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® January/February 2013

NAPABA’S

BEST TWO OF A KIND PAGE 18 MARY ANN SHADD CARY’S QUEST FOR EQUALITY PAGE 32 ®

D I V E R S I T Y

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I N G R E D I E N T

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January/February 2013

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Photo credit: Office of California Attorney General

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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NAPABA’s best young attorneys are profiled in this annual feature.

FEATURES 18 TWO OF A KIND Kamala and Maya Harris share more than just parents. They are both talented lawyers that see the law as a force for equality and justice. Kamala Harris is California’s attorney general and Maya Harris is vice president of the Ford Foundation in New York City. Although they are on opposite coasts, the sisters share a drive to make the world a fairer place. BY LYDIA LUM

24 NAPABA’s Best Under 40 The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association recognizes 21 of the nation’s most distinguished attorneys from around the country and across the legal spectrum. BY A ZIZAH AHMAD

32 Mary Ann Shadd Cary’s Quest for Equality In honor of Black History Month, Diversity & the Bar looks at the remarkable life of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the second black woman to earn a law degree in the United States. She was an abolitionist and journalist, and was the first black woman publisher in North America. She later joined the National Woman Suffrage Association where she worked alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. BY TOM CALARCO

MCCA® Board Of Directors

ST YERS

Vernon G. Baker II

Samuel M. Reeves

Michelle Banks

Carlos Rincon

Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Meritor, Inc. Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer, Gap, Inc.

Clarissa Cerda

Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, LifeLock, Inc.

A. B. Cruz III

Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary, Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc.

Anthony K. Greene

Director, Jamison Insurance Group

Gary F. Kennedy

Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, American Airlines, Inc.

Don H. Liu

Senior Vice President, General Counsel, & Secretary, Xerox Corporation

Hinton J. Lucas

Vice President & Assistant General Counsel, DuPont Company

Robbie E. B. Narcisse

Vice President-Global Ethics & Business Practices, Pitney Bowes Inc.

COLUMNS 7 Notes from the President & CEO 8 Perseverance in Profile Highlighting the contributions and talents of attorneys with disabilities.

Claudia Center BY TOM CALARCO

12 Lawyer’s Lantern

Offering illuminating professional guidance for your career.

DEPARTMENTS 44 Association Focus

Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association

MCCA® Membership Please visit our web site at www.mcca.com for membership and other information.

BY LYDIA LUM

General Information and Address Changes Send your questions, complaints, and compliments to MCCA®, Editor, Diversity & the Bar®, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004. Address changes should be sent to MCCA’s Director of Membership and Development at 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004.

46 Diversity News

The Business Case for Being Yourself BY BRIANNA E . WILLIAMS

48 In Closing…

BY TOM SAGER AND DEBORAH EPSTEIN HENRY

Bill Lee of WilmerHale BY JOSHUA H . SHIELDS

16 Spotlighting

50 Movers & Shakers

Alejandro Cestero

Advertising For advertising inquiries, contact Don Cooksey, Montrose Media Sales, at donald.cooksey@verizon.net.

BY JOSHUA H . SHIELDS

BY PATRICK FOLLIARD

2012 STRATEGIC DIVERSITY SPONSORS

Permissions and Reprints Reproduction of Diversity & the Bar in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. The Copyright Act of 1976 prohibits the reproduction by photocopy machine or any other means of any portion of this issue, except with the permission of MCCA. To obtain permission, contact: Joshua H. Shields, Editor-in-Chief, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004. Copyright Copyright® 2013 by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. Diversity & the Bar is published six times a year and is distributed to supporters and subscribers, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004. The information contained in this publication has been provided to the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA®) by a variety of independent sources. While MCCA makes every effort to present accurate and reliable information, MCCA does not endorse, approve, or certify such information, nor does MCCA

Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Walmart U.S. Legal Partner, Rincon Law Group, P.C.

Thomas L. Sager

Senior Vice President & General Counsel, DuPont Company

Robin H. Sangston

Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer, Cox Communications, Inc.

Kenneth S. Siegel

Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

Mary E. Snapp

Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Corporation

Lawrence P. Tu

Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Dell, Inc.

Neil Wilcox

General Counsel Chase Card Services, JP Morgan Chase

Simone Wu

Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer, Choice Hotels International, Inc. guarantee the accuracy, completeness, efficacy, or chronological sequence of any such information. Use of such information on the readers’ part is entirely voluntary and reliance upon it should be undertaken only upon independent review and due diligence. References herein to any commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, service mark, manufacturer, or otherwise shall not constitute or imply endorsement, preference, recommendation, or the favor of MCCA. MCCA (including its employees and agents) assumes no responsibility for consequences resulting from the use of the information herein, or in any respect for the content of such information, including (but not limited to) errors or omissions, the accuracy or reasonableness of factual or other data, including statistical or scientific assumptions, studies or conclusions, the defamatory nature of statements, ownership of copyright or other intellectual property rights, and the violation of property, privacy, or personal rights of others. MCCA is not responsible for, and expressly disclaims and denies liability for, damages of any kind arising out of use, reference to, or reliance upon such information. No guarantees or warranties, including (but not limited to) any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular use or purpose, are made by MCCA with respect to such information. Copyright in this publication, including all articles and editorial information contained herein, is exclusively owned by MCCA and MCCA reserves all rights to such information. MCCA is a tax-exempt corporation organized in accordance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Its tax ID number is 13-3920905.

MCCA® Law Department Members

The Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) acknowledges the support of the following law departments whose financial contributions have helped to advance the goal of furthering diversity in the legal profession.

3M Company AARP AT&T Accenture LLP AdvoServ AECOM AGCO Corporation Allstate Insurance Altria Group, Inc. American Airlines, Inc. American Express Company American Lawyer Media Aon Corporation Areas USA, Inc. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals Bank of America Behr America Inc. Benistar Admin Services, Inc. Bluegrass Cellular Inc. Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation Booz Allen Hamilton BP America Inc. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Capital One Financial Corporation Cargill Inc. Catalent Pharma Solutions CBIC Construction & Development, LLC Chevron Corporation Choice Hotels International, Inc. CIGNA Corporation CITGO Corporation Colgate-Palmolive Company Compass Group, The Americas Compassion Care Hospice Computer Science Corporation

ConAgra Foods, Inc. ConocoPhillips Consolidated Edison Co. of N.Y. Constellation Energy Cox Communications Crawford & Company Deere & Company Dell Inc. DHL America Diageo North America Inc. Dignity Health Duke Energy DuPont DynCorp International Eaton Corporation Eli Lilly and Company Entergy Corporation Estée Lauder Companies Inc. Exelon Business Services Company Fannie Mae Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco Flagstar Bank Freddie Mac Fujitec America, Inc. Gap Inc. General Electric Company General Mills Inc. GlaxoSmithKline Graduate Management Admission Council Genentech, Inc. Goldman Sachs & Co. Google Inc. Hewlett-Packard Company HJ Heinz Company H.J. Russell & Company Halliburton Honda of America MFG., Inc.

