflects. “It’s that responsibility and knowledge that the buck really stops with you. I feel things more personally than I did as outside counsel and get to take ownership in a way that is so much harder to do than in a law firm.”

For Largio, that sense of ownership has continued to extend since joining McDonald’s in 2019 and she remains committed to seeing the business from several perspectives. Recently, she covered for a colleague on McDonald’s business counsel team. She spent a handful of months acting

“When you go in-house, it’s not just about a particular litigation. Your job expands and becomes about broadly protecting the company’s reputation and enabling the business.”

as business counsel for one of McDonald’s East Coast field offices and interacted frequently with the leadership there. The day-to-day legal counseling allowed Largio to step outside of her comfort zone.

“A field office leader could call on any given day for advice about something you may or may not be familiar with,” Largio adds. “It was an opportunity to really think on my feet and build a closer relationship directly with the business.”

That constant drive to gain new and diverse experiences has helped the senior counsel hit her stride. It’s made her both incredibly adept at delving quickly into a new issue, while teaching her the patience to admit when she needs to take a step back, learn more about an issue, and get back to her colleagues.

“Devon is a skilled litigator with a keen understanding of McDonald’s strategic business imperatives and corporate values,” says Liz McRee, coleader of Jones Day’s labor and employment practice.

At present, Largio is handling a variety of high-priority issues for the company. From overseeing a large-scale consumer fraud class action lawsuit to advising on various global and national franchising initiatives, she is a better partner to the teams she works with because of her constant focus on deepening her expertise.

“The franchise work has given me the opportunity to work with cross-functional groups across the business,” she explains. “It’s been a chance to think strategically about how we design and implement important franchising changes both in the

US and globally—it’s been fascinating in so many ways.”

Given the variety of matters Largio tackled at Kirkland & Ellis and through a much broader lens at McDonald’s, the attorney’s advice for young lawyers may not be surprising. If you want to go in-house at a global business as wellknown as McDonald’s, she strongly advocates for gaining as many different experiences as possible and learning from anyone who is willing to teach you.

“I’m not sure I would have known how best to approach a matter with the quality that I do now if I hadn’t gone to trial and deposed witnesses,” she admits. “Even if it’s not something you think you want to do for the rest of your career, that on-your-feet experience is invaluable and will ultimately make you better at your job.”

“I was privileged to work with Devon on a complex matter and impressed by her collaborative approach to problem-solving,” says Amanda Sommerfeld, partner at Jones Day’s labor and employment practice.

Largio also believes advocating for yourself is crucial. Don’t be afraid to ask for new opportunities or work with people who you believe you can learn from. Largio actively sought out the business counsel coverage at McDonald’s because she knew it would ultimately make her a better business partner.

Finally, the lawyer reminds new lawyers to try to see the bigger picture. For Largio, that means regular trips with her husband and son to Disney World, fierce Peloton workouts, and a newfound love of Formula One racing.

Those varied activities seem to reflect the kind of lawyer Largio aspires to be: someone continually seeking out new ways to see the world.

Akin:

“Devon is a talented litigator who brings intellectual firepower and keen judgment to every matter. We love working with Devon, who inspires us to find creative, business-oriented solutions to difficult problems.”

—Aileen McGrath, Partner

Bank of America Invests in Its People

The company has deployed several programs and initiatives to help employees achieve their career aspirations

By Noah Johnson

BANK OF AMERICA PRIDES ITSELF

on not only investing in its clients but its employees, offering them a wide variety of leadership-supported programs, initiatives, and strategies that are geared toward growth at every stage of their professional development.

Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are ongoing and are an opportunity for employees to talk with their managers about their performance and career goals at the company. Those discussions help map out career action plans and are often facilitated by tools and guides provided to the leaders by the company.

According to the Society of Human Resource Management, the company’s approach makes for increased productivity and better partnerships. Unlike annual performance reviews, this continuous feedback approach allows employees to “fully understand what is needed to continue good performance, correct poor performance, or improve mediocre performance,” while providing leaders with “clues about how you are aiding or hindering your subordinates’ work.” It also works to build relationships and trust, valuable assets when major challenges arise.

