Modern Counsel #40

Cetera's Lisa Gok fosters future lawyers by instilling confidence and treating her team how she would want to be treated P52

O+Z is a dynamic litigation boutique founded by attorneys with extensive experience protecting content and brands. Top-tier clients in creative and innovative industries rely on us for compelling advocacy, strategic counseling, and decisive action in complex legal matters, and we’ve been proud to represent the publishing industry for more than a decade. Our attorneys come from prestigious firms and have litigated some of the most prominent copyright and internet matters of our time. O+Z has o ces in D.C. and New York and a practice that is nationwide. WASHINGTON, DC | NEW YORK, NY

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Chief Legal Officer

Lisa Gok is committed to guiding the next generation of legal professionals at Cetera Financial Group P52

Implement

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At W.R. Grace & Co., Anthony Yoo establishes an accountability culture to realize the potential of both the legal department and its team members

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Larissa Sanchez Fields is the customer she serves at USAA

Feature

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Angi’s Erika Sylvester discusses how her impressive legal career was heavily influenced by her years as a college basketball player

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Jaron Brown is a lawyer, mentor, and leader who wants to promote the next generation of legal talent at Outokumpu

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Rachel Geman talks about how Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP takes on big issues and big defendants

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Initially, Eric Black didn’t realize the impact his legal work would have on the modern technological landscape. Today, as Vuzix develops groundbreaking smart glasses, he’s fully aware of the change his work could bring.

John Lill (Sanchez Fields), Stuart Holmes (Brown), Peter Garritano (Geman)

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Pivot

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Christopher Gruber shares his leadership evolution at Union Pacific, where he handles commercial litigation disputes

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As assistant general counsel for antitrust at Wells Fargo, Molly Wilkens emphasizes proactively managing risk by bringing antitrust capabilities in-house

Focus

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Dawn Staggs is an inexhaustible force for her family and her in-house practice as senior counsel of litigation at Phillips 66

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As deputy general counsel and global head of intellectual property, Paul Liu is helping TuSimple pave the way for autonomous trucking

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Leading from a place of purpose and respect is what allows Chris Garvey to connect with his colleagues at Fifth Third Bank and take pride in his career

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Steven Schwab leads through change at Thoma Bravo by prioritizing the firm’s culture amid its ongoing growth

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Creative

Editorial Director

Frannie Sprouls

Managing Editor

Navpreet Dhillon

Senior Editor

Melaina Cecilia de la Cruz

Associate Editor

Darcy Waskiewicz

Staff Writers

Noah Johnson

Billy Yost

Contributing Writers

Zach Baliva

Frank DiMaria

Will Grant

Natalie Kochanov

Keith Loria

Claire Redden

Joseph Stark

Art Director

Anastasia Andronachi

Designer, Modern Counsel

Rebecca Kang

Designer

Arturo Magallanes

Photo Manager & Video Director

Cass Davis

Contributing Photo Editor

Sarah Joyce

Corporate

CEO & Publisher

Pedro A. Guerrero

President, Group Publisher

Kyle Evangelista

Chief of Staff

Jaclyn Gaughan

SALES

Senior Director, Sales

Hannah Tanchon

Enterprise Sales Executive

Stuart Ziarnik

Senior Director, Corporate

Partnerships & DEI Solutions

Krista Horbenko

Director, Talent Acquisition & Engagement

Haylee Himel

Talent Acquisition Managers

Jordyn Gauger

Content & Advertising Managers

Megan Apfelbach

Amanda Matuszewski

Megan Noyes

Kara Thomas

Aleksander Tomalski

AUDIENCE & ENGAGEMENT

VP, Hispanic Division

Head of Audience & Engagement

Vianni Lubus

Director, Events

Jill Ortiz

Community Engagement &

Communications Manager

Cristina Merrill

Director, Social Media

Suleidys Tellez

Social Media Coordinator

Rodrigo Cortés

OPERATIONS

Chief Operating Officer

Tere Pérez Lobatón

VP, Finance

David Martinez

Director, Circulation

Stacy Liedl

Staff Accountant

Natallia Kamenev

Head Developer

Jose Reinaldo Montoya

Senior Director, Client Operations

Cheyenne Eiswald

Account Manager

Abigail Stern

Senior Manager, Client Services

Rebekah Pappas

Manager, Client Services

Brooke Rigert

Communications Coordinator, Creative

Santiago Giordano

The first mentors you meet are

during your elementary school years, the ones who first ask you to think about your life aspirations and to think big. My first goal was to become a veterinarian, a dream that lasted until I began playing tennis and watched Serena Williams win her third Grand Slam in 2008. During my fifth-grade year, my teacher assigned the class to learn and present a history of any city in California, and I decided on the capital city, Sacramento. This project inspired my newest goal: California’s governor.

As I progressed through my early years, I bounced around between wanting to become an author, a neurologist, a veterinarian (again), a professional basketball player, and everything in between. My teachers exposed me to new careers and encouraged my peers to pursue whatever inspired us, and I learned to never doubt my capabilities and explore whatever I could.

Then I began high school outside Boston and took my first grammar class. While being pushed from rather strict teachers to learn about parallel sentence structures and differentiate between “who” and “whom,” I discovered a knack for editing. And, after reading a student-written article about racial inequities on campus that resulted in active changes from the school’s administration, I became passionate about journalism and the ability to tell stories that led to change. I continued to learn and pursue new paths, but I kept returning to journalism.

Our first mentors come in all forms and allow us to find our most basic proclivities, but we meet some of the most important mentors in our early careers. In our Mentorship issue, you will read about biology majors who were influenced by a school speaker to change the trajectory of their lives, former litigators who took on a client that convinced them to move in-house, and mentors who push fresh attorneys to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. The executives in this issue find constant inspiration in their roles and understand the impact one job or one case can have on someone.

Throughout my first few months as editor of Modern Counsel , I have been met with my newest mentors—the senior editor, editorial director, associate editor, photo editors, staff writers, and everyone else on the creative team. I continue to be shaped by those around me and exposed to new responsibilities that show me where I want to go. Just as my previous managers, bosses, and teachers have asked me to think big, so does my team here.

So, as you read through these attorneys’ experiences, I hope you feel just as inspired to explore your own views on mentorship and leadership as the editorial team was when creating this issue.

Editor’s Letter

Navpreet Dhillon Managing Editor

Implement

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

Transformation From Within

Justin Petzold helps a company that specializes in digital transformation perform an evolution of its own

By Noah Johnson

SINCE IT WAS FOUNDED IN 2010, InvestCloud has stood out as a global leader in digital transformation, creating tools that have worked to modernize and transform the financial services industry. Today, the company, which specializes in digital platforms that enable the development of financial solutions while pre-integrated into the cloud, is well-positioned for growth and for a transformation of its own. As chief legal officer, Justin Petzold has a front row seat.

“In 2023, we’ve really been putting our entire business under a microscope

and trying to examine the way we do things from top to bottom, making sure that we’re positioning ourselves the best we can for the next stage of growth,” Petzold says. For InvestCloud, that evaluation has touched on every aspect of the business, including its technology architecture, product and marketing strategy, and partnerships. The process has presented many legal opportunities and challenges to overcome.

“But I find it to be highly motivating because there are jobs out there where you’re thrust into a ‘business as usual’ environment and you’re expected to

maintain that. For us, we’re redefining what ‘business as usual’ looks like for InvestCloud,” he emphasizes. “It’s cool because it aligns with our product offering. Through our own transformation, we’re putting ourselves at the forefront of the business and technology world that our clients are in.”

As the company examines ways it can prepare for the future, Petzold facilitates that evolution in a role that requires him to wear several hats. On any given day, he could be working on issues related to board matters, corporate opportunities, commercial sales, partnerships, disputes, and HR. Juggling those competing priorities also requires him to manage multiple constituencies, a challenge he navigates through a guiding principle: to be more of a business partner than a mere legal service provider.

“The great thing about my role is that as chief legal officer, I’m both a legal generalist and an executive at the company,” he says. “From that perspective, you end up being in the room when big decisions are made, and you can provide insight on those decisions that aren’t just from a legal perspective but from someone that understands our business objectives.”

Petzold is proud to leverage his philosophy at a collaborative company that believes one of its strongest assets is its people—ones with diverse backgrounds and skill sets. While that reality brings challenges since everyone has their own perspective, Petzold says he and his colleagues use it to their advantage.

“Even though we’re all on the same team, people have their own priorities. I may get asked to do something by one person and the opposite thing by another. But we’re good at listening to each other, hearing everyone’s view, and then coming to a collective decision,” he says.

“Sometimes the right approach is to be the strong voice in the room and make your opinion known,” he adds. “Other times, the best value

Justin Petzold Chief Legal Officer InvestCloud

What Drew Justin Petzold In-House?

“As I went through my career in big law as an M&A lawyer, I started to work on more complex deals. It brought a lot of adrenaline and was exciting, but it became pretty familiar. I wanted another challenge and to be in an environment that allowed me to learn, grow, and explore new passions. That’s what made me want to explore an in-house career—I thrive when I’m thrown into unfamiliar situations and in areas I don’t have experience in that I have to figure out. That’s why InvestCloud was such a fantastic opportunity.”

Kirkland & Ellis is proud to join in recognizing our friend and client

Justin

Petzold

of InvestCloud

“Sometimes the right approach is to be the strong voice in the room and make your opinion known. Other times, the best value you can add is by letting someone else be the dominant voice and taking a step back.”

you can add is by letting someone else be the dominant voice and taking a step back.”

Petzold offers advice to young attorneys by outlining the difference between good lawyers and great lawyers. It lies in the way you approach problem-solving.

“Good lawyers can identify issues, raise them, and fight tooth and nail for positions. Great lawyers approach every problem by trying to quickly find the solution where everyone wins—that means never really coming to clients or counter parties with a problem unless they have a proposed solution,” he says. “They will also identify real material risks versus the theoretical ones that don’t matter in the broader context.”

Kirkland & Ellis LLP:

“Justin consistently displays all of the qualities of the best general counsels. He is a smart and thoughtful strategic thinker who works well with others and is well versed in numerous areas of the law.”

—Ted Frankel, Partner

Unlocking Legal Potential

At W.R. Grace & Co., Anthony Yoo establishes an accountability culture to realize the potential of both the legal department and its team members

By Billy Yost

WHEN ANTHONY YOO CAME TO W.R. Grace & Co. in March 2022, he found he was having different versions of the same conversation repeatedly with legal team members—one that needed to change.

“When I would explore decisions that were made in the past, I would repeatedly hear, ‘Well, that is what the business wanted to do,’” he recalls. “After hearing this a few times, I said, ‘That is not an

acceptable response. If someone in the business wanted to do something, you must have thought it was a reasonable decision or you should have escalated the matter accordingly.’ I had to instill a culture of joint accountability.”

At Grace, Yoo found a law department that had experienced a tremendous amount of change and an expectation to “stay in its swimlane.” He immediately recognized a

Anthony Yoo SVP, General Counsel, and Secretary W.R. Grace & Co.

need to empower the department to be more proactive and to be holistic thought partners across the organization. The general counsel understood the nervousness that could accompany such a move, but he was confident that the fulfillment and satisfaction would be worth the trepidation.

Yoo points out that legal departments tend to be flatter and proportionately more senior than many other departments. In addition, the department regularly interacts across the entire company.

“If you have smart, experienced professionals who are engaged across the business, it presents a tremendous opportunity to leverage their business acumen and leadership talent—not just their legal skills,” he notes. “That is not an opportunity to waste. Plus, it is much more rewarding for the legal team members, both personally and professionally.

“In many ways, I think that may be the biggest thing I’ve initiated since coming to Grace,” he explains. “We’ve made a great start driving a new culture and

“If you take away the limitations of the ‘swimlane’ mentality, make sure you have the right team members on the bus and expect and empower them to take accountability and make a difference.”

embedding it in our organization. And our internal business customers are noticing the difference. In fact, we’ve implemented biannual legal support surveys, and our internal partners provided scores of eight out of ten in our last survey. So, room for improvement but very positive, particularly compared to the reviews I heard in early 2022.”

This change has been accompanied by an increase in the level of engagement and morale within the legal team. “I’ve had numerous team members share, unsolicited, that the current environment is quite positive and collaborative and that they are seeing the impact of our shared vision,” he says.

Yoo especially appreciates what this culture change also can mean for the growth and development of the legal department members. “If you take away the limitations of the ‘swimlane’ mentality, make sure you have the right team members on the bus and expect and empower them to take accountability and make a difference,” he explains. “You find that people accomplish surprising things.” He

very much enjoys creating an environment that fosters personal development as well as organizational development.

The GC acknowledges that learning the value of empowering and developing others took time for him to recognize.

“In my early years, I was much more focused on how I could fix a problem or accomplish an objective through my own personal efforts,” he says. “My perspective changed as I experienced being a father and as I progressed through in-house roles.

“My kids continually reminded me, time and time again, that it’s about them, not me,” Yoo adds, laughing. “At some point, you realize how much more everyone can accomplish if you just give them support and let them grow.”

Yoo believes the principle applies in organizations as well. “You can’t be everywhere—and even if you could, the team members have much more expertise in their respective areas than you. But if you make sure the team shares a common mission and set of values, and you support and empower them, and everyone shares

a sense of accountability, nothing is out of reach.”

He advises young attorneys never to underestimate the impact they can have, even early in their careers. “I think a lot of people wait until they feel more seasoned or experienced, but I’ve seen many junior attorneys who are smart, savvy, and industrious,” he says. “They can bring a fresh perspective and a belief in the possible that can really make a difference. The truth is that sometimes more senior attorneys may have become jaded by what may not seem possible or may be juggling more priorities.

“So young attorneys shouldn’t hesitate to dive in and see what they can contribute,” he concludes. “It is often a lot more than they realize.”

Shawe Rosenthal:

“Tony is a strategic thinker and looks to balance legal concerns with business needs.”

—Gary Simpler, Lindsey White, and Parker Thoeni, Partners

Williams & Connolly:

“We congratulate our friend and client Anthony Yoo for his outstanding achievements and recognition by Modern Counsel. We’re privileged to work with Tony, an innovative and collaborative leader.”

—Vidya Atre Mirmira, Partner

The Sweet Spot

Xometry’s Kristie Scott finds her passion working with organizations on the cusp of going public

By Billy Yost

KRISTIE SCOTT WAS READY FOR HER next chapter. After nearly seventeen years at Cision, the general counsel had been through a handful of private-to-public and public-to-private transformations. Scott understood where her true passion was: working with an organization on the cusp of going public, where she is able to build effective legal teams from the ground up and help prepare for life after an IPO.

Xometry was the perfect place to lean into that expertise. Scott arrived

in March 2021 and while the world was still in various stages of pandemic lockdown, Xometry was in the middle of preparing for its IPO.

“Xometry knew they were planning to go public, and so they were on a very fast track through the IPO process,” she says. “Start to finish, it was about sixand-a-half months.”

Fortunately, Scott says leadership at Xometry was already operating with a long-term vision in mind. Along with a new head of HR and a new CFO, Scott

was brought to Xometry for her expertise in working through an IPO.

“The IPO process is one thing,” Scott says. “You’ve got the high fives, the dinner afterward, and the pricing. But it’s something else entirely when you talk about [it] the next day. That’s where the real work comes and, frankly, a lot of education is required many colleagues haven’t had that experience before.”

There was an additional challenge: she was the first internal legal hire.

While a contracts professional was on board, they’re still on the GC’s team today and Scott needed to learn her new company, start building out a department, and help guide through the IPO process, all at the same time.

“It was sort of showing up and saying, ‘Hi, here are some of the legal processes going forward—which everyone loves to hear—but also, since we’re going public, there will be a whole different set of processes and procedures that will be a little more complicated,’” she explains. “And you know that everyone loves having more processes to follow.”

While the process might sound hectic, and it is, Scott returns to the reality that this is what she’s really good at. As she collaborated with the new HR head on compliance and corporate governance pieces, it was also time to meet

the new board of directors. But there were countless other people to meet at the same time.

Scott says when you’re a company’s first attorney, the rest of the organization can be quick to knock on your door. It’s a practice she encourages, but the timing was tough. There were only a core handful of people on-site at Xometry due to pandemic protocols, so making time for phone and Zoom calls was essential to interfacing with a business that was eager to get in touch.

“Regardless of those challenges, I found it easy to build those relationships because of how welcoming everyone was here,” Scott says. “I’ve always seen myself as a part of the business team, and I want to understand their concerns, risks, and perspective because it’s important to me. I think the business

Kristie Scott General Counsel Xometry

“The IPO process is one thing. You’ve got the high fives, the dinner afterward, and the pricing. But it’s something else entirely when you talk about [it] the next day.”

understands how much I care, and that really helped me jump in head-first.”

It should go without saying that the IPO was a success, but as Scott already mentioned, that was just day one. At present, she’s deep into regulatory compliance, cybersecurity, ESG (environmental, social, and governance), and the seemingly endless changes coming out of the Securities Exchange Commission in the past few years. Scott says these are big, hairy issues that aren’t just the charge of a GC, but multiple people from multiple departments all working together.

The good news is that since arriving, Scott has seen an organization all rowing the boat in the same direction.

“That’s something else I love about working with businesses at this stage,” Scott explains. “Everyone is on the same page trying to grow the business and looking for new ways to be efficient. Down the line, companies can get much more into the hamster wheel of private equity and M&A, but right now, this is what I love. It’s about growing the business and making it successful for our employees, our customers, and our partners.”

Practice with Heart

How Megann McManus embraces the future while still keeping the focus on people at Genpact

By Billy Yost

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS for the curious mind. Megann McManus has spent hours scouring an expansive online platform learning more about banking and capital markets, storytelling, insurance, and the history of artificial intelligence (AI). It’s a luxury the senior counsel and labor law expert at Genpact knows she would never have had time for when she was billing hours in a firm, but at her present employer, gaining that knowledge is incumbent on her being a better business partner and a better attorney.

Take McManus’s interest in AI. She doesn’t claim to be an expert by any means, but she’s gone further in her studies than most. As soon as she learned about ChatGPT, she installed it on her phone and has since used it to organize her thoughts and experimented with how it might influence her work in the future.

“I’m always looking for the next new thing,” McManus admits. “I like being around teenagers and kids to see what they’re interested in and how they’re using it. I like to be an early adopter, whether it’s a new band or a new piece of technology. I just like to embrace the future.”

This is the curious mind: one that might be overwhelmed by the possibilities of the future but is still willing to engage with an open heart.

“We’re going to have to work together again, so at the bare minimum, we should be treating each other with respect and, I hope, kindness.”

Megann McManus Senior Counsel Labor & Employment Genpact

An Authentic Practitioner McManus leads with heart. It was something that worried her when the Arkansas-native moved from her home state to New York City to pursue a career in theater, which led to a job in human resources for the labor union Actors’ Equity Association. That exposure to labor and employment law, particularly collective bargaining, eventually gave way to a labor law practice at both labor and management firms before going in-house at Genpact in 2022.

“I’ve always been most interested in people,” the attorney says. “It’s probably why I’m a labor and employment lawyer. The issues are always human-centered. And I think I had that stereotypical idea of what New Yorkers were like in my head. But then you find out they are kind and personable, and experiencing that correction was an important lesson for me.”

That isn’t to say McManus didn’t wind up across the negotiating table from the occasional prickly personality, but it didn’t alter her approach to her own practice. Her theater back-

ground meant she could occasionally play another version of herself if she needed to, and she took solace from Jackson Lewis partner Philip B. Rosen, a highly successful leader at the firm who is known for his people-first approach.

“Phil is probably one of the kindest people I’ve ever met,” McManus explains. “He never said a negative word about anyone, and he had that corner office. That was formative for me to see that you can accomplish more if you take the time to plan ahead, practice self-control, and treat people how they should be treated.”

There’s also a matter of practicality because, in many cases, the person you might be negotiating against today will be right back at the table with you a few years down the line.

“Those contract terms are going to come up again, and I just don’t see the value to your client by approaching a negotiation with an artificial, adversarial approach,” McManus says. “We’re going to have to work together again, so at the bare minimum, we should be treating each other with respect and, I hope, kindness.”

The Next Challenge

When asked about her transition in-house in 2022, McManus wonders aloud if other in-house attorneys have felt as abrupt a shift as she did, from being a profit-driver

in a firm to a support function in a larger organization.

“There is a realization that what you do might not be understood or immediately felt by the rest of the company,” the senior counsel explains. “But in this role, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to learn the inner workings of a very large and highly effective organization and get to the heart of how I can help people accomplish their goals.”

This role shift is where McManus’s natural curiosity comes in most valuable. The metrics of what makes a successful lawyer dramatically changes when going in-house. There is more value in enabling business, fostering relationships, and translating difficult concepts for a broader audience.

It was also time for McManus to reconfigure her own personal metrics for what success meant to her. She and her wife returned to her hometown in Arkansas to be close to both of their parents. They’re raising a toddler and restoring an old house, which is, in many ways, the exact opposite lifestyle of the fast New York City life McManus initially sought out.

“It’s been wonderful to come full circle,” she says. “Our family has had the opportunity to put down roots and invest in the community that gave us the foundation to go off into the world and do what we did. I’m so excited for what’s next.”

We value the relationship, shared sense of teamwork and confidence that Megann has placed in McGuireWoods to deliver on her goals. We wish Megann and the Genpact team continued success. McGuireWoods congratulates Megann McManus on her leadership and achievements as senior legal counsel at Genpact.

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

Fifteen Years of Evolution

David Stafford talks McGraw Hill’s growing business through a pandemic, company sale, and complete transformation

By Billy Yost

DAVID STAFFORD HAS BEEN THE general counsel at McGraw Hill for nearly twelve years, but the last handful has provided more complex challenges than probably the rest of his years combined. There was a proposed merger with rival Cengage Learning in 2019, which was abandoned in 2020 due to competition concerns that were raised by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

Any merger brings with it a large degree of uncertainty of employees, even for general counsel. The fact that the DOJ took months to do its analysis didn’t do much to put the worries to rest in a timely fashion.

McGraw Hill was thereafter successfully sold to private equity firm Platinum Equity in 2021, another heavy lift for any organization. The company

David Stafford

General Counsel and Secretary McGraw Hill

App Innovation

According to David Stafford, McGraw Hill was already in the midst of a decade-and-a-half pivot to digital learning services prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that forced many students into a digital-only environment. Now on the backend of an unprecedented global pandemic, McGraw Hill continues to innovate in the digital space.

In 2022, the company announced a partnership with Verizon and the creation of its McGraw Hill Augmented Reality app that brings augmented reality (AR) learning activities to K-12 students both at school and home.

The app comes equipped with standards-aligned lesson plans for educators through the Verizon Innovative Learning HQ, an online education portal that provides free access to immersive extended reality educational experiences for both elementary and secondary students.

The McGraw Hill AR app can help students explore math concepts like geometry or prealgebra by connecting 3D models with objects in a learner’s actual physical environment. Some of the lessons offered cover quadratic functions, parallel and skew lines, slope, and growth functions.

“Working for a global education company is extremely fulfilling as our fundamental objective is to help students, instructors, and professionals maximize their learning.”

most well-known for educational materials for people throughout the learning cycle somehow managed to come out on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic in supreme fighting shape.

During a time that hit most publishers like a bag of bricks, how was Stafford—and the rest of his organization—able to emerge better than before?

To answer that question, Stafford says you need to examine the last fifteen years of what most people think of a textbook company and its continuing pivot to something much broader and innovative.

“McGraw Hill has been evolving its business model toward the digital realm for, really, more than the last fifteen years,” explains Stafford, who serves as general counsel and secretary. “Research demonstrates

that students learn better with adaptable, digital tools. Remote learning precipitated by COVID accelerated the trend toward online learning, and it’s continued to grow. The pandemic had the effect of accelerating our transition to a digitally focused education company. Those days of old-fashioned textbooks are just not the future.”

But Stafford isn’t weeping for days gone by because he says the company’s products not only are better for its learners but also benefit the company’s bottom line.

“Online learning is such a different medium now; it’s not just a PDF file of a textbook that you pull up on your iPad or laptop. The pedagogy is more interactive and personalized,” he explains. “It’s adaptive so that when the student is reading the material and answering

questions, the content can actually refocus on areas of weakness and work to strengthen them. We’re constantly testing and improving the efficacy of these materials because we know it’s helping both the student and the teacher.”

There’s also the case of the traditional biannual trip for college students to pay significant dollars on textbooks they’ll likely sell back for pennies on the dollar at the end of the semester. Those days, too, are fading and won’t be around much longer.

Instead, students, either directly or through their institution, sign up for subscriptions to educational materials only for the duration of their areas of study. “One student stops his or her subscription and another one signs up,” Stafford explains. “That subscription model is better for us because it’s not people or organizations spending money one time on a very expensive book. It’s a much less expensive alternative that is better for the learner. It’s truly a win-win for the student, the teacher, the institution, and the company.”

Since the sale of the company in 2021, Stafford says new life has been breathed into the organization. The senior leadership team, led by CEO Simon Allen, works extremely well together—better than any group of leaders that he’s previously worked with, Stafford says. It doesn’t hurt that company performance since the

Service For All

Since 2007, David Stafford has been on the board of YAI, a nonprofit dedicated to providing services for the intellectually and developmentally disabled community. YAI supports over twenty thousand people with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New York, New Jersey, and California.

YAI provides a litany of services: residential, educational, healthcare, job placement, job training, and coaching for ages ranging from children to the elderly.

Stafford is the second-longest tenured board of trustees member, and he was recently appointed vice chair of the board. “I think this organization is under-publicized, but it does absolutely incredible work for so many people,” he says. “I feel like its mission to help people maximize their potential aligns in many ways with the mission of McGraw Hill, and I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with some truly talented people.”

Platinum acquisition has, for the most part, exceeded expectations.

“From the legal team perspective, I think we’ve done an excellent job of developing a reputation as a group that provides exceptional value to our in-house clients. All of the lawyers on my team are experienced practitioners who understand the need to provide a commercial perspective in everything they do,” Stafford says.

“It’s especially gratifying to hear our senior business leaders compliment my team, viewing them as strategically important contributors to the company’s success,” he continues. “And, as

the company continues to evolve into a technology-oriented provider of an array of education products and services, the legal issues we continually address have become wider and more complex, from privacy to accessibility to issues associated with the use of AI models to develop content.”

“David Stafford serves as a role model for general counsel, functioning as a conduit between the business and legal needs of the company,” says Matthew Oppenheim, managing partner at Oppenheim + Zebrak LLP. “As an outside counsel, he is a pleasure to work with because of his calm and logical

congratulates David Stafford General Counsel and Secretary at McGraw-Hill

Education on his recognition in

Modern Counsel

approach to any issue, no matter the crisis.”

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.

With the twists and turns associated with multiple career moves since Stafford started his career at McGraw Hill in 1992— from the sale of McGraw Hill’s education business to private equity in 2013, to the aborted merger with Cengage, to the sale to a second private equity firm in 2021 with multiple CEOs that preceded the current CEO—it may have been a little bumpy at times. But Stafford says he wouldn’t trade the experience he’s had for anything.

“Working for a global education company is extremely fulfilling as our fundamental objective is to help students, instructors, and professionals maximize their learning,” he reflects. “Combining that with a company like McGraw Hill that has high integrity and people who genuinely care about the welfare of our customers is all I can ask for. I’m extremely grateful for my experience here.”

A Mile in Clayton

Zak’s Shoes

At Caleres, Clayton Zak helps protect innovation and brand identity all over the world for brands like Famous Footwear, Sam Edelman, and more

By Billy Yost

SOME LAWYERS SPEND THEIR ENTIRE careers practicing in the abstract. That is not to say it’s not meaningful work, but not every lawyer has the opportunity to see their efforts become tangible. That’s why Clayton Zak loves working in footwear.

“Every day, I can see a consumer product that will live with people, that will be used and worn,” says Zak, who is assistant general counsel for intellectual property (IP) and brand protection at global footwear brand Caleres. “I can see shoes on the street and know I had a hand in bringing them to the marketplace. That’s pretty special.”

Caleres—which owns Famous Footwear, Sam Edelman, Allen Edmonds, Naturalizer, Vionic, and a whole host of other brands—has been Zak’s home for the past year. This marks a return to an industry he cultivated a love for earlier in his career. The George Washington University Law School graduate spent nearly a decade in private practice, which included his first exposure to the footwear industry by doing trademark and patent work for clients. But Caleres is Zak’s first opportunity to serve a single client, though one with a considerable portfolio of brands at its disposal.

The idea of going in-house, frankly, wasn’t even on Zak’s radar.

“Honestly, I never intended to go in-house,” he explains. “I figured my career would be Big Law all the way, but the experience I gained in the meantime made me ready for this opportunity when it presented itself. I’m glad I stayed in private practice as long as I did, but this has been a refreshing change.”

The in-house transition has been both easier and still challenging for the assistant general counsel. On one hand, the chance to serve a single client has allowed Zak to get more easily into the weeds that he might have had the time to do in a firm. But he also has found himself focusing on educating partners in the business.

“In private practice, the decisions were ultimately made by the client,” Zak says. “It’s taken some time to get used to being the one calling the shots on legal strategy. It’s easier and more efficient, but as both the attorney and client, sometimes I’ve found myself realizing that the question I was asking was ultimately going to be decided by me. You have to make sure you have the confidence and understanding of the business to make those calls, while working with the business to understand and achieve its objectives.”

As head of brand protection, Zak and a broad team are responsible for cutting down bootlegs and counterfeit products. The attorney says it’s not only about going after individual bad actors, but also maintaining a reputation that will make counterfeiters think twice.

He says it is important to have partners such as outside vendors and foreign counsel in countries that are known for a high output of counterfeit products. It takes a village to protect a brand, and Zak says he’s happy to have a well-educated team to help execute its brand protection needs.

Zak also helped craft Caleres’s artificial intelligence (AI) tool policies and procedures, educating the broader business on the best practices for using artificial intelligence. He says the broader industry has

been more prone to outrightly banning any sort of AI integration, but the tools are too powerful to omit entirely.

“You’re giving up a competitive advantage,” Zak says. “I think that when they’re used in a controlled and effective manner, they can be another tool that can be helpful to a lot of different groups.”

He also proactively works with brand owners, managers, design teams, and marketing teams for continual training on the importance of protecting innovations and brands—through trademarks, patents, and copyrights—and how to achieve that protection. Caleres has a 145-year history of innovation, and continuous training and attention to IP are essential to driving and protecting that innovation.

“Everyone at Caleres is on board with the idea that we should own our inventions and innovations,” Zak says. “That culture of innovation that began nearly a century and a half ago helps in protecting our IP.”