Honeywell International IBM Corporation Ingersoll-Rand PLC Intel Corporation International Paper Company Jamison Insurance Group JC Penney Company, Inc. JetBlue Airways Corporation Johnson & Johnson JPMorgan Chase Bank NA JM Family Enterprises, Inc. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. KeyCorp Kraft Foods Law School Admission Council (LSAC) Leo Burnett Company LexisNexis Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Lifelock, Inc. Liquidity Services, Inc. Macy’s, Inc. ManpowerGroup Marriott International, Inc. MassMutual Financial Group Medifast, Inc. MetLife Inc. Merck & Co., Inc. McDonald’s Corporation Microsoft Corporation MillerCoors Monsanto Company Morgan Stanley National Grid Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company Navistar, Inc. Neighborhood Defender Service

Newegg Inc. New York Life Insurance Company Northrop Grumman Corporation Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited Office Depot Pacific Gas and Electric Company Pepco Holdings, Inc. PepsiCo, Inc. Pfizer Inc. Pitney Bowes, Inc. PPG Industries, Inc. Porzio Life Sciences, LLC PRAXAIR, INC. PreCash Premier Media, Inc. Prudential Financial Quest Diagnostics Incorporated RBS Americas Reckitt Benckiser, Inc. Reed Elsevier, Inc. Rockwell Collins Rolls Royce North America Inc. Rosetta Stone Inc. Sara Lee Corporation S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. Sears Holding Company Sempra Energy ServiceMesh, Inc. Shell Oil Company Sodexo Sony Electronics, Inc. Southeastern Freight Lines, Inc. Southern California Edison Company

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Staples, Inc. Starbucks Coffee Company Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. Spanish Broadcasting System Inc. Synopsys, Inc. Target Corporation Tessera North America, Inc. The Brookings Institution The Church Pension Fund The Clorox Company The Coca-Cola Company The Conference Board, Inc. The Dow Chemical Company The Juilliard School The Vanguard Group, Inc. The Walt Disney Company The Williams Companies, Inc. Tyson Foods Inc. UBS UnitedHealth Group United Parcel Service United Technologies Corporation U.S. Food Service, Inc. Verizon Communications Walmart Stores, Inc. WellPoint, Inc. Waste Management Wells Fargo & Company Wireless Generation Inc. Xerox Corporation XO Holdings, Inc. Xylem Inc. Yazaki North America Inc. Zenith Insurance Company

MCCA® Law Firm Affiliates

MCCA® acknowledges the decision of the following law firms who have joined with MCCA to advance the goal of furthering diversity in the legal profession. Alexander & Associates Archer & Greiner, P.C. Arrastia & Capote LLP** AXIOM Law Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. Bressler, Amery & Ross PC Bricker & Eckler LLP Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione Brown Law Group** Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens & Cannada, PLLC Cavich, Familo & Durkin Co., LPA Clifford Chance US LLP Cooley LLP Courington Kiefer & Sommers LLC Cozen O’Connor Crumbie Law Group, LLC** Davis & Gilbert LLP

DeMahy Labrador & Drake, PA** Dickstein Shapiro LLP Duane Morris LLP Epstein, Becker & Green, PC Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow,Garrett & Dunner, LLP Fish & Richardson P.C. Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto Goldberg Segalla, LLP Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP** Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP** Helms & Greene LLC Hinkley Allen & Snyder LLP Ice Miller LLP Igbanugo Partners International Law Firm Jeffrey Samel & Partners** Kaufman Dolowich Voluck & Gonzo LLP Kenyon & Kenyon LLP

** Minority or Women Owned Law Firm DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP King Branson LLC Kirkland & Ellis LLP Kumar, Prabhu, Patel & Banerjee** Lathrop & Gage LLP Leader & Berkon LLP Littler Mendelson P.C. Lim Ruger & Kim LLP** Loeb & Loeb LLP Martin & Martin, LLP** Maynard Cooper & Gale PC McGuireWoods LLP Messner & Reeves, LLC Miles & Stockbridge P.C. Miller Law Group** Montgomery, Barnett, Brown, Read, Hammond & Mintz LLP Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP Nemeth Burwell, P.C.**

Nicholson Law Group LLC** Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart P.C. Pepper Hamilton, LLP Peter Law Group** Phelps Dunbar LLP Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, PC Quarles & Brady LLP Quintarios Prieto Wood & Boyer, P.A.** Rivero Mestre, LLP** Rooney Rippie & Ratnaswamy, LLP Sanchez & Amador, LLP** Sanchez-Medina, Gonzalez, Quesada, Lage, Crespo, Gomez & Machado LLP** Saul Ewing LLP Schwartz Hannum PC** Shella, Harris and Aus, P.C.**

Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert LLC Snell & Wilmer LLP Steptoe & Johnson PC Steptoe & Johnson PLLC Stevens & Lee Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, P.C. Sughrue Mion PLLC Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm P.A. Thompson Hine LLP Troutman Sanders LLP U.K. Vyas Law** Vinson & Elkins LLP Waas Campbell Rivera Johnson & Velasquez LLP Winston & Strawn LLP Wong Fleming P.C.** Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP MCCA.COM

Notes

From the President & CEO

WHAT DOES YOUR WEBSITE SAY ABOUT YOUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY? IN SEEKING TO ILLUSTRATE A REAL COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION, MANY FIRMS TALK A GOOD GAME. But their true commitment, or lack thereof,

is often illustrated in the most obvious place of all: their firm website. Firm websites are designed to accomplish a number of objectives. They aim to grab one’s attention, especially if that someone is a prospective client, provide information about the firm’s areas of specialties, and introduce the firm’s workforce to the world. The information has to be accessible, concise, and useful. In short, there is very little room for information that does not matter. If something truly is important, you will find it featured prominently on the firm’s site. During my in-house career, I often evaluated firm pitches that professed a strong commitment to diversity, only to visit their websites and not see it even mentioned. I would just as often see the issue treated as peripheral and given embarrassingly short shrift. In a couple of notable instances, I read language that referred to the hiring of “qualified” minorities, with the demeaning and unfortunate implications that come from such references. Of course, one shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that simply attaching a brief reference to diversity on one’s site addresses the issue. The question is whether the information is prominent, substantive, and interwoven with the rest of the firm’s core values and priorities. For example, when I go to milesstockbridge.com, I see that “promoting diversity” and “creating a palpably inclusive culture” are identified among the firm’s core values. Click on the diversity link at morganlewis.com and you’ll learn how diversity is an area of “strategic” focus at the firm and you will see a photo and bio of the firm’s diversity professional, something that is too

rare these days. Other firm websites, like kirkland.com, provide links to well-written newsletters or illustrate thoughtful committee structures that account for the nuances of racial and gender differences. At others, like lathropgage.com, you’ll see the commitment illustrated by members of firm leadership co-chairing the firm’s diversity committee. Finally, if you want to see what the future looks like for a serious diversity presence on a firm’s website, set aside two minutes and 29 seconds of your life and view the video that appears under the diversity link at duanemorris.com. None of these firms will argue the effort to create a truly diverse and inclusive workforce is finished. But firms that prominently mention their commitment to diversity and inclusion on their websites have shown, in the most visible manner possible, that the issues are important to them and that is a great place to start. JOSEPH K. WEST