Skill Development and Upskilling Programs

The company touts a wide range of programs that help employees hone their skills. One shining example has been “The Academy,” an award-winning education and professional development organization dedicated to the growth and long-term career success of Bank of America’s employees all around the world. The program exposes them to world-class onboarding experi-

ences, training opportunities, and a focus on career development. It offers participants one-on-one support and training and technology-driven tools to help them master their current role. Additionally, they have access to competency and skillbased resources like instructor led classes, interactive web-based training, videos, and e-books beyond their time in the Academy.

Pathways to New Opportunities

Employees who are planning their next career move don’t have to look too far to find the support they need. The company’s Career Path Tool allows them to be two to three times more likely to find their next internal opportunity while myCareer, an internal website, is a one-stop portal for employees in need of job search capabilities and career planning tools.

Through a partnership with the nonprofit Year Up, Bank of America’s prepares Year Up participants for the challenges of being employed for the first time and for navigating a potential career in the company, as well as allowing the company to find candidates from that talent pool who might be a good fit for available roles.

Tomorrow’s Leaders

Employees demonstrating leadership potential can access several programs to propel them toward the C-suite, and many of them are geared toward underrepresented communities. The Women’s Next Level Leadership program offers assessments, strategies, and tactics for help multicultural women to progress in their careers through an eight-month virtual development experience. The Women’s Executive Development program leverages faculty from the Columbia Business School to support

We are proud to work with Kat Bloomfield and the talented team at BofA Securities. Congratulations to Kat on her achievements and her recognition by Modern Counsel.

Investing in Managers

The Leading in the Current Environment Program

This program has offered managers resources to navigate the COVID-19 health crisis, including manager guides, excellence and enterprise inclusion sessions, blogs, virtual tech tools, and weekly mindfulness sessions.

Manager Excellence Program

This program shares business tips from senior leaders and industry experts in sessions that are accessible on-demand .

New Manager Program

This program helps new or recently promoted managers build the skills they need to lead teams through interactive and personalized resources.

the career advancement of high potential talent. The Diverse Leaders Sponsorship program has been just as effective, pairing diverse rising talent with senior leader sponsors to increase visibility and exposure to engagement opportunities.

Mentorship Programs

The company’s mentorship programs offer development support that connects mentees with networking, coaching, and leadership opportunities. Kathryn-Ann ‘Kat’ Bloomfield, assistant general counsel, is one of many leaders who have taken on mentorship responsibilities at the company. In her role, she often advises young lawyers to keep an open mind to the different practice areas of law that exist.

Over the course of many years profiling executives and companies in finance, this writer can say that Bank of America’s commitment to investing in its employees is unmatched.

There’s No Substitute for Experience

As a lawyer who had a winding career path, Lyft’s Dan Dressman shares the value of raising your hand and hard work

By Noah Johnson

DAN DRESSMAN DIDN’T GROW UP with lawyers in his family, but from an early age, he knew he wanted to be one. He watched his dad navigate legal issues as a small business owner and was drawn to the way laws impacted people on a day-to-day basis. Also, as a lifelong athlete, he sensed the field aligned with his competitive nature.

Today, Dressman serves as senior counsel of litigation and risk at Lyft, where he’s charged with creating risk mitigation strategies for the Express

Drive program that enables people to rent and drive cars for the company. While his winding career path was filled with many lessons, one stands out that permeated each chapter of his journey.

“There’s no substitute for experience and that lesson has been with me from the very beginning,” he says. “I worked a lot during law school, and I didn’t go to a top tier school. The opportunities I was going to have had to be because I took them during the academic year, not just the summer. That’s why I externed at a public defender’s office and the US Attorney’s office and through those opportunities, I got to stand up in court, make arguments, and be around talented attorneys on the defense and prosecutor side.”

Dressman emphasizes, “As a young attorney, getting experience will get you where you need to go.”

That piece of advice was imparted on him by a mentor in law school and helped him continue to hone his legal skills after getting his JD in 2012. First, he participated in a seven-month post-graduate fellowship in litigation at his alma mater, where he taught litigation skills to students and served as a coach for the mock trial team. Then, he spent a year at the San Francisco Superior Court as a legal research attorney in the law and motion department, an experience he says was “as foundational as it gets.”

“We had five-days-a-week, twentyplus matters on our court calendar on every issue you can imagine in San Francisco. We were analyzing issues

and writing bench memoranda for the judge to critique,” he remembers. “You talk about litigation and that’s it. You’re analyzing, digesting, and critiquing work from some of the biggest, most elite firms in the city to solo practitioners. You got to see the full gamut of legal writing and how advocacy is done at the highest level.