And the best part? Zak gets to see that innovation every day, whether it’s the research and development teams engaged in the next generation of footwear, or a pedestrian walking by. He is helping to ensure that the next great idea has legs and even better footwear.

Securing Your Rights In A Changing China.

Chang Tsi & Partners is a “National Outstanding Law Firm (nominated by Ministry of Justice of China)” with its strong reputation in intellectual property and litigation.

We have been providing a full array of IP legal services to clients globally since 2002. We are privileged to have earned the trust and confidence of many Fortune 100 and 500 companies.

• Filing, Prosecution and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights

• IP Commercial

• Dispute Resolution & Litigation

• Anti-Unfair Competition and Anti-Monopoly

• Commercial Law

• General Legal Counseling

Husch Blackwell:

“We’ve worked with Clayton on many projects since he joined Caleres. He hit the ground running given his extensive knowledge in all matters IP; he’s able to find practical business solutions to complex legal issues.”

—Alan Nemes, Partner

www.changtsi.com info@changtsi.com

Protecting the Troops: Advocating for Military Spouses

Sanchez Fields is the customer she serves at USAA

By Will Grant

Larissa

LARISSA SANCHEZ FIELDS HAS DUAL passions. She is a seasoned litigator who has spent her career in property and bad faith litigation, defending clients during some of their toughest times. She is also a proud military wife of an Air Force pilot and uses her experiences and insights to advocate for and inspire military spouses.

And she can pursue those passions in harmony working as an associate general counsel for USAA, a leading financial services company that serves the military community.

Being in a military family means Fields understands the challenges and opportunities that the military faces, and she uses that firsthand knowledge to drive the best outcomes for USAA members.

In her nearly sixteen-year career, Fields has focused on weather-related cases, a path that Hurricane Katrina unintentionally created when she was a law student at Tulane University. She then clerked for a judge handling hurricane-related cases and her career

“My husband and I have had to make sacrifices along the way, like being apart for extended periods of time due to our respective work commitments. That is really hard on our whole family.”

eventually led her to USAA, one of nation’s largest insurance companies.

Fields currently leads the team handling the company’s bad faith property litigation nationwide. She dedicates her time to building the right teams to defend USAA and its members in property lawsuits which she accomplishes by breaking down silos— pulling together teams based on experience, not geography. She further ensures that outside counsel understand USAA’s mission and military membership to know who they’re fighting for and why.

Leading by example, Fields is a role model and champion for military spouses, who often must pivot because military life requires frequent moves and changes. Spouses’ careers can sometimes take a backseat, and Fields aims to show that families can accommodate equally demanding careers for each spouse with the right mindset and support.

“Ten years of being a military spouse has shaped my career, but it can be tough,” Fields says. “My husband and I have had to make sacrifices along the way, like being apart for extended periods of time due to our respective work commitments. That is really hard on our whole family.”

Her saving grace has been employers and mentors who have provided support and opportunities for her to continue doing what she loves, surrounded by family who always come first.

Before working for USAA, Fields worked with the organization by providing outside counsel as partner at a law firm. She was forced with having to choose between her job or being with her husband early in her career, but thanks to a leader who supported her as a manager and mentor, the

Larissa Sanchez Fields Associate General Counsel of Enterprise Litigation USAA

firm allowed her to work remotely at a time when that was uncommon and harder to do.

“I don’t believe I would have had much of a career if it hadn’t been for my former boss,” Fields says. “He not only fought for me to work remotely, but he gave me the opportunity to try numerous cases.”

At one point in her career, Fields was asked to move to San Antonio but her husband had to stay in New Mexico where they were stationed. Her son was only three, and she was pregnant with her daughter. Because of her husband’s commitment to the Air Force, she knew she had to make a life-changing career decision so her family could stay together.

She eventually ended up working at USAA, where she’s found that leadership provide support to accommodate her military life—no matter the circumstances. She’s had the opportunity to be a visible advocate by representing USAA at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes Award Gala, which honors companies, nonprofits, and individuals who support the military and military hiring.

Her husband is awaiting his next assignment orders, and Fields knows it will come with some tough challenges. But choosing between being a military spouse and being an attorney at a company that serves families like hers won’t be one of those. She knows USAA and her leadership team will find a way to

enable her to continue her important work while being with her family.

“I support my husband being in the Air Force because the military needs more leaders like him,” Fields says. “And USAA supports me so I can be a military spouse and have a legal career that I love.”

“We are proud to work alongside Larissa. Her skills in analysis, persuasion, and case management are unparalleled. She is a trial lawyer, and it shows. We congratulate her on this worthy recognition."

—Megan Starace Ben’Ary and Daniel T. Plunkett, Partners

McGlinchey Stafford PLLC:

Don’t Wait to Start

Chris Mermigas is different than many general counsels. With a well-rounded and eccentric background, he takes a proactive approach to counseling his business colleagues.

By Noah Johnson

BY THE TIME CHRISTOPHER MERMIGAS

stepped into his second assistant general counsel role at Valid in 2015, he didn’t have the background one would expect of such a leader. He had worked in IT, network security, law enforcement, government, and private practice; served in-house, and owned his own business. He devoted his legal career to practicing various facets of civil and criminal litigation—from prosecuting crimes, foreclosure defense, and loss mitigation to constitutional commerce claims, drafting laws, labor disputes, and more.

It was an eccentric and well-rounded journey that prompted his mentor, Joseph Taylor, at Valid to call him “the next generation of general counsels.”

“Joe made it clear,” Mermigas recalls. “He said, ‘You are what the future is

going to be, that tech-focused business partner GC.’”

Fast forward and the mentor couldn’t have been more spot on. Since then, Mermigas served as general counsel, corporate secretary, and data privacy officer while at Valid. In 2022, he came to RSA Security, an identity and cybersecurity powerhouse, to serve as head of legal, where he’s part of a paradigm shift in the function. Mermigas has not only the technical know-how and the industry expertise to understand the business and its challenges but also a proactive approach to addressing its needs.

“There are different types of in-house counsels. The old-school approach sees legal as a service, where corporate depends on legal to provide results-oriented service as if you were going to an outside counsel. The future type of GC is a pro -

Chris Mermigas Head of Legal RSA Security

active legal business partner. I’m more proactive,” Mermigas explains. “It’s our role to provide holistic legal and business advice and counseling necessary to advance and protect the company. In today’s digital age, this requires in-house counsels to not only have a strong handle on technology but also business administration and operations.

“You have to get involved early and understand where your business colleagues are coming from so you can give the best advice you can or guide them through the process to ensure they are on the correct path,” he continues. “It’s more frontloaded work, but at the end of the day your colleagues see the deals run faster and more smoothly.”

That mindset is especially critical at a company like RSA, which provides an AI-powered identity platform to protect the world’s most secure organizations. RSA is

The Facts on AI

The growing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) in the business landscape— and dominant topic of conversation—makes it seem exciting, risky, and unfamiliar. But Chris Mermigas points out that it’s not as novel as we think.

“I’ve been vocal that today’s AI isn’t really anything new. We’ve had this capability for years,” RSA Security’s head of legal observes. “People are up in arms about ChatGPT-4, but you can generate similar results if you know how to use Google Search properly. I characterize ChatGPT-4 as a progeny of Siri and Google Search. In any case, AI is a great tool, but it shouldn’t be a decision-maker. It should be used as a data point that requires independent verification. Nothing in law is white-and-black, with few exceptions. That’s what leaders should keep in mind as they consider using it.”

Danielson Legal is counsel of choice for small and growing technology companies seeking strategic guidance on their legal needs.

Danielson Legal was founded by alumni of Boston’s top law firms to provide legal services of the highest quality to technology companies in Massachusetts. We now have clients across the United States and around the globe, ranging from pre-seed startups to multinational businesses. We pride ourselves on prompt attention to our clients’ day-to-day legal needs, including the full range of intellectual property services, corporate matters, technology law & transactions, and litigation, with pricing designed to provide value to our clients.

“Neither legal process nor good cybersecurity architecture should slow down your organization— when done well, they should help you move faster.”

one of the largest identity and access management (IAM) security companies in the world, and Mermigas’ perspective has helped transform legal, building up its processes, procedures, and infrastructure in ways that have made the function more agile than before.

“I receive a great deal of positive feedback. Our turnaround times on contracts is now two to three days when it used to be two to three weeks,” he says. “We’re more involved with the sales team and getting contracts completed on their timelines rather than ours. Our customers are also happier to close deals faster.”

Moreover, Mermigas focuses on weighing the legal risks with the business needs and finds creative ways to resolve these risks while still closing the deal. “There are thousands of ways to say yes but only one way to say no,” he explains. “We just have to figure out which yes also works for the other side.

“Law and cybersecurity both tend to have a reputation for slowing the business down,” he adds. “Like the solutions that RSA provides to its customers, I want my team to find ways to help our internal customers speed up. Neither legal process nor good cybersecurity architecture should slow down your organization— when done well, they should help you move faster.”

Mermigas also works to set the tone for his team through a lead-by-example leadership style. He places a great deal of emphasis on cross training his teammates, so that “everyone is on the same page and allows the team more flexibility.”

“I won’t ask someone to do something that I’m not prepared to do. On the legal team, we all roll up our sleeves to get the work done. Everyone’s equal,” Mermigas says. “Everyone knows what each other is doing. Also, it’s important that the team knows that no one is correct 100 percent of the time. I want them to question each other and me. Constructive conflict is essential. As legal professionals we are trained to ask questions, analyze, debate, and provide resolutions. If we do that, we’ll get to a better, more clarified answer.

“In-house counsels should never be the barrier for business,” he continues. “I’ll continue to make my well-rounded and eccentric background an asset to my legal career to be the first line of defense and a business enabler.”

Danielson Legal LLC: "Congratulations to Christopher Mermigas on his profile in Modern Counsel. We're proud to be working with Chris and his colleagues at RSA Security on their day-to-day legal needs.”

—Robert Blasi, Chair, Patent Practice

Murtaza Hassonjee Lives in the Shades of Grey

The senior counsel explains the importance of being a trusted advisor and how that position often takes going beyond legal considerations

By Noah Johnson

BEFORE SERVING AS SENIOR counsel at Bain & Company, Murtaza Hassonjee spent his decadelong legal career helping venture capital funds, private equity investors, and emerging companies navigate a wide range of business activities and transactions.

Throughout that time, he came to believe that lawyers should do more than translate what contracts, laws, and regulations say. Rather than dealing in black and white terms, they should “live in the shades of gray,” he explains.

“That is where our advice is most valuable,” says Hassonjee, who stepped into his current role at Bain & Company in 2019. “Much of my career hasn’t just been looking at legal rules and contract terms but understanding the broader context around those things.” With this mindset, he’s able to see issues from a commercial, business, and on-theground perspective, requiring him to think more broadly beyond what a merger agreement or a shareholder agreement says.

The goal is to be a trusted advisor that clients can lean on for everything. When that position is working at its best, the relationship is not just about the legal advice, but it’s also helping them make a strategic decision. “It’s not just a matter of saying, ‘This contract says you can’t do this.’ It’s helping the business team find the best approach and resolution to

reach our goals. Not a yes or no, but a ‘here is how we can think about this issue,’” Hassonjee says of his advice to clients.

That mentality made him the perfect fit for his in-house role at Bain, where he continues to work on acquisition and investment transactions. While those areas have been his primary focus over the years, he has had an opportunity to advise his business colleagues on issues beyond his legal scope, a testament to how the company views him and his department.

“Bain has done an incredible job of creating a space where the legal team is brought into things that are often not legal at all,” he says. “That’s the culture that the M&A team and legal team leadership, particularly the general counsel and deputy general counsel, here has built— leveraging expertise from all groups and allowing people to contribute to their maximum potential. They do a great job of saying, ‘We want to have the right groups involved so everyone can contribute.’ It’s been really rewarding to work with people in that mindset and build those relationships to become a go-to member of the team.”

In addition to serving as an allaround problem-solver for his colleagues, he’s helped the company bolster its acquisition efforts in closing multiple deals in 2023. He’s proud to see how much the company

has grown over the past four years and is looking forward to finding opportunities to push the ball forward, he says.

“When I started, we were still building our M&A experience. We were really starting down that journey in an energized way. Four years later, we’ve been incredibly successful at it, I think. One of the things we learned is purchasing the company is one thing, but the integration process is another. We’re really taking a look at the integration models that work well and how we can improve those or create entirely new models,” Hassonjee explains.

Hassonjee was inspired to pursue a career in law after observing both his mother and grandfather practice it. While he always loved to argue both sides of an argument and to understand different perspectives, he was drawn to the kind of relationships his family members managed to cultivate in their respective careers.

“I was really interested in the way my mother and grandfather could help people in real and meaningful ways and create positive and lasting change in their clients’ lives,” he reflects.

After getting his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from Harvard Law School, he worked as an associate at Bingham McCutchen, and later at Morgan,

“That’s the culture that the M&A team and legal team leadership, particularly the general counsel and deputy general counsel, here has built—leveraging expertise from all groups and allowing people to contribute to their maximum potential.”

Lewis & Bockius after it absorbed Bingham McCutchen, followed by Cooley LLP.

“It was always fascinating to see how your clients are able to create something new or take something that exists and build it into their business in a new way,” he says.

At Bain, Hassonjee and his peers are on a similar mission. In one recent example, they are on the forefront in thinking about how to leverage AI both internally and for clients. He believes the technology brings great opportunities while creating challenges.

“I think there’s a lot of advantages that come with AI, but as we’ve all seen, there’s some limitations. It’s important to find where those lines are,” Hassonjee emphasizes. “Everyone is so eager and excited to leverage this amazing new capability, but at the same time, being able to put the right guardrails around it is one of the big challenges we’ve been seeing now, and I think we’ll continue to see it.”

He adds: “Everyone wants to utilize this amazing new tool, and you want to make sure it’s safe to do that. It’s a balance we’re still figuring out but one that I think we’ll achieve.”

Cooley congratulates Taz Hassonjee on his recognition by Modern Counsel.

Just Be Kind

Adam Frankel is NWN Carousel’s first general counsel, and his guiding principles are close to the heart

By Billy Yost

ADAM FRANKEL DIDN’T START WORKING for a US-based company until eight years into his legal career. His multinational work is extensive, having risen through legal roles in Dutch, Swiss, French, and Israeli multinational telecommunications and software companies and start-ups.

One thing has remained constant for him: be humble and kind. To Frankel, those words matter most.

“I feel like the best lawyers who I’ve negotiated with are also the kindest and best people,” he reflects. “I think that translates to your work product. Just be a normal person, whether you’re entering a heated negotiation or a routine interaction. Just be kind.”

If that outlook seems somehow naive, simply look at Frankel’s résumé to see how that approach has played out. The attorney was recruited by Boston-based NWN Carousel to act as its inaugural general counsel for a business that was already two decades old.

“We didn’t have a legal department when I joined,” Frankel says. “It was a several-hundred-million-dollar business that was running fine without a legal department, so I’m not trying to sell myself as some kind of savior. But I definitely saw some opportunities to help NWN grow.”

Consider the challenge: a twenty-yearold business with a defined culture that was humming along was suddenly welcoming an outsider—an attorney, nonetheless.

Adam Frankel General Counsel

NWN Carousel

“Just be a normal person, whether you’re entering a heated negotiation or a routine interaction. Just be kind.”

Someone that could implicitly be thought of as an obstacle in the way of the business if Frankel made the wrong moves early.

Frankel was careful not to rock the boat until he invested time in meeting people across the business. He fought the urge to staff-up his department as quickly as possible, instead taking the time to survey the situation, develop meaningful connections, and spend six months understanding the company’s business, risk profile, and find the gaps he could help fill.

The GC says he sought out as many data points as possible inform potential hiring decisions. His world was awash in spreadsheets, matrices, and breakdowns of functional areas for months. The road map slowly came together, and Frankel says he worked in tandem with NWN’s CFO to help build out his larger vision.

Just as things started to be made clear, NWN acquired cloud communications and infrastructure services company Carousel Industries of North America Inc., nearly tripling its employee population. Along with a legal assistant and

an assistant general counsel, Frankel was able to upskill an incoming Carousel paralegal in tech transactional work.

The internal legal team is currently four people, a lean organization by any metric, but four years in, he seems to have passed the trial by fire. All the while, the GC has been implementing an internal legal program completely remotely. NWN Carousel is a hybrid company, which gives Frankel the opportunity to be the kind of parent he wants to be.

“I don’t think I’m working any less, but I am working more flexibly,” he explains. “I’m able to get my kids off to school in the morning, work all day, and if I need to work a bit after I put them to bed, I do. This place is amazingly accommodating in that regard.”

Frankel offers practice and thoughtful advice for young attorneys. “When you’re starting out with any company, contracts are really the gateway, the lens to learn everything about a business,” he says. “You see the risk profile. You see what the company is willing to assume. You see what the business cares about

Adam Frankel Fosters the Next Generation of Dead Heads

Outside of work, Adam Frankel is a live music fanatic. He recently brought his son to Fenway Park to watch Dead & Company play a farewell show in Boston. He’s hoping to pass that love of music onto his kids, though he didn’t make them stay for the full second set.

“It was a cathartic experience to expose my son to something I’m so passionate about. He’s only seven, so it might have kind of stretched the bounds of negligent parenting, but we left during the second set to get him home for bed,” he says, laughing.

commercially. And you can even learn about how the organization views the legal team.”

The GC adds that contracts are a hub that interacts with sales, human resources, finance, engineering, information security, and most of the rest of the organization. If you want to learn about your business, start with contract work and work your way out.

“Contract work helps you interact with everyone, and once you find out what you really are into and want to focus on, then you can specialize,” he says. “I think learning the business through contract work is a great inroad to being a successful in-house lawyer.”

Lastly, for those on the eternal grind, Frankel, a young lawyer himself, stresses the need to take a minute to breathe. You might be prepared for a promotion, “But you can’t always be on a rocket ship,” the GC says. “I know you want that next opportunity. But sometimes, a little patience goes a long way.”

Warm congratulations to our friend and client Adam Frankel on being featured by Modern Counsel.

Your accomplishments are many and we are proud to work alongside you!

Helping management navigate today’s complex workplace.

Making It through the Pandemic, Together

Pratt Industries faced the challenge of continuing to grow during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Doug Balyeat enjoyed helping the company in this process

By Natalie Kochanov

IT’S EASY FOR AN ORGANIZATION TO showcase its values when everything is going right. The true test of character comes when times get tough. No one knows this better than Doug Balyeat, who had a front-row seat to the response of recycled paper and packaging company Pratt Industries to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In your heart of hearts, you always want to believe that your company is

Doug Balyeat VP, General Counsel, and Secretary

Joseph Y. Wong

Pratt Industries

“Whatever the challenge of the moment might be, it really is a team effort, and I am only one chair at that table.”

going to do the right thing,” says Balyeat, who serves as vice president, general counsel, and secretary at Pratt. “It’s something totally different to be on this end of a pandemic and realize that you couldn’t be any prouder of the organization for how we prioritized what was most important to us, which was the safety of our employees.”

He takes particular pride in the way Pratt’s executive leadership team steered the company through COVID, but he is just as proud of his own legal team for managing to thrive in the face of the pandemic’s challenges. Beyond that, he and his team have successfully navigated the significant growth Pratt has experienced in recent years as the company has continued to innovate within the corrugated packaging space.

Balyeat first joined Pratt back in 2007. Even then, he could tell that the organization was on an upward trajectory. “The potential for growth was the thing that attracted me to Pratt, and it has fulfilled and exceeded my best expectations,” he says. “Our owner has made very public commitments as far as investment in the United States, and we continue to respect those

commitments and create new ‘green’ jobs—sustainability being one of our differential aspects as our paper is 100 percent recycled.”

When he started, Pratt was already a large company with two paper mills, and they are now exponentially larger as they are finishing their sixth paper mill.

As the business has evolved, so has the legal team—and Balyeat’s role within it. “My title is the same, but the role has certainly changed. In the beginning, it was about getting all legal aspects of the company under control,” he explains. “Now, I help manage a wonderful team that takes care of reviewing the contracts and fostering the right relationships with the business folks. But we’ve taken even that aspect to the next level. It’s no longer about just reviewing a contract; it’s about being a true partner to the business units so that we can figure out how to add value and keep the organization’s best interests in mind.”

To ensure their readiness to meet Pratt’s needs, the team—which consists of a blend of attorneys and paralegals— has reorganized its workflow by company location rather than by contract

type. Furthermore, the team has learned to recognize instances that warrant tapping into the specialized expertise of outside counsel.

“Some of the relationships that I have with our external partners span decades,” Balyeat says. “We’ve forged these relationships over time, and these are people who are just as much part of the team as the internal folks.”

The strength of the team, both internal and external, was on full display during the pandemic. “In our industry, we saw an increase in demand, which increased the number of contracts and everything else. The team really rose to the challenge during that time,” Balyeat highlights. “It’s been really neat to watch them grow not only individually, but also together as a team.”

But it wasn’t just the legal team that turned COVID into a chance to shine. “We were essential workers, so that afforded us an opportunity to continue to operate our facilities and provide jobs for our employees,” Balyeat says. “But that presented its own challenges because we had to do so in a very safe environment, with temperature checks and daily testing. What I absolutely

loved—and what really made me sleep good at night—was seeing our organization, from the highest level, make the decisions each step of the way to protect our employees and to protect our customers.”

Pratt’s executive team, in collaboration with a dedicated COVID committee, guided the company through the pandemic’s uncertainty by engaging in daily update monitoring and closely following all guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control. “The executive committee and the senior-most individuals in the organization took it very seriously,” Balyeat says. “I knew personally that it was important, and to be with a company that shared those same values was amazing.”

Balyeat hopes to continue to embody Pratt’s values and to take an even greater hand in shaping the company’s strategic growth moving forward. No matter how much his role expands, though, he will always be a firm believer that teamwork is the key to success.

“I am where I am because of all of the amazing executives and other folks at Pratt,” Balyeat says. “Each of us is bringing something different to the table, but it’s all of us working together that allows us to close on a piece of real estate or finance a new facility. Whatever the challenge of the moment might be, it really is a team effort, and I am only one chair at that table.”

Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP Attorneys and Counselors at Law

Taylor English is honored to be a trusted partner and counselor of Pratt Industries.

We commend Doug Balyeat for his continued innovative contributions to Pratt’s business success and his strategic leadership of its legal department.

The Mentorship Issue

Exploring the stories of inspiring attorneys who are mentoring the next generation of legal leaders

Petal Illustrations by

Chief Legal Officer Lisa Gok continues to find new ways to grow in her profession at Cetera as well as in her personal life

By Zach Baliva

Be Willing to Wash the Windows

Photos by Cass Davis

LISA GOK Chief Legal Officer Cetera

I just love learning new things.

That’s what keeps my life interesting.

Lisa Gok and her career exploits have been well noted in the pages of Modern Counsel . Her early days as an assistant United States attorney might as well be their own television series, and when she decided she needed a calmer change of pace, she transferred to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to shut down Ponzi schemes and other financial frauds. Not exactly a walk in the park.

But over the course of a decade, Gok has continued evolving at an incredible rate. The rugged litigator has become something she never imagined: a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) attorney. “I don’t think you’ll meet many litigators who turn into M&A lawyers,” Gok says, laughing. “But that is so much of what I do now. I just love learning new things. That’s what keeps my life interesting.”

Gok stepped into the chief legal officer (CLO) role at Cetera in May 2022, having previously grown through deputy and general counsel duties. Cetera has offered Gok the chance to grow in a million different directions, but it’s also offered her the chance to continue to build teams, one of the CLO’s true hallmarks.

“I think I’m a natural team-builder,” Gok explains. “I put a team together at the SEC. I built a whole compliance team at Transamerica Financial Advisors. I had the chance to really rebuild my team when I got to Cetera.”

The CLO says she’s probably put a thousand witnesses in front of grand juries over the course of her career, so reading people is more than helpful—it’s crucial. Gok jokes that her hiring record may not be perfect, but her average is strong.

That begs the question, what does a CLO who used to take down drug traffickers and fraudsters at all hours of the day look for from a highly performing corporate legal team in an organization that has doubled in size when she first arrived in 2012?

Her answer is one that those at Cetera have heard maybe hundreds of times at this point. “You have to be willing to wash windows,” Gok says. “I don’t look for people who put a box around what they do and refuse to step outside of it. Whatever needs to be done, I’ll do it. And I want a team that approaches their role the same way.”

Gok remembers a day back at the SEC when her team worked overnight to

secure a temporary restraining order to freeze funds and return them to victims who had been scammed. Gok’s team was there all night, and she was the one ordering pizza to keep her team going.

The CLO knows she will never ask someone else to do something she wouldn’t herself do and so does her team. That kind of credibility goes a long way. And while Gok’s past might paint her as a tough-talking litigator, she says she leaves the tough talk for when it’s necessary. She’d rather operate with the golden rule—treating others the way one wants to be treated themselves—guiding her.

Gok also looks for those who have passion in their lives. For the CLO, that passion plays out by partnering with organizations like Kidsave, a nonprofit dedicated to finding families for older children who hope to be adopted.

“I’m always impressed when candidates have taken time to work with organizations or alma maters or just find some way of being of service,” Gok says. “I look for individuals that just seem like good people and can demonstrate that with some action they’ve taken in their lives.”

Through that team building, continuous M&A activity, and ongoing evolution, Gok says there has been a noticeable shift in the legal team’s attitude over the years. The CLO had a colleague who left the company only to return a handful of years later.

“I remember her saying, ‘Things just aren’t sleepy anymore,’ which I thought was a great way to explain it,” Gok explains. “We were maybe half the size we are now, and at present, we’re just going gangbusters at all times.”

Gok says she has complete trust in the three deputies who report to her, all of whom she hired herself. This trust in aptitude gives Gok the time to engage in the kind of projects that are most meaningful to her: big picture work. As the CLO has risen through Cetera, direction and strategy have played an increasingly larger part of her role, and it’s where the attorney finds the most satisfaction now.

That strategy is incredibly important given just how heavy Cetera’s acquisitional appetite has remained in recent years. With Cetera’s massive list of financial advisors, she says it’s a tribute to the organization’s integration team that many have been able to continue their day-to-day efforts without realizing just how large their organization has grown to.

“We’ve been doing one acquisition after another, and our integration team has gotten very good about making sure we’re not disrupting the lives of the advisors that we already have here,” Gok explains. “We just integrated a large group of independent advisors recently, and we didn’t hear one word of complaint from our current advisors. That’s what you want. Our operations, transitions,

I’m always impressed when candidates have taken time to work with organizations or alma maters or just find some way of being of service. I look for individuals that just seem like good people and can demonstrate that with some action they’ve taken in their lives.”

and training teams deserve a lot of that recognition for finding great ways to get everyone on the same page.”

These positive collaborations extend beyond the firm, too. Lou Spadafora, founder of Winget, Spadafora & Schwartzberg, LLP, speaks proudly of Gok. “Since the time we began working together over a decade ago, what has impressed me most about Lisa is her insight and resourcefulness,” Spadafora says. “She has the innate ability to see the result early, and the focus to bring it to fruition. It has been a great pleasure working with Lisa.”

With Gok’s M&A work not seeming to end any time soon, it’s a wonder she has a life at all outside of her role. But the CLO still finds time to golf a few rounds. Gok

www.bressler.com

At Johnson, Newlon & DeCort, our attorneys bring their vast experience from big law firms, providing high-caliber representation that addresses the unique needs of clients throughout Florida and across the nation.

Congratulate Lisa Gok for this well-deserved recognition

came to golf later in life, and only learned it after she figured out just how many deals were being done on the fairway. But now she’s a bona fide golf enthusiast.

And if she’s not on the green, Gok is likely tending to more than twenty-five orchids that currently adorn her family’s home. She initially inherited a few from her father after he passed away, but the CLO has now become something of an “orchid whisperer” to those in the know. Litigator turned M&A expert. Lawyer turned golfer. Athlete turned floriculturist. Gok keeps finding new ways to surprise even herself.

Securities & Arbitration Litigation

Banking & Finance Litigation

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Solving Complex Legal Problems With Creative Solutions

Foley & Lardner LLP:

“Cetera CLO Lisa Gok’s matchless legal knowledge and experience make her the consummate strategic player in the wealth management industry. She’s a brilliant thinker, and she really knows how to get things done.”

—Phillip M. Goldberg, Partner

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.:

“As CLO for Cetera, Lisa has unparalleled legal experience in both the public and private sectors. She is an excellent analytical thinker and a fierce negotiator, who is masterful at building strategic relationships that bring immense value to her organization.”

—Robert Erzen, Area Executive

Vice

President

Saretsky Hart Michaels + Gould P.C.:

“Lisa Gok is an outstanding CLO. She couples vast legal expertise with superb business acumen, peerless judgment, and inspiring leadership skills in serving as trusted adviser and adding tremendous value to the Cetera enterprise.”

—Gary Saretsky, Attorney

Katherine Donlon, Elaine Rice, Nicole Deese Newlon and Laura Prather PARTNERS

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Since 1993, Winget, Spadafora & Schwartzberg, LLP has provided comprehensive legal solutions designed to achieve optimal results for our clients. Our deep bench of experienced attorneys is backed by a dedicated support sta , leading-edge technology and a firm culture that prizes focus, incisive thinking and a hands-on approach.

• Professional Liability Litigation

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McGuireWoods addresses our clients’ legal and business challenges and the needs of their communities. We prize skill, experience and dedication — and we put those qualities to work for our clients.

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We have nationwide experience with:

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Leadership from empowerment, not power

Cetera was founded on the premise that leadership isn’t a function of an office or a title. It’s a calling. A pattern of behavior. A passion to act in service to others.

Maybe that’s why our platforms and solutions have earned top industry honors year after year for their ability to help financial professionals create greater well-being for their clients.

But we treat that much like hearsay. Our most important KPI is the satisfaction of those we serve. We measure it relentlessly as the final judgment of our success.

A Sweeter Situation

Through COVID-19 and a string of acquisitions, Ferrero North America’s Beth Kotran pivoted her leadership style to create a virtual office environment for a freshly remote team

By Frank DiMaria

IN 2015, THE FERRERO GROUP entered an era of acquisitions. Started as a small family bakery in Alba, Italy, Ferrero burst into the North American market in 1969 with Tic Tac mints. Forty-six years later, it began acquiring several brands and businesses. “Ferrero’s products were well-known throughout Italy, Germany, and France. While Ferrero had business in North America, the potential growth of Ferrero in the North American market was seen as an opportunity,” says Beth Kotran, area general counsel at Ferrero North America.