President & CEO MCCA_law

www.facebook.com/mcca.law

Publications Staff President & CEO Joseph K. West Founder and Publisher Emeritus Lloyd M. Johnson Jr. Editor-in-Chief Joshua H. Shields

Publishing Consultants Bill Cox Toni Coleman Advertising Don Cooksey Design/Art Direction Quad/Graphics Creative Solutions

MCCA® Staff Jennifer Chen Mahzarine Chinoy David Chu Donna Crook Charles Hollins Brandon M. Fitzgerald Jessica Martinez Andrea Pimm Connie Swindell-Harding

Contributing Writers Azizah Ahmad Tom Calarco Patrick Folliard Dianne Hayes Deborah Epstein Henry Lydia Lum Thomas L. Sager Joshua H. Shields Brianna Williams

Perseverance in Profile

CLAUDIA CENTER: CHAMPION FOR DISABILITY RIGHTS BY TOM CALARCO

Claudia Center grew up in a “pretty ordinary,” liberal New England family. Raised in the Unitarian Church, she was taught that she had a duty to make the world a better place. But she had a problem: she was “typically unhappy” and professional help was out of the question.

“My mom said, ‘You don’t need treatment, we don’t do this in our family,’” she says.

fter a semester abroad studying in Kenya and graduating from Wesleyan College in Middletown, Conn., Center’s dreams led her to California, where she enrolled at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. But her dreams did not materialize immediately. The pressure of law school added to her depression. She didn’t realize then that depression is a disability that requires accommodation. DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

“Law school can be a frightening and bitter experience for someone with a psychiatric condition,” she says. “At times, I couldn’t seem to connect with my professors or peers. My words didn’t seem to be heard or understood. I hid in the women’s lounge, drinking coffee and more coffee, and had sleepless nights and dream-like spells of disorientation.” She began getting professional help, but kept her treatment a secret. During a summer law firm job in Washington, D.C., she remembers sneaking away for counseling sessions with her psychiatrist. Little did she know that she had entered a field in which depression is common. A study done at Johns Hopkins University found that of 28 occupations, law had the highest incidence of depression. “I was fighting to hide my emotional symptoms within a hostile, male-dominated legal environment that demanded that I never let a partner see me cry,” she says. “But the more I tried to fit into some professional lawyer mold, the crazier I became.” Somehow, Center got through it with the help of medication and a Boalt law professor, Reva Siegel, for whom she worked as a research assistant and who, she says, “saved my butt.” “She’s a very inspirational person,” Center says. “She seemed to think I was smart and she was very encouraging.” Another experience at that time that helped her come to terms with her depression was attending a conference where disability rights pioneer Ed Roberts was a speaker. Roberts was the quadriplegic who launched the disability rights movement at Berkeley during the early 1960s. MCCA.COM

ADVERTORIAL

It was 1999 and the U.S. Supreme Court had issued a trio of cases that decimated the ADA by limiting who could count as disabled. NAHO KOBAYASHI

MCGUIREWOODS LLP “Thing are better now,” she says. “I’m a grown-up and have my career.” This is important, she says, adding whimsically, that we shouldn’t forget the lessons of Sesame Street. “You know,” she explains, “it really is important to do something meaningful in your life, and this has really helped me to be happier and less symptomatic.” Center is reticent to talk about herself and her condition, but feels an obligation because it’s important for young people. It has led her to become an advocate for disability rights in the workplace, and to champion the cause of others whose rights have been denied in areas like abortion, sexual harassment, and the discrimination faced by lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals. Her “first big thing” in her career was being part of the action that led to the amendment of the American Disabilities Act in 2008. “That was a really exciting time because I was a young lawyer,” she says. “It was 1999 and the U.S. Supreme Court had issued a trio of cases that decimated the ADA by limiting who was recognized as disabled.” These decisions, Albertsons v. Kirkingburg, Murphy v. United Parcel Service, and Sutton v. United Air Lines, lowered the bar that determined a disability, such as if the condition was mitigated by medication or other factors. Another decision in 2001, University of Alabama v. Garrett, limited disabled persons’ ability to sue state governments for back pay after failing to make reasonable accommodation in the workplace. “Prudence Poppink (an attorney who worked for the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing) was a great advocate for the state of California,” Center says. “Her idea was that we could have our own law. I did a lot of the legwork, assembled the coalition, and

We congratulate Naho Kobayashi, a partner in McGuireWoods’ Charlotte office, for being named a “2012 Best Lawyer Under 40” by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. NAPABA recognized Naho for having achieved prominence as a lawyer who provides counsel on complex commercial and banking transactions, while also demonstrating an unwavering dedication to the Asian Pacific American community. Naho focuses primarily on advising lenders and investors in debt financings and related equity investments in connection with acquisition financings, with an emphasis on transactions involving borrowers in the healthcare/pharma/ medical devices, timberlands/forest products and cable/communications industries. Naho is co-chair of the McGuireWoods Recruiting Committee and has served as a member of an external committee for a major financial institution providing advice with respect to that client’s internal ongoing diversity initiatives. She has also served as a panelist for the 2012 Mecklenburg County Bar Diversity Day, an annual half-day seminar for high school students interested in the practice of law.