“There’s no substitute for familiarizing yourself with substantive legal issues and procedural issues every day, and even as someone who isn’t on the front lines anymore, I still use that stuff all the time,” Dressman continues.

From there, the attorney took on another foundational experience at Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP. Up until that point, he didn’t have plans of moving in-house and was unaware of the kinds of opportunities companies

had for a litigation lawyer like him. But after he learned about a friend’s experiences at Lyft who had recently joined the company, it piqued his interest.

“Once, I found out they were handling all sorts of litigation issues, regulatory issues, and product issues, I jumped at the opportunity, and I don’t regret it for a second,” Dressman says. “I had lived through rideshare bursting onto the scene in 2013, it was something I used every day, and the opportunity to work for a company that seemed so new at the time intrigued me.”

He began his tenure at Lyft in 2019 with a portfolio of litigation cases around the country, including issues tied to personal injury, regulatory, and intentional tort. Since then, Dressman has added product counseling and regulatory responsibilities to his plate. A typical day involves coordinating with outside counsel partners to develop, update, and hone litigation processes and tools to defend Lyft’s interests in litigation. It’s a role that keeps him on his toes and allows him to work collaboratively with different stakeholders.

“Prior to my time at Lyft, it wasn’t very often that I was analyzing in new or emerging areas of law. Now, I am frequently crafting strategies to address new case law and new legislation and to support new products,” he says.

While Dressman has seen success in balancing those priorities, he admits that it took some time adjusting to an in-house environment and mindset. “You go from being part of a firm that only deals with niche legal issues to being part of a business,” he explains. “Your role is to support the growth, products, and mission. Your job is to identify what a win is, and that win may be drastically different depending on the issue. It’s been an enlightening part of moving in-house and one that I enjoy.”

“Dan is the whole package: a talented litigator, a leader who truly understands the business and makes the right strategic calls, and a fun person to work with,” says James E. Gillenwater, litigation shareholder at Greenberg Traurig LLP. “It has been a pleasure teaming up with Dan to

“I am very lucky to be surrounded by incredibly smart and supportive team members who are always available to provide constructive feedback. Our executive legal team has a true open-door policy. As a result, I am confident that our team is communicating principally consistent legal guidance to our business and product team members. Internally, collaboration and cohesive support are key.”

Dan Dressman on Cohesive and Collaborative Culture

set precedents in the rideshare industry, which has benefited from his leadership.”

A highlight from his time at Lyft involves being heavily involved with the product launch process for Express Drive.

“In a law firm setting, I wasn’t a part of advice and counsel,” Dressman says. “I was in the courtroom, doing discovery, taking depositions. So, being a part of something new was really great. I’m really proud of how matured our internal processes have become, and I think there’s visibility across the legal team and the business.”

Young attorneys who want to follow in the accomplished attorney’s footsteps should not only seek out valuable experiences but should remain humble as they navigate them. “This is a tough profession, so be humble, knowing that you’re going to fail, but use it as an opportunity to learn,” he advises.

Open to Change

Randa Soudah details her move in-house, the importance of flexibility, and her twenty-two years of growth at Paramount Global

By Billy Yost

IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER, RANDA Soudah has been part of Paramount Global for the past twenty-two years. Whether it was Viacom, CBS, or Paramount, the current senior vice president and associate general counsel has helped guide her company through multiple mergers, acquisitions, expansions, and evolutions. Currently, she and her team

provide employment legal support for CBS Studios, CBS News and Stations, CBS Sports, and Paramount Global’s streaming business.

The employment and litigation expert is still slightly astounded—even after two decades—at finding herself at one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the world.

Matthew Taplinger

Randa Soudah SVP and Associate General Counsel of Employment Law

Paramount Global

Soudah opted to attend law school after working in state government following college and realizing that a legal background would open doors to different options. During law school, she completed summer stints at the United States Attorney’s Office and the White House Counsel’s Office, and she thought she would pursue work in public service.

“To be honest, I really only saw one path for myself early in my career,” Soudah says. “It wasn’t employment

law, and it wasn’t going in-house. I expected that I’d be doing trial law, and maybe become a prosecutor. But what I like to tell people now is that your plans should include being open to possibility. I’m glad I was because it’s how I got here.”