Kotran and her team support Ferrero’s North American area, which includes the US and Canadian commercial businesses and its industrial manufacturing facilities, covering several brands, including the legacy Ferrero brands and those it acquired over the years.

Ferrero’s growth in the US started when it acquired regional Chicagoland confectionery business Fannie May Confections, which had been manufacturing boxed chocolate assortments since 1920. Although operated within Ferrero North America, Fanny May retained its

unique identity. Shortly after that, Ferrero acquired chocolate brands from Nestlé like Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and—in the US—Crunch, and added several manufacturing facilities to its footprint in the US.

“We were a small legal team at that point in time, but we realized there was going to be a lot of work to integrate one slice of a large pie, basically a business without a company, which had been fairly unique for me,” Kotran says. She and her team were immersed in the integration as they lent support across every workstream and functional team, while also working on the legal workstream.

“That was a pretty significant challenge for our teams because, at the same time, we were launching a number of innovative products we were managing the day-to-day legal affairs of the business. It was a lot of work for a very small group of lawyers,” Kotran recalls. “We were stretched thin.”

In 2020, Ferrero’s growth continued despite the pandemic. As American workers retreated to their home offices, Ferrero was integrating the freshly acquired Keebler, Famous Amos, and Mother’s cookie brands. “Once again, we were not integrating a company, but a piece of business, creating complexities. Given the size of the cookie business, we needed to add lawyers to our team and consider how to structure our department to support the type and volume of work from our business clients in North America,” says Kotran, who came to Ferrero in 2010 after an eight-year stint with Cadbury Adams.

Early on in the pandemic, Kotran realized she and her growing team would be at home longer than anticipated. So, she pivoted. “The acquisitions and the pandemic created a situation where I had to change my style in managing the team and how I would help to forge the culture in the team,” she says.

She implemented a weekly team call, during which the first half hour team members would socialize. “It was meant to create an environment like you’re in the office and you kind of stop by somebody’s office and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ Or, ‘How was your weekend?’ We would just talk amongst ourselves to keep that friendly comradery that we had in the office, like watercooler conversations,” Kotran says. The team call was so successful that Kotran continues the practice to this day.

One of the biggest challenges Kotran faced leading through Ferrero’s many acquisitions and COVID-19 was avoiding weariness. “When you have a high-functioning team that is doing a lot of things and is heavily relied upon to consult on the various aspects of the business, it can very quickly turn into burnout and exhaustion. . . . People were having a hard time shutting down [while working at home],” Kotran says.

Another challenge of working remotely was learning to trust her direct reports “at a different level.” Many managers faced this concern. Members of her team had different levels of tenure in the company and while she knew their capabilities, she had to learn to trust her team to perform while

The acquisitions and the pandemic created a situation where I had to change my style in managing the team and how I would help to forge the culture in the team.”

unsupervised. “This was challenging,” Kotran admits. “It required a different skill that many managers adopted: a type of learn as we go.”

In a span of about eight years, Kotran hired seven lawyers, basing her hiring decisions on the belief that individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences add to the rich tapestry of a large team. She also considers personalities to ensure new hires will complement the team rather than clash with it. During the hiring process, she encourages team members to meet with prospective candidates to gauge comfort levels on both sides of the equation. “You have to make sure everyone is going to be able to work together,” she explains.

When Kotran is not leading her team of ten lawyers and legal professionals, she enjoys introspective activities like distance walking—without earbuds—and gardening. “I give a lot of my brain and my heart to my work and my family. I just need some of that alone time to be with myself and not even think about very much. Just be in myself,” she says. “It helps me from the standpoint of managing stress, being a good mom to my kids, a good manager for my team, and the best person I can be.”

Alston & Bird:

“Working

—Jeff

Tonya Wittenmyer Encourages Mentoring & Networking

By Noah Johnson

Tonya Wittenmyer shares the importance of relationship building with her colleagues and understanding the business at Marathon

TONYA WITTENMYER Senior Counsel, Litigation

Marathon Petroleum Corporation

Courtesy of Marathon Petroleum Company LP

Tonya Wittenmyer started her in-house career as a corporate attorney managing litigation for Speedway SuperAmerica in 2007, where she had the opportunity in her first week to experience the job responsibilities of Speedway’s employees. This opportunity included a day or two working at a convenience store, during which she observed how the employees interacted with customers who truly seemed like family, and another day shadowing a district manager and a regional manager who oversaw a number of convenience stores. This experience left an indelible mark on her as a leader and continues to influence the way she approaches her work at Marathon Petroleum Corporation, where she currently serves as a senior litigation counsel.

“The opportunity to experience a day in the life of the employees allowed me to understand the business, the company, and employees I represent,” Wittenmyer explains. “As in-house counsel, it is key to understand how employees conduct their work and the structure of their day. It allows you the ability to know the time frame during a business day of when to speak with employees, to understand the mechanics of the business, and so many other things.”

In 2011, Wittenmyer transferred within the company structure to Marathon

TONYA WITTENMYER ON FINDING FRIENDS ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION

“Through the women’s leadership development and networking organization, I had the opportunity to be connected with a colleague at one of Marathon’s terminals. During our first conversation, we realized some of our interests outside the office setting also aligned. Since the initial conversation, we have developed a friendship that goes beyond the work hours. We have even met for lunch when I was passing through her town on a way to vacation. We are planning a trip in 2024 with our families. It is amazing that even being in a different profession and geographical location, we have had an opportunity to support one another both professionally and personally.”

TONYA WITTENMYER

ON HOW SHE CHOSE

A LEGAL PATH

“My undergraduate degree is in biology and my original plan was to go to medical school. However, during my junior year of undergraduate studies, I learned medicine was not the right career for me after shadowing doctors in various professions. I learned through this experience of shadowing others, that my passion really was in law. The challenges the attorneys I shadowed faced every day with considering complex situations intrigued me and, with the encouragement of others, pointed me to a wonderful career as an attorney with Marathon Petroleum Company LP.”

Petroleum Company LP and has sought out similar educational and networking opportunities, such as visiting the company’s boats and barges in the Marine division and touring its refineries and terminals in many different states across the US. Not only have those visits deepened her understanding of the work conducted by her internal clients, but also they have allowed her to create relationships across the company.

This knowledge and those relationships have been especially important for her role as legal section chair for the company’s emergency response team, where she’s responsible for developing systems and training while partnering with her colleagues in crisis situations.

“As a member of the emergency response team, I’ve witnessed the importance of relationships and knowledge in the business. I’m proud of the company I work for and the opportunities we have to build relationships and knowledge about the business through drill exercises of emergency response activities, along with mentoring, networking, and team building by meeting people from across the company. We are a team, and honestly, with the relationships you make, it really makes you feel like you are family.”

She continues: “In the event there is a need for an emergency response, it’s important to have a family supporting one another and working as

a team. The friendships, created by the relationships and opportunities to network and mentor one another, [allow] the company to work together through the emergency.”

Mentorship cuts at the heart of Wittenmyer’s leadership style. As someone who had great mentors along her professional journey, she takes the opportunity to encourage others to be mentors and seek out a mentor. As a leader in the women’s leadership development and networking organization, she emphasizes building relationships through mentoring and networking with others allows people to form connections with people of different backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge.

“Networking and mentorship go hand-in-hand,” she says. “Opportunities to learn more about people, to encourage one another professionally and personally, is important to me. I enjoy hearing other’s stories and experiences, and if I see an opportunity that may fit someone based on their skillset and interests, I’m always happy to pass it along!”

Jordan, Lynch & Cancienne PLLC: “We have had the pleasure of working with Tonya on a number of cases over the years and she always astutely guides the strategic goals of Marathon without interfering with our drive to win.”

—Walter Lynch, Partner

Angi’s Erika Sylvester discusses how her impressive legal career was heavily influenced by her years as a college basketball player

By Noah Johnson

The Importance of Teamwork

AFTER FOUR YEARS OF PLAYING

Division I basketball at Bradley University, Erika Sylvester decided to trade one court for another and pursued a career in law. In joining private practice, she served as a litigator and became partner prior to starting her in-house career at Cummins Inc. and joining Angi in May 2022 as senior counsel.

Though her days on the court are behind her, the former team captain still focuses on teamwork and the importance of communicating, both of which continue to influence the way she approaches her legal responsibilities in-house.

“When challenges present, it’s critical as an in-house counsel to be able to pivot and modify your strategy as a team,” Sylvester explains. “Often, a pivot may include asking questions and listening to answers to identify different ways to address an issue in order to accomplish the goal. In order to have those conversations, it’s critical to establish a level of respect for the different skills that colleagues bring to the table.”

That mentality is what helped Sylvester work so well with clients and colleagues at Coots, Henke & Wheeler PC, where she was involved in all stages of civil litigation as an associate and advocated for a diverse portfolio of clients as a partner.

When she was ready for a new challenge, she joined Cummins in the finance

function of internal audit. For Sylvester, who didn’t have a finance background, it was a left turn. “It was a totally different experience,” she reflects. “I was focused on compliance, regulatory audits, and operational processes, either reviewing them for compliance or determining what we could do to create efficiencies.”

While she had a steep learning curve as she adapted to the role, Sylvester faced several unique opportunities. Working outside of legal allowed her to work closely with engineers, auditors, accountants, and others with various backgrounds and titles—functions that

ERIKA SYLVESTER Senior Counsel of Corporate Angi

served her well when she moved into the legal department at the company.

“It was critical to engage and earn trust with different groups and functions to have productive conversations with the common goal of improving the business” she says. “It was also a great way to be afforded the opportunity to communicate with leadership and identify solutions rather than ‘problems’ while learning about the challenges that a global, Fortune 500 company faces every day.”

Today, Sylvester is proud to be a collaborative, authentic leader and a strategic business partner at Angi who understands how effective communication can be a vehicle for strong teams.

“To me, being a good leader requires being a great communicator,” she

asserts. “I say that because communication entails listening to others just as much as it is in sharing advice and ideas of your own. Being able to hear voices of the people around you gives you an opportunity to grow, support others around you, and develop trust.”

Sylvester adds, “A good leader is also authentic—when a leader is authentic, others who are around them are more likely to feel that they too can be themselves. That level of authenticity makes for a better working environment and a more successful one, too.”

Since she joined Angi, Sylvester has managed a caseload of prelitigation and litigation disputes with a focus on efficient and cost-effective results. In doing so, she puts on her team-captain hat, serving as a rallying voice for her busi-

ness colleagues with an acute awareness toward what the organization needs to reach its goals.

“In litigation, you see different parts of the business that can be challenged, and it can be costly to even avoid getting to that point is a space we’re focusing on at this time,” she explains. “For the matters that are unavoidable, it’s important to have the support of the business to make sure we can have an aligned front, gather all the documentation we need, and have the right people involved.”

She’s also had a chance to help streamline processes and procedures and to oversee privacy and compliance work—an area she admits has been a challenge given ongoing regulatory changes.

“It’s really been about staying on your feet and constantly challenging myself

and our teams to develop robust processes for compliance,” she says.

She urges young lawyers to prioritize “being a good teammate.”

“A good teammate communicates and supports colleagues and business goals,” Sylvester says. “The importance of building relationships, developing an understanding of others' skills, learning from them, and supporting them as needed are core competencies for success both on the court and off.”

Carlton Fields, P.A.:

“Erika is tremendously calculated, thoughtful, and strategic in her approach to litigation and dispute resolution, always with her company’s interests guiding her work. We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Erika and support her and her company.”

—Michael D.

Margulies,

Shareholder

Star Mountain Capital’s Austin Ericson details the importance of accessibility, understanding clients, and more

By Noah Johnson

How to Be a Good Business Partner

AS LEGAL COUNSEL AND CHIEF compliance officer at Star Mountain Capital, Austin Ericson ensures the firm and its employees comply with applicable laws and regulations at a company—and in an industry—that’s constantly growing and evolving.

He understands that strong relationships with his business colleagues aren’t just a luxury but are critical to success.

“To be effective, first you need the information. A lot of that comes by being accessible to people, no matter what level they’re at in the business,” Ericson

explains. “A lot of times, you can learn things that are going on just by being willing to talk to someone who’s junior, taking them to lunch, and getting a feel for what they’re seeing.

“There’s formal ways to gather information—committees, weekly calls, and email updates—and there’s informal,” he continues. “Often, the informal— coffees, water cooler, firm events—helps you get information before you would otherwise so that you can help steer decisions early on.”

That’s one of the many gems Ericson has relied on to be a strong in-house counsel and business partner at the

firm. Star Mountain Capital currently provides strategic debt and equity capital to private business that have at least $15 million of revenue while offering liquidity solutions to investors and fund managers.

Another is tied to the way Ericson navigates the myriad of responsibilities he oversees. On any given day, he could be working on allocation and valuation of investments, monitoring employee compliance, or reviewing marketing materials or requests for proposals for potential investors, and more. Recently, he’s been focused on new US Securities and Exchange Commission private fund

rules and ensuring Star Mountain is prepared for the changes.

As an in-house lawyer who wears a lot of hats, he emphasizes that it’s important to remember to put on the right one for the right client.

“Managing the attorney/client relationship can get complicated, whether you’re at an asset manager or a law firm,” he admits. “At an asset manager, there’s generally a management company, the founder, the funds, the employees—all of whom need help in a different way. At a law firm, there’s partners, associates, paralegals, and, of course, clients.”

AUSTIN ERICSON Legal Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer

Star Mountain Capital

Star Mountain’s outside counsel recognizes Austin’s skills at balancing the interests of the various stakeholders within the organization. “Through his practical and commercially minded approach, Austin has become a trusted part of the Star Mountain team, and is therefore well-positioned to ensure that the firm’s obligations to its clients are always treated as paramount,” notes Ed Nadel, partner at Lowenstein Sandler LLP.

Having a strong team is vital, too. Since Ericson joined the company, he’s had a chance to shape his team, which consists of two dedicated resources with assistance from another half dozen in the financial operations group. He leads with an understanding that everyone is different and has their own unique strengths and there’s different ways of leveraging them.

“Some people like working early, others prefer to work late,” he says. “Some are more in line with the compliance side, which can be very by the book like a science, versus drafting a policy or a contract, which is more of an art.

Lawyers love to think they’re smart, but when you’re a junior lawyer, you’re not—even if you might’ve been the smartest coming out of college or law school. You have to be willing to humble yourself and ask questions and know [whom] to ask.”

We hire people for a certain role, but we know they might need to shift to different responsibilities based on what their good at and what they enjoy doing.”

Before coming to Star Mountain Capital, Ericson developed his legal expertise during a career journey that saw him serve as a transactional lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery before moving in-house at H.I.G. Capital as an assistant general counsel. In both roles, one of the most valuable lessons he learned was about “understanding who you’re there to help.”

“When you’re a junior associate, you may not be interacting with the named client. So, while they’re technically your client, you have to adjust your mindset to know, ‘my client is this company, but I’m working with this partner who oversees the relationship as a whole,’” he explains. “Similarly when you’re in-house, your client is the advisor, but, ultimately, you’re making decision and deals on behalf of the investors and making sure they get good legal repre -

sentation, are aware of the risks, and are being treated fairly.”

Ericson believes that young lawyers can gain a lot of valuable experience from starting their careers at a law firm.

“You get exposed to formal trainings and people who are specialized in a variety of areas,” he says. “You also learn that you need to be available for your clients, especially in private equity. You might be working on vacations, but if you don’t have that instilled in you early, I don’t know if you ever will. When you’re in-house, it's harder since you don’t have a partner over you, and you need to have a more responsible and client-serving mindset.”

He also wants others to understand the value of asking for help.

“Lawyers love to think they’re smart, but when you’re a junior lawyer, you’re not—even if you might’ve been the smartest coming out of college or law school,” Ericson says. “You have to be willing to humble yourself and ask questions and know [whom] to ask.”

MODERN COUNSEL

Legal Family Matters

Alan Rosenberg never expected to join the family business, but he has found his calling as a strong collaborator and general counsel at RNDC

By Noah Johnson

Before becoming general counsel (GC) for Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC), the second largest wine distributor in the country, Alan Rosenberg was not interested in joining the family business.

“I had been at too many family dinners and saw my relatives get into, let’s say, active discussions with one another about the business,” Rosenberg says. “I loved them, but I wanted to pitch my own tent and leave my work at the office.”

From 1996 to 2016, that’s exactly what he did. After getting journalism and law degrees, he spent three years as a civil litigation associate before going on to have an in-house career spanning nearly three decades. He gained expertise in managing corporate legal activities at healthcare, technology, and information management organizations. At these prior companies he led large teams and helped resolve high-stake lawsuits and also built departments and compliance programs from the ground up.

In 2009, Rosenberg’s decades of commitment to his craft culminated in the role of vice president and general counsel of the Americas for Recall, where he built

the legal department from the ground up and developed corporate legal initiatives to address and solve the business’ most pressing problems. His time at the organization was so fruitful that he planned on retiring there.

But then, the business was sold.

“I wanted to work there for as long as possible because I really enjoyed the job, Recall, and the people I worked with,” he recalls. “But then Recall was sold, and, of course, they didn’t need two GCs.”

While Rosenberg had to leave behind a job and a company he loved, an opportunity arose for him to start anew. While at Recall, and much prior to its sale, he was contacted by the CEO of RNDC who requested his assistance with RNDC’s then pending search to fill its new GC position. Rosenberg helped the leader understand the kind of people the company should be looking for, what the job description should look like, and more. But when the CEO subsequently learned that Recall was being acquired, the conversations shifted.

“It went from ‘Can you help me?’ to ‘When can you start?' which surprised me,” Rosenberg admits. “I did some deep soul-searching and concluded that this was the time to join the family

ALAN ROSENBERG General Counsel, Corporate EVP, and Corporate Secretary

business. I figured it would be my last career move and I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to build a new legal department in ways that would benefit the company and help it keep growing. I spoke to my wife about it, my family, interviewed for the role, and the rest is history.”

In 2016, Rosenberg was named the company’s first GC and vice president, and now serves as corporate executive vice president and corporate secretary. For a business which was over one-hundred-years-old, he had a lot of work to do. RNDC had outsourced all its legal work for years, and upon joining RNDC, all this legal work fell on the GC’s shoulders, which would require building a legal department and its infrastructure. The first six or seven months in the role, without any additional legal support internally, he focused on getting a lay of the land, understanding the business, studying alcohol beverage laws, and meeting with key stakeholders all over the country.

As RNDC began to recognize the value he brought to the company, leaders signed off on efforts to build a legal team. For Rosenberg, it was key to develop a team that wasn’t full of “yes men and women;” rather, he wanted to surround himself with other legal professionals who would look at an issue and not necessarily tell him what he wanted to hear, but instead what their independent opinion was on the issue.

“That’s how you get to the best answer: treating it as a team and not a dictatorship,” he advises. “It’s a democracy. Of course, I get the final say, but the final say isn’t always what I started with. Everyone’s voice is important, everyone contributes, and everyone feels free to provide their opinion, disagreement, or their guidance.”

Rosenberg is proud to say that he’s built such a team. So far, the legal department touts a strong five-person team, consisting of a senior paralegal Rosenberg brought over from Recall, an experienced corporate and employment lawyer, a corporate paralegal, and an alcohol beverage trade practices legal expert. Together, the group has brought order to the company’s contract system, dramatically reduced its annual legal spend, and implemented processes to drive efficiency in many business and legal activities.

“Alan is simply one of the most strategic and efficient GCs with whom I have worked over the last thirty-plus years. He builds legal teams of attorneys and legal assistants within companies, and through outside counsel—who he appropriately relies on—sets high but reasonable standards and expectations. [He] creates lifelong relationships built on trust and confidence,” says Richard Krumholz, partner at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP. “Having seen many in-house legal departments over the years, Alan has taken key elements of each to build a steady, strong department

EXPERTISE SPOTLIGHT

Norton Rose Fulbright provides a full scope of legal services to the world’s preeminent corporations and financial institutions. The global law firm has more than three thousand lawyers advising clients across more than fifty locations worldwide, including London, Houston, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Johannesburg, covering Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa, and the Middle East. With its global business principles of quality, unity, and integrity, Norton Rose Fulbright is recognized for its client service in key industries, including financial institutions; energy, infrastructure and resources; technology; transport; life sciences and healthcare; and consumer markets.

Everyone’s voice is important, everyone contributes, and everyone feels free to provide their opinion, disagreement, or their guidance.”

LETTING LOOSE

“It’s important that my team is a not only a collaborative group but one that has fun together,” says Alan Rosenberg on how he fosters a strong culture.

“We meet online weekly and spend as much time joking as we do asking questions and passing along useful information. In fact, we had our first department retreat and decided to go to Disneyland for the entire day, where we walked around with mouse ears on our heads, rode all the crazy rides, and just enjoyed each other’s company.”

at RNDC, which the business leaders lean on as trusted advisors.”

As a leader, Rosenberg focuses on developing each team member so that they can either replace him or get a job like his somewhere else. “I’ve always said that I measure my success as a leader when the people that work with me develop professionally and can eventually either take over my role or become leaders in other legal opportunities,” he says.

To achieve this he regularly provides his team with opportunities to attend legal seminars; directly network with customers, business executives, and lawyers; work on projects and legal matters that they may not have a ton of experience in handling; further educational opportunities; and become involved with professional development organizations.

“I won’t be here forever, and at some point, I want to retire. I want to make sure the folks around me have the tools to succeed and to fill my role,” he says. “That’s how I walk and how I talk. I’ve been known to throw people in the deep end and say ‘swim,’ but I’m always right on the sideline with a raft.”

nortonrosefulbright.com

Assistant General Counsel

VERONICA DAVIS

Southwire Company

Justin Chan

Veronica Davis spent her career building up her confidence and now works to do the same for others at

Southwire

Company

By Noah Johnson

The Power in Balance

THROUGHOUT HER LEGAL CAREER, empowerment has taken many forms for Veronica Davis. She gained confidence as an early career associate at Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, where she worked on a broad range of litigation matters. Four years later, she moved in-house at SBC Communications, a move that gave her a chance to live in a different city by herself for the first time and to also test the waters as a corporate generalist.

A successful stint in that role brought opportunities to serve as a legal advisor for Cingular Wireless and AT&T as the telecommunications industry evolved,

experiences that strengthened her legal know-how and leadership abilities.

After years of betting on her skills and going outside of her comfort zone to learn more about herself, Davis pushes others to do the same. Today, she is assistant general counsel at Southwire Company, where she prides herself on “empowering the business.”

“I never want our business team to refuse to seek legal advice because they’re afraid that they will get an automatic ‘no,’” says Davis, who leads a team of four attorneys and two legal professionals. “I want to be a business partner

and to help them to achieve their business objectives. I want to be embedded in the business, to understand what the business is doing, and to figure out ways to empower them to meet their goals.”

Davis’ perspective is in line with how legal approaches its role as an advisor. Her group has a key understanding: in order to be better counselors, the department needs to turn inward to improve its processes. As the business evolves, so should legal, Davis says.

“We’re bringing some order and usability to our contracting processes so that as the company continues to

When work is done for the day, I maximize family time. Read together, watch their show, and dedicate that time to them. Work will always be there.”

grow, we’re equipped to handle it,” she explains. “We’re also working on training our sourcing team and sales teams on certain contracts matters so they understand contracting basics and what to look for as they navigate certain issues.”

Davis has been just as focused on supporting the growth of each of her team members, positioning them to take on responsibilities that will set them up for advancement. She leads them with a strong passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and a belief that each of them brings something unique to the table. Her commitment to those values is reflective of the company’s, she says, and ultimately led her to Southwire in the first place.

“DEI has always been important to me. I’ve seen the impact of sharing my experiences, so as a leader, I want people to represent themselves and to bring every aspect of themselves to work,” she affirms. “Southwire allows you to do that. When I saw the company’s clear commitment to DEI, I knew it would be a good fit for me.”

One of the most challenging threads that has run throughout Davis’s career has been trying to achieve work/life balance. At the start of her career, she’d work a lot of long hours and didn’t have much time for herself outside of that. She realized it when she spoke with an accounting

employee who was keeping track of her vacation time.

“I asked them how much vacation time I had available, and she told me ‘I’m going to get you, Veronica. You haven’t taken any, and you need to make sure you do,’” the leader recalls. “I have always remembered her advice. That’s when I started making time for myself—biking along the Chicago lakefront, going outdoors, and traveling.”

She admits that finding that balance became even more complicated when she became a parent. Today, her son is fourteen, but as he was growing up, Davis wrestled with what it meant to be a working mom. Through the years, she’s found tried and true ways to be present for him and for her colleagues at work.

“I’m a big believer in scheduling check-in time for him on my calendar. I routinely block off time to check in with him and for my work responsibilities,” she says. “Also, when work is done for the day, I maximize family time. Read together, watch their show, and dedicate that time to them. Work will always be there.”

Davis advises young people looking to succeed in their careers to take risks.

“I took a risk to go to Boston and to start a new chapter of my career at Southwire,” she says. “It’s never too late. Stretch yourself and focus on learning more about yourself as you do so.”

Ki Hoon Kim believes Hewlett Packard Enterprise is helping to solve some of the world’s most pressing data-related challenges

By Noah Johnson

Supporting a Cutting-Edge Vision

KI HOON KIM Associate General Counsel, Corporate Securities & Global Equity Administration Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

KI HOON KIM DIDN’T GROW UP with a deep passion for technology, and he wasn’t a tech guru or even an early adopter of the latest innovations. But his exposure to tech and emerging life science companies as a law firm attorney planted a seed that continued to sprout at the news of an opportunity to work at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Kim saw a chance to help support a mission that could answer some of the world’s most pressing data-related questions.

“We’re living in a world where data is everywhere. It’s almost an overload and like a firehouse worth of water going

into a straw. The question is what we do with it, what can we do with it, and what can we learn from it,” says the associate general counsel of corporate and securities and global equity administration. “I saw HPE building the infrastructure to answer those questions. We offer solutions for businesses, both big and small, to not only house the data they deal with, but process it and gain insights from it.

“By virtue of supporting the board and the general counsel,” he continues, “my role allows me to see a big picture view of our strategy, where we are headed, and try to execute on that vision in a clear and effective way. It’s also about being responsive to all our stakeholders and not running afoul of regulatory expectations, which allows the rest of the company to focus on carrying out our mission.”

In the past couple years, his role has become even more vital as public companies face increased scrutiny from both the investing public and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Kim says the stakes were always high, but because of the added visibility, “they might feel higher.”

“It’s forced us to step up our diligence, to become more familiar with the laws and their application in our day-to-day practice. With such visibility comes greater responsibility in making sure we provide our leadership with the tools and the information they need to perform their oversight func -

tion,” he says. “We continue to sharpen our analysis and the way we practice to be able to operate within the confines of those expectations.”

One way to do that is by finding ways to leverage technology to do their jobs more efficiently but being careful so as not to sacrifice depth and accuracy. For him, it also means supporting his team. As a leader, Kim understands the challenges and the pressure that come with the spotlight his team is under. That’s why he strongly believes in the power of having an open-door policy and being there to lend an ear to his teammates, even if it’s not strictly related to work.

“I want to create an environment of psychological safety where people can speak their minds, including giving constructive criticism that might be tough to give,” he explains. “I want to encourage people to be themselves, so they don’t have to put up a façade and feel like they’re going through things alone. Sometimes talking to someone at work who understands what it means to balance this team’s particular professional expectations and one’s personal life can be helpful in a way that’s different from talking to a friend or spouse. My tenor has always been, ‘It’s OK to come to me with anything.’”

Kim and his team’s posture toward their challenging environment has not only strengthened the department’s culture, but also produced results. At the 2022 Corporate Governance Awards,

HPE won awards for best shareholder engagement, best use of technology, best annual general meeting, and best environmental, social, and governance reporting. The work his team did on the company’s proxy statement and annual shareholder meeting also happened to be one of the Kim’s proudest moments at the company thus far.

“It means a lot to the whole team because it really is such a group effort to be able to process so much information from internal team members and voices outside of HPE into the proxy statement,” he says. “We thought it was important that the information actually be useful to the shareholders and other stakeholders looking at it. The recognition was a great testament to the fact that we’re doing something right, we’re being responsive, and moving in the right direction.”

Kim advises young attorneys to be flexible. “Be open to trying different things, practices, and areas of the law,” he says. “Ask questions about the substance. That will help you understand whether you can envision a future in those areas.”

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP:

“Ki

—Lori Zyskowski, Partner

Associate General Counsel

Packard Enterprise

Entrepreneurial Mindset

As a legal business partner at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada, Joel Roy boosts legal operations and efficiencies while driving trust

By Noah Johnson

YOU DON’T FIND TOO MANY

lawyers with a background like Joel Roy in the pharmaceutical industry.

Before he became legal business partner at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc., he cut his teeth as a small-firm litigator before moving to a subscription-based fractional practice representing healthcare and medical technology clients who worked on projects involving emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

While Roy didn’t fit the traditional pharma counsel mold, he brought a fresh perspective and an entrepreneurial mindset to the company that was readily welcomed.

“I was able to bring the perspective of the small start-up looking to collaborate with industry, the small founder who’s bootstrapping an invention and trying to take it to market,” he says. “Big pharma is more outward looking than ever, and we’re trying to capitalize on the most novel ideas to reimagine medicine and

JOEL ROY

Business Partner

It starts with empathy, being good at figuring out what keeps your clients or colleagues up at night. You need to understand what people want out of you and what their ultimate goal is.”

deliver treatment as fast as we can to our patients. So, hopefully, having people like me around can allow the company to talk the same language as these coveted partners and help proactively address issues they have in order to deliver the biggest win-win wins.”

Roy leveraged his underdog perspective to support various functions within the local arm of the global pharmaceutical company including litigation management, clinical research, the entire oncology product line and more. He’s also had the opportunity to stand out as a legal operations leader after finding that the company’s efforts on that front were just getting ramped up.

“One of the first things I noticed was that we had no local legal operations, and it wasn’t something that was really on people’s minds,” he recalls. “I thought it was bizarre because coming from a subscription-based model, all you wanted to do was remove yourself from the business as much as possible because you’re selling unlimited access. To be able to sleep at night, you therefore needed to automate processes as much as you could to keep the system working without having to do everything manually.”

Roy shared those ideas with leadership at Novartis and they not only encouraged him to drive key local legal operations initiatives, but also

were happy to have him lead them more officially. Since then, he has built self-service contracting and playbook systems geared toward making legal more efficient. Other strides have included helping to standardize NDA agreements and Quebec clinical trial agreements, which contributed to a 75 percent reduction in cycle time.

For the accomplished attorney, the ability to pitch ideas like these and to have the opportunity to deliver on them has been one of the most unique things about his tenure at the company.