I did a lot of the legwork, assembled the coalition, and worked on the draft of the law. It passed and got signed and led to laws that eight years later allowed us to amend the ADA.

worked on the draft of the law. It passed and got signed and led to laws that eight years later allowed us to amend the ADA.” The California law, Assembly Bill 2222, sponsored by Assembly woman Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, strengthened California’s protections against discrimination based on disability that were limited by the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Several states followed suit and eventually the U.S. Congress passed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, allowing for a broader interpretation of a disability. When asked if her disability is what led her being drawn to combating social ills, Center says it wasn’t intentional. “I didn’t set out to be a reformer. I was drawn to the problems in society and saw that I could use the law to fix them.” This attraction to help others and fix the problems in society brought her to the Legal Aid Society in San Francisco, where she has worked for 17 years, now as senior staff attorney and director of its disability rights program. “What I like about working in disability rights is that I’m always

learning new things,” she says. “We get to be creative and figure out where the law is going to go, and learn a lot about people and what they can do.” Her first undertaking at Legal Aid, which is still ongoing, was the LIBRA project (Lifting Invisible Barriers Through Reasonable Accommodation). Reasonable accommodation is an adjustment made in a system for an individual based on a proven need. It would include wheelchair access, sign language interpreters, and access to written documents for the visually impaired. Representative among her cases are workers who were hospitalized and thereafter terminated; an individual whose medication mimicked intoxication, causing job termination; another person with a psychiatric condition who was unnecessarily locked up by police for 72 hours; and a mail clerk born with a cognitive disability, who was terminated because he performed his duties too slowly. Prejudices against those with disabilities die hard, she says. A study conducted by the American Bar Association found that in ADA employment cases filed since 1992 and resulting in final case decisions (most

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

on summary judgment), employers won 92 percent of the time. Many of these unfavorable rulings for the plaintiffs, she says, are the result of judges ruling either that the plaintiffs were not limited enough to be considered disabled, or so limited that they were unqualified. “A person can have a disability and can also be qualified,” she says. “And persons with disabilities should be protected from unfair discrimination. In the words of the ADA, ‘the Nation’s proper goals regarding individuals with disabilities are to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for such individuals.’ ” The civil rights model of inclusion continues to be more of an ideal, she says, and most cases are currently decided on a medical model. “Our judges, often older, white males, tend to view disability only in the context of disability benefits, benefits for people who cannot work,” she says, “and the legal battles usually turn on whether the applicant has submitted sufficient medical proof to demonstrate total and unchanging incapacity.” Some of her recent battles defending the rights of the disabled include an effort to require Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) administration to provide physical accommodation to test takers; the launch of a disability rights clinic open to the public once a week at a South Berkeley think tank dedicated to helping those with disabilities in South Berkeley; and the overincarceration problem. “There’s a big movement to support people who are leaving prison, the reentry movement,” she says. “I’d like to figure out how to help meet the needs of those who have disabilities, and more than 25 percent of the prison population have them.” D&B Tom Calarco is a freelance writer based in Altamonte Springs, Fla. MCCA.COM

Lawyer’s Lantern

AMBITION: WOMEN POWERING UP BY THOMAS L. SAGER AND DEBORAH EPSTEIN HENRY

Webster’s Dictionary defines ambition as “an ardent desire for rank, fame, and power.”

That is not what senior executives and managing partners should be looking for in identifying future successors. Those who embrace this definition and use it as the lens through which to evaluate potential leaders are limiting, to an employer’s disadvantage, its talent pool and leadership pipeline. However, if ambition is defined as “an ardent desire to lead and influence the actions of others,” the pipeline opens, especially for women.

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

e recently participated in a conference that featured four executive women discussing women and leadership. During the 90-minute panel discussion, there was no mention of ambition or power. When we raised these subjects at the end of the program, the panel and audience were silent. How could these subjects not be addressed when the designated topic was women and leadership? In a comparable program discussing male leadership, would it be possible not to talk about ambition and power? What else would the men have discussed? Once the women panelists pondered how ambition and power factored into their roles as leaders, their conclusions were simple: These pursuits were not relevant. When pressed, they attributed most of their success to good luck and happenstance. These explanations are consistent with the research. According to Anna Fels, a psychiatrist who has written broadly about women in the workplace, ambition is essenMCCA.COM

tially a dirty word among women. Fels reports that mastery of a special skill and recognition from an appreciative audience are needed to cultivate ambition. Thus, the well-documented lack of recognition that women receive for their accomplishments is a significant contributor to their stalled progress. Fels’ research also finds that women tend to cede or deflect ambition for a number of reasons including societal views of femininity, which result in women being punished for exercising ambition. For these reasons and others, many women abandon their ambitions during childrearing or when the challenges in pursuing their professional goa ls become particularly great. Complicating matters is that ambition is a prerequisite to power that needs to be consciously sought and developed. The constraints that women face, coupled with ma ny women’s discomfort with self-promotion or proudly accepting credit for their accomplishments, result in women trailing their male c omp e t itor s to the top. So perhaps it is time to change the conversation and redefine what ambition should mean in light of what an inclusive, collaborative, and empowering work environment demands and needs. In fact, most male and female senior executives, general counsel, and managing partners today would more readily identify with being ambitious if it were defined as “an ardent desire to lead and influence the actions of others” rather than “an ardent desire for rank, fame, and power.”

What is at stake? A limited leadership pipeline devoid of talented women

What can employers do to stop women’s silence about ambition and power?

The current prescription for ambition and power results in many lost opportunities for women and, in turn, their employers, who do not benefit from the transformative and performance-elevating leadership these women may bring to their organizations. For women approaching the upper echelons, they may not reach their full potential because they are fearful to articulate and pursue their higher aspirations. Mid- to senior-level women could support each other’s ambition but their failure to be

CHANGE the rules of engagement by redefining the landscape so that ambition is thought of in terms of one who aspires to positions of leadership and influence—and not power in the conventional sense. It is no longer the stripes on the sleeve that matter—it is the ability to positively influence others through one’s leadership, actions, and words. IDENTIFY women with leadership potential early and ensure they have the proper exposure to influential clients and colleagues and the right assignments that will give them the experience needed to be elevated to the next level.

The constraints that women face, coupled with many women’s discomfort with self-promotion or proudly accepting credit for their accomplishments, result in women trailing their male competitors at the top.

MCCA.COM

public is likely inhibiting their ability to do so. And, junior women suffer the most as they lose the opportunity to benefit from role models. How can junior women position themselves for leadership when no path has been communicated or demonstrated to them? Additionally, the silence inhibits women leaders from becoming a critical mass, perpetuating the isolation and failure of many women to progress to the higher levels.

GROOM women leaders by placing them in influential leadership positions that give them the platform to exercise their ability to lead and develop a comfort level in this and other ambitious pursuits.

RECOGNIZE the successes of ambitious women leaders and make their accomplishments public by encouraging women leaders to tell their stories. PROFILE the paths of successful women and create a “leadership timeline” of the chronological steps they took and roles they played to get there. Encourage women to BUDDY UP and promote each other’s successes. The “independent” endorser lends

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

credibility and helps women who struggle with self-promotion or rightfully earned credit.

In today’s competitive marketplace, employers can no longer afford to have half of their talent pool underutilized or not utilized at all.

HOST open forums to discuss and debate ambition and power so women can have a safe place to air their reluctance and overcome it. Develop a SPONSORSHIP program where high-potential women are aligned with senior sponsors who are willing and able to advocate for their next promotion, facilitate connections through senior leaders, and inform them about career opportunities. PARTNER with outside organizations that can provide the opportunities for women to effectively develop their leadership skills.