Her career path is an important one for younger lawyers on both sides of the spectrum: those who feel like they know exactly where they belong and those who are still searching for their ideal practice area.

Matthew Taplinger

Straight out of law school and a clerkship, Soudah had a prestigious big firm job—a role that, nonetheless, came with some stumbling blocks.

“The beginning of my career was not exactly what I’d envisioned,” she recalls. “I remember being thrown on a large environmental insurance case, and I’m not sure any junior-level associate jumped for joy at the prospect of taking one of those cases on.”

The young attorney found herself at chemical plants, wearing a hard hat and rooting through dusty file rooms where old records would disintegrate in her hands. Luckily, there was an upside. Soudah had the opportunity to take depositions and, eventually, was assigned to First Amendment and employment discrimination cases for a major media client. She wasn’t a media or employment lawyer, but suddenly she was doing important media and employment work.

This is where everything changed.

“It was a moment I think a lot of women get to in their career,” Soudah says. “I got married and moved to Los Angeles from New York because my husband needed to be here for work.

Continuing Service

It was early in her career, but Randa Soudah will never forget it. In her law firm years, the young attorney had the opportunity to work on many pro bono cases that fed her innate desire to serve. Soudah remembers helping a Sudanese political refugee obtain asylum in the US. His views were on the wrong side of the current political regime, and his life was in danger.

In another asylum case, she was able to help a Colombian refugee find safety. His crime? Living as an openly gay man in a climate that was unwilling to accept him as he was.

At Paramount Global, Soudah has spent the past few election cycles ensuring voter protection and helping voters find their appropriate polling places. It’s nonpartisan work, and she says Paramount always has a variety of impactful pro bono work for its people to engage in.

We were thinking of starting a family, and I knew I really needed some semblance of work/life balance because I was working myself ragged.”

After Soudah and her husband moved to California, a couple of members of her network connected her with the then-general counsel at CBS. She expected a pleasant conversation, career advice, and maybe a few suggestions for who to contact. But there was a job open, one that she was perfectly positioned to take on. That one meeting would unknowingly guide the next twenty-two years of her career,

all because she was willing to consider an in-house pivot and reach out to her network for advice and support.

The new job entailed supervising litigation on topics as varied as employment discrimination, First Amendment, labor law, contract disputes, copyright, and idea submission—issues that a large news and entertainment company would routinely encounter. Soudah also provided employment legal support to the various CBS businesses. The work was engaging and challenging, and she found herself enjoying the collaborative nature of in-house work.

All the while, Soudah invested significant time learning her business, expanding her network both internally and externally while handling a variety of other issues that were not always within her assigned areas or comfort zone.

“Saying yes to different kinds of work made me more valuable as a lawyer and more versatile,” she reflects. “If I’m able to give any advice, it’s just to be the person who says, ‘I’ll do it. I’ll handle it.’ You may not be the expert, but invest in yourself to learn. Fill those gaps. Even though it can be intimidating or scary.”

When the pandemic hit, Soudah says chances to grow were there en masse—whether anyone was ready to grab them or not. On the heels of her company’s merger, there were new faces and a new culture to absorb in an almost entirely virtual environment. The company itself was going through a seismic change in a broader world that was in full-crisis mode, especially with the social justice movement that caught fire after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.

Soudah assumed a management role in her organization. People leadership was never much of an area of focus for the lawyer, but now it was critical. “I found it a little funny because as an employment lawyer, we advise so much on people management,” the SVP says. “I was so used to giving my two cents, but I wasn’t actually used to managing people.

“Luckily, I have an amazing team of super smart, committed, and great colleagues,” she continues. “I’ve worked really hard to make sure the right feedback is there for all of us and that the team feels supported especially through all of the change.”

Matthew Taplinger

Positively Puzzled

Randa Soudah has one serious vice: she’s a puzzle junkie. It might be the New York Times crossword puzzle, Wordle text chains she’s a part of, or massive jigsaw puzzles her family lovingly teases her about, but Soudah says puzzles are a mostly healthy obsession.

“Nobody wants to help until you get down to the last few puzzle pieces,” she says, laughing. “Then, everyone comes out of the woodwork to get involved.” It’s a way for the lawyer to stay sharp off the clock, and there’s no doubt her golden years will be thanking her for it.

The challenge of assuming a management role at a newly combined company during a time when employees are grappling with the isolation of a worldwide lockdown can’t really be understated. The stakes were never so high, and the landscape was never more challenging.