“Three months in, I was having a lot of high-powered colleagues listen to me, email me for things, and brainstorm ideas with me,” Roy says. “The incredible flexibility I saw in the company was very special because it allowed me to have this sandbox I could play in, and I didn’t feel that I could do very much wrong as long as I tried and gave it a good, honest shot. All the leaders I encountered said, ‘If you think you can do it, have a shot at it and we’ll be able to support and remove any roadblocks that we can.’”

Roy also places importance on building trust. This began in his private practice career, which saw him work with medical professionals who wanted to test the limits of technology in their practice and who were both extremely smart and risk averse. He had to become

an expert at letting them know they could count on him. He learned that building trust is really just “textbook relationship building.”

“It starts with empathy, being good at figuring out what keeps your clients or colleagues up at night. You need to understand what people want out of you and what their ultimate goal is,” he says. “One of the first questions a solid counsel should ask when solicited is, ‘Why are you asking?’ Going straight for the statute or legal answer is often a missed opportunity.”

Having seen the value of it in his private practice and in-house experiences, Roy advises young attorneys to become “trust builders.” “Never forget that you’re there to build the kind of rapport that will make people feel safe when innovating,” he says. “If you want to do anything related to innovation—and good business is usually innovative— clients need a hand to hold onto that they trust, and you can be that hand.”

He also encourages young people to leverage LinkedIn to connect with other attorneys.

“It’s so underused by law students,” Roy observes. “Reach out to folks who have careers you think are interesting. Ask them how they got there and for advice. I find most lawyers are happy to share their insights and wisdom to those who ask.”

Nobility without Incentive

Jaron Brown is a lawyer, mentor, and leader who wants to promote the next generation of legal talent

JARON BROWN FOUND HIS WAY TO law, even though his initial motivation to practice didn’t wind up being his path. The captain of his basketball team at the University of Hartford in Connecticut during his senior year, Brown wanted to stick around the court after he graduated. It was the reign of David Falk, superagent to the stars like Michael Jordan, who made being an agent seem like the next best thing to playing in the NBA.

“I figured I would go to law school and follow in David Falk’s footsteps,” says Brown, head of legal and compliance for the Americas at Outokumpu. “I even applied to his law school and got accepted, though the tuition wasn’t possible for me to take on.”

Instead, Brown, a native of Columbus, Ohio, chose to attend Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland. During his first year in law school, Brown joined a sports entertainment law club that brought in speakers to talk about their careers. For some, guest speakers can be the impetus one needs to commit to a career. It was the same for Brown, just not in the way he anticipated.

By Billy Yost

“An agent came to speak to us and just started rattling off these horror stories,” Brown says, laughing. “He was talking about doing players’ laundry

and helping them open bank accounts. It sounded like babysitting, and I knew I didn’t want that for a career.”

With little knowledge of corporate law firms and no guidance from anyone who worked in a corporate law firm, Brown began prepping for a career in corporate law. He landed a summer associate position with a firm in Cleveland for two summers during law school. Upon graduating, he joined that firm as an associate on the M&A team.

But the timing was unfortunate. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 took place less than a year before Brown started, and the M&A market had dried up almost completely. For a first-year attorney with no hours to bill, the game seemed to be up already. With no guidance from a trusted experienced lawyer, Brown had to make an important career decision on his own and adjust his path.

Luckily, there was a silver lining.

“I had to pivot from M&A temporarily and focus on securities,” the lawyer explains. “To survive in the firm, I started to work on public company matters and in particular for a public company client that was going through a very sophisticated bankruptcy proceeding. The company was acquired by its debt holders, sold to private equity, and taken private, then taken public again. In a little over two years, I got a masterclass in securities law, take private transactions, and going public transactions.

“Looking back,” he recounts, “it would have been very helpful to have had a mentor help me evaluate this change and any other options that were available at the time.”

After nearly three years with that firm, again with no guidance from a mentor, Brown decided to move to another firm to focus his practice on M&A. As luck would have it, his move paid off, as he would go on to make partner at that firm. In his eight years there, Brown took part in hands-on training of lawyers and moved into leadership roles by serving on various firm committees. Shortly after making partner, he found himself at another significant crossroad in his career: he was an allstar practitioner and enjoyed solving his clients’ problems but didn’t find selling legal services fulfilling.

Unlike in his past career moves, this time he had developed a network of experienced professionals who were personally invested in his success. He was able to lean on their advice for what his next steps should be. “I tapped the wisdom of my mentors and sponsors in making this significant step,” Brown recounts. “Without their sage advice, I could have taken a wrong turn.”

With their advice, Brown elected to leave the firm and go in-house at Novelis. This was a significant change in his career path. He now realizes how important relationships are and the positive impacts that a mentor can have on the career trajectory of a young lawyer.

“I wish I would have appreciated earlier in my career how meaningful it is to develop meaningful relationships with people are invested in you personally,” he says. “I now want to ‘pay it forward’ and pour into young lawyers to help them make wise career decisions early in their journey.”

There’s no reason why I can’t or should not try and add value to someone else. I’ve received so much, and I want to be on the other side of it.”

At Novelis, Brown learned effective business partnering as an in-house lawyer. He continued to grow his leadership skills by serving as a member of the organization’s North American Diversity Council. He also founded the internal Black Employee Resource Group steering committee. Brown started focusing on personally mentoring and sponsoring young aspiring lawyers by working closely with interns in the Novelis legal department and aspiring lawyers outside of Novelis.

After eight years at Novelis, Brown found himself at another career crossroad. He had continued to grow his team of mentors and sponsors and was able to tap them again before making the decision to leave Novelis and take a leadership role at Outokumpu in 2021.

“I knew I needed to continue to grow and, with the advice of my network of mentors, decided that this was the right opportunity,” Brown explains. “I wanted to get closer to the business at a company that was still growing and could benefit from the experience I’d had with a bigger organization like Novelis.”

In coming to his current role, the legal leader was immediately given the task of rebuilding the legal department within Outokumpu’s Americas operations. When examining the changes the department needed, Brown again relied on experienced general counsels in his network of mentors who had tackled this challenge successfully. “It’s comforting to know that you can tap the wisdom of individuals who have gone down the road you’re traveling and are personally invested in your success,” he says. “Coming into this role, I was able to navigate potential landmines successfully due to the sage advice of my network.”

Brown has continued to build his team at Outokumpu and improve the legal functions’ brand through effective business partnering with clients. Brown also continues to promote the next generation of legal talent. In summer 2023, he hired the first-ever legal intern for the Outokumpu Americas legal team, a minority undergraduate student who’s an aspiring lawyer.

He says fatherhood plays a significant role in how he approaches the growth and development of those

SOMEONE TO REPRESENT YOU

As an attorney of color, Jaron Brown is determined to create more pathways for minority attorneys. He’s a panel speaker at the “Charting Your Own Course” conference, an annual career conference dedicated to helping attorneys of color advance their careers and development.

Brown also participates in the GC Nexter presented by My Brother’s Keeper, another organization dedicated to advancing the careers of attorneys of color. “I always look for opportunities to impact that next generation of talent,” he says. “It might be formal, or it might be taking some young Black lawyers out to lunch and just getting to know them and what they’re looking to do. I want to help them find sponsors and be useful to them in their own careers.”

John Lewis, Jr. Partner jolewis@shb.com

around him. “There’s the idea of nobility without incentive,” Brown explains. “There’s no reason why I can’t or should not try and add value to someone else. I’ve received so much, and I want to be on the other side of it.”

That doesn’t mean Brown’s taste for competition has been extinguished. The lawyer has run five marathons, countless half marathons, and once ran forty 5Ks with his wife in one year, the result of a challenge made with a friend. Brown is a natural leader and desires to help others achieve success. He’s grown in every step of his career and desires to continue pouring into others as a mentor and sponsor to help them grow and advance their career goals.

Polsinelli:

“Jaron’s approach exemplifies how in-house counsel can create strong partnerships with outside counsel to best serve the interests of the client. He encourages creativity and problem-solving and works with the entire team to build expertise and responsiveness.”

—Deanna Okun, ITC Sec. 337 and Trade Remedies Practice Chair

Shook, Hardy and Bacon:

“Jaron is a critical part of the Outokumpu team; he is strategic, smart, and supportive. What sets him apart is his depth of knowledge and his ability to operate across functions and bring people together.”

—John Lewis Jr., Partner

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

The Cost of Organizational Change

Paul Sharobeem details how real change takes place as he tackles a new role at Century Aluminum

By Billy Yost

IT’S EASY TO FORGET THAT PAUL

Sharobeem is a highly skilled corporate and securities lawyer as you talk with him. His demeanor can seem almost academic if it was not so focused on creating actual and tangible value. Sharobeem’s thoughts on the role of organizational behavior are the result of a career spanning law firms as well as in-house roles. During that time, he’s observed what works, what doesn’t, and how to create change from within.

After five-and-a-half years in the law firm world, Sharobeem went in-house at Caterpillar in 2013 as a corporate securities counsel. During his nearly six-year tenure at Caterpillar, Sharobeem’s role in the legal department evolved and grew, including a uniquely challenging opportunity outside of the legal department as the company’s global head of executive compensation which, as Sharobeem later recounts,

significantly enhanced his leadership skills and experience. Many of those same skills would be put to the test when Sharobeem accepted an overseas role with Aramco, one that would take him and his family to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, for nearly four years.

“It was an incredibly interesting time at Aramco because the company had announced its intention to IPO, yet it remained a state-run enterprise that wanted to modernize and ‘open up,’” he says. “Much of that process occurred during the pandemic, which added a challenging layer to an already complex process.”

When Sharobeem returned to the US in 2022, he assumed his current role as associate general counsel (AGC) and assistant secretary at Chicago-based Century Aluminum, in part, because of the role the legal department plays within the organization.

More than a Carry-On Experience isn’t the only thing Paul Sharobeem brought back from his time working in Saudi Arabia. At time of speaking, a 1983 Toyota Land Cruiser was also on its way back to the United States and headed for Sharobeem’s home. The lawyer found the vehicle in rough condition in a small town near the border with Yemen. During his time overseas, including the pandemic years, Sharobeem slowly restored the vintage truck to its now near-final condition, although he still has some work to do when it finally arrives on local soil.

“At times, legal departments can be seen as more of a ‘check the box’ exercise, or even an obstacle to overcome,” the AGC says. “Maybe it’s because of Century’s smaller size or the flatter management structure, but it was obvious from the beginning that lawyers here are integrally involved in the business.”

But there were also things that Sharobeem knew needed to change. There had been significant turnover within the legal department, and as the company looked to grow, Sharobeem knew the legal department needed to be reimagined with a strong focus on intellectual curiosity, process discipline, and problem-solving as core tenants.

“Ultimately, to be a successful in-house lawyer, you must embrace ambiguity. The whole job basically boils down to confronting new legal and business problems and applying a consistent and rigorous approach to solving those problems,” Sharobeem says. “The further along I’ve gotten in my career, the more impressed I am by young lawyers who really try to understand and solve a novel problem prior to escalating the matter. It’s easy to pass problems along to others, but it’s much harder to dig in, understand the core of the issues, and develop a plan to systematically resolve those issues.

“There are always aspects of any matter that one can’t resolve on their own and that need to be escalated, but the initial ‘wrestling’ with a new issue is a skill on its own and is highly underrated,” he continues. “Once you learn how to do that, you will inspire trust in almost any setting and you’re going to

have more confidence to tackle the next problem. To me, that is the foundation of professional growth.”

For Sharobeem, that type of thinking applies not only to solving legal problems, but also to the broader impact he hopes to inspire across Century’s entire organization. “Embracing a growth mindset, modeling a healthy skepticism, and aiming for ever higher standards of quality are just as much the mission of the legal department at Century as are its ‘core’ legal and risk management duties,” he explains. “It’s not enough to be a good technical lawyer; you have to build trust, encourage people to set aside preconceived notions, challenge the status quo, and ultimately help colleagues overcome a fear of the unknown if you want to make a real impact.”

This impact has not gone unnoticed by Sharobeem’s colleagues, both in and outside his organization. “Paul and I have partnered over the past five years during which I have seen him excel in his roles at public companies. His ability to expertly manage and guide organizations forward, build consensus, and provide practical and strategic guidance make him an exemplary leader in the legal profession,” says Maia Gez of White & Case LLP. “It is an absolute pleasure to work with such a dedicated and excellent professional.”

It’s still early in Sharobeem’s tenure at Century, and while his legal work is always close at hand, he’s clearly thinking about the bigger picture. Change is hard, but Sharobeem is up to the challenge.

White & Case congratulates

Paul Sharobeem on his professional accomplishments, dedicated leadership and significant contributions to Century Aluminum’s success.

We are honored to partner with Paul in the pursuit of innovation and excellence.

As a pioneering international law firm, we offer clients the legal insight and experience they need to achieve their ambitions across the world’s developed and emerging markets.

Integrity and Irreproachable Character

Mona Stone shares her legal journey, values as a leader, and highlights from Goodwill

By Noah Johnson

AS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT , general counsel, corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer at Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona, Mona Stone has the longest title in the company, with the responsibilities to match. It is a fitting position for a hard worker like Stone, who has been in the workforce since she was seven years old and has always found ways to take on more.

She shares her journey to the legal profession, the values that have helped propel her to leadership, and highlights from her time at Goodwill.

How have previous work and life experiences prepared you for where you are today?

My parents taught me that hard work never goes to waste and raised me with

a strong work ethic. I got my first job delivering newspapers at age seven with my brother! I continued to work throughout school. When I first graduated from law school, I secured a job as the sole in-house attorney at a security services company in Chicago. I learned the business inside out, and I had a limited budget, so I did not have the luxury of calling outside counsel for every question or issue.

Accordingly, I taught myself to [spot issues], prioritize matters, and solve problems that met the business needs. This approach let me offer practical and sound advice to my internal clients. I went on to private practice at large law firms in Chicago and Phoenix, where I was able to counsel my external clients by viewing issues from both a legal and business lens. As in-house counsel at

Goodwill, I am able to rely upon the foundation I built in my prior roles.

Can you talk about the scope of your role at Goodwill?

In my current role, I plan and direct all aspects of Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona’s legal and compliance affairs and ensure protection of its legal and regulatory rights and interests. In alignment with business goals and needs, I provide legal expertise and counsel to executive staff and make recommendations to all departments as needed. I provide counsel in the areas of risk management, corporate governance, employment law, contract law, real estate law, workplace safety, security, asset protection, and compliance. I am responsible for identifying and analyzing legal issues, drafting key

documents, presenting clear recommendations, and managing the work of outside counsel, as needed.

I serve on the executive leadership team, lead governance and board work, and act as the key legal advisor to the CEO and for major business transactions. I also wear a business hat and help develop key objectives for the organization as a whole, monitor performance of our retail thrift stores, support our mission services department, and ensure the overall success of Goodwill.

You believe in serving others with integrity and irreproachable character. How have these traits contributed to your success at Goodwill?

Leading with integrity has earned me a sterling reputation, and people know

Mona Stone EVP, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and CCO

Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona

they can rely on me and trust my guidance. The various business units have learned to be proactive in coming to me and our legal department with issues or questions. Rather than being seen as the “department of no,” we encourage the teams to involve us early in the decision-making process so that we can offer practical advice and navigate a practical solution.

Through leading by example, I have developed a team with high employee satisfaction and engagement. I also have helped the organization grow from $150 million in annual revenue to $325 million, increased our retail thrift store count from seventy-five brick-andmortar stores to over one hundred locations, and successfully concluded two mergers that expanded our operations and geographic footprint in Arizona and Maryland.

What’s one project you’ve had a chance to work on at Goodwill that you’re really proud of?

One of my recent key projects was helping to enact legislative reform to create the Excel Center, a tuition-free

“Rather than being seen as the ‘department of no,’ we encourage the teams to involve us early in the decisionmaking process so that we can offer practical advice and navigate a practical solution.”

high school for adults. Several hundred thousand adults in Arizona lack a high school diploma, thereby limiting their job opportunities. I have led several business units to launch the Excel Center in late 2021, where free services are provided, including childcare and transportation. Though there were many challenges along the way and this endeavor actually required entirely new state legislation, my determination remained steadfast.

My dedication led to its success given the impact it will have on so many people—to me, I am building a legacy that will turn generational poverty into generational affluence. By the school’s midterm exams in December 2022, students demonstrated significant academic gains in math and English proficiency. In math, the student population that met the standards expectations grew from 16 percent to 30 percent. In English/language arts, growth was from 25 percent to 43 percent. It is truly rewarding to see people transform their lives in such a meaningful way.

Goodwill does great things.

At Osborn Maledon, we are committed to the growth, success and improvement of our community. We are proud to support others, like Goodwill, who share our commitment. We are honored to be able to work with Mona and to contribute to all of Goodwill’s many successes!

Lynne C. Adams (602) 640-9348 ladams@omlaw.com

Greenberg Traurig, LLP:

“Mona is an intensely smart, practical, thoughtful, and dedicated general counsel who embodies, protects, and enables the great visions and humanitarian missions of her organizations. We are proud to partner with Mona and GCNA.”

—Jon Zimring, Shareholder

(602) 640-9000 • OMLAW.COM 2929 N CENTRAL AVE, STE 2000 PHOENIX, AZ 85012

EVP, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, & Corp. Secretary at Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona.

We are proud of our partnership with Goodwill and we look forward to continuing our work with Mona and her organization.

The Difficult Truth: Practicing Integrity

Adina Storch shares why integrity is so important to advocating for clients and shaping culture

By Noah Johnson

TELLING THE TRUTH HAS BEEN famously said to be the easiest story to remember. But that doesn’t take away from how difficult it is. In some ways, lawyers understand that more than anyone as they balance advocacy for clients and the legal and ethical commitments they’re sworn to uphold.

Look no further than Adina Storch for a leader who hangs her hat on successfully juggling that tension. With twenty-five years of domestic and international legal experience, and nearly a decade of experience heading the legal department of a

public company, Storch has spent her accomplished career practicing with integrity. The leader, who currently serves as senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, is a staunch believer that “integrity is a winning card.”

“A lot of lawyers become too partisan and become mercenaries for their clients,” says Storch, who serves as the chief steward of Global Industrial’s enterprise risk. “We’re obligated to zealously advocate within the bounds of the law for our clients, and our ethical rules define a very clear mandate in that.

Adina Storch SVP, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary Global Industrial

“You have to seek an overall win, be reasonable, and manage a client’s expectations realistically,” she continues. “I get my hands around the law, I handicap the odds to the best of my ability, and I simply share how I really see a situation without blowing smoke or overpromising.”

That kind of mentality has earned Storch not only a strong reputation, but also industry recognition at the 2023 Women, Influence & Power in Law Awards, where she was lauded for her work as an “Innovative Leader.” Her transparent leadership style also plays

“I get my hands around the law, I handicap the odds to the best of my ability, and I simply share how I really see a situation without blowing smoke or overpromising.”

a role in her ability to shape culture at Global Industrial.

Since stepping into her role in 2021, she has focused on creating a safe space for her team members to fail without shame because failure is a great teacher. She sets the tone for that environment by owning up to her own mistakes and sharing mishaps during weekly meetings, when each team member is asked to share a blooper and what they learned from it.

“Inside organizations, there’s often a lot of image management, covering mistakes, and casting blame elsewhere, and

I’m not impressed by that. You screwed up, own it. There’s strength in that,” Storch emphasizes.

This sort of honesty teaches humility and accountability, and it creates credibility with management. The next time an employee shows an achievement to the management team, they’re going to credit that just as much.

Storch made a mark at the company not only with her revolutionary management style but also with her implementation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts to the company in 2022, starting with an inaugural ESG

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report and a host of stewardship initiatives. She and her legal team built on that work in 2023 by partnering with the Helen Keller National Center to donate ADA-compliant furniture—and other wheelchair accessible and Braille-engraved enhancements— to their facilities. Storch and her team worked side by side with institute members to assemble the furniture on October 25, the Corporate Day of Service; the company will now be looking to replicate this each year.

Her team’s work is having a domino effect, Storch says.

“It spawned a circle of giving. We have operations around the globe, as well as in other US locations, and many are now pursuing similar initiatives to what we did,” she says. “It just showed that as a company, we can do well by doing good; they’re not inconsistent aims.”

Storch offers a host of advice to young professionals looking to thrive in their career as she has.

“Choose carefully who you follow. The world is full of false prophets, so you need to choose your mentors wisely. Get behind the good, listen intently, and be honest about the limits of what you know,” she recommends. “And finally, do it for the love of the game. Law is so wide in terms of the specialties that are out there, so if your work is depleting you, you may not be in the right place.”

Making a Difference at 3M

Kate Warner shares her passion for law, building new partnerships at 3M, and more

By Noah Johnson

WHEN KATE WARNER WAS IN THE ninth grade, a teacher suggested that she participate in the school’s mock trial team. Warner, who grew up with a father who practiced law, gave it a shot and fell in love immediately.

“There was something about digging into a tough problem, sorting through information, figuring out what matters, and communicating your position in a persuasive way—it was challenging and rewarding,” Warner says. “And, of course, there is

Kate Warner’s Transition to In-House

“Coming in-house, I had to learn how to communicate with different audiences. I spend more time communicating with non-lawyers than ever before. I had to adjust my communication style as a result, which has allowed me to grow as a litigator and develop new ‘muscles.’ I need to be able to articulate what my legal perspective is, explain what other considerations there might be, and identify potential paths and likely outcomes. To do that effectively, you need empathy and a fulsome understanding of where others are coming from and what they are trying to accomplish.”

the rush of standing up in court and making your case.”

But she also was drawn to the law because it had the potential to make a major difference in the world. She witnessed it as a law student when she worked in legal clinics representing low-income clients and then at Kirkland & Ellis, where she represented a wide variety of clients as a litigator and a partner over the span of twelve years. It’s a calling that she’s proud to continue being part of at 3M as director and assistant general counsel of litigation.

“I love the ‘counseling’ part of practicing law at a company. It’s a special partnership when you can support people’s amazing work and help them navigate tricky situations,” she says. “I see a huge variety of legal issues, and

Andrew Vick

Kate Warner Director and Assistant General Counsel of Litigation

3M

I have the chance to partner with people who are changing the world with their discoveries and inventions.”

It’s also been a chance for Warner to form partnerships with individuals across the organization.

“I get to develop relationships with the scientists and engineers who are in laboratories and developing new products,” she says. “I get to work with a finance team to figure out how things are looking each quarter. I’ve partnered with corporate communications about how we talk about what’s going on at 3M both internally and externally. And I get to partner with all these amazingly talented lawyers at firms across the country who are doing great work for the company.”

She continues: “Even though I don’t engage in ‘business development’ in the same way I did at the firm, I still have ‘clients’ within 3M [whom] I’ve advised over the years and who come to me with questions. It’s really satisfying when I can offer them a perspective that might make their job easier.”

“Kate is both brilliant and unflappable,” the team at Kirkland & Ellis says. “Any team of lawyers would be very fortunate to have Kate as leader, and any businessperson would be very fortunate to have Kate as advisor.”

When Warner isn’t being a trusted adviser to her internal clients at 3M, she’s a dedicated mother of three. Warner admits that balancing work and life has not been easy, but thanks to a supportive husband and 3M’s flexible work-from-home policies, she’s found what works for her family.

“I love having a job that’s challenging and dynamic and stays with me after the workday is over, but it’s so easy for that to tip into being all consuming,” Warner says.

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Kate Warner on The Importance of Finding Your Own Voice

“Throughout my career, I learned so much from the many different people I’ve worked with, but I also learned that you can’t just adopt one lawyer’s style as your own. It’s important to find your own authentic voice. I found that I’m more introverted than the stereotypical litigator, for example, but there are benefits to listening and observing first, and taking time to organize your thoughts. It helps me understand and appreciate the views of others and gives me an open-minded view to the issues and potential solutions. You don’t need to speak first or speak loudest to command the room.”

“The balance will never be perfect on any given day, but you need to take the long view and make decisions that are best for you and your family. Those decisions aren’t forever—they can change over time depending on what your career and family needs. It’s hard, but it’s manageable when you have an incredible partner who understands the sacrifices and supports and celebrates your career, while also reminding you that your biggest and most important job is raising your kids,” she says.

Warner wants young attorneys to know that there’s no one right path.

“You can’t predict what opportunities might arise and where they might lead, but that’s what makes a career in law exciting,” she says. “The work you are doing today is the foundation for those future opportunities. Dig into whatever projects you are given, take ownership of your work, and look for different ways to solve problems, both big and small. This will give you the experience and confidence you need to develop as a lawyer.”

She advises young people to take charge in their careers, however that may look. She also wants young people to know that they are in charge of their career.

“Don’t limit your advocacy work to your clients. Advocate for yourself, too. That means thinking about what ‘success’ means to you [and] finding ways to make it happen,” she says. “It’s so easy, especially at a firm, to focus on what needs to be done in the moment while losing sight of what you’re looking for in the long run. Take the time to reflect on your personal and professional goals, and then be proactive. That’s the best way to get to a place where you’re happy with your career.”

Rachel Geman Partner

Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP

Lieff

A Firm Built to Tackle Big Issues, Big Defendants, and Big Myths

Rachel Geman talks about how Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP takes on big issues and big defendants

By Billy Yost

Photos by Peter Garritano

“I’ve gotten millions of people some equity and restitution, and helped bring about real albeit discrete change in certain companies, ranging from fair compensation to privacy protections to marketing guardrails.”

RACHEL GEMAN IS A RARITY FOR THE pages of Modern Counsel . She and her firm, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bertstein LLP, work exclusively for plaintiffs.

Typifying the breadth of her practice, Geman is representing the Authors Guild and several well-known fiction authors in a class-action suit against OpenAI, managing her firm’s False Claims Act practice, and serving as colead class counsel in complex medical monitoring litigation. She also was part of a team that just secured final approval in one of the largest gender discrimination settlements in history.

“We often say that what connects our firm’s practice areas is fraud,” says Geman, who is a partner at Lieff Cabraser. “There’s definitely the fraud and also how it’s justified: blaming someone who didn’t have the endless hours needed to try to reverse a charge or treatment denial that was nonsense to begin with. Who got dinged for not divining or being able to access unwritten rules that weren’t created for them, who didn’t understand a convoluted item on page forty-two of a take-or-

leave ‘contract’—heck, who ate the processed foods that stock our stores. Essentially, for being an actual person, and not a late-capitalist fever dream notion of ‘consumer/worker’ who incidentally resides in the body of a human.

“Litigation is litigation,” she continues, “but the backdrop of unjust systems that leave people out on their own, playing by psychologically counterfactual rules, rankles me. One of the many reasons I’m so honored and excited to represent authors is they are pushing for fair and legal treatment in the early days of an industry where the rules of the road are not set.”

Geman has taken on class-action and whistleblower cases and successfully battled against large companies such as AbbVie, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Plaid, the University of Phoenix, and Wells Fargo.

“I’ve had successes; I’ve had flops,” she says. “On balance, I’ve gotten millions of people some equity and restitution, and helped bring about real albeit discrete change in certain companies, ranging from fair com -

pensation to privacy protections to marketing guardrails.”

With respect to false claims suits involving fraud on the government, Geman explains that there is a trend toward cases where individual whistleblowers, represented by firms like hers, litigate on behalf of the government. “It used to be that if the government did not intervene in a False Claims Act [FCA] case, which is the outcome most of the time for various reasons, the case was functionally over,” she explains.

“Now the prospect of the whistleblower handling the case for the government is now a regular part of the conversation. With the right case, my FCA colleagues and I are chomping at the bit to litigate.”

This attitude is where Lieff Cabraser has earned its stars—being ready, willing, and able to take on complex and wide-reaching cases that require enormous and intense work.

Geman has lived in New York City, a symbol of intensity, for decades, but she grew up in a small town surrounded by academics, and her own family was full of mathematicians.

“Litigation is litigation, but the backdrop of unjust systems that leave people out on their own, playing by psychologically counterfactual rules, rankles me.”

“I was adjacent to a field where people felt crappy if they hadn’t made some huge landmark by their late twenties,” she remembers. “There are so many professions where you’re expected to peak at the beginning of your professional life, something that privileges those with early privilege and is otherwise arbitrary. We don’t live in a society that exactly facilitates thinking about the long term. We’re squeezed. But one thing to say about the practice of law: you can have at it for a long, long, long time. There’s a premium of experience and tenacity.”

However, Geman did borrow a math concept in thinking about advice: be orthogonal.

“Have alternative, independent sources of pleasure and self-esteem,” she advises. “The times I’ve felt most productive as a lawyer were those when I was also doing something else, whether publishing short comedy pieces or designing puzzles. Times I’ve felt a bit stagnant were more likely ones where it was just Netflix and Law for me, a little-known variant of Netflix and Chill.”

At the Forefront of a Technological Evolution

Initially, Eric Black didn’t realize the impact his legal work would have on the modern technological landscape. Today, as Vuzix develops groundbreaking smart glasses, he’s fully aware of the change his work could bring.

By Noah Johnson

Courtesy of Eric Black/Vuzix Corporation

AFTER GAINING A VARIETY OF LEGAL experience at law firms, including both McSweeney Burtch & Crump and Nixon Peabody, Eric Black found himself working in-house for telecommunication companies that were developing virtual private networks and technology that organizations like Zoom rely on today.

As the telecommunication industry navigated deregulation and the internet came into its own, Black had a frontrow seat to the technological evolution that would go on to change the world. However, he admits that it was challenging to grasp the magnitude of the new technology as it was happening.

“I was fortunate enough to not only work with the several leading technology companies in Rochester but also the George Eastman Museum (International Museum of Photography and Film), who advanced a project to digitize a database of pictures and images, which I definitely didn’t appreciate [in] real time,” he reflects. “But when I look back at it now, I realize that project was a transformational moment in history.”

Black continues, “When I moved on and worked with the telecommunication companies and virtual private networks, I don’t think we understood how it was changing society. Before such networks were developed, multiple office locations would typically communicate by phone calls to each other. There wasn’t an intranet where you could dial four digits; instead, you dialed the full number. In retrospect, I was part of one of the first companies to develop virtual private networks.”

Today, he is fully aware of the significance of his work at Vuzix, a leading supplier of smart glasses and augmented reality technologies for defense, industrial, and enterprise markets.

“Life is not about never making a mistake. Learn how to use mistakes or adversity in a positive way to help you grow in the long run.”

Black serves as a general counsel who believes the products the company produces could change the way people interact and see the world.

“Who ever thought thirty years ago that your cell phone would also be your computer? Now, you can perform Google searches and carry documents on it,” he says. “With the technology we have with augmented reality, we know the possibilities. This is something people can wear every day, whether working on the manufacturing line, at the grocery store, or while they’re riding their bike.