Provide NETWORKING training and venues specific to women, enabling them to build the support and skills to leverage their contacts. Create greater TRANSPARENCY and openness in the leadership pipeline, career development, and compensation processes so that women clearly understand what’s expected of them. CELEBRATE ambitious mothers who have overcome work/life balance challenges as well as erroneous assumptions that seeking greater levels of professional responsibility and being a mother are inconsistent. ENGAGE men in the process of supporting high-potential women and educate men about the business case of why their employer needs women to succeed. Provide EXECUTIVE COACHING to high-potential women to enable them to set goals and develop a robust developmental plan. An effective executive coach will give them the support and individual attention to develop self-promotion skills, overcome fear of failure and risk-tak-

ing, and gain comfort in exercising leadership skills and the power of persuasion. SEEK recognition of your women leaders from outside organizations to celebrate them and promote their increased stature. Provide TRAINING in the important skills that make up an ambitious and successful leader, including a focus on collaboration, competition, leadership, and teamwork. CONVEY to women the many benefits that can be achieved through ambition and power, debunking the notion that these are dirty words to be avoided. Instead, demonstrate how ambition and power can be used positively: • to provide service and give back; • to gain independence—financial and otherwise; • to create meaningful opportunities and security for one’s family; • to donate to meaningful causes and provide opportunities for others; • to change policies that are detrimental to others; and, • to enrich one’s life through travel and diverse experiences.

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

It is not enough for employers to create a more supportive work environment for women to exercise their ambitions and positions of influence. Women also need to work individually and collectively with others to overcome the traditional obstacles they have faced. However, an employer’s effort to create an infrastructure for women to thrive is an essential step to position women for success. This is in every employer’s business interest. In today’s competitive marketplace, employers can no longer afford to have half of their talent pool underutilized or not utilized at all. The time is now to facilitate in women an ardent desire to lead and influence the actions of others and provide an environment in which women are able to thrive and better contribute to the strength and success of their organizations. D&B Thomas L. Sager is Senior Vice President and General Counsel of DuPont. Deborah Epstein Henry is author of LAW & REORDER: Legal Industry Solutions for Restructure, Retention, Promotion & Work/Life Balance (ABA, 2010) and Founder of consulting firm Flex-Time Lawyers LLC and Co-Founder of secondment firm, Bliss Lawyers. MCCA.COM

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Spotlighting

THE NEW FACE OF ENERGY Alejandro Cestero BY PATRICK FOLLIARD

Whenever Alejandro “Alex” Cestero shows up to speak before groups of law students, he notices that some members of his audience look a little surprised. “I’m not the typical energy industry general counsel,” he says. “They’re expecting to see someone with a little more gray hair.”

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estero is reportedly the youngest executive officer in the history of Lufkin Industries, Inc., a multi-billion dollar oilfield equipment manufacturer and services company. Hired in May 2011 as vice president, general counsel, secretary and chief compliance officer, Cestero is part of a leadership team that is moving the more than 110-year-old company into the future. “Over the past 24 months we’ve experienced rapid change,” says Cestero. “It’s been the amazing evolution of an old-line manufacturing company into an international, multifaceted corporation.” Named for the small Texas town where it is based, Lufkin began as a strictly local operation and remains that way in spirit. “Unlike other energy services companies in our space, Lufkin has not moved its headquarters to Houston, the epicenter of the energy industry,” explains Cestero. “We’re largely homegrown with loyal union employees, many of whom have worked at Lufkin’s old-school foundry and other manufacturing centers operating heavy machinery for most of their lives. But we also have high-tech and international segments that are important.” As general counsel, Cestero is in steel-toed boots at one of the company’s Lufkin-based facilities one day, and at an informal meeting in one of the company’s three Houston offices the next. Frequently, he flies to Russia, Romania, or Canada on business. The company has employees in approximately 17 countries and does business throughout the world. Since Cestero’s start at Lufkin, the company bought five additional companies in Canada and across Europe. In recent years, Cestero says, Lufkin has begun increasing its bench depth and range of multidisciplinary expertise to support this expansion. In large part, Cestero was brought on board to help revamp Lufkin’s legal department for the road ahead, including new technologies, countries, and strategic transactions. His predecessor was a lawyer with a background primarily in human resources who largely focused on labor and employment matters. When Lufkin went public in 1990 almost all commercial and other specialized legal matters were performed by outside counsel. Today, the company’s legal department has doubled in size to eight, including three lawyers handling litigation, contracts, strategic transactions, board governance, and compliance. Cestero considers himself “a more to the side of business guy who looks over the legal function, as opposed to the MCCA.COM

lawyer who has to ask questions to read a financial statement.” Cestero recalls his introduction to the company vividly. His tenure as senior vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary, and chief compliance office at Seahawk Drilling, Inc., in Houston had recently ended when he learned that Lufkin’s former general counsel had retired and the company was doing a national search for a candidate with an international, transactional, and oilfield background. The candidate needed to bridge the gap between international state-of-the-art public company issues in the energy space while at the same time being able to work with local issues in a town of 35,000 people in East Texas. Cestero was intrigued and had a local connection, through his wife, who was the daughter of a timber company executive in a small town down the road. He felt he was an ideal fit, and Lufkin agreed. Born in Puerto Rico and raised primarily in Miami, Cestero is also the only Hispanic and native Spanish speaker on Lufkin’s management team. In today’s global economy, he says, it benefits to be conversant in different languages and various cultures. Growing up, Cestero was urged by his father to speak Spanish at home—not to advance his career 20 years down the road but to keep the first-generation American family’s Latin culture alive. “I’m not limited

by just one experience, and that makes me more valuable to my employer. “There are several people in our corporate office who don’t have a passport. That’s how localized a part of the work is at Lufkin,” he adds. “On the other hand, I’ve recently hired lawyers from Romania with French and U.S. law degrees and the Cayman Islands with a U.K. law degree. Our increasingly international industry demands it. It’s invaluable. It helps to have people who’ve been exposed to different cultures. They’re better able to plug in and out of situations.” Cestero initially became acquainted with Texas when he attended Houston’s Rice University (first graduating with a B.A. and later as a deputy general counsel with an international drilling contractor returning to earn an M.B.A. while working). “For me, being in Lufkin brings together small-town quality of life with big-company issues and growing company complexities, and for my wife who grew up in nearby (and smaller) Diboll, Texas, living in Lufkin is a bit of a homecoming. It’s a good place to bring up our three young sons.” Cestero went in-house early in his career. After just three years in private practice, he left Bracewell & Giuliani’s Houston office to work for a client, Pride International, Inc. A Houston-based drilling and oil company, Pride was looking for a Spanish-speaking attorney to cover Latin America for them and also be a corporate generalist. “Though I was a little inexperienced for the position, the firm encouraged me to go for it, assuring me that if it didn’t work out I had the safety net of returning to Bracewell and stay on a partnership type track.” Once in-house, he never looked back. “Without knowing what to expect, I found that I love getting into the pre-project stage