“You just had to roll with it,” she remembers. “I realized that being adaptable, flexible, and open to change was something that would pay dividends if I could truly embrace it. Despite my journey, change has always been a little hard for me, and COVID-19 and the aftermath of a merger was an important moment to examine that and work on that growth.”

“Randa is exceedingly knowledgeable and experienced with litigation issues generally, and she is willing to make the tough strategic calls,” says Lee Brenner, chair of Venable’s Entertainment and Media Litigation Group. “But equally important, she focuses on doing the right thing, and I can say that I’m very proud to work with her.”

More than two decades in, Soudah is still finding new ways to grow, and new opportunities to say yes to.

corportate & business transactions

immigration

intellectual property

labor & employment

litigation

real estate real estate

regulatory

tax and trusts & estates

entertainment transactions

Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP is a Los Angeles based litigation boutique attracting top-tier clients with a depth of legal experience rarely found in a rm of any size. At KBK, our attorneys routinely litigate with and against the largest and most prestigious rms in Los Angeles and New York, combining the highest standards of advocacy with a tenacious commitment to achieving the best possible solutions for our clients.

KBK congratulates Randa Soudah of Paramount Global whose work as SVP and AGC for Employment Law is being featured in this current issue of Modern Counsel.

Proskauer is a leading law firm, providing a wide range of legal services to clients worldwide. To learn more about the firm, visit Proskauer.com.

People & Companies

Teddy Adams P68 Crown Castle

Kathryn-Ann Bloomfield P132 Bank of America

Christi Braun P33 ScionHealth

Catherine Budzynski P81 Ohmium

Mark Casper P102 Marvell Technology

Yeve Chitiga P52

Brex

Jonathan Cohen P108 PNY Technologies

Pamela Crocker P72 Vanguard

Randi Donaldson P95

TD Williamson

Dan Dressman P135

Lyft

Barbara Dunlap P88

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits

Amanda Evanson P10

Delta Air Lines

Nicholas Green P78

Underdog Sports

Nathan Harrill P20 Exact Sciences

Alvina Wong Hou P46 Gilead Sciences

Kaidi Johnson P98

Motorola Solutions

Devon Largio P128

McDonald’s Corportaion

Annika K. Martin P28

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP

Marilyn McClure-Demers P60 Nationwide

Brett Mull P92 Cochlear Americas

Elise Puma P124 AB InBev

Raymond Rushing P64 Cummins Inc.

Jennifer Ryan P14

U.S. Venture

David Schuler P115 Bose Corporation

Tyrone Scott P38

SoundCloud

Erin Shencopp P118

The Boeing Company

Randa Soudah P140

Paramount Global

Ian Sterling P75

Flagstar Bank

Brad Stoll P112

Vontier

Aditi Suresh P24

Eni New Energy US

Danielle Warner P84

FIGS

Darryl Wilson P56

Honeywell

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Learn more about some of the companies features in this issue of Modern Counsel

Protecting What’s Important

Nationwide has proudly been helping people protect what’s important for more than ninety years. Founded as a small mutual auto insurer owned by policyholders, Nationwide is now one of the largest insurance and financial services companies in the world.

Future of Music

The mission of SoundCloud is to empower artists and fans to connect through music. The artist-first platform empowers artists to build and grow their own careers by providing them with updated tools, services, and resources. Since its founding in 2007, more than 375 million tracks have been uploaded from 40 million artists.

Sound Is Power

When Amar Bose graduated with a PhD in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he celebrated by purchasing a hi-fi stereo system. But the sound quality disappointed him, and he went on to research acoustics in his spare time. In 1964, he officially launched Bose Corporation.

Humble Beginnings

Comfort and Fashion

When FIGS was founded in 2013, no other company made fitted uniforms for healthcare professionals. Founders Heather Hasson and Trina Spear used their personal savings to launch the brand and initially sold their scrubs out of hospital parking lots. Today, it’s the first company led by two female cofounders to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Delta Air Lines’ unique history began as a crop-dusting company in 1925. The small agricultural business was formed through a government, military, and corporate partnership that strived to improve methods for treating crops. Today, it is ranked second among the world’s largest airlines by number of passengers carried, passengermiles flown, and fleet size.

We are pleased to support the in-house leaders featured by Modern Counsel with whom we are honored to work.