“Vuzix has pioneered this technology for the workplace, but its impact will be far reaching. It is expected that once it’s adopted by society as a whole, it will be evolutionary and change the way people communicate, use the internet, and go about their days,” Black adds.

The attorney steers the company toward that vision with the contracts he works on and the legal support he provides to company leaders. He also does it in other ways, including with his leadership style. He’s a leader who places a lot of emphasis on building trust and respect among everyone he works with.

“Treat people with respect across the board. It doesn’t matter who it is,” he says. “I lead with my door open. I’ll have a conversation with anyone, and I never ask someone to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. As a leader, you are accountable for the work product that leaves the group, but you also have to delegate in a way that helps the team have ownership.”

Pushing forth a new, transformative technology also comes with its challenges. It takes not only a lot of

Eric Black General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Vuzix Corporation

investment, but also strong contracts that aim to protect the companies’ interests.

“When you’re pushing things out to third parties as new technologies are developed,” he explains, “they have to trust that you’re going to meet the specifications and what you’re committing to deliver and that it’s going to work the way you say. From a legal perspective, we want to be accountable for the product we’re putting out there and that’s what a lot the contracts center around.”

Black has several pieces of advice for young people: be disciplined in every aspect of your life, be a good person, treat people with respect along the way, and keep in mind that “adversity is something that sometimes can be useful.”

“Life is not about never making a mistake,” he says. “Learn how to use mistakes or adversity in a positive way to help you grow in the long run. As long as you’re accountable for whatever happens, it can be used for positive growth.”

Sink or Swim

Dyson’s Matthew Dyer shares the importance of learning from challenging situations, his leadership style, and more

By Noah Johnson

AFTER BEGINNING HIS WORKING LIFE at a successful start-up, Matthew Dyer started his career in law at DWF before joining Simmons & Simmons, where he was an associate of the information, communications, and technology team. Early on in his career, he was once faced with a young associate’s nightmare.

“A partner at the firm was going on a holiday and told me about a sizable matter that might kick off,” Dyer recalls. “He said it shouldn’t come up while he was away but if it did, I’d need to manage it.”

Of course, it came up. Suddenly, Dyer was left to serve as lead on a significant commercial transaction and to take on responsibilities he wasn’t sure he was ready for. While it was a daunting task, he handled it successfully, and those kinds of sink-orswim situations are the ones he looks back fondly on today.

Those moments not only exposed him to challenges that strengthened his abilities as a lawyer and helped instill the confidence he’d need to succeed in his career, but also allowed him to develop guiding principles that continue to influence the way he approaches his in-house responsibilities today as head of legal at Dyson.

“When big challenges arise, I’ve learnt to keep a cool head and think logically. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed,” he shares. “I’m a big fan of writing

Balance and Respect

Long hours and demanding workloads are both norms in the legal world, but there are healthy ways to navigate these challenges. Matthew Dyer notes that lawyers often underestimate the value of a healthy work/life balance.

“We need to work sustainably and make time for ourselves outside of work if we’re going to be able to perform at our best and remain resilient to the challenges that we face on a regular basis. I encourage this within my team, and I make an effort to respect work/life boundaries and support the team to maintain sensible working hours. Achieving the right work/life balance is something that I’ve been on a personal journey with during my career! Obviously, there are occasions when lawyers have to go the extra mile, but by treating these occasions as the exception rather than the norm then we can respond to them more effectively when they arise.”

action plans to capture and prioritize what I need to do, and I find that this helps me to maintain my focus and remain calm.”

Dyer brought that level of composure to Dyson in 2018 as a legal counsel within the global operations division, where he advised on a variety of commercial contracts in a fast-paced environment. Since then, he’s been promoted twice and has been involved in significant business and technology transformation projects, as well as other high-stakes matters, including Dyson’s decision to terminate its relationship with one of its biggest thirdparty manufacturers in 2021 due to forced labor concerns.

His drive has long been celebrated by his partners, both inside and outside Dyson. “Matt has partnered with [Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF)] on a number of business-critical mandates—both contentious and noncontentious—and in every instance, Matt has shown unique legal insights, enthusiasm, and complete dedication to the matter at hand,” says Philip Pfeffer, partner as HSF. “I know I speak for everyone at HSF when I say that it is an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with Matt and his colleagues at Dyson.”

As Dyer’s roles and responsibilities have evolved during his career, so has his leadership philosophy. While private practice taught him how to be resilient and to be an expert negotiator, the transition to an in-house environment and his expanded people management role, in which he now manages a team of seven lawyers across two continents, has taught him the value of inclusive leadership.

“Everybody brings different strengths, perspectives, and experiences to the table, all of which help us to be an effective team and optimize the legal support that we provide to our stakeholders. I really value the input of my team, and I try to promote an environment in which every member of the team has the opportunity to contribute and feels empowered to do so,” Dyer says.

Dyer’s career advice for young attorneys is to gain experience in a nonlegal business setting—whether through a nonlegal role in a business or a client secondment.

“That helps you understand what clients are looking for from their lawyers. There can be a disconnect between what a lawyer thinks that their client wants, and what the client actually wants—or needs—and being able to understand the latter is a really valuable skill,” he says.

He also advises them to seek opportunities to get out of their comfort zone.

“Learn everything that you can from them—success or failure,” Dyer says. “There might be an element of ‘sink or swim’ in some of these scenarios, but most people discover that they can swim, and those experiences help you to develop the mental resilience that you’ll need as you progress your career.”

Bringing the best to you

We can help you thrive in the global economy. With offices spanning Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and the US, we deliver the expertise you need, wherever you need it.

Taking the time to understand your business and combining this with deep sector expertise we can bring a new perspective to your operations and work with you to identify opportunities and manage risk in today´s uncertain marketplace.

Herbert Smith Freehills congratulates Matt Dyer on this well-deserved recognition, and we look forward to continuing our work with Matt and Dyson.

The Incrementalist That Gets Things Done

Evonne Inglesh reflects on her “incrementalist” nature and what makes her an effective general counsel

By Billy Yost

GROWING UP IN CHICAGO, EVONNE

Inglesh spent much of her early life trying not to stand out. Though she came to the US from Greece and attended Greek school multiple days a week, she just wanted to put her head down and find her own American dream. It was a different time when anything outside the norm wasn’t always celebrated. But fortunately, times have changed.

Inglesh plans to write a book about the Greek diaspora and what it means to live as a Greek American in the melting pot of the US. But before she begins that story, Inglesh will continue to find new ways of growing and practicing law.

In New York City for over twenty years, the general counsel (GC) of

North America for global clients at NielsenIQ (NIQ), one of the most wellknown names in consumer intelligence, arrived with an impressive résumé. One her old bosses called her an “incrementalist,” able to achieve long-term goals without causing much disruption. That’s because after Inglesh joined, she built up the capability of a law department that started with her, a paralegal, and an administrative assistant, and that grew along with the businesses she supported.

“We built up that department to be a truly global organization that supported the sales, product, and other revenue-producing functions of the market intelligence division of the company,” Inglesh remembers. “My

job started with doing contracts and deals with salespeople, but I wound up aiding our business in our European and Asian Pacific markets. The job just continued to grow and challenge me.”

Inglesh came to NIQ at a critical moment. In early 2021, the company announced its spin-off from its media business, having been acquired by Advent International. The standalone company needed everyone, even its months-old general counsel, to hit the ground running. That meant getting to know the company’s products and strategic objectives as quickly and comprehensively as possible.

There was an advantage the GC saw early. “One of the great things that

Evonne Inglesh General Counsel of North America, Global Clients NielsenIQ

NIQ does is to really keep its senior leaders informed,” Inglesh explains. “We have regular operating committee meetings, and so you always know what’s important to the company and where your time should be spent.”

The GC stresses the importance of understanding the ways in which legal aids revenue growth by getting into the nuts and bolts of its products, services, and, especially, contracts. Inglesh says it may sound rudimentary, but in-house counsel should have helped craft contracts that are a reflection of the company, putting the company in the best possible situation it can while applying a balanced approach.

“That means understanding all of the pain points of your organization and what’s working well for people and what isn’t,” she explains. “As a leader, you need to assess the landscape. Whenever I have a conversation with another leader, that is the value I try to provide. I want to know their goals, their obstacles, and what’s important to them.”

Inglesh jokes that it may not be “sexy,” but that standardization has been as important at

“As a leader, you need to assess the landscape. Whenever I have a conversation with another leader, that is the value I try to provide. I want to know their goals, their obstacles, and what’s important to them.”

NIQ as it has been across the rest of the in-house legal landscape. For a company known for providing critical and real-time data, its legal department should reflect that culture.

The GC says lawyers are smart and can spot potholes during the process of a contract negotiation, but if that process seems to repeat itself, it needs to be rethought and retooled. Not everything may fit into a neat repeatable process, but more often than not, standardization can be introduced to streamline processes and ensure consistency in the business.

A handful of decades into her legal career, the GC has a lot to be grateful for. She’s proud of where she’s come from and who she has become. Her daughter, now a lawyer in her own right, seems poised to continue a tradition Inglesh herself has begun. At some point, she will be ready to write her whole story. Until then, general counsel, trusted advisor, business driver, mother, wife, and gardener will have to do.

Collaboration Gets Deals Done

Candace Moss brings her passion for business and law together as the corporate counsel of commercial and M&A at Cummins, where collaboration with the nonlegal teams has been one of her greatest assets

By Claire Redden

CANDACE MOSS HAD AN INTEREST

in becoming a lawyer from a young age, and by the time she went to college, she knew she’d be going to law school afterward. She talks about it so nonchalantly that you’d never suspect where she went: Harvard. And it wasn’t even her first choice.

“I applied to a lot of schools, probably too many schools. I just wanted to make sure I got in somewhere,” she says. “But Harvard is a big name, so I thought I’d at least attend the admitted students’ weekend to see what it’s like.”

She went into the weekend with very low expectations, and she proved to be pleasantly surprised. “I enjoyed the professors, the students, and even the other admitted students I met. They were all very accomplished but generally very humble and welcoming,” she explains.

Moss turned down the scholarship offers she got from other schools and enrolled—despite the debt she knew she’d be taking on. “I wanted to do the Big Law path, and Harvard’s a good place to be able to have those kinds of opportunities. Turning down those scholarship offers was very hard at the time, but it worked out in the end,” she says.

Of course, one of the best ways to offset student loan debt while you’re in school is to secure a paid internship, which, for first-year law students, can be difficult to come by. Knowing that, Moss looked for something she could do while she was living at home in Georgia. She landed on an internship at the public defender’s office.

“I worked mostly in juvenile court. It definitely gave me a great respect for public defenders,” Moss recalls. However, during her second year of law school, she was able to secure a law firm internship as part of the corporate team of Boies Schiller Flexner in New York City—the same firm she’d go on to work at for two years after law school.

“I worked on private M&A and some private equity fund formation there, so it was very interesting work. But ultimately, I wanted to relocate to DC,” she says.

Moss then went on to Hunton & Williams (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) to work for its corporate team mostly in M&A, corporate governance, and securities law for a total of six years before going in-house. “Those experiences taught me to be very client focused. Both of the teams that I worked on were very lean teams, so I got to interact a lot with both the partners and the clients,” she says.

But, as Moss explains, she was never interested in becoming a partner herself. Still, she figured she could take her skills and apply them to an in-house legal department. She began applying for jobs, and it wasn’t long before a recruiter contacted her about her current role: corporate counsel of commercial and M&A at Cummins.

“I wasn’t familiar with Cummins before. But it seemed like a company that valued diversity, and a lot of people that I met with during the interview process had been there for ten, fifteen, twenty years, which I think is increas-

Candace Moss Corporate Counsel of Commercial and M&A Cummins

ingly rare,” she says. Since joining in March 2021, Moss has taken an interest in collaborating with several of the nonlegal teams she supports—particularly the growth office team, which works on some of the company’s new and emerging technologies.

“It’s been fascinating to learn about the technology,” Moss says. But also, in her opinion, very necessary. “The more interaction I have with my nonlegal colleagues, the more I’m able to understand the business and provide better legal support. It’s necessary because, without that collaboration, it makes it challenging to get a deal done.”

What Moss is most proud of in the two-and-a-half years since she’s come to Cummins is her role in its recent filtration business spin-off and IPO transaction. “That was one of the first transactions I was assigned to, and I was one of the lead lawyers,” she says. “I was proud that they trusted me enough

“The more interaction I have with my nonlegal colleagues, the more I’m able to understand the business and provide better legal support.”

Axinn is proud to work with Candace Moss and Cummins on innovative legal strategies to tackle corporate challenges.

“As a newcomer, I was still getting to know people within the organization— but they all embraced me as a member of the team.”

to follow my advice and value the input that I had. As a newcomer, I was still getting to know people within the organization— but they all embraced me as a member of the team.”

Moss encourages junior lawyers to speak up, something she struggled with early on in her own career. “I’m not naturally a very gregarious or extroverted person, and it took me a while to realize that I actually have valuable ideas to contribute,” she admits. “One of the things I felt was helpful for me was making sure I was prepared to go into meetings with one or two objectives of what I wanted to be able to say, and finding ways that I could add value to transactions.”

Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP:

“My Axinn colleagues and I had the pleasure of working with Candace on a complex international M&A deal that she led. Candace’s excellent communication and even-keeled demeanor under pressure were critical to the success of the deal, which had lots of interesting and challenging twists and turns.”

—Leslie Overton, Partner

Harkrider

The Power of Pro Bono

Heidi Naunton shares her career-long commitment to pro bono and how it’s shaped her as a leader

By Joseph Stark

Heidi Naunton on Her Passion for Climate and Sustainability

“I think it’s really terrific that Paramount has committed to reducing emissions, setting science-based targets, and tracking progress. Climate change is an issue that resonates with me. I have children and a deep desire to leave behind a planet that resembles the one I grew up with, and it’s critical that companies with an ability to make a difference are doing so.”

Heidi Naunton SVP, Senior Counsel, and Assistant Secretary Paramount Global

FROM THE OUTSET OF HER LEGAL career, Heidi Naunton wanted to make a difference. At first, she thought it might be in criminal law, attracted to the idea of impacting her community by helping people navigate the legal system.

But when she joined Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP as a paralegal, she discovered a love for corporate law and an ability to pursue pro bono work, satisfying her urge to give back to the community and help those in need. Since then, these passions have run hand in hand and continue to drive the leader, who currently serves as senior vice president, senior counsel, and assistant secretary at Paramount Global.

“I approach my day job with true dedication and commitment, but I think it’s also important to make my individual contribution,” says Naunton, who has worked for Paramount Global (or its predecessor) for nearly seventeen years. “Real people are impacted by the success of the company, but when you’re working with an individual directly on an issue that really matters in that person’s life, it takes on a whole different meaning.”

Through Naunton’s long-standing commitment to pro bono work, she has helped obtain new identities for a domestic violence victim and her minor children; advocated on behalf of a mentally ill inmate facing the death penalty; helped secure US asylum for a family politically persecuted in their home country; and obtained a legal name change for a transgender individual. She has also cochaired her company’s pro bono committee and helped organize pro bono programming for the rest of the organization.

“Real people are impacted by the success of the company, but when you’re working with an individual directly on an issue that really matters in that person’s life, it takes on a whole different meaning.”

Those experiences are inseparable from the leader she is today, she says.

Naunton’s work with a broad spectrum of people and personalities, from diverse backgrounds and with different life experiences, influences the way she interacts with her key business stakeholders, her department colleagues, and her team.

“Between my pro bono clients, lawyers at all levels with whom I’ve worked, and other personal and professional relationships, I’ve met people with many different kinds of personalities, dynamics, workstyles, and emotional needs. And I’ve learned that, as a leader, it helps to meet people where they are,” Naunton advises. “I try to remember that everyone comes from different backgrounds and sets of circumstances that have shaped the way they approach and perceive the world. If we can remember that, it helps foster empathy and collaboration.” To her, maintaining that mindset makes business conversations, especially difficult ones, more effective and productive.

In running a team of six, Naunton must remember each person comes with individual assets. “As a group, my team is consistently performing at the highest level, but it’s important to recognize that each person has different strengths,” she emphasizes. “The more we can lean into those, the better equipped we are as a team.”

By leveraging her team members’ individual strengths, Naunton is able to stay on top of the influx of regulatory activity from the from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulation-setting bodies.

The SEC has been busy issuing extensive new rules and interpretive guidance on a variety of matters like cybersecurity, executive compensation, and sustainability initiatives, Naunton explains. “It’s our job to stay on top of it all, so I’m very fortunate to have a terrific team to support me and help navigate through it,” she says.

Another area the leader and her team have dialed into has been supporting Paramount’s Environmental,

3 ESG Goals

1. On-Screen Content and Social Impact : Pursue original research to better understand effective ways of portraying underrepresented communities.

2. Workforce and Culture: Improve organizational engagement from 74 percent to 81 percent favorable by 2025.

3. Sustainable Production and Operations : Assess what it would take for Paramount to reach net-zero GHG emissions across global value chain.

Source: 2022-2023

Paramount ESG Report

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We are proud to work with Heidi Naunton and applaud her contributions to Paramount’s success.

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At Morris Nichols, the needs of our clients shape everything we do.

Shearman & Sterling is proud to partner with Heidi Naunton and Paramount Global . Working with Heidi is a privilege, and we take great pride in acknowledging her ongoing accomplishments as an innovative legal leader.

Social, and Governance (ESG) work. Naunton and her colleagues have spent time helping investors understand why ESG initiatives are good for business and in investors’ best interests.

“The way we see it is that by focusing on things like diversity, inclusion, and sustainability, we are being the most value-driven company that we can be. For example, as a content powerhouse, we are uniquely positioned to both reflect and influence culture,” Naunton emphasizes. “We use our content and platforms not only to entertain, but to engage, represent, and champion issues that resonate with our consumers, such as social justice, civic engagement, and climate change.”

Outside of work, Naunton is serving her community in other ways. She serves on the board of Get Schooled, a nonprofit that helps young people get into college, find first jobs, and succeed in their endeavors.

Shearman & Sterling:

“Heidi is a decisive and solution-focused leader, and her ability to build strong, highly diverse teams is remarkable. We have been lucky to partner with Heidi and her Paramount Global team for many years.” —Lona Nallengara and Gillian Emmett Moldowan, Partners

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 change in their

The Reality of Risk

Christopher Gruber shares his leadership evolution at Union Pacific Railroad Company, where he handles commercial litigation disputes

By Noah Johnson

HE MIGHT NOT HAVE KNOWN IT AT the time, but Christopher Gruber started his legal journey on a family farm two hours west of Omaha, Nebraska. Growing up as a farm kid, he learned about something that both farmers and lawyers should be proficient at—navigating risk.

“Farming is unique in a sense that there’s significant risks out there that you can’t control like the weather, and also risks with regards to what the markets are doing with the product your selling,” Gruber reflects. “Through that, I learned about analyzing both known and unknown risks, and that’s helped me throughout my career to better serve my clients because that’s really what us as lawyers are doing, analyzing multiple points of risk to provide advice to our clients.

“It could be how much we can recover, what’s the likelihood, how it affects the business going forward, what it’s going to cost to seek recovery, and more,” he continues. “It’s our job to stay calm, minimize emotion, and look at the big picture with the information available to us to determine the best course of action for the client or company.”

That’s the mentality Gruber brought to Union Pacific Railroad in 2021 after working in private practice for over five years. As an assistant general attorney on the commercial litigation team, he handles disputes involving real estate, telecommunications, contract, and property damage for and against the company, either acting directly as trial counsel or in support of outside counsel.

Coming into the role, Gruber admits that he had to make some adjustments to his leadership style and his approach to teamwork.

“When I started, I realized that in an in-house environment, you have to navigate working on multiple teams. I had never worked in a big organization, so there was a learning curve on managing people within larger teams,” he says. “When it comes to managing people, I’ve tried to hone my style to help other people on achieve their goals and get what they want out of their career.”

Today, he empowers his team to take ownership over their work and their development while providing support when necessary.

“I try not to be one of those people who micromanages because it’s very hard on the people you’re working with. We’re all very capable people and we do things differently,” Gruber explains.

“Even though lawyers can inherently be the kind of people who want things done their way, that doesn’t mean it’s the only way. I try to remind myself to allow people to do things in ways that work for them if they’re getting results.”

Christopher Gruber Assistant General Attorney of Commercial Litigation Union Pacific Railroad Company

“Even though lawyers can inherently be the kind of people who want things done their way, that doesn’t mean it’s the only way. I try to remind myself to allow people to do things in ways that work for them if they’re getting results.”

He also got a chance to learn the language of lawyers, understand court filings, and explore various areas of the law while earning his degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. That strong foundation prepared him for his next challenge at Keating, O’Gara, Nedved & Peter, where he was pushed to go beyond what he’d learned.

“Starting off as a law clerk, I worked under a mentor who really pushed me outside my comfort zone to become a trial lawyer. I first-chaired a jury trial in district court within three months of getting my law license,” he says. “I remember asking for his help while I was preparing and him saying, with the client’s permission, of course, ‘You need to figure this out on your own.’ That really drove me to prepare and understand what risks to take in pressure-packed moment.”

Gruber says that young attorneys who want to be successful in their careers should get as much experience

as they can in a wide variety of legal areas and find a mentor that encourages them outside their comfort zone in a positive way.

“The best mentors challenge and don’t sugarcoat mistakes, but provide support when mistakes happen. A lot of us are always pushing for more, wanting that next promotion or to make partner and just are never content. But it’s important to enjoy the people you work with, represent, and the disputes. Try not to always be looking for what’s next, and the results will naturally follow,” he says.

Wolf Wallenstein, PC:

“Chris took over an extensive portfolio of cases at UP. He has filled the role admirably, making invaluable contributions to UP. He is an exceptional attorney who learns quickly and makes wise, strategic decisions.”

—Michael Wallenstein, Partner

Revel in the Discomfort

At Abbott, Anthony Grice pushes past his comfort zone to evolve into new areas of practice and counsel

By Billy Yost

ANTHONY GRICE REMEMBERS A moment in law school that has continued to pay dividends throughout his legal career. Six weeks into his first year of law school, Grice says the professor told the class they should be feeling stressed and uncomfortable.

“Get comfortable with that feeling,” the professor said. “If you can’t get comfortable with that feeling, you should probably find another profession.”

Grice, senior counsel for commercial litigation at Abbott, says that at present, those are the feelings he has most days since coming to the company in 2021. It’s not because the job isn’t right for him, or that going in-house after twelve years of firm practice was

the wrong move either. It’s because those are the feelings that drive him to push past his comfort zone and evolve into new areas of practice and counsel.

“Abbott has allowed me to put myself in an uncomfortable position and to grow,” Grice explains. “Whether it’s becoming a subject-matter expert in a new area of law or just relying more on sound judgment and logic, this is the challenge I wanted. It’s good for me, and it’s helping create another strong legal asset for the company.”

The attorney built out an impressive private practice résumé, specializing in employment law and employment litigation. Grice attained a partner position at firm Husch

Blackwell, where he successfully tried cases in federal and state courts and represented employers before various administrative bodies.

But that work is only part of Grice’s story. The attorney says his life before law school contained a variety of exposure to multiple industries, including retail and pharmaceutical. Grice also had the opportunity to study abroad, backpack through Europe, and absorb cultures other than his own.

“I think that exposure diversity helped me be a leader with my clients and work to understand their business operations,” Grice explains. “And, over time, I began to understand that I had a skill set that was amenable to the

Anthony

Grice Senior Counsel of Commercial Litigation Abbott

hybrid practice of law and business as an in-house attorney.”

Fortunately, Grice had continued to take his personal development seriously as a fellow at the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD). He was matched with an “accountability partner” who is part of a broader networking framework. Grice describes this partner as someone who can help you accomplish goals that you set for yourself. “If they can help you accomplish professional goals, that’s just icing on the cake,” he notes.

In this case, the accountability partner helped him with both. His partner is Abbott’s senior counsel and director of e-discovery and encouraged him to apply when an in-house position became available at the company.

“I think my path to Abbott is a real testament to the power of networking and maintaining positive relationships with connections you meet in any environment,” Grice explains. “They showed me the door, and the sophisti-

“Abbott has allowed me to put myself in an uncomfortable position and to grow. Whether it’s becoming a subjectmatter expert in a new area of law or just relying more on sound judgment and logic, this is the challenge I wanted.”

cation of the legal department here is what got me inside.”

Initially, Grice leaned into what he knew. He and five other employment lawyers took on a wide variety of litigation and counseling for an organization of Abbott’s substantial size. However, Grice wanted to take that law school advice to get uncomfortable.

“I was offered my current role in commercial litigation, and I saw it as a chance to take a step back and

accept a level of discomfort around a new area for me,” he explains. “It’s the challenge that I wanted, and I think it’s allowing me to progress my career here within Abbott and be an even better business partner.”

Grice credits a number of colleagues at Abbott who have aided him in his growth journey, from his partners in the commercial litigation group to his manager and divisional vice president, David Mendelson. Grice says

of

Courtesy

Anthony Grice

he’s received both direct and indirect support from so many who have helped him embrace the unknown and continue his journey to become a true generalist in the space.

“This organization has allowed me to ask all the questions I need to ask but also identify those times when I need to be less academic and more practical in my counsel,” he says. “I still do some employment work that I know like the back of my hand, but I also get to build out new capabilities and skill sets.”

He is continuously motivated at Abbott, not only by his own journey, but also by the passion of others. He recalls a moment when Mendelson was expressing his frustration at a plan not going as intended.

“David explained the reason he was upset was because he’d spent the majority of his adult life protecting the company,” Grice recalls. “It’s not just coming to work and collecting a check. That’s part of the culture that I love here, and that’s a memory that will stick with me for a long time.”

Trailblazing Legal Leadership

Husch Blackwell is a different kind of law firm, built on a culture of selfless service. Our attorneys collaborate nationwide to provide inventive approaches that guide clients like Abbott through their most complex challenges.

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Gibson Dunn congratulates Anthony Grice for his countless contributions to the legal community. Anthony is a business-minded litigator and creative problem-solver. Gibson Dunn is honored to partner with Anthony and the entire legal team at Abbott.

Laura Tanner Rolls Up Her Sleeves at Progrexion

Amid a series of company challenges, Laura Tanner has faced greater responsibilities with a smaller team. Here’s how she’s turning it into an opportunity.

By Noah Johnson

Laura Tanner VP of Legal and Deputy General Counsel Progrexion

LAURA TANNER, VICE PRESIDENT of legal at Progrexion, saw the company go from having its best financial years in 2021 and 2022 to brushing up against financial headwinds in the first quarter of the following year. That was coupled with an adverse ruling in a matter with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that led Progrexion laying off nine hundred employees and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Those organizational shifts would be enough to make even the most seasoned

leader hang their head. Not Tanner. As Progrexion, a technology-enabled credit repair business, heads into a new chapter and reexamines everything from its structure and processes to its compliance efforts, Tanner has approached the new terrain with a “start-up mentality,” she says. Though her team has gotten a lot smaller and has taken on a bigger workload, Tanner says it’s been an opportunity to break down silos and to grow closer with colleagues from other departments.

“Do your best to find the people who support you through the process because you have to have people around you when things go so hard, when you can’t really see the end of the road.”

“We’ve literally had to revamp, rethink, and overhaul everything the business does. In addition to figuring out the best way to comply with the order we agreed on with the CFPB, we’re trying to trying to work as collaboratively as possible between departments to make sure everyone is following our overall initiatives and working as closely as possible,” she reflects. “In times like these, we can’t afford to have adversarial relationships or any acrimony; you all have to be working together. It’s been really refreshing to see how people are willing to roll up their sleeves and try new things.”

Tanner tries to foster that kind of collaboration by reaching out to her colleagues a lot more and spending additional time talking to people inside and outside her department.

“It’s a lot more time having discussions with people who might be fearful of what’s happening, who might not have anywhere else to go and end up in my office, and it’s always a welcomed conversation,” the leader says. “My catchphrase to them these days is ‘We’ll get there.’ It’s been tough but we’ve got the right team, we’ve got the right initiatives, we know our service is good, we know the customers need us, so there’s no reason why we’ll fail.”

To make the most of some of those conversations, compassion has been a key.

“People think legal is scary and that anytime they have to talk to a lawyer, they might feel it’s a bad thing,” she says. “I try to approach conversations with people from a one-on-one personal level rather than an authoritarian one. It’s like, ‘Look, I get it. Nobody wants to come talk to the lawyers but here we are, so let’s resolve this problem together.’”

“We’ve got the right team, we’ve got the right initiatives, we know our service is good, we know the customers need us, so there’s no reason why we’ll fail.”

Tanner is looking forward to what’s in store for the first quarter of the new year, when the company aims to come out of bankruptcy. She’ll be focused on keeping legal connected with its business colleagues.

“I want to keep legal in a position of intense collaboration with other groups. To a degree, legal is one of those teams

that sort of gets isolated. Not because of what we do but because some people don’t understand what we do,” she says. “It’s a lot better if we’re friendly and have the opportunity to access risk and counsel leaders on where we can help as they move forward.”

Before coming to Progrexion, Tanner had served as an environmental consultant for fifteen years and decided to come to the company for a new challenge. She started as a head of contracts and went on to help save the company around $200,000 in just a year in the role. That opened the door for her to become head of litigation and assistant general counsel, roles that prepared her to be the leader she is today.

“The best part of those roles is you get to understand the fundamental operations of a business at a level that most people don’t,” she says. “Typically in an organization there are silos in each department. Marketing knows what marketing is doing but they probably don’t know what their effect is on finance, HR, legal, and IT, for example.

“From a litigation perspective, you kind of get that full exposure, which helped me think through the bankruptcy and compliance with the order we have as a result of the CFPB settlement,” she adds. “It also gave me a chance to get to know people from all the different areas of the business, so it makes collaboration a whole lot easier.”

There’s no formula for being able to navigate the kind of changes Progrexion has in the last year, but Tanner has tips for where one could start.

“Do your best to find the people who support you through the process because you have to have people around you when things go so hard, when you can’t really see the end of the road. Build your support team,” Tanner says.

The Scientific and the Socratic

Maureen Shannon prepares for her next in-house challenge after multiple career milestones

By Will Grant

IT’S A PERFECT MOMENT TO BE speaking with Maureen Shannon. The former associate general counsel of intellectual property at Rivian is ready for her next big challenge. Over the course of her in-house legal career, she helped rebrand the entire Rocket Mortgage portfolio from its former Quicken Loans identity.