It helps to have people who have been exposed to different cultures. They’re better able to plug in and out of situations. MCCA.COM

and following it through to the end. I love being able to touch so many areas of the law in a single day.” Despite his parents being creative types (his father was an actor who appeared on American TV and starred in evening soap operas in Latin America, and his mother is a successful advertising executive), Cestero felt a draw toward the law. As a teenager he spent a lot of time in his uncle’s two-man Miami law firm and also worked for a criminal court judge his senior year in high school. Among Puerto Ricans, says Cestero, he is sort of an anomaly. “I’m Protestant, and though liberal on some social issues, basically conservative. People sometimes have preconceived notions about Hispanics. And while it can feel strange to me, it’s not been a big problem.” While attending Stanford University School of Law in Northern California, Cestero—a little to his surprise—was elected co-President of the Stanford Latino Law Student Association. And though he didn’t agree with all of the members’ more liberal thinking, he grew to understand and respect what shaped their beliefs. The future is decidedly rosy for Cestero. In many ways, he represents what’s new in the energy industry: multicultural, global, and industrious. Not yet in his 40s, Cestero has been advised by older mentors not to pigeonhole himself. They say he is in a position to try different things. Whether Cestero will ultimately be more on the business or the law side of the energy industry, he is undecided. For now, Cestero is focused on growth and change at Lufkin Industries. With 2,000+ employees in Texas and another 2,000 working throughout the world, Cestero compares Lufkin to what Walmart was early on, during the company’s burgeoning days in Bentonville, Ark. “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be here,” he adds. D&B Patrick Folliard is a freelance writer based in Silver Spring, Md.

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TWO OF A

KIND BY LYDIA LUM

SISTERS SHARE A SPECIAL BOND. THEY ARE SIMILAR YET DIFFERENT. THE HARRIS SISTERS ARE SUCCESSFUL L AW YERS WHO SHARE A QUEST FOR JUSTICE DESPITE WORKING IN DIFFERENT LEGAL ARENAS ON OPPOSITE COASTS.

KAMALA HARRIS IS SWORN IN AS CALIFORNIA’S ATTORNEY GENERAL WHILE HER SISTER MAYA HARRIS LOOKS ON. Photo credit: Office of California Attorney General

T WO OF A KIND

N EARLY SIGN OF Maya and Kamala Harris’s future as lawyers and as advocates for so-called underdogs occurred when they were only nine and 12 years old, respectively. Their family moved into a Montreal apartment complex where children were banned from playing in the grassy courtyard. “It was a ridiculous prohibition,” Maya recalls. The girls urged neighborhood children to help them get the courtyard ban reversed. Before long, a group including the Harris sisters descended upon the apartment building manager to plead their case. After they prevailed, soccer matches among all the youngsters ensued on the grounds. As daughters of parents who were active in the U.S. civil rights movement, both girls grew up to pursue ambitious careers in the law in hopes of bettering the human condition. A longtime prosecutor, Kamala is attorney general for the state of California and a rapidly emerging figure in national politics. A civil rights lawyer and former law school dean, Maya is vice president for democracy, rights, and justice for the New York-based Ford Foundation, an independent grant-making organization that promotes social change globally. With childhood activism long over, the Harris sisters have yet to work side-by-side as lawyers. Nevertheless, “we are truly united in the pursuit of justice,” Maya says. “We seek the same ends, even if the means are sometimes different.” She adds, “It is an extraordinary privilege to live a life in service of others and to work toward a more just and equal world.” Kamala agrees. “In every office I have held, I wanted be a voice for voiceless and vulnerable people.” CAREER CRIME-FIGHTER Kamala Harris’s professional journey began in 1990 in the district attorney’s office for Alameda County, which encompasses her hometown of Oakland, Calif. In eight years, she developed a specialty in prosecuting perpetrators of child sexual assaults. One case became seminal. The teenage victim had lost trust in her drug-addicted father and other adults and eventually tried to run away from a foster home by accepting offers of help from a group of seemingly friendly young men. Instead,

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she was taken to an apartment and gang-raped. When the trial of two of the men began, the girl showed up to court inappropriately dressed, chewing a wad of gum, and appearing not to care about the proceedings. Worried that jurors might conclude the girl had consented to sex and was falsely accusing the men, Kamala told jurors, “I know this is not a girl you would ever want to be friends with your child, or even get anywhere near your child. But what the defendants did to her was a crime. One of the reasons the defendants picked her as their victim is because they figured you would not care about her and not believe her.” Privately, she told the girl her appearance and attitude made Kamala’s job more difficult. The girl shared doubts about the jury, explaining that no adults had ever believed her whenever she had previously tried to report abuse and neglect. So the girl believed this jury and this trial would be no different. When the trial resumed, the girl “stopped cracking her gum long enough to give testimony, but I knew she felt exposed,” Kamala says, describing the girl’s discomfort in the presence of jurors. Her subsequent trial victory was tempered by the fact the girl ran away from foster care again—before jurors returned their verdict of guilt. Nonetheless, this case and the verdict reminded her of how the law is intended to apply to each person and the importance of justice for each person. These notions, she says, continue to drive her today. In 1998, Kamala joined the San Francisco district attorney’s office, where she led the career criminal unit and her growing skills drew notice. “She was sensitive and caring but tough enough to know what the right remedy was,” says Louise Renne, who as San Francisco’s city attorney hired Kamala in 2000 to head what is now known as the division on children and families. Because her city work sometimes involved child abuse and other troubling allegations, it required Kamala “to deal with stressful situations as professionally and sensitively as possible,” Renne says, adding, “She had plenty of both qualities.” Renne is currently partner of the San Francisco office of Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai LLP. MOVING UP Kamala won election to San Francisco district attorney in 2003 and was re-elected four years

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“SO MUCH CRIME HAPPENS IN THE SHADOWS. JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE NOT KNOCKING ON OUR DOOR DOESN’T MEAN WE CAN IGNORE THEIR PROBLEMS.” —Kamala Harris

later. During her tenure, the rate of convictions doubled. She also reduced recidivism among nonviolent, first-time felony drug offenders by establishing and implementing a rigorous jobtraining program. In 2010, she was elected attorney general, becoming the first woman, African American, and South Asian in that role in California. She soon adopted a hard line in what has evolved into her signature issue as attorney general: helping California homeowners recover from the national foreclosure crisis. Along with a handful of state attorneys general around the country, Kamala rejected a proposed deal the U.S. Department of Justice had struck with five major banks that would have given Californians barely $4 billion in relief from allegedly abusive mortgage practices. Her refusal to join the majority of attorneys general who were ready to accept the brokered deal shocked consumer advocates, political observers, and the news media. Meanwhile, Kamala resumed negotiations and sought a better deal from the banks during several more months of protracted talks. By February 2012, she obtained $18 billion for Californians, meaning the revised National Mortgage Settlement agreement grew to $26 billion overall.