At Rivian, Shannon helped build a global brand from just a handful of jurisdictions to over 180 around the globe and grew a portfolio of a handful of brand applications to over 5,000.

This past summer, Shannon spent quality time with her eight- and elevenyear-olds, examining potential career opportunities, and enjoying the life and

family she’s built. She’s written children’s books and sketched the artwork herself. It won’t always be like this, but it was a summer to refresh, energize, and identify the next in-house role that aligns with her personal values of solving problems for consumers while also doing good for the planet.

“Building programs is really my passion,” Shannon explains. “I love to be able to take that ten-thousand-foot view and utilize my ability to recognize patterns and frequencies, to provide guardrails and guidance, and educate and empower business partners.”

Whether it was through soccer, Irish dance, or orchestra in her youth, Shannon has always been attracted to

“I love to be able to take that tenthousand-foot view and utilize my ability to recognize patterns and frequencies, to provide guardrails and guidance, and educate and empower business partners.”

unifying a group to achieve something bigger. It’s the desire for that kind of atmosphere that proved so unfulfilling in law firm life.

“I found life as an associate [to be] lacking the team dynamic or mentorship that I find myself drawn to,” Shannon explains. “I always want to find a way to raise all boats and teach and learn from other people. For me, I found life as an associate a pretty sharp elbows game. That’s just not who I am.”

The attorney already had examples of successful in-house practitioners in her family, people who found ways to successfully enable a broader business and steer an orga-

nization to a more profitable path. IP was an obvious choice for Shannon precisely because it’s at the heart of any successful enterprise.

“Being at the center of a company’s assets puts you right in the middle of the action,” Shannon explains. “That’s what excites me, and that’s why the right approach is so critical.”

She says approaching issues with inventors and engineers through the scientific method is vital to moving a company ahead. Shannon says she loves tweaking variables, examining options, and finding ways to get to a desired result. The scientific method allows Shannon and her colleagues to approach issues at a high

The Energy Within Maureen Shannon has already excelled in her career but is on a committed path to learning that her value as a person doesn’t require her to produce or make anything at all. The lawyer loves adventure (skydiving, for instance) and continually seeks out lifeaffirming adventures both solo and with her family, but it’s the work she’s doing internally that might be the most fulfilling.

Shannon is a Reiki master teacher and has engaged in breathwork and energy practices to learn to relax, flow through emotions, and better understand herself and the world around her.

“I really believe that happiness is a choice and even when tough circumstances arise, I still find hope in my resiliency and drive to keep moving forward,” Shannon says.

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intellectual level and in a way that extends beyond the theoretical.

“The scientific method allows you to make high-level decisions and do it in a way that makes everyone feel encouraged and excited,” Shannon explains. “It helps you take that Socratic method that you leave law school with and translate it to a team environment where the stakes are high.”

It might be marketing or engineering, but Shannon’s curious mind really seems to be her X-factor. But it’s her integrity that elevates that X-factor into a truly great leader. The lawyer says staying true to her internal compass, one focused on doing good for people and her planet, allows her to do her best and most impactful work. She wants to help companies think about going green, supply chain integrity, and improving and implementing changes that not only make a business stronger, but better.

And while Shannon is always ready to engage in a high-level discussion, she admits that her most lasting memories and moments from her work have come from the relationships she’s cultivated and grown over the years.

“My work has offered me the chance to make friends from colleagues and build a network of amazing people all around the world,” she reflects. “I believe strongly in building a strong community of people you can trust, mentor, and receive support from. Little connections can develop into something incredible. You have the opportunity to create friendship and water that garden anywhere you go.”

So, where is Maureen Shannon going next? She isn’t revealing that quite yet, but one gets the impression she’s got it handled. After basking in the theoretical, she knows how to put it into action.

Brink’s on the Rise

Whether it’s the physical or virtual space, the Brink’s Company finds new ways to innovate

By Will Grant

TWO KEY METRICS SHOULD SHOW encouraging signs for the Brink’s Company over the next decade. According to two separate reports, the cash logistics market and the global crewed guarding services business should continue to rise for the foreseeable future, two services where Brink’s has excelled for decades.

The cash logistics market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.16 percent between 2022 and 2027, an increase of $20.26 billion, according to research and markets data provider TechNavio. The increasing number of ATMs worldwide and the volume of cash processed by those ATMs will fuel that additional logistical need.

Markets like APAC are expected to continue to expand (as much as 35 percent by 2027) as they both contain large segments of the world’s population and are also often dependent on cash-based transactions.

At the same time, Research & Markets reports that global crewed guarding services are estimated to top $283.90 billion by 2030. The noticeable surge in projected growth can be linked to banks and financial institu-

tions investing more heavily in services, the increase of private security markets, and the rise in theft, burglary, and robberies.

For a company like Brink’s whose services include cash-in-transit, ATM replenishment, and maintenance, and other safety and security offerings, these are all positive signs. With over 70,000 employees, 1,300 branches, and 16,400 vehicles in more than 100 countries, the prospect of developing markets and increased service potential should boost year-overyear income.

That continued growth has lured talent like Vice President of Global Litigation and Commercial Law Maura Scott to Brink’s. Scott came to Brink’s in 2022 as global head of commercial law prior to being promoted to her present role in 2023. Prior to Brink’s, Scott was chief compliance and regulatory officer at Cannadips CBD and a regional VP of sales at Altria.

Scott is also a board member of the Richmond Symphony and is a former board member of the Richmond YWCA. In 2018, Scott was named as Top Women in Convenience “Woman of the Year.”

The organization has been moving into some nontraditional spaces, which may have been the result of the company gathering talent from other industries. In 2022, Brink’s announced that it participated in a $7 million round of funding for Courtyard, a startup that creates NFTs for physical collectibles.

Brink’s was responsible for the handling of the real-world asset security stored securely in its vault. Courtyard would sell the NFT of that asset in its marketplace.

“By securing the physical items represented by NFTs on the blockchain, we create a bridge between offline and digital marketplaces, giving collectors reassurance that their high-value items are secure,” said Oliver Buckle-Wright, senior commercial director at Brink’s said in a prepared statement.

The physical security of digital assets is a relatively new concept and one whose market share has yet to be established. But the possibility is compelling. And who better to partner with for security than a company that once helped transport the Hope Diamond?

Whether its proven cash and security services or more fledging digital collaborations, Brink’s seems poised for continued growth over the next ten years.

The Power of Growth

Rebecca Unruh shares her journey to IP law and lessons she brought to her role as general counsel at EagleView

WHEN REBECCA UNRUH GRADUATED with a degree in biology in 1998, she knew some of the career paths she didn’t want to take but was still uncertain as to which ones would align with her interests. She had always loved science and math, with a strong interest in life sciences and a penchant for calculus, but didn’t want to be a doctor, thanks to organic chemistry, and didn’t think she had the drawing skills to be an engineer.

So, when she entered the workforce, she bounced around for a while, taking advantage of the dot-com boom with odd jobs in biology, tech, and academia while coaching softball on the side.

A passing comment by another softball coach about a lawyer practicing intellectual property law planted the seed that would eventually inspire

By Noah Johnson

her to go to law school. She married her interest in science with her aptitude for argument, for which she thanks her father. While in law school she got a taste of what it meant to be an in-house lawyer while working as an intern at Intel during her studies. From that moment on, she knew where she wanted to be, but she also knew that it might take time to get there.

“I got the bug for working in-house very early on but knew those weren’t typical jobs that you get fresh out of school. And I knew that I needed to go learn how to be a lawyer somewhere earning a decent income to pay down my bills,” she explains.

Unruh went on to work at a big law firm, where she cut her teeth as an intellectual property litigation associate with a focus on patent matters involv-

ing complex technology. She knew that she did not want to spend her career in private practice experience but appreciated that those law firm years were critical to her development and helped her grow the skill set needed to ultimately reach her goals.

“You have in your mind the way you expect things to go, but it’s important to be able to adjust that if that doesn’t happen,” she says. “One of the best ways to do that is to grow your skills and establish yourself so you’re able to adjust if needed. To me, growth means that you’re maturing; you’re learning in such a way that allows you to choose your direction or to be able to ride things out if your direction is, at least temporarily, being chosen for you.”

That wisdom is what paved the way for Unruh to take her first step in-house

General Counsel

in 2014 with Western Digital Corporation and later join EagleView in 2021. She currently serves as general counsel at the geospatial data specialist, a role that’s given her an opportunity to make a big impact.

“When I moved to EagleView, the role I started with, head of IP, offered me the chance to manage all aspects of IP, prosecution, litigation, strategy, and counseling and was a perfect combination of the things I did for many years in different pieces,” she says. “The change from Western Digital to EagleView also put me in a much smaller and more nimble in-house work environment. It was something new and challenging—I am most interested in work that brings variety.”

Having spent years in private practice working with many different attorneys and also directly with clients on complex issues, she was well-equipped to sit on the other side of the table in-house and has built up her business acumen while embracing stretch responsibilities in her role at EagleView. She has also learned, and continues to learn, how to communicate effectively with a wide range of personalities.

“My goal is to put a friendly face on the legal department,” Unruh says. “Especially with innovators, you just have to go in and be someone who listens to what they have to say, help them understand what they can do in terms of IP rights, and recognize their accomplishments.”

She continues, “You can’t fake it either; you have to be genuine with your clients and understand what they want to accomplish, and then be able to explain how you’re going to help get them there. That’s why it’s important to find a practice area or a company that’s doing interesting things in areas

Rebecca Unruh

“You have to be willing to do things you don’t want to do to learn the things you need to learn and to ultimately see how your experiences fit into what you’re trying to accomplish.”

you like because listening genuinely will be a natural outcome of that.”

Unruh urges young attorneys to be open to a variety of opportunities in order to find success.

“It’s not always about having a plan,” she says. “You have to be willing to do things you don’t want to do to learn the things you need to learn and to ultimately see how your experiences fit into what you’re trying to accomplish. And you may have to grind it out for a while, but in the meantime, seek out opportunities to do the things you want to do, and be transparent with the people you’re working with about it. Also, it’s not a fast process. You need to put some time in to learn and grow. I still do every day.”

Gibson Dunn:

“We are thrilled to congratulate Becky Unruh, general counsel at EagleView, on her tremendous accomplishments and her recent and much deserved promotion to general counsel.”

—Kieran Kieckhefer, Partner

Stand for Something Good

Ann Robertson brings decades of legal expertise to Shake Shack, where she collaborates across departments to support the company’s tremendous growth

By Frank DiMaria

IN 2001, DANNY MEYER OPENED A hotdog stand in New York City’s Madison Square Park, just steps away from the iconic Flatiron Building, as part of the effort to rebuild the park. Over the next twenty-two years, he turned that venture into a $3.16 billion publicly traded company called Shake Shack. Today, it has 371 locations in the US and abroad.

Ann Robertson, Shake Shack’s vice president and associate general counsel, says from the beginning that Meyer preached a single philosophy: stand for something good. “That’s how a company should operate,” she says. “You only really provide hospitality when you take care of your team. ‘Stand for something good’ starts within our own team.”

With a JD from University of Ottawa, Robertson began her legal career at Hogan Lovells, representing several of its Fortune 100 clients. “I thought it would be interesting to see how decisions are made within a company about some of the issues I had to deal with at Hogan Lovells,” she remembers.

She continued to build out her expertise on securities law teams at Time Warner and Saks Fifth Avenue before joining hospitality and leisure company Belmond as its associate general counsel, assistant corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer.

Then in 2019, Robertson accepted her current role at Shake Shack.

A self-described “generalist,” she oversees corporate governance, crisis training, and employment litigation. This requires intense collaboration with many internal groups, including HR. “It’s such a delight, my role, because I deal with so many internal groups,” Robertson explains. “I’m not just pigeonholed into a specific legal role. It demands that I look outside my office to so

many people that are part of the company and develop relationships with them.”

Shake Shack, which went public in 2015, has been growing at a tremendous rate, and as associate GC, Robertson is consistently looking for better processes and procedures.

“Having had the opportunity to work with Ann in her roles at Saks and Shake Shack, I’ve been continually impressed with her cool head, impeccable judgment and high level of integrity and care,” says Jenna Levine, partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. “Her dedication and skill set always serve her well and make her a valued partner.”

A small part of her role in the company is environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts. Meyer’s corporate philosophy is at the heart of these initiatives, and its yearly ESG report is titled Stand for Something Good. The report also presents Shake Shack’s human capital management efforts by detailing its treatment of employees and training efforts, as well as the social aspects of ESG.

With the legal expertise that she’s gained throughout her legal career, Robertson’s advice to nascent lawyers is to be open to possibilities. “Don’t be afraid to jump into something that you don’t know or don’t feel you have the expertise in, or that you haven’t been taught,” she advises.

The two most important words in her leadership vocabulary are collaboration and sensitivity. It’s important, she says, to consider and understand another’s point of view and to listen intently.

Integrity, ethics, and confidentially are in Robertson’s DNA, all of which must be demonstrated by leaders in the law profession. “You have to be able to display that you can be trusted, not only by your team but also the executive team,” she says.

ANN ROBERTSON

Managing Antitrust Risk by Keeping it in View

As assistant general counsel for antitrust at Wells Fargo, Molly Wilkens emphasizes proactively managing risk by bringing antitrust capabilities in-house

By Frank DiMaria

MOST OF THE CAREER DECISIONS

Molly Wilkens made on her journey to becoming Wells Fargo’s assistant general counsel for antitrust were nonlinear.

Wilkens, who describes herself as “intellectually eclectic,” was a first-generation college student who double-majored in brain and cognitive science and writing at MIT. Most of her cohort were planning for careers in medicine, but that career path held no appeal for Wilkens given her distaste

for lab work. “I did not enjoy dissecting mouse brains,” says Wilkens.

Then, she met an alum from her major with a career path she had not explored. The woman had double majored in computer science, worked on Wall Street, and was about to go to law school. “Law school, I forgot about that. That’s a choice,” Wilkens, who had participated in mock trial in high school, remembers thinking at the time.

Wilkens tracked down the one law professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and became his undergraduate research assistant. She helped him with his research work and he provided a preview of life as a junior associate at a law firm. “He told me that if I enjoyed that, I should go to law school, work in a large firm for several years, and then I could take a variety of paths after that,” she recalls. “I loved reading, writing, analyzing, and synthesizing

Molly Wilkens Assistant General Counsel, Antitrust

large volumes of information, so I knew that law school would be a good fit.”

After earning her JD from UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings), Wilkens joined Jones Day in 2010, where she started out on a large copyright infringement case. Then, an antitrust partner was looking for a first-year lawyer to assist on a merger review. “I said, ‘I’ll try it. I’ll try anything.’ I loved it and just kept asking for more and more of that work,” says Wilkens. She spent a decade at Jones Day working on a wide range of antitrust litigation and high-stakes transactions. Antitrust allowed her to guide clients through a legal maze while satisfying her intellectual curiosity. “It’s a very fact-specific analysis based on markets and the spaces your client operates in,” she says.

Following an industry trend toward moving antitrust capabilities in-house, Wells Fargo hired Wilkens in 2021. “Being in-house gives us the opportunity to become true partners to our stakeholders— we’re able to build stronger working

“Being in-house gives us the opportunity to become true partners to our stakeholders— we’re able to build stronger working relationships and understand the ins and outs better than outside counsel would be able to.”

Wells Fargo

Jones Day is proud to recognize our friend and former colleague Molly Wilkens, whose success speaks to her qualities as a lawyer and person. We value our continued partnership with Molly and Wells Fargo. Why Jones Day? Binding energy, conviction, and credibility arising from shared professional values. WWW.JONESDAY.COM

relationships and understand the ins and outs better than outside counsel would be able to,” says Wilkens. Providing strategic guidance and advice to the company means Wilkens is well-versed in current enforcement trends from both the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice—and how quickly things change. “There’s a lot to keep up with, but that’s the challenge that keeps the role interesting and fulfilling,” Wilkens remarks.

Reflecting on her path to her current position, Wilkens rejects the typical framing of career advice to think about where you might want to be in five or ten years. “That assumes you can pick a point several years from now and then reverse engineer it. If I want to be there in ten years, these are all the steps I need to take to get to that place,” Wilkens says.

But career trajectories are rarely linear. As people grow bored, become burnt out, or adjust their daily structure to accommodate a family, they

veer off on unplanned detours. “My advice to junior attorneys would be to know that it doesn’t have to be linear, and you don’t have to have it all mapped out,” she adds.

“It takes a lot of pressure off. Take the opportunities as they come, even if they feel like they came out of left field. Find the sweet spot of work you like to do, with people you like to work with, at a place where you feel appreciated. I didn’t take antitrust in law school. I didn’t know what antitrust was until somebody had an assignment and I said, ‘I’ll help.’ I learned about this entirely different area of law that I found super fascinating, and I made a whole career out of it,” says Wilkens.

Jones Day:

“I have worked with Molly for many years, as a colleague and now as a client. She has proven to be an excellent attorney and trusted adviser who is well versed in antitrust law. Molly grasps complex issues quickly, is dedicated to the profession, and is always a pleasure to work with.”

—Lin Kahn, Partner

By Noah Johnson

Donald Broadfield discusses his journey to his role as chief IP and data counsel at American Airlines

AS A TEENAGER, DONALD

Broadfield couldn’t have imagined that he’d be an in-house lawyer at one of the world’s largest airlines. He attended the US Naval Academy like his father, an idea his mother was against. After that, he wound up majoring in biochemistry at the University of Kentucky with dreams of being a doctor. But, during a gap year and a period of soul-searching, he had a chance to work for Texas Air Corporation. From that point on, he knew where he wanted to spend his career.

“It’s such an exciting industry,” he says. “It’s always moving, and it connects people from all over the world. When you’re working at an airline, you see people who came from different countries, wonder what they’re doing here and what they’re like. I don’t know of anything that can

It’s said, ‘When you get the airline bug, you’re bitten,’ and that’s true. It does get in your blood.”

bring the world together in that way. At Texas Air, I was all over the organization. It’s said, ‘When you get the airline bug, you’re bitten,’ and that’s true. It does get in your blood.”

His experience at Texas Air inspired him to attend Case Western Reserve University School of Law. His first professional stop postgraduation was at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where he handled complex litigation for six years and got a feel for navigating different personalities and dealing with big clients and high-pressure situations.

It was the perfect training ground for the early career attorney and gave him the skills he needed to move in-house at American Airlines in 2004. He started as an antitrust counsel, but weeks into his tenure at the company, he was asked to take on

intellectual property (IP) matters. While he had some previous exposure to IP, it wasn’t connected to the work he was being called to do.

“Everything is fast-paced at an airline, and it’s not like I had time to sit and figure out and learn IP,” Broadfield says. “But it was a great experience because from the nexus of my antitrust and IP work, I got to touch marketing, distribution, social media, cyberfraud, contracts, and more. It prepared me to take on more and taught me how to learn fast.”

Since joining American Airlines, Broadfield witnessed the evolution of airline travel post-September 11, 2001, the economic hardship of the 2000s, the increasing prominence of social media, a shifting regulatory landscape, and a global pandemic. Amid those challenges, he helped

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leaders in the company understand the value of IP, one of his proudest career accomplishments.

“For a while, IP had been neglected and many weren’t focused on advancing it or broadening what they had,” he explains. “People often have a hard time associating any real value with it, but when you hear a theme song, see a poster, or read a publication, it all goes to branding. When people see or hear that content, they automatically think of something. They associate one quality or another with that name, encapsulating a lot of feelings—and there’s a major investment that goes into that.”

Broadfield’s commitment allowed the company to turn a neglected IP portfolio to one that was eventually collateralized during the pandemic. To reach the best results, he often serves as much as an educator as he is an attorney.

“The difficulty is making leaders understand that the money they are putting in to protect IP and advance it will bring back multiple of what the investment was,” he says. “Patience is the biggest thing. Not only do I end up training and teach them, but I also often have to do it for new people since turnover is really high in the industry right now. It’s a continuous process of training a new set of people about the value, and it has to be a constant effort.”

An increase in cyberfraud threats since the pandemic has made those efforts more important than ever. Recent Highlights from American Airlines

Currently, Broadfield and his team are working on a number of litigations to help better protect customers from them.

“Since the pandemic, more nefarious threats have ballooned,” he observes. “We’ve seen fraudsters pretending to be booking agencies, changing customer’s booking, and charging like $3,000 for doing it. We’ve also seen entities pretend to be American Airlines and dupe people into sharing their personal information.

“We try to stay proactive by investigating everything that comes through,” he continues, “finding the common thread, and prosecuting the ones we can while also frustrating the fraudsters in different ways. It’s not a cheap investment, but we do it to protect our customers and to protect our integrity.”

Broadfield’s partners recognize his creativity and commitment to the role. “Don excels at providing a clear vision for handling complex IP matters through his long-term strategic thinking combined with his vast experience in and passion for the industry,” says John Campbell, principal at McKool Smith. “His knowledge of all aspects of the airline business and ability to quickly understand patented technology is truly impressive.”

Broadfield advises young attorneys to be proactive in the pursuit of their goals. “Don’t wait [for] the project to be handed to you,” he says. “Look for opportunities, and when you get them, own it. Do it your way.”

Results Matter

In every phase of litigation, from investigation and negotiation to trial and appeal, Yetter Coleman delivers. As one of the nation’s premier boutique trial law firms, we know that achieving the best results for our clients is what matters most. This is why some of the world’s biggest companies come to Yetter Coleman for their critical cases.

“Don

Haynes Boone:

Broadfield sees the big picture, navigating challenges and maximizing value of data and intellectual property of American Airlines—I’m honored to be on Don’s team and I’m learning a lot!”

—Alan Herda, Partner

Dawn Staggs is an inexhaustible force for her family and her in-house practice as senior counsel of litigation at Phillips 66

By Billy Yost

DAWN STAGGS DOESN’T WASTE

much time worrying that her career in cosmetology didn’t work out.

She has spent the past twelve years as senior counsel at Phillips 66, one of the most well-known energy companies in the world and number seventeen on the Fortune 500 list with annual revenues of over $150 billion.

How did a beauty school dropout (actually, Staggs made it through school fine; she just found the work unfulfilling) wind up with top-secret clearance in Germany and then as an in-house operator for a global energy superpower? As you can probably guess, she has quite a story.

Early on in a career that she knew she didn’t want, Staggs found one thing she knew she did want: her now-husband of thirty-six years. But that relationship required far more than most sign up for. “I fell in love and married an Army

soldier,” she explains. “We got married and six months later, I was living in Germany for the next three years.”

Staggs’s husband was stationed at the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. She took a job within the Wargaming & Analysis division, eventually promoted to executive assistant to the command chief of staff, a threestar general who ultimately became one of the joint chiefs of staff in Washington, DC. Staggs was twenty-two with a top-secret security clearance, working with some of the most decorated generals in the military, and she had absolutely no idea where she wanted her career to go.

Before moving back stateside with her husband, Staggs’s boss sat her down.

“He told me that he had a daughter my age and felt a fatherly need to tell me that I should go back to college and get my degree,” the attorney explains. “This

Dawn Staggs Senior Counsel of Litigation

Phillips 66

Steph Thomason

We’re continually working on the development of cleaner energy and sustainable fuels, and there is one thing I’m certain about here: we’re trying to do the right thing.”

was a highly respected general giving me a pep talk, and I listened.”

There was the move back to the US and her husband’s continuingly busy career, but Staggs worked her way through undergrad. After applying and getting accepted to law school, Staggs also got pregnant.

“I consider myself a very type-A person,” Staggs says. “I always need to have a plan; there’s always a risk analysis. My family sometimes jokingly calls me ‘the fun killer’ because I tend to analyze everything. But looking back over my career, I think starting law school with an eight-month-old is pretty wild. I’ve definitely taken risks and stepped outside my comfort zone when my gut told me the move was right.”

Fourteen years, one more baby, and an exceptional string of private practice experiences later, Staggs would

come in-house first at ConocoPhillips, then Phillips 66 when it spun off as an independent downstream company.

Regardless of the movie-potential plot points of Staggs’s career, one thing has remained steady: a work ethic that doesn’t quit. Staggs said it’s probably hereditary because her father was the hardest-working person she’s ever known. And through that hard work, Staggs’s practice area has opened up exponentially.

At Phillips 66, the lawyer’s world keeps getting more interesting. Going in-house has offered her the chance to work on areas she never even considered and in jurisdictions all over the country. “I get the opportunity to work with some of the best attorneys in the nation,” Staggs says. “Some cases have overseas ties, some have significant financial exposure, but it’s all so interesting.”

Staggs handles a great deal of catastrophic personal injury litigation for accidents that may occur at refineries or pipelines, as well as transportation matters for Phillip 66’s subsidiary trucking company. She also handles the toxic tort asbestos litigation docket, including maritime shipping cases.

For an organization as well-known as Phillips 66, most of the work requires her company to be acting from the respondent chair. But Staggs says she relished getting a change of pace working from the plaintiff side for a successful multimillion-dollar judgment the company won in a Utah pipeline damage case.

“It was a lot less sweaty and just more exciting waiting for that verdict,” Staggs says, laughing. “I was really proud of how that case played out.”

The senior counsel also negotiated the final global settlement on a thirty-year maritime asbestos exposure docket dating back to before Staggs was even practicing law.

Staggs says that her work is sometimes the fodder of the rest of her family. With a husband and son in law enforcement and a daughter who is a nurse, Staggs could be viewed as a black sheep of the family not out actively engaged in humanitarian aid of some sort. But she sees it differently.

“I genuinely think about my role as helping bring energy to the world,” Staggs says. “We’re continually working on the development of cleaner energy and sustainable fuels, and there is one thing I’m certain

We are proud to honor our friend and client Dawn Staggs of Phillips 66.

Our litigation expertise covers a broad spectrum of industries and practice areas and our clients range from individuals to some of the largest companies in the United States.

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Staggs herself is at a critical moment in her own life, one that every parent must grapple with at some point. She and her husband have raised two successful children who have lives of their own. The mom who was a Cub Scout leader, head of the school carnival committee, manager for her son’s basketball team, and booster club president of both of her kids’ sports teams suddenly has a lot more time for herself.

But Staggs and her husband still have a lot to look forward to. They live on what she affectionately calls a “quasi ranch” in “quasi-rural” Oklahoma, including livestock, chickens, geese, and ducks, and loves her downtime doing simple chores.

“I’m not in danger of becoming a crazy cat lady, but I could certainly be a crazy bird lady,” Staggs jokes. Even in her relaxation time, she still finds a way to get to work. There’s no doubt she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Adams and Reese:

“It has been an honor to work with Dawn over the years and I am proud of the success she has enjoyed in each chapter of her career, including her in-house counsel role. Dawn has a wonderful family and she brings her joy to the job each day. I continue to be impressed by Dawn’s organizational skills in handling so many cases and her commitment to high-quality legal service. Dawn works hard to pave the way for others and to create opportunities for future leaders.”

—Leslie Henry, Partner about here: we’re trying to do the right thing.”

NO DAY IS THE SAME FOR

Andrew Pruitt. As Volkswagen Group of America’s senior counsel of automotive product liability and litigation, he manages a very active and highly technical docket. The company’s cars have been around a long time, but the technology is changing every day, and he is one of many industry leaders figuring out how to navigate new legal realities.

It’s a fitting responsibility for a leader who’s no stranger to uncertainty and change. His legal journey started that way— in a place of not knowing.

Andrew Pruitt shares how his legal career developed in unexpected ways and the lessons from private practice that he uses today at Volkswagen Group of America

By Noah Johnson

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to be growing up,” Pruitt admits. “My path to law happened organically over time, and even when I graduated, I still didn’t know what I would do long-term with a law degree. In some ways my whole legal career has been a process of figuring it out along the way and just taking each new opportunity as it comes.”

After graduating from the George Washington University Law School, Pruitt was thrown into the deep end as a junior litigator at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. As a first-year associate, Pruitt was handed significant responsibility on complex, high-impact

cases for major clients. It showed him what litigation was all about, how to handle the pressure of taking betthe-company cases to trial, and how to stand tall in courtrooms among first-class trial lawyers.

“I was fortunate to get a lot of trial experience early on compared to some of my peers,” Pruitt reflects. But the challenge of litigating complex engineering disputes without formal scientific training also pushed him outside of his comfort zone.

“Science was never part of my background, so it was 100 percent learning as I go,” he notes. Even so, it was a challenge that he eagerly undertook: “I always loved learning, so I leaned into that aspect of it. Now I can see how it gave me the confidence and skills to help run a litigation docket for a huge company like Volkswagen.”

Those kinds of experiences continued to shape him as he moved into more senior roles. He became

a partner at Kirkland & Ellis before going on to Crowell & Moring LLP. In addition to representing high-profile clients like bp, Disney, and GM—his first exposure to complex automotive litigation—he also had the opportunity to litigate in the US Supreme Court and even argue before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

While those cases were invaluable in honing his legal expertise, he found himself wanting more. Pruitt didn’t just want to help a client deal with a one-time crisis and then move onto the next case.

“I liked the idea of partnering with one client long-term and getting embedded in the business, learning it from the inside out,” he admits. “When I was in private practice working with my clients, what I enjoyed most was being part of a team and working shoulder-to-shoulder with businesspeople, engineers, and experts. When a case ended, I felt myself wanting that teamwork to continue.”

That’s what brought him to Volkswagen in 2022. From day one, he was responsible for a managing a large docket of product liability and class-action cases. He also gets to counsel the business, helping leaders in the company figure out how to achieve their goals while mitigating risk on the front end. As a lifelong

Andrew Pruitt

Senior Counsel of Automotive

Product Liability & Litigation Volkswagen Group of America

Andrew Zinn

Some on the business side might expect that when they go to legal, they’ll be told ‘no.’ But I think it’s

learner who loves a challenge, Pruitt is in the right place.

“What’s interesting about the automotive space is that the legal issues are exciting and complex in part because of cutting-edge technologies,” he notes. “I’ve been able to counsel on issues at the intersection of law and technology, including advanced driver assistance systems and even AI.”

Every in-house counsel has a certain philosophy that drives the way they interact with their business colleagues. For Pruitt, it’s being “a solutions-oriented person.”

“Some on the business side might expect that when they go to legal, they’ll be told ‘no,’” he says. “But I think it’s important to make it clear that you’re there to help.”

Pruitt encourages young attorneys to be open to new experiences.

“If you asked me when I was in law school—or even five years ago—what I’d be doing today, I never would have guessed this,” he says. “It’s good to have a sense of what interests you, but you can never really plan out what’s going to happen. You have to follow the opportunities that come up and be willing to go out of your comfort zone.”

By Keith Loria

Kristen Susik, assistant general counsel for Ryder System Inc., delivers a different perspective

Kristen Susik Assistant General Counsel Ryder System Inc.

Shay Cohen

IN FIFTH GRADE, KRISTEN SUSIK had the opportunity to go on a field trip to the local courthouse and observe multiple trials. She had no idea the significant impact that field trip would have on her life and her career.

“When I came home from school that day, I informed my parents that I was going to be a prosecutor when I grew up. From that day forward, there was never a question or doubt in my mind that I would become a lawyer,” she recounts.

Interested in learning all she could about the legal profession, Susik spent her summers in college volunteering as an intern at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and at the MiamiDade Public Defender’s Office. After her second year of law school, she was a certified legal intern at the MiamiDade State Attorney’s Office, where she worked in the domestic violence unit attending hearings and trials at the very same courthouse she visited in fifth grade.

“Obviously, it was a very different experience. Working with victims of domestic violence is tough. It’s import-

ant work, but I realized it just wasn’t for me,” Susik says.

So, after completing her first year in law school at the University of Miami, Susik took an internship with Ryder System Inc., gaining experience in different facets of legal work at the Fortune 500 transportation and logistics company. Eight years later, Susik would return to Ryder, but not before taking an interesting and opportune detour—one that would end up shaping her career.

Susik spent six years working at a boutique maritime law firm handling complex litigation, where she sat second chair in a federal bench trial, worked with and deposed expert witnesses, and managed her own active caseload.

“I was very fortunate early on in my career that my bosses and mentors took me under their wings and encouraged me to participate in the larger and more complex cases,” Susik shares. “Through those years of litigation experience, I learned an incredibly valuable skill: how to ask the right questions. To be successful in any litigation or negotiation you must know all the facts. Discovery

What I enjoy most about working in-house is the ability to understand the business at a granular level. With that, I can apply my litigation experience to best advise the business of potential risks and then work with the team to strategize and implement initiatives to help the business achieve its goals.”

and due diligence are the difference between a win and a loss, whether in litigation or in a business negotiation.”

It was then that Susik realized it wasn’t the litigation she enjoyed the most about practicing law; in fact, it was the opposite.

“I always enjoyed counseling businesses on how to stay out of trouble. As a litigator, by the time they got to me, it was too late, of course, but I made sure to advise them on how to stay out of my office going forward,” Susik explains. “And I found that I was good at it. By working in litigation, I could see the potential risks ahead of time and advise my clients on how to be proactive about avoiding, or at least mitigating, those risks.”

When a position opened at Ryder, Susik realized it would allow her to pursue her newfound passion in law, acquire transactional skills (some -

thing she’d been interested in for some time), and return to a company with which she had a special connection.

“My father has worked at Ryder in finance for nearly thirty years,” she shares. “Based on that experience and my internship, I knew Ryder was an excellent company that truly values its employees and that the corporate values align with my personal values.”

During her interview with Ryder’s then deputy general counsel, Sandy Hodes, Susik admits she was concerned she didn’t have the transactional experience the position required.

“Turns out, he wasn’t looking for transactional experience. He was looking for someone with a litigation background like mine because litigators offer a different perspective. That’s incredibly valuable for a legal team.”

As senior counsel at Ryder, Susik supported the supply chain and dedicated transportation businesses. Three months into the job, the company acquired Whiplash, a national provider of omnichannel fulfillment and logistics services. Although new to Ryder, Susik became the lead attorney overseeing and supporting the integration of the ecommerce business. Then, in November 2022, she was actively involved in the acquisition and the integration of Dotcom Distribution Corp., a provider of omnichannel fulfillment and distribution services.

Susik’s commitment and achievements were recognized in January 2023 when she was promoted to assistant general counsel. In her current role, she is responsible for negotiating all customer and vendor agreements, and she advises the business

Gunster joins in congratulating Kristen Susik on her successful legal career. on strategic acquisitions and growth opportunities related to e-commerce.

“What I enjoy most about working in-house is the ability to understand the business at a granular level,” Susik explains. “With that, I can apply my litigation experience to best advise the business of potential risks and then work with the team to strategize and implement initiatives to help the business achieve its goals.”

While she works hard, Susik values maintaining a proper work/life balance, though it is an ongoing personal endeavor, and she notes there’s always room for improvement.

“Some of my strategies to maintain work/life balance include taking vacations to give myself the time to reset and recharge. I am not able to provide the best work product if I am mentally or physically burnt out,” she explains. “When I come back from vacation, I’m always ready to tackle things with a fresh mind.”

During the workday, she also tries to take a midday walk, if only for ten minutes, which helps her maintain her focus and approach things more mindfully. Looking ahead, Susik hopes to one day rise to general counsel but is enjoying all that she does in her current role.

“I love to learn, and I love a challenge,” she says.

Blank Rome LLP is honored to work with Kristen Susik and the Ryder team.

Blank Rome is an Am Law 100 firm with 15 offices and 700 attorneys and principals who provide comprehensive legal and advocacy services to clients operating in the United States and around the world.

As one of the state’s oldest and largest law firms, Gunster is committed to strategic growth that accommodates the evolving needs of Florida’s most prominent organizations and companies.

Since our founding in 1925, we’ve collaborated with clients like Kristen Susik to devise better strategies and build value, one transaction at a time.

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For more information, contact Stacie Townsend or Ana Paladino (561) 650-0612

As deputy general counsel and global head of intellectual property, Paul Liu is helping TuSimple pave the way for autonomous trucking

By Zach Baliva

“GET MORE PATENTS.”

Paul Liu has repeatedly heard this mandate throughout his career.

There was a time when Liu would have simply complied, perhaps when he was a recent graduate managing intellectual property (IP) for an engineering firm, but that was more than fifteen years ago.

Now when Liu is told to get more patents, he has a different response. He asks why. Liu is no longer content to collect patents and build big IP portfolios in a vacuum; he wants to make sure his work has a deeper impact and an effective return on investment for his company.

Liu is TuSimple’s deputy general counsel and global head of intellectual property. He has been with the company since 2019. He’s built various legal functions, such as with intellectual property, compliance, and commercial contracts. TuSimple has a reputation for achieving many firsts in the self-driving industry—it is the world’s first autonomous trucking company to become publicly traded and the first company to hold fully autonomous “driver-out” semitruck runs on public roads.

To pull off these seemingly futuristic feats, TuSimple’s design, engineering, development, and product

teams had to use complex innovations, technologies, and methodologies to ensure that TuSimple’s driverless trucks could interact with pedestrians and motorists while safely changing lanes, merging, and driving in daily traffic. However, autonomous trucking still has a way to go before it reaches maturity.

“Managing legal and intellectual property functions should be about more than just checking a box within a company,” he explains of his developing IP for a relatively new industry. “An effective leader finds innovative ways to partner with the C-suite to form guiding policies,

evaluate opportunities, and move the company forward.”

That advice is exactly what Liu has done with his holistic approach at TuSimple. In times both good and bad, he focuses on the people, teams, and tasks that he can control. “I can’t really impact global trade relations or international conflicts, but I can influence our IP, our policies, our training, our investor relations, and our procedures,” he says. Liu is careful to monitor emerging trends and technologies so he can help TuSimple hedge against new developments in issues ranging from artificial intelligence to export compliance. By focusing

on those things—the things he can control—Liu is able to both anticipate and prepare.

Liu is focused on broadening himself into a leader and creating an effective team. He hires candidates who are a cultural fit and have important technical skills, and he tends to select candidates who have training at major law firms or experience with reputable in-house teams.

Public speaking is also one of Liu’s strong suits and he’s written for leading industry publications such as Intellectual Asset Management. The magazine recognized him as one of “The World’s Leading IP Strategists” since 2022.

Paul Liu

Deputy General Counsel and Global Head of Intellectual Property

Working in the nascent autonomous trucking industry is like trying to hit a moving bullseye in a dark room.”

Jon Rivera

Although Liu was brought to the company to take on an IP centric role, he was quick to take on additional roles that emphasized how legal functions are holistic and interconnected. “No company can handle legal and intellectual property risks and opportunities in a vacuum, and a successful leader will accelerate his or her program by hiring smart legal minds and finding people that are comfortable engaging various departments and leaders to develop goals aligned with the business,” he says.

Collaboration is a key part of Liu’s management strategy. One of the first things he did at TuSimple was create a supportive and synergistic environment by removing obstacles to creativity. If engineers don’t like to write, Liu will come to them armed with a pad and paper to meet the engineers at their convenience to obtain invention disclosures.

At TuSimple, IP is more than just another legal function. It also touches HR, marketing, business development, and other departments. “If you hire diverse engineers but you lack diverse inventors, then you might have a wasted opportunity, as you may be harnessing ideas only from the loudest voices,” he says, adding that he tracks metrics for the full usage of company resources. He also helps his peers in marketing tell the complex TuSimple story using measurable metrics such as the count and quality of patents, and he advises his business development colleagues on the pros and cons of potential collaborations based on an evaluation of legal risk.

The future of driverless trucking is dynamic, which makes Liu’s job challenging. “Working in the nascent autonomous trucking industry is like trying to hit a moving bullseye in a dark room,” he says. Liu’s efforts to introduce flexible strategies give his company optionality to pivot to new business paths in a changing market environment. And the opportunity is huge: TuSimple estimates the total addressable market is around $800 billion in the US and $4 trillion worldwide. Liu has TuSimple in a great position to keep on trucking.

Brittany Mouzourakis prides herself on being a team player as an in-house attorney at the automotive giant

By Noah Johnson

SINCE COMING TO GENERAL MOTORS in 2019, Brittany Mouzourakis has played a key role in several successful class action and commercial cases. Mouzourakis credits that success to her ability to embody the company’s “one team” corporate value in every interaction she has.

“On a day-to-day basis, I try to embody the idea that we’re all working for one team,” shares Mouzourakis, complex litigation counsel. “So, we don’t just say, ‘This issue falls with a different group, so that group

needs to get it done.’ It’s a mentality that we all need to work together, we all need to step up to the plate to work collaboratively for enterprise-wide results. That’s what makes a successful litigator.”

That mentality is evident in the lawyer’s leadership approach. Mouzourakis sets the tone for those she works with by rolling up her sleeves and showcasing the characteristics she wants them to have. This approach has not only resulted in stronger relationships with her colleagues but also allowed her to work on a variety of cases and to feed her love for learning.

“What’s interesting about class action work is that it can touch on various legal issues,” Mouzourakis says. Her work can touch on data, privacy, environmental, and consumer issues, requiring her to constantly delve into various sectors of both business and law. “That’s been a highlight for me because it is interesting to learn about different areas of the law and to be able to pivot. It’s a great skill to have, especially as an in-house lawyer. You need to be willing and able to learn new skills in order to be successful.”

Mouzourakis didn’t have any lawyers in her immediate family and wasn’t exposed to many legal professionals growing up, but she always knew she wanted to be one. She believes it stems from her early interests in civics and government, where she noticed many senators and presidents had law degrees. She wanted to make her mark on the world, which meant she needed one, too.

After getting an undergraduate degree from Central Michigan University and a law degree from Pennsylvania State University,

Mouzourakis gained her earliest legal experiences as a judicial law clerk at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Her two years there taught her how to both think deeply about legal issues and write clearly and concisely. She also learned what “good lawyering” looked like.

“I was on the other side of the bench, so I was able to see great lawyering and to learn from practitioners who would appear before the court,” she says. “During my clerkship, I worked on a number of trials and watched countless proceedings.”

In 2016, she stepped into a litigation associate role at Dykema, eager to begin her law practice. She took on every assignment, always raised her hand, and never denied an opportunity. At Dykema, Mouzourakis got a chance to do work in the automotive industry, primarily on class action defense. Those experiences were a natural stepping stone for Mouzourakis to one day work at GM.

“In private practice, I wanted to learn and wanted every opportunity that came towards me. I spent a lot of hours and years working and learning how to be a better lawyer and advocate,” Mouzourakis reflects. “I didn’t always know I wanted to go in-house, but around my fifth year, I was open to it if the right opportunity presented itself. I thought that it could be interesting to transition and work exclusively for one client versus what I was doing at the firm.”

So far, her role at GM has provided the change she was looking for. In addition to her work with the complex litigation group, Mouzourakis has enjoyed her involvement in GM Women+, an employee resource group

Mayer Brown is honored to work with Brittany Mouzourakis at General Motors. We are proud to recognize her hard work and strategic insights.

that offers a space for women to collaborate and form connections over an array of programing. She’s taken on increased leadership roles with GM Women+ throughout her time in the company.

after having her son in the spring. She shares advice for how other full-time working moms can balance work and life.

|

mayerbrown.com

Through GM Women+, Mouzourakis has met women in the group who have served as mentors and given her guidance at GM. “It’s an important space because it’s a way for women to come together, network, and to talk about issues,” she says.

During her tenure at the company, she became a mother

“Try to manage your time as best and efficiently as you can so that you can continue your professional success but also dedicate your time to your family,” Mouzourakis emphasizes. “It’s about time management, and you have to be more dialed into preparing for and mapping out the week. But you can balance family and work if you really take the time to plan things out.”

Brittany Mouzourakis Complex Litigation Counsel General Motors

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

Theme & Variation

Michael Buchwald is a drummer in his downtime, but the lawyer has helped keep the tempo at the NFL through one of the more challenging periods of modern world history

By Billy Yost

IN 2021, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SUPER Bowl history, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took home the Vince Lombardi Trophy while playing on their home field. But that’s not what Michael Buchwald remembers the most.

The vice president and legal counsel for the National Football League (NFL) remembers the staging of the event in Tampa, Florida, with far more clarity than the winning team’s celebration.

“It was a surreal moment because it was the Super Bowl, but a Super Bowl like no other,” Buchwald explains. “We had limited capacity because of COVID19. There were a limited number of fans allowed in the building and at the hotel, we had all of these restrictions on how we could interact with colleagues and others. You essentially operated from your position during the game and then went back to your room.”

A great deal of change occurred in the attorney’s world since he last spoke with Modern Counsel in 2019. For one thing, as his tenure at the league has lengthened, Buchwald has taken a more direct and integral role in various matters and in the overall business of the NFL. Once COVID hit, though, the more pressing issue at the League was how the thirty-two team league would be able to present its football games in the middle of a global pandemic.

“I don’t think anyone anywhere wants to think back on that time more than they have to,” Buchwald says. “But in my case, I remember getting up out of bed, wandering over to the computer while the kids were trying to do school from home, and then jumping on a Zoom call with thirty other people in similar situations, all putting our heads together to try to figure out how to make an NFL season happen.”

One particularly inspiring moment from this time, as Buchwald remembers, was the successful presentation of the first-ever, fully remote, live NFL Draft. There would be no live shots of huge groups gathered in cities across America, celebrating together as their team selected the next potential Tom Brady who would lead their team to a Super Bowl victory.

Instead, cameras were installed in the homes of all the draft prospects, coaches, the general managers of NFL teams, and the NFL Commissioner. It was the first major live event during COVID that, for a few moments, sought to reunite a world that had been sent home.

One of the high points of the night? New England legendary coach Bill Belichick somehow swapped places with his Alaskan Klee Kai, with the chyron identifying the dog as the most Super

“A big part of elevating and defining my role at the NFL has been intentionally seeking ways to demonstrate leadership in my own way.”

Bowl-winning coach in history. It was television even a casual sports fan could get behind.

“It was finally a chance for people to interact with the rest of the world around a live event,” Buchwald remembers. “I felt so proud of this organization and how we were able to pull it off. I think it was the first step to being able to make two full seasons work during such a challenging time.”

As things eventually worked their way back to some semblance of normalcy, Buchwald would develop into his new role, one that after ten years with the NFL is still allowing him to grow in a multitude of new directions.

Having spent a great deal of his career collaborating with outside counsel on litigation matters and helping translate that work to the broader business, Buchwald is now more directly engaged with the everyday business of the organization. The VP is more embedded with the business and in tune with the overall goals of the league, not just from a litigation standpoint but also as a risk manager, advisor, and broader member of the business team working to drive better outcomes.

“It’s a chance to be less of a reactive legal advisor and more of someone who is issue-spotting and troubleshooting, thinking about the kinds of risk we may face in our operations, and figuring out how to proactively manage that and advising our team,” he says.

He works closely with external partners across a variety of issues as well, such as Laura Flahive Wu and Cléa Liquard, partners at Covington & Burling LLP who

Michael Buchwald VP and Legal Counsel National Football League

worked with Buchwald on insurance coverage litigation over a billion-dollar player concussion settlement. “Mike combines terrific litigation judgment and League knowledge with a practical, collaborative approach,” the pair says. “He elevates everyone on the team and is an absolute joy to work with.”

Buchwald is also engaged with the league’s extensive employee resource groups and community partnerships. The week of his interview in October 2023, the VP was running a professional exposure program for a group of high school students—notably a college prep high school for students from challenging backgrounds—to teach them about all of the ways they might be able to work in football, even if they’re not catching passes.

“A big part of elevating and defining my role at the NFL has been intentionally seeking ways to demonstrate leadership in my own way, whether that’s taking a more active role in the professional development of colleagues; training and mentoring interns and future employees of the league; or devoting time to give back to the community.” Buchwald says. “I feel fortunate to have found my way to being a lawyer for the NFL, and I want to use that opportunity and platform to give back.”

Being a lawyer for the NFL was not something Buchwald imagined when he was starting out. Buchwald seriously considered going to school to play drums for a living. Luckily, the VP has been keeping his chops up and had

some upcoming gigs he was prepping for during his off hours.

But while his day job does not involve playing drums, in a manner of speaking, Buchwald still helps keep the tempo at the NFL. It’s been ten years, but he continues to find new ways to bring extensive in-house value to the league.

Vinson & Elkins has worked with Mike for more than a decade, and every time, his excellent judgment, strategic thinking, and knowledge of the sports industry combine are obvious. He is a real asset to the NFL.

Leading the Way

Vinson

Mike Buchwald

Covington salutes our friend and colleague for his exceptional skill and leadership. We are proud to partner with him and the NFL.

From Semiconductors to Patent Law

Fascinated by the materials and the processes used to manufacture semiconductors, Micron Technology’s Heather Molleur has carved out a successful twenty-year career in patent law

By Frank DiMaria

WHILE STUDYING CHEMISTRY AT Wellesley College, Heather Molleur attended a career day specifically targeted to the few chemistry students at the liberal arts school.

“There were some graduates from the school who had gone into the patent profession—some as patent agents and some as lawyers. That just really appealed to me,” Molleur remembers.

That day was an inflection point in her life and set her on a path to patent law. Today, as senior patent counsel at Micron Technology, Molleur is charged with protecting the semicon-

ductor manufacturer’s innovations as the directions of its products and priorities evolve over time. “The overarching theme is that I have the right strategy in place for the product division,” she says.

Molleur spends the bulk of her time on patent development, hunting down inventions in need of protection, while also keeping an eye on the future. “Patents go for twenty years, so I talk to a lot of the leadership on the engineering teams and in product management and in sales and marketing to get a full approach,” she explains.

The attorney supports Micron’s solid state device products by interfacing with research and development teams that are in the nascent stages of product development. “Once we identify what these products are, I encourage the inventors to submit their ideas into our systems,” Molleur says. “I will do brainstorming sessions, or what we call invention harvests, where they’ve already developed features for certain products.”

The rest of the time, Molleur works on the trademark side, clearing trademarks and phrases that Micron

“I think the patent profession overall is just a great place for women to be.”

product teams hope to use in marketing. Given the visibility of semiconductors in recent news, this is a challenge. Through embargoes and boycotts, the US is attempting to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors that could lead to innovations that fuel breakthroughs and advance its military capabilities. The US has also done the same with Russia. This geopolitical friction makes Molleur’s work difficult.

“We’re not really allowed to sell products in Russia and in China . . . and that’s creating some challenges

with those regions in terms of getting the trademarks and getting the local regions and the words or phrases or terms that are common for the memory storage industry,” Molleur says. “We have a fair amount of actions we take and options or even appeals. We go to the civil courts there so I have a more direct role guiding those actions with the trademark portion of my job.”

Another challenge Molleur faces is quashing attempts by competitors to piggyback on its success by trademarking names and products similar to Micron’s.

Heather Molleur Senior Patent Counsel

Micron Technology

“With a chemistry background, the materials and process used in semiconductors was a huge interest to me. That’s where I got my start.”

She heads up a team of three “very experienced” lawyers who have been with Micron far longer than she has. Her leadership style is “hands-off.” Although she respects her teams’ skills, she encourages each to build upon them through courses, by working with service vendors, and using IT management tools.

With nearly twenty years of experience in law, Molleur has a passion for mentoring young women, telling them patent law is an attainable career. The number of women entering law has risen in the past twenty years, she says, but few are choosing patent law.

They’re not reluctant to study law. They’re reluctant to study science and engineering, which are required for patent law. “I think the patent profession overall is just a great place for women to be,” she adds. “The greatest block there is just knowledge that it exists.”

Molleur’s personal journey to patent law began with an interest in the semiconductor industry following graduation with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She moved to California from Boston and enrolled in University of California, Davis Law, earning her JD in 2002.

“With a chemistry background, the materials and process used in semiconductors was a huge interest to me. That’s where I got my start,” she says. “The equipment and processes used captured my imagination. These integrated circuits are so remarkable . . . everything is so tiny, and there’s very little margin for error.”

Since arriving in California, Molleur has worked for a variety of large, established corporations and smaller start-ups, like Halio, Intermolecular, Symantec, and

Applied Materials. The greatest revelation on her journey came as intellectual property counsel at Symantec.

“They had a lot of open source, and I was amazed at how the open source team came up with a way to get all of that reviewed and tracked. That was a really big learning experience,” Molleur recalls. For the first time, she encountered a software capable of extracting inventions and triggering an internal review process, streamlining that process and improving communication.

Her current position at Micron has brought her career “full circle.” Although she began her law career in the semiconductor space, she had stops along the way at organizations outside of the industry.

“Everything I’ve learned at all of these companies—the skills, the software systems, the artificial intelligence skills—is going into semiconductor products at this point,” Molleur says. “It’s all just coming together.”

Lowenstein Sandler proudly supports

MODERN COUNSEL

Holland & Hart:

“Heather is a talented intellectual property leader who leverages her extensive technical and legal experience to strategically protect Micron’s critical innovations. Her impact has been significant, and she deftly collaborates with both engineering teams and outside counsel. It’s our privilege to partner with Heather to achieve Micron’s goals.” —Phil Harris, Partner

With special recognition of Heather Molleur, Senior Patent Counsel at Micron Technology

Love for Law & Business

Alicia White shares her journey to Whole Foods, her leadership philosophy, and more

By Noah Johnson

ALICIA WHITE GREW UP WITH VISIONS of going to court and practicing law, inspired by her dad’s best friend. That’s until she went to law school.

“I got into law school and thought, ‘I’m never going to court,’” she says with a smile. Instead, White developed an interest in contracts and in the governance side of law. Plus, with an undergraduate degree in management, she found herself drawn to the business world. She realized a law

Alicia White

Deputy General Counsel of Operational Transactions, Corporate Governance & Regulatory Compliance

Whole Foods

Alicia White’s Advice to

Young Lawyers

“It’s imperative for an inhouse lawyer to understand the business inside and out and build strong internal relationships. I would not be where I am today without the support of my business partners. It is important to establish your role as a leader early in your career. When people view you as a strong leader, they show up for you and want to work on your team.”

degree would complement her business acumen no matter where she ended up.

White’s five years in private practice only further deepened her interest in business, especially when she got a chance to support Whole Foods as outside counsel. She learned about the company and formed key relationships, but she wanted more.

“That’s when I realized that I would much rather be in-house,” she recalls. “You would be assigned a contract to review and only get a small piece of the puzzle.” White wanted the inside perspective to understand the company’s risk tolerances, providing her with the full picture and the tools necessary to make the best possible decision for the company.

So, in 2006, White joined Whole Food’s ranks as an in-house attorney and has been with the company for nearly twenty years. Today, she serves as deputy general counsel for operational transactions, corporate governance, and regulatory compliance. In her role, she manages a team responsible for merchandising, supply chain, retail operations, and corporate governance legal support. Further, she oversees incident management and compliance for food safety and quality.

This position has allowed her to achieve her long-time dream: merging her love for law and business.

“What’s special about my role is the diversity in it,” she says. “I’m not just a lawyer anymore. I’ve become a business leader, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.”

The majority of White’s team are not lawyers and paralegals but instead members of supply chain food safety and quality, facilities safety, and incident management. Because of the variety of people that she works with, White gets to influence many areas of Whole Foods’ business and collaborate with leadership from different teams.

Throughout her time at the company, White has evolved a lot. When she joined, she was just one of three lawyers on a small-but-mighty legal team and spent years taking on a variety of responsibilities in the department. As she became a leader, she was tasked with transitioning some of her peers to work beneath her. While situations like that were difficult, they helped to shape the empathetic and inclusive leadership philosophy that she holds today.

She wants her team members to feel safe speaking up and to know that they are welcome, valued, and heard. “If someone’s not talking in a

meeting, I think they don’t feel comfortable and I’m going to address that,” she notes. “I also make sure that each of my team members have my undivided attention when they reach out to me.”

As a leader, White also places emphasis on the importance of work/life balance and draws from her personal journey to relate with others.

“My family fuels me to be successful as a role model for my children,” reflects White, who is a mother of four. “This has also helped me as a leader. You never know what someone else has going on in their personal life that impacts them at work. You may have aging parents you are supporting, your own health issues, children, a partner to care for, etc. I always provide work flexibility when I can.”

Further, White serves on the company’s higher purpose committee, which works to align on the social and environmental impacts the company wants to make. White and her team are focused on compliance efforts related to the Food Safety Modernization Act for the foreseeable future. White and her colleagues have an abundance of exciting projects on the horizon at Whole Foods and even more potential to make a strong impact.

We congratulate our alumnus and friend, Alicia White, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Merchandising, Operations Transactions, Corporate Governance, and Regulatory Compliance at Whole Foods Market, on her many accomplishments and recognition in Modern Counsel.

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©2023 Haynes and Boone, LLP

Luck & Law

Leading from a place of purpose and respect is what allows Chris Garvey to connect with his colleagues at Fifth Third Bank and take pride in his career

By Noah Johnson

IN 2016, CHRIS GARVEY, VICE PRESIDENT and deputy general counsel at Fifth Third Bank, brought three decades worth of litigation, litigation operations, regulatory enforcement, and crisis management experience to the role. He also brought a leadership philosophy that’s not only kept the leader humble throughout his career but also helped his teams ground their work in a place of respect and purpose.

“Whether you’re in-house or at a law firm, everyone has a job to do and has a

Chris Garvey SVP and Deputy General Counsel Fifth Third Bank

perspective born out of their experience that’s different than yours. You have to stay humble and be open to new ideas, input, and the fact that what you think may not always be right,” he says. “Leaders get in trouble when they become convinced that their way is the right way and the only way, but it’s important to seek input, have people challenge you, try to figure out what you don’t know, and empower your team to do the same.”

Garvey admits that his philosophy was tested during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the team to transform the way it operated, including how his colleagues stayed engaged with each other during stints of remote work. To navigate that difficult time, the team focused on collaborating and communicating.

They “manufactured opportunities to maintain connection” as Garvey puts it, checking in with each other every

day, then two days a week, and so on. Through those kinds of digital interactions, they found ways to foster the connections that everyone in the workplace took for granted before the pandemic.

“COVID really upended everything and forced us to think differently about a lot of things. Because of that, we have to focus on what we’re trying to accomplish here and who we have to accomplish it with,” Garvey explains. “In some ways it’s been helpful. We went

into it strong and came out stronger. We feel very cohesive and together as a litigation team.”

Garvey has wanted to be a lawyer for as long as he can remember. In high school and college, he pursued various opportunities that exposed him to what it meant to be a practicing attorney. In law school, he drifted toward litigation and after he graduated, he went on to gain a wide range of experiences at several firms. The diversity of matters

Fifth Third Bank’s Big Wins

Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies

(2023, 2022, 2021, 2019)

Just 100: America’s Most Just Companies (2023)

Wealth For Good Award (2023, 2022)

Corporation of the Year (2022, 2021)

Newsweek ’s America’s Most Responsible Companies (2022, 2021, 2020)

Source: Fifth Third Bank

“I learned to keep going and to keep trying to get better. Some people start and are naturals, and that’s great. Others need time, and it takes a while for them to get up to speed.”

he got a chance to take on is something he reflects fondly on.

“I worked on a lot of different things and got a lot of different skill sets. I took any matter that someone asked me to do or that was available. I often hear lawyers getting pigeonholed or so specialized that they don’t get to see the broader context,” he says. “I was lucky.”

Early on in his career, Garvey also developed a mind for constant improvement—a mindset that’s stuck with him as a leader.

“I learned to keep going and to keep trying to get better. Some people start and are naturals, and that’s great. Others need time, and it takes a while for them to get up to speed,” he explains. “It wasn’t until five or so years into my career that I could have a ‘been there, done that’ mindset, but even then, you just learn to keep going, to be humble to the work, put in the time, and to constantly learn new things.”

Garvey went on to serve as an Am Law 50 equity trial partner and serve as a senior vice president and legal team lead at Bank of America responsible for solving unprecedented financial crisis exposures.

Now the deputy general counsel’s advice for young lawyers looking to succeed in their careers is twofold.

“Take time to enjoy what you’re doing and the people you work with. Yes, it’s a serious career, but we’re lucky and privileged to be in a profession and to have people trust us,” he says. “Second, you can learn what to do and what not to do from everyone. Smart people learn what mistakes not to make from other people.”

Love, Like, & the Peace of Sleeping Sound

Ali Seals talks acquisitions, sustainability, and finding the proper balance in his career at Weyerhaeuser

By Will Grant

WHEN MUHAMMAD ALI SQUARED off against undefeated George Foreman for the heavyweight championship of the world in 1974, Ali found himself the four-to-one underdog in a sport he had dominated for a decade. Ali was older, slower, and the expectation was that the veteran boxer—who had been stripped of his title in 1967 due to his protest of the Vietnam War—wouldn’t stand a chance against the sheer brutality of Foreman’s blows.

The Rumble in the Jungle played out a different way. After spending months training in Zaire, where the fight was hosted, Ali was able to tire Foreman out, changing tactics mid-fight to let Foreman unleash staggering punches on his body, sapping the strength of the champion over eight rounds, Ali taunting him every step of the way.

Ali Seals didn’t move to Zaire like his namesake, but he did move cross-country from Seattle to take on his new role at Weyerhaeuser. Seals also didn’t have to absorb any blows in his new role, but he’s had to learn an entirely new way of interacting with

his time in his role as senior director of alternative acquisitions.