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“My role was to represent the interests of Californians,” Kamala says of her insistence on extracting a bigger commitment from the banks. She notes that seven of the 10 U.S. cities hardesthit by foreclosure in 2011 were in her state. “I hired forensic accountants to assess every county in the state, and too many Californians were devastated by foreclosure. The details made the difference.” The emotions tied to home ownership resonated with her personally. A rising star in politics, Kamala gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention last September that recalled the pride of her single parent mother upon purchasing a three-bedroom house in Oakland in the 1970s. “The American dream belongs to little girls who have the joy, like I did, of watching her mother buy her first home.” A longtime supporter and ally of President Obama, Kamala crisscrossed the country courting voters on Obama’s behalf during his two campaigns for president. Closer to home, she tends to “ask my staff once in a while who we’re not hearing from,” she says, referring to constituents. “So much crime happens in the shadows. Just because people are not knocking on our door doesn’t mean we can ignore their problems.” Last November, for example, she con-

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T WO OF A KIND

vened a daylong symposium of law enforcement agencies and victim service providers examining recent trends in human trafficking.

ACTIVIST ROOTS Kamala and her sister, Maya, credit their parents for instilling certain values in them. Shyamala Gopalan had immigrated from her native India in the late 1950s to obtain a doctorate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, where she met and married Donald Harris, a graduate student who had immigrated from Jamaica. They frequently participated in civil rights marches and related activities, so lofty concepts like “justice,” “freedom,” and “equality” peppered daily conversation around their daughters, both born in the 1960s. After the couple’s marriage ended, Shyamala Harris raised the children, constantly reminding them of how important it was to improve the quality of life for others less fortunate. A breast cancer researcher, Harris’s work took her family to universities and hospitals throughout this country and Canada. Everywhere they lived, Kamala and Maya watched their mother help graduate students find apartments and navigate university bureaucracies, many of them minorities and the first in their family to pursue advanced degrees. Kamala earned a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law; Maya earned hers from Stanford Law School. “We are our mother’s daughters,” Maya Harris says. “We are who we are because of our mother’s example.”

most recent year for which data is available, the foundation distributed more than $157 million in grants to organizations involved in causes within Maya’s democracy, rights, and justice portfolio, such as protecting human rights in marginalized communities and promoting transparent and accountable government in emerging democracies. HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations in the United States, for instance, have received capacity-building grants so that their leaders can better educate policymakers and expand litigation to reduce discrimination against people with AIDS. In fast-growing democracies such as Indonesia, nonprofit organizations have gotten grants for capacity building and technical assistance in order to increase civic participation among the general population and reduce poverty. “It’s an awesome responsibility that I don’t take lightly,” Maya says of the foundation’s global reach. “Every day, I wake up and wonder how I can work with my team to make the most and best of our resources.” Interestingly, she never explored philanthropy full-time until joining the foundation as a vice president in 2008, her first job outside California. Like many newly minted lawyers, Maya worked in private practice. She spent three years in the mid-1990s as an associate at the San Francisco office of Jackson Tufts Cole & Black, LLP, which has practice areas such as telecommunications and intellectual property. While litigating cases for the firm, she was also an adjunct faculty member at several nearby law schools and taught courses such as contracts and gender discrimination. A switch to academia full-time came in 1996 when she became dean of Lincoln Law School of San Jose, which offered only a part-time, evening course of study that consequently attracted many students with full-time jobs.

“WE ARE OUR M OT H E R ’ S DAU G H T E R S . WE ARE WHO WE ARE B E C AU S E O F O U R M OT H E R ’ S E X A M P L E .” —Maya Harris

PURSUING MULTIPLE CAREER PATHS At the Ford Foundation, Maya works with field staff and grant recipients worldwide. In 2011, the

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“MY PREVIOUS SUCCESSES AND SETBACKS IN ADVOCACY PROVIDE HELPFUL LESSONS IN TRYING TO ADDRESS NEW CHALLENGES.” —Maya Harris

At the time, Maya was only 29 years old. “It’s important to be open-minded about unexpected opportunities,” she says. “I never thought I would be dean of a law school at 29, nor that I would ever work in philanthropy. With each of these opportunities, I have been able to make a difference and also learn and grow.” By 2000, she was exploring yet another career avenue as a senior associate at the Oakland-based PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing economic and social equity. There, she conducted research and wrote reports highlighting the benefits of community-centered policing practices in dozens of U.S. cities. Maya’s diverse work experiences were immediately welcomed when she joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California in 2003, eventually rising to executive director of the San Francisco-based affiliate, says Alan Schlosser, legal director of ACLU-NC. Maya led ambitious public engagement campaigns in which she directed and coordinated litigation, media, lobbying, and grassroots activism in areas such as eliminating racial bias in the criminal justice system and achieving educational equity in public schools. “What Maya brought to the table was a litigator’s perspective along with experience in policy

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advocacy,” Schlosser says. “The ACLU had been trying to initiate more multi-disciplinary campaigns, and when Maya came here, we were able to accelerate the effort. She’s a great communicator and was versatile in her ability to talk to other lawyers [as well as] legislators, nonprofit foundation officials, and people from different communities.” Maya says her background in civil rights and in other areas of the law “has been tremendously valuable for our strategic thinking and grantmaking” at the Ford Foundation, particularly because she has had “real-world, practical experience lawyering for social change.” She adds: “My previous successes and setbacks in advocacy provide helpful lessons in trying to address new challenges.” Neither Maya nor her sister pictures herself as anything but a lawyer. Nor does either of them envision any professional path straying far from that of addressing the plight of those less fortunate. Meantime, they spend each day trying to make the world a more just society—in ways their mother taught them. D&B Lydia Lum is a freelance writer and former reporter for the Houston Chronicle and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

NAPABA’s

BEST LawyErS

By aZIZaH aHMaD

2012 hOnOrees reaching mOnumental heights

ONE LAWYER WAS PART OF A HIGH-PROFILE ANTITRUST CASE THAT WAS SELECTED AS ONE OF THE DAILY JOURNAL’S “TOP VERDICTS OF THE YEAR” IN 2011. THE LEGAL TEAM WAS ABLE TO CONVINCE A JURY TO RULE IN THEIR FAVOR, WHICH DROPPED A POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS CLAIM AMOUNTING TO $1.7 BILLION TO WHAT THE JURY DECIDED WAS VALUED AT $3.5 MILLION.