A Whole Different View

Seals is now tasked with translating his legal background to enabling deals, communicating with stakeholders without JDs, and helping find new and innovative ways of keeping a highly environmentally minded timber company profitable, growing, and staying close to its sustainability commitments.

“It’s a whole different way of interacting,” the senior director explains from his new Atlanta home. “This is, first and foremost, results-oriented in a way that might feel very different for some lawyers. There isn’t a whole lot of a premium placed on being introspective. That isn’t a judgment in any way, it’s just a different way of getting things done.”

Seals is no stranger to evolution. His almost frantic work pace has earned him awards and promotions, but it’s the growth he’s demonstrated since learning how to take a breath

Before Going Full Seals

Ali Seals is easy to spot. He’s probably in a hoodie and sporting the latest and greatest Jordan’s on his feet. But he advises younger attorneys to take their time and learn to play the game before going “full Seals” in their own roles.

“My look, I’m sure, has impacted me negatively at times,” he admits. “For me, no amount of money is going to get me to tie a sweater around my neck. But I didn’t show up like this my first day. You need to demonstrate your commitment to your role before you start making it your own. Establish your value, make that good impression, then do you.”

occasionally that has opened him up to even more opportunities within Weyerhaeuser, including moving cross-country and tackling acquisitions. Fortunately, the years he spent building relationships across the organization are bearing fruit.

“Had I come into this role having not been exposed to the stakeholders before, I think it would have been extraordinarily difficult to both try and build those relationships while also learning my job,” Seals says, laughing. “These are people who I can ask if I’m even asking for the right thing. There are a lot of people around me who know a lot more about this part of the business, and I’m not afraid to ask for help. That helps me help them down the line.”

Sleeping Sound

Seals has kept Weyerhaeuser’s commitment to the environment front and center, a difficult proposition in most businesses. In fact, being carbon neutral (which Weyerhaeuser is) isn’t enough.

“We have a ton of trees. Great. But what else? It has to be more than that,” Seals says. “We need to figure out how we convert to different fuels in our mills and reduce our carbon footprint even further. I get to scout out the assets that can make it a reality. Our job is to grow Weyerhaeuser by supporting natural climate solutions.”

Weyerhaeuser is ahead of the curve. The company has solar farms, wind farms, mitigation banking, and carbon capture projects on all of its properties. Seals says the company seeks out partners with expertise in these fields. If more land is needed, the senior director is tasked with sourcing and acquiring it.

The work makes Seals feel good, and in corporate law, that can sometimes be hard to come by.

“When I lay my head down at night, I want to be able to enjoy my sleep,” he says.

“I am not going to fudge the truth or let something slide that I am not comfortable with. I just can’t live like that. And I won’t. That probably explains why I’ve been here for ten years.”

When speaking with law classes, he’s often asked if he loves his job. The response is characteristically Seals.

“I love my mom. I love my dog. I like my job,” Seals has told numerous law classes. “You have to make sure that you’re getting what you need out of your life. That balance is crucial. What tips the scale for me here is the opportunity to dig into things that are truly my passion, whether it’s DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] or mentorship opportunities. It’s finding that balance. You can make money doing about anything, but you need to make sure that you like your life.”

Eversheds Sutherland is honored to recognize Weyerhaeuser’s Ali Seals. Ali exemplifies Weyerhaeuser’s culture of innovation, and we appreciate the opportunity to be your legal partner. Congratulations on your outstanding achievements.

Since our inception, Eversheds Sutherland has been a legal innovator in the forestry and climate solutions industries, representing clients in the most complex transactions as the industry has evolved.

Victor Haley Partner

Eversheds Sutherland victorhaley@ eversheds-sutherland.com

Client Commitment. Innovative Solutions. Global Service.

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© Eversheds Sutherland Ltd. 2023 Attorney Advertising

The Importance of Being Patient

From studying psychology to moving inhouse at BAE Systems Inc., Michael Petrie shows how a winding career path can pay off tenfold with a little patience

By Noah Johnson

AS A COLLEGE STUDENT AT SYRACUSE University, Michael Petrie faced a dilemma that many young people come up against: he didn’t know which career path to take.

“It was my first attempt at higher education, and I was a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old who had this idea of, ‘You go to college to go to business school, and then you pursue business— whatever that is,’” he says. “I didn’t have much success. I probably didn’t know

enough about what I wanted in life and how to make the most of college. That, combined with other life events, had me exiting after two years.”

He ended up taking a semester off to regroup and then enrolled at the University of Connecticut as a psychology major. When he graduated, he considered a career in psychology and social work, even going as far as applying to a master’s program at Boston College and getting accepted.

But he just wasn’t convinced he had found his calling.

“During that time, I had worked a job at a social work facility in Boston, which was a residential treatment facility for teens. It was eye-opening, rewarding, and sobering at times,” he says, “but I was also starting to think about other paths that would be more self-sustaining, because I was making so little money that I had to take on multiple jobs bartending and working at restaurants.”

As he deliberated his future and kept his options open, Petrie decided to pursue law school, believing that path might provide not only the money he needed to survive, but also a variety of skills that could be applied to various industries and positions.

It took time, but he realized it was his true calling. He went on to spend the first six years of his law career as an associate at Jackson Lewis LLP, Robinson & Cole LLP and at Halloran & Sage LLP. He continued to hone his legal expertise at Jorden Burt LLP before moving in-house

at Clarks as an associate general counsel and director of legal affairs.

Today, Petrie serves as deputy chief counsel of labor and employment, litigation, and real estate at BAE Systems Inc. As he reflects on his journey to the role, he says one of the major lessons he had to learn was how to be patient with your career.

“You have to be motivated to figure things out, but also give yourself time to experience and learn what you like,” he explains. “It’s not true for everyone, but when I was early in my journey, I felt a degree of impatience like I should’ve already arrived at my dream job. You need to make sure you

Michael Petrie Deputy Chief Counsel of Labor & Employment, Litigation & Real Estate BAE Systems

Inc.

White and Williams LLP salutes Michael Petrie

BAE Systems, Inc.

for his leadership and contributions to developing a workplace that encourages all people to build lasting, authentic relationships.

Why Did Michael Petrie Move In-House?

“In a law firm, I got a sense that at a certain point I wasn’t happy. I didn’t know why until I moved in-house. I realized I enjoyed the kind of problem-solving, partnership, and collaboration that comes in-house. So as much as I advise people to be patient in their careers, I also say if you know you’re not in the right place, make sure you put yourself where you’re happy.”

don’t put pressure on yourself to be perfect on day one.”

Since he’s been at BAE Systems, there’s been no shortage of initiatives that he’s been proud to be a part of, but some of the most inspiring work happened during the pandemic. He and his colleagues worked to make decisions surrounding COVID-19 protocols and to navigate how employees reacted to those changes.

“Inevitably, some felt we did too much, imposing on their First Amendment rights, and others felt we weren’t doing enough. The hardest part about it was you had to make sure you provided consideration to everyone’s story in ways that were respectful,” Petrie says. “We go through it by having a sensitivity to those stories and by making sure we were doing the right thing for the company and for employees.”

Leaders looking to balance those priorities in their organizations need to be willing to set aside their personal opinions for the greater good.

“Be willing to look at things from a different lens,” he advises. “It’s not our place to judge the rightness or wrongness of everyone’s lives, experience, or what they believe. We relied on humanistic principles of making sure we didn’t elevate any one person’s story over the other.”

Humanitarian

General Counsel Hadley Moss has found his perfect match in Goal Zero, a company dedicated to giving back and making the world a better place

By Natalie Kochanov

at Heart

“The way we treat people and the way we behave as professionals ultimately has an effect on this world that is bigger than any individual negotiation or deal.”

HADLEY MOSS HADN’T PLANNED on becoming an attorney. In fact, before starting college, he didn’t have a plan for his career at all.

“I was a Mormon missionary in Hungary for two years, and people kept asking me what I was going to do when I got back,” he explains. “I got tired of telling them I didn’t know, so I started saying that I was going to go to law school. And it just kind of stuck.”

Moss discovered a genuine passion for the law while studying political science at the University of Utah. Today, as general counsel at Goal Zero, he channels that passion toward the company’s mission of creating portable power solutions—and getting those solutions into the hands of those most in need.

Once he had made the decision to practice law, Moss set his sights on going in-house. He joined Lifetime Products, an outdoor recreational products company, directly out of law school. After spending several years handling intellectual property litigation and investigations at Lifetime, he went on to gain project-based legal experience at solar industry innovator Array Technologies.

Some three years ago, Moss made the jump to Goal Zero. His day-to-day now runs the gamut from contracts and disputes to product design and safety. The wide spectrum of matters on which he advises leads him to liken the role of general counsel to that of an informal therapist for the company. “When you get hired as general counsel, you end up working on whatever problems the business has, whether those problems fall under legal or not,” he says, laughing.

Exemplifying the unexpected nature of his work, Moss represented Goal Zero’s leadership team on a twoyear project to build the company’s new headquarters. “For two years, I was a full-service construction manager,” he says. “I had worked in construction all through college, albeit a very different type of construction. This was a pretty interesting project because we were doing it in the middle of COVID, so we had to find really creative solutions to be able to get the building completed in a time frame that worked.”

Moss has lent his problem-solving skills to the transformation of Goal Zero’s international business as well. “COVID was so hard on supply chain

that we’ve really had to reinvent ourselves as a company in terms of how we source components and how we deal with our international distributors,” he elaborates. “That’s required restructuring and renegotiating a lot of contracts to help redefine how we do business internationally.”

When it comes to leading his team, Moss falls back on an idea that he picked up from a colleague at Lifetime. “Good results are not good enough,” he emphasizes. “You have to get good results from good behaviors, and that is a culture problem more than an individual problem. Your business has to be set up in a way that promotes the right behaviors.”

That is certainly the case at Goal Zero. “One of the big reasons I was excited to come here is that the company was founded with a humanitarian heart,” Moss says. “Our founder created our first product because he was looking for a way to bring basic power to places grid power was unlikely to reach. Goal Zero has always kept that foundation in mind.”

He adds that the company aims to give back through at least two humanitarian projects—one domestic and one international—each year. “We’ll

Hadley Moss General Counsel Goal Zero

go down to areas in Navajo Nation where there isn’t grid and install batteries and solar panels so people have access to basic power and even basic food security, which requires refrigeration,” he says. “We also work with a group that builds education centers in impoverished areas. We provide the power and the solar, and then Dell comes in and sets up small computer labs, again in areas that wouldn’t otherwise have power or the internet.”

Beyond his community involvement through Goal Zero, Moss is an active participant in the leadership

of his church, where he assists with welfare management. His commitment to helping others finds an echo in the advice that he always offers to up-and-coming attorneys. “Hold onto your humanity,” he urges. “Remember that the way we treat people and the way we behave as professionals ultimately has an effect on this world that is bigger than any individual negotiation or deal.”

For proof that empathy can yield a positive impact, one need look no further than Goal Zero—or, better yet, Moss himself.

Maschoff Brennan is proud to work with Hadley Moss as he continues to light the way and power innovation.

Andy Earl

The Calm in the Storm

Susan

Greenspon Rammelt shares her philosophy behind navigating uncertainty and change

By Noah Johnson

WHEN SUSAN GREENSPON RAMMELT joined SmileDirectClub in 2018 as chief legal officer, she and her colleagues helped usher it into a time of plentitude. They secured and closed on an equity raise of over $400 million won a “bet the company” litigation against one the company’s largest competitors, and helped it obtain regulatory approvals for its medical devices on an international basis. Wins like these enabled the teledentistry company to take its next big step: going public.

“The lead up to going public was an incredible experience. Everyone worked long hours in the months preceding the IPO but when we got to the night before we were to ring the bell at Nasdaq, and were oversubscribed by ten times, the hours put in seemed well worth it,” she reflects.

That was until the market changed overnight and seemingly without warning. Suddenly, the cascade of successes and accelerated growth became irrelevant as investors and analysts shifted their focus on the collapse of the WeWork IPO (which was scheduled to go public that same week) and companies with a history of profits rather than explosive growth, resulting in the company setting a chilling record: to have one of the worst first day performances for an IPO in nearly three decades.

“To go from being a company that was way oversubscribed to being one

that went hours without having a share of stock bought or sold was beyond shocking,” Rammelt says.

“Dealing with that overnight shift and the short selling that occurred after that was incredibly challenging and frustrating,” she adds. “Nothing about the company had changed during that twenty-four-hour window, and yet we had to spend the next six consecutive quarters proving that the company was on solid ground and had to deal with a high level of shorting until the very end.”

For this company, however, success was challenged from every direction, leading to the need for a legal team that could meet those challenges at the state, federal, and international levels. These challenges included direct and indirect attacks from powerful trade associations made up of competitors, criticism from the media that was also often competitor-driven, competitor-driven investigations, a global pandemic, ongoing challenging macroeconomic factors, and ultimately the decision to file for bankruptcy and wind down operations.

These kinds of issues are enough to leave the most seasoned leaders with a spinning head, but not Rammelt. As a leader who wears many hats in the organization, she feels responsible for being “the duck on the pond” to her senior leadership, legal team, and others throughout the company.

“To go from being a company that was way oversubscribed to being one that went hours without having a share of stock bought or sold was beyond shocking.”

“No one can be aware of how fast your feet are peddling underneath the water, particularly when the company is facing any sort of crisis,” she says. “My job is to be the calm in the storm no matter what the winds are doing around me and to find the best path out of the hurricane for the benefit of all stakeholders.

“Certainly, filing for bankruptcy was a daunting process that is filled with uncertainty for anyone who is not in the bankruptcy industry,” she continues. “As was the case in so many other situations at SmileDirectClub, this was a new experience for all of us, myself included. Rather than fearing it, however, I looked at it as a learning process—a chance to obtain additional

skills and experience and have encouraged others to view it the same way.”

From the way she carries herself today, Rammelt comes across as someone who can look at every unfamiliar situation like she’s seen it before. But the leader admits that the calm posture she takes toward uncertainty took time. She started her career as corporate transactional associate in Big Law, making it to partner in six short years, but not without a lot of mentoring along the way. “Doing well in law school came easy for me so it was surprising to see all the red ink on draft documents as a young associate,” she admits. “I had to learn that those markups were training, not a criticism, and that while law school may have

Susan Greenspon Rammelt Chief Legal Officer, EVP of Business Affairs, and Corporate Secretary

SmileDirectClub

been in the review mirror, the ongoing learning was not.”

While Rammelt soon became comfortable advising clients as a partner in Big Law, making the transition to being an in-house chief legal officer was yet another situation where she had to learn to get uncomfortable and embrace change and challenge.

“I had zero background in healthcare, let alone telehealth, other than as the relationship partner for the company for less than a year while I was still in private practice,” she says. For Rammelt, making the shift to going in-house to SmileDirectClub not only was a drastic change professionally, but also required a whole new set of skills that had to be learned on the fly given the fast trajectory the company was on and the numerous attacks it faced as a disruptor in the industry.

“Drinking from a firehose would be an understatement, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything,” she affirms. “I learned more in the past five-and-a-halfplus years than I had in thirty years of private practice.”

When Rammelt took the legal reins at SmileDirectClub, the legal team comprised only three other people. “We were growing as a company very quickly and had plans to expand internationally. Building out a legal team as well as starting and growing our regulatory, quality, and government relations teams became a top priority,” she recalls. “I knew I needed team members who could embrace and flourish under challenges and a rapid pace. I was incredibly lucky to have found those team members, and mentoring and working

“You’ll get thrown curveballs and can either look at them as problems or opportunities to flex your intellectual curiosity and grow.”

alongside them has been one of the most rewarding aspects of this position.”

No doubt, building that team was not as hard for Rammelt as it may be for others. In 2023, she was honored with the WIPL award for in-house collaboration. Rooted in her approach to embracing change and uncertainty at the company is a commitment to prioritizing her team members and maintaining transparency, both internally and with external counsel. At the end of the day, she wants to help them grow and achieve their goals, both short and long term.

Rammelt notes that the legal team supports every aspect of the company’s business operations, and that has led to its legal team members having the opportunity to expand into areas of the law that they never had before, giving them skills and experience that they might not have gotten had they stayed in private practice or been at another company.

“We often talk about paths they want to take to get them where they

want to be in their careers,” Rammelt says. “The expansion of their skill sets has already led to many of them taking general counsel or other leadership roles at other companies.” Rammelt is proud of the relationships that she still maintains with all of them. “They are all such talented individuals who not only understand the myriad of legal issues that companies can face and how to address them, but also understand the need to support the business from a practical perspective. Any company or firm would be lucky to have them. I know I felt that way!”

Those who have worked with Rammelt in other capacities attest to her strengths as well. “Susan is incredibly smart, talented, and hardworking in managing the many different demands of an innovative dental service organization that is truly changing the face of dentistry,” says Brian Colao, member at Dykema Gossett PLLC. “Susan also contributes her time as a founding board member of Women in DSO to promote access opportunities and mentorship to

the women of the dental industry and promote diversity and inclusion.

“Susan is truly a rare talent and I have enjoyed working with her at SmileDirectClub and on the board of WinDSO,” he adds.

While Rammelt continues to assist her company in the wind down of its operations, she is looking forward to the next chapter and had this advice for others out there who may be facing challenges, uncertainty, or whether they have chosen the right path in practicing law:

“Don’t be afraid; accept challenges and have faith in yourself and those around you,” she says. “You’ll get thrown curveballs and can either look at them as problems or opportunities to flex your intellectual curiosity and grow. If you can use the latter lens, life as an attorney or any other type of professional is not only that much more enjoyable, but you can enable everyone else around you to also see the opportunity and embrace it with open arms.”

A Culture of Adaptability

Steven Schwab leads through change at Thoma Bravo by prioritizing the firm’s culture amid its ongoing growth

By Natalie Kochanov

Steven Schwab Senior Director, General Counsel, and Chief Compliance Officer

WHEREAS MOST PROFESSIONALS tend to stay within the confines of their subject matter expertise, Steven Schwab prefers to step outside his comfort zone as often as he can.

“I’ve never really been one to just stick to my specialty areas,” Schwab says. “I do very much understand that I have a subject-matter expertise, but I value and cherish the opportunity to explore, understand, and get involved with new projects and new issues.”

At Thoma Bravo, Schwab serves as the private equity firm’s senior director, general counsel, and chief compli-

ance officer. It’s the ideal environment because he can challenge himself. “The variety is one of the absolute best parts of my job, without question,” he says.

“It’s incredibly rewarding.”

Schwab first joined the team in 2015. The opportunity has allowed him to grow and reap the benefits professionally. “When I was originally hired, my role was primarily focused on regulation and compliance, so it was much narrower in scope,” he explains. “But I was hired with an understanding that I’d eventually do more. In the past eight-and-a-half years, the breadth of

Michael Schacht

Thoma Bravo

“You learn by watching and by doing, and you pick up the traits that have worked for our organization for quite some time. That then becomes, over time, more of a mentorship model where you can seek guidance or coaching.”

my duties has increased significantly to encompass the totality of what it takes, at least from a legal and compliance perspective, to help run a large private equity firm.”

Beyond a much wider range of legal responsibilities, Schwab has taken on leadership duties as well. He now manages a full team of legal and compliance specialists—a team that didn’t exist when he was hired. “The team has grown to several lawyers, one dedicated compliance specialist, and a number of other people who assist,” he says. “I was the first person to hold this role, so I had to define it on my own. I’ve tried to concentrate on building not only a team, but also processes that accommodate both current and future growth.”

“It has been a pleasure to watch Steve develop the legal team at Thoma Bravo,” says Katie St. Peters, investment funds partner at Kirkland & Ellis. “It is a testament both to his leadership and legal skill that he has been able to deftly grow his department and develop the talent on his team amidst the tre-

mendous growth of Thoma Bravo over the last eight years. Steve is also a great mentor and teacher to the lawyers on our team, and I feel incredibly fortunate that we have the opportunity to partner with him and his stellar team.”

Schwab has kept growth front of mind for good reason, given that his own role has evolved in parallel to Thoma Bravo’s considerable expansion. “We have grown exponentially by really any metric you would use to measure the size of a private equity firm, whether it’s assets under management, number of offices, number of employees, products that we offer, or money that we’ve raised,” he says. “It really coincides with the growth that I’ve had personally. If the company grows and needs more out of the folks who are part of it, you have to step up and do more.”

The firm boasts a strong mentorship culture that supports employees. “It starts with our leadership, whether it’s Orlando Bravo or any of our other managing partners. They have been very comfortable—and I think they learned

Expertise Spotlight

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Working at the intersection of private capital and the sectors in which market players invest, we advise cutting-edge clients as they navigate complex challenges and seek to capitalize on market opportunities. Proskauer offers an integrated platform that navigates clients through the full life cycle of their business.

this from Carl Thoma—with giving people a lot of responsibility early on. And if you show you can handle that responsibility, you get more,” Schwab says. “It’s almost like apprenticeship that evolves into mentorship. You learn by watching and by doing, and you pick up the traits that have worked for our organization for quite some time. That then becomes, over time, more of a mentorship model where you can seek guidance or coaching.”

Schwab speaks from experience, having benefited from Thoma Bravo’s

apprenticeship/mentorship model himself. “It’s very important to me to continue that model with my team,” he says. “As my own role has become more strategic, the team has started to handle more substantive issues, areas where maybe they didn’t previously have expertise when they were in private practice. But since that change doesn’t occur in an unsupervised manner, it leads to really strong results where people feel empowered to act while still feeling supported and encouraged.”

Schwab reinforces the supportive atmosphere on his team by taking the time to cultivate meaningful work for each team member and by embracing transparency as a guiding principle. “I strive to be a transparent person, and I’m very transparent with my team about wanting to know how they feel about things. I also want them to know that I value their careers,” he says. “I do what I can to be transparent with them about expectations. At Thoma Bravo, we try to create a culture where it’s OK to make mistakes, but it’s not OK to not to learn from those mistakes. Mistakes are really the best way to learn, as long as you’re conscious of and open to those learning possibilities.”

“Steven Schwab’s leadership stands as a cornerstone in Thoma Bravo’s dynamic evolution, where his legal acumen and decisiveness set a high bar,” says Chip Parsons, Proskauer Private Funds partner and corporate cochair. “I’ve been fortunate to work so closely with Steven, witnessing firsthand how his commitment to mentorship and empowerment within our legal sphere significantly enhances our collaborative success.”

Thoma Bravo has approached its recent growth with the utmost intentionality, in the interest of preserving its company culture. But Schwab is quick to point out that the ability— and willingness—to adapt to change is actually another of the firm’s core

Delivering Results for Private Capital

We congratulate Steven Schwab for his exceptional leadership with Thoma Bravo and recognition in Modern Counsel.

We are proud to partner with Steven in his efforts to drive Thoma Bravo and the legal profession forward.

“

Steven Schwab’s leadership stands as a cornerstone in Thoma Bravo’s dynamic evolution, where his legal acumen and decisiveness set a high bar. I’ve been fortunate to work so closely with Steven, witnessing first-hand how his commitment to mentorship and empowerment within our legal sphere significantly enhances our collaborative success.

”

Chip Parsons

Proskauer Private Funds Partner and Corporate Co-chair

tenets. “You have to adapt,” he emphasizes. “One of the mantras for those of us who have been with the firm for quite a while is that we value adaptability. We accept the fact that changes are OK. They may be uncomfortable, but that’s part of learning, and it allows for growth.”

Schwab and his team have demonstrated their adaptability by responding with agility to Thoma Bravo’s increasing organizational complexity. To maintain this approach moving forward, Schwab seeks to anticipate the implications of continued growth to mitigate risk in advance. “It’s not just about directline scalability; it’s about trying to forecast the future,” he says. “Where are we going? What are the goals of the organization? What are the external factors, whether headwinds or tailwinds, associated with those goals? And what are the associated risks?”

Schwab savors the dynamic nature of his role. “I really do enjoy where I work. We have a wonderful culture, and I get to work on exciting projects with very smart people who care about doing the right thing consistently, not just when others are looking,” he says. “When I think about the future, I think very much about protecting our brand and doing my part to make sure the firm is well positioned for future growth, wherever that growth might take us.”

Expertise Spotlight

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Kirkland has successfully built a comprehensive suite of services to serve its client base at every stage of growth and through the life cycle of funds. Kirkland has grown and evolved with the market and its clients, adapting to accommodate the meteoric growth of many developing sectors and strategies. This scale translates into significant benefits for Kirkland’s clients by improving efficiency, providing visibility into market trends and developments, and enabling datadriven decision-making.

We offer a deep regulatory and tax bench with a wealth of global experience. Several of our attorneys have held senior, policy-making, and enforcement positions in the key regulatory agencies governing the industry. This on-the-ground experience allows us to help clients implement customized, practical strategies.

People & Companies

Doug Balyeat P46 Pratt Industries

Eric Black P124 Vuzix

Donald Broadfield P168 American Airlines

Jaron Brown P98 Outokumpu Stainless USA

Michael Buchwald P194 NFL

Veronica Davis P88 Southwire Company LLC

Matthew Dyer P127 Dyson

Austin Ericson P78 Star Mountain Capital

Larissa Sanchez Fields P32 USAA

Adam Frankel P42 NWN Carousel

Chris Garvey P208 Fifth Third Bank

Rachel Geman P120

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP

Lisa Gok P52

Cetera Financial Group Inc.

Anthony Grice P145 Abbott

Christopher Gruber P142 Union Pacific Railroad Company

Murtaza Hassonjee P39 Bain & Company

Evonne Inglesh P130 NielsenIQ

Ki Hoon Kim P91 Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Beth Kotran P64 Ferrero

Paul Liu P186 TuSimple

Megann McManus P21 Genpact

Christopher Mermigas P36 RSA Security

Heather Molleur P200 Micron Technology

Candace Moss P133 Cummins Inc.

Hadley Moss P221 Goal Zero

Brittany Mouzourakis P190 General Motors

Heidi Naunton P137 Paramount Global

Michael Petrie P218 BAE Systems Inc.

Justin Petzold P10 InvestCloud

Andrew Pruitt P179 Volkswagen Group of America Inc.

Susan Greenspon Rammelt P224 SmileDirectClub

Ann Robertson P161 Shake Shack

Alan Rosenberg P82 Republic National Distributing Company

Richard S. Krumholz Global Head of Litigation

Norton Rose Fulbright 214.855.8022

richard.krumholz@nortonrosefulbright.com

Richard has tried and handled some of the most complex company litigation in the US over his thirty-year career and has been accepted into two of the most prestigious professional organizations, the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) (trial attorneys can only be admitted into these groups by invitation and must meet rigorous requirements as exceptional trial attorneys who lead with civility and professionalism).

Joel Roy P94

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc.

Steven Schwab P228

Thoma Bravo

Katie A. St. Peters, P.C. Partner, Investment Funds Group

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

312.862.2367 katie.stpeters@kirkland.com

Katie St. Peters is an exceptional legal professional known for her outstanding record of accomplishments providing counsel to the world’s most sophisticated private equity firms.

Charles (Chip) Parsons

Partner, Co-chair of the Corporate Department and a member of the Private Funds Group Proskauer 212.969.3000 cparsons@proskauer.com

Chip is a Partner in Proskauer’s market-leading Private Funds Group. He regularly advises both financial institutions and fund sponsors on a broad range of matters.

Kristie Scott P18 Xometry

Maura Scott P155 The Brink’s Company

Ali Seals P214 Weyerhaeuser

Maureen Shannon P152

Maureen Shannon

Paul Sharobeem P104 Century Aluminum

David Stafford P24 McGraw Hill Education

Dawn Staggs P174 Phillips 66

Mona Stone P108 Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona

Adina Storch P112 Global Industrial

Kristen Susik P182 Ryder System Inc.

Erika Sylvester P74

Angi

Laura Tanner P148 Progrexion

Rebecca Unruh P158 EagleView

Kate Warner P115 3M

Leslie M. Smith Partner Kirkland & Ellis

312.862.2141

leslie.smith@kirkland.com

Leslie Smith is a litigation partner who concentrates her practice in the areas of antitrust, class action, and consumer fraud litigation.

Alicia White P204 Whole Foods

Molly Wilkens P164

Wells Fargo

Tonya Wittenmyer P69 Marathon Petroleum Corporation

Anthony Yoo P13 W.R. Grace

Clayton Zak P29 Caleres Inc.

Books for Mentors

Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson delves into understanding four distinct personality types: Reds, Yellows, Greens, and Blues. Each possesses unique strengths and weaknesses in communication and decision-making. Reds are direct and action-oriented, Yellows prioritize optimism and relationships, Greens seek harmony and consensus, while Blues value accuracy and analysis. Erikson emphasizes that no type is superior, but understanding their motivations and communication styles can foster smoother interactions. He offers practical tips for adapting your communication to each type, promoting empathy and collaboration, and emphasizing that reducing people to labels can be harmful and overlook individual complexities.

In John C. Maxwell’s Mentoring 101, leadership takes flight through the power of mentorship. He argues that great leaders become great by helping others become great. For mentors, Maxwell provides a road map to finding the right match, building trust, setting goals, and empowering growth. Rather than dictating, a mentor guides with authenticity and integrity and allows the mentee to blossom through their experience. Maxwell emphasizes proactive involvement for mentees: seek out the right mentor, embrace feedback, and strive for self-improvement. Mentoring 101 isn’t just a guide; it’s an invitation to a dynamic partnership. Whether you lead or learn, Maxwell equips you with the tools to unleash your potential and leave a lasting legacy.

Adam Grant’s Think Again challenges our tendency to cling to our opinions and instead argues for the power of rethinking and embracing the unknown. Grant, an organizational psychologist, weaves together research and real-life stories to show how the most successful people are often the ones who question their assumptions and are open to new ideas. The book explores the benefits of doubt, the joy of being wrong, and the importance of intellectual humility. Grant shows how these qualities can lead to greater creativity, innovation, and collaboration.

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown breaks the mold of traditional leadership books by arguing that courage, vulnerability, and wholeheartedness are the cornerstones of truly exceptional leaders. Renowned for her research on courage, shame, and vulnerability, Brown challenges the stereotype of the stoic, all-knowing leader and instead champions empathy, connection, and embracing our humanness. The book outlines four key skills for daring leadership: rumbling with vulnerability, living into our values, braving trust, and learning to rise. Through her research, Brown shows how daring leaders create cultures of courage, belonging, and innovation, leading to stronger teams and more fulfilling work experiences.

Courtesy of Penguin Random House (Dare to Lead, Think Again), Thomas Erikson/Essentials (Surrounded by Idiots), Courtesy of HarperCollins Leadership (Mentoring 101)

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