THE 2012 HONOREE S ARE:

HON. AKEMI ARAKAKI, LA County Superior Court, Central Juvenile District STEVEN CHOI, MinKwon Center for Community Action JAMES DERRY, Arbitron Inc. MARITA ETCUBAÑEZ, Asian American Justice Center RIO M. GUERRERO, OTHER ATTORNEYS HAVE WON CASES ON BEHALF Guerrero Yee LLP OF LOW-WAGE NAIL SALON WORKERS. ONE IS THE MARK HANASONO, LA County Alternate SECOND ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN ELECTED TO THE Public Defender BENCH IN GEORGIA. MELISSA S. HO, Polsinelli Shughart PC THEY HAVE ALL ACCOMPLISHED FEATS THAT PUT PEGGY L. HO, LPL Financial THEM AHEAD OF THEIR PEERS. THEY ARE COMMUNITY LABONI HOQ, Asian Pacific American ORGANIZERS, JUDGES, GOVERNMENT ATTORNEYS, Legal Center IN-HOUSE COUNSEL, LAW PROFESSORS, AND BLOSSOM KAN, MetLife, Inc. PARTNERS FROM BOTH SMALL AND LARGE FIRMS. NAHO KOBAYASHI, THEY ARE THE NATIONAL ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN McGuireWoods LLP NICOLE KUBISTA, BAR ASSOCIATION’S (NAPABA) 2012 CLASS OF “BEST Office of the Public LAWYERS UNDER 40” (BU40). Defender, St. Paul, MN JASON LEUNG, Ridout & Maybee LLP EDWARD LEW, The Walt Disney Company TIRZAH ABE LOWE, APABA, the only year over 50 lawyers were nominated for Knobbe Martens national bar associathe BU40 Award. Each candidate was Olson & Bear LLP tion representing the carefully evaluated and interviewed by the SAMUEL S. PARK, interest of Asian Pacific selection committee. Unlike other similar Winston & Strawn LLP American (APA) lawawards, there is no set number of honorees TEENA-ANN SANKOORIKAL, yers, judges, law professors, and law stueach year—the selection process is based Cravath, Swaine & dents, honored the 2012 BU40 class during solely on the merit of each candidate, makMoore LLP its Anniversary Gala, the finale event of the ing the selection process highly competitive JEANNIE SUK, 24th Annual NAPABA Convention, which and rigorous. Harvard Law School featured a conversation with U.S. Supreme VINOO VARGHESE, Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Varghese & Associates P.C. MOVING MONUMENTS The NAPABA BU40 Award recognizes HON. CARLA WONG Diversity in the legal profession is still talented lawyers in the APA community McMillian, State Court of a concept that has yet to be fully realwho have achieved prominence and Fayette County, GA ized. Although many corporations and distinction in their respective fields at a CALVIN K. WOO, law firms have shown a commitment to relatively young age while also showing McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney diversity efforts, according to a study by a deep commitment to community. This & Carpenter, LLP

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

NAPABA’S BEST LAW YERS UNDER

the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession (IILP) and the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA), only a small ratio of APA associates are making the jump to partnership. Although APAs make up roughly half of all associates of color, they are less likely than other racial groups to become partners. The IILP and ALA study found that only 11.5 percent of APA lawyers transition from associate to partner, compared to 90 percent of Latino and 81 percent of African American associates. These low conversion rates are staggering, however not a new discovery in the APA legal community. In 2000 the BU40 Award was created in part to help the best APA lawyers break those barriers and move up in their career paths. As Jim Goh, chair of the BU40 Selection Committee, states, “NAPABA’s “NAPABA’S BEST Best Lawyers Under LAWYERS UNDER 40 40 Award is rooted in the notion that APA AWARD IS ROOTED lawyers often feel reticent about promotIN THE NOTION ing themselves… Over THAT APA LAWYERS the years, we have OFTEN FEEL RETICENT heard many accounts of how the award had ABOUT PROMOTING made a difference in the recipients’ careers and THEMSELVES.” professional endeavors. The award is highly —Jim Goh sought after, and the nomination process highly competitive. Nominations go through rigorous scrutiny by the Selection Committee. Those selected enjoy the prestige of an award reserved only for the best of the best.” APA lawyers from various fields also face misconceptions about their performance. “Being an APA female, people are sure that you’re not capable,” says Melissa Ho, shareholder at Polsinelli Shughart in Phoenix, Ariz. Nicole Kubista, a lawyer in the Office of the Public Defender in St. Paul, Minn., echoed Ho’s sentiment. “We’re underestimated and have to fight with the idea of ‘you might not be the best candidate for this job,’” says Kubista. Both Ho and Kubista say they have had to prove that not only are they capable lawyers, but that they are among the brightest in their fields. Fortunately, not every APA woman has had the same experiences. Some, like Jeannie Suk, a professor at Harvard School of Law, have had the

opportunity to work in settings that allow them to embrace being different. “When I started my law teaching career, many who gave me advice assumed that I would have disadvantages as a woman, a minority, and a young person—a triple whammy—since there were hardly any law professors who were all three. However, I enjoy the reality that my just doing the job I love each day and naturally inhabiting the role of law teacher make those qualities more and more unremarkable. I’m aware of being a novelty in some ways but I truly don’t experience that as a burden!”

REACHING COMMUNITY An essential part of the BU40 Award is service and dedication to the APA community. BU40 honorees are not only stellar lawyers, but have actively demonstrated a responsibility to give back. The 2012 class is no exception—collectively this year’s honorees have performed hundreds of hours of pro bono and community service. Working in the community is nothing new for Steven Choi, executive director at the MinKwon Center for Community Action, who has committed his career to serving the APA community. Since law school Choi has had a special interest in serving low-income APAs, by first interning and eventually working as a fellow with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. At MinKwon Center for Community Action, Choi continues his commitment through organizing, advocacy, legal services, voting engagement, and youth empowerment in Flushing, Queens, N.Y. Tirzah Abe Lowe, a partner at Knobbe Martens, is the immediate past president of the Orange County Asian American Bar Association and past NAPABA Southern California regional governor. Although her clients include Shaquille O’Neal and Oscar de la Hoya, it is her pro bono work with the Tronie Foundation, an organization to combat human trafficking founded by a survivor, that helps set Abe Lowe apart from many of her peers. Abe Lowe connected the Tronie Foundation and founder Rani Hong with NAPABA’s anti-human trafficking efforts, resulting in Hong speaking to a sold-out crowd at the NAPABA annual convention. Through a special fundraiser and awareness campaign, NAPABA helped raise over $15,000 for the Tronie Foundation during the convention. CON T INUED ON PAGE 2 8

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PROFILES

AKEMI ARAKAKI was appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in December of 2010 at the age of 37. She is currently sitting in the Antelope Valley Delinquency Court. Prior to her appointment she served AKEMI as a deputy public defender ARAKAKI for the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. In 2003 she was appointed by Governor Gray Davis to sit on the statewide Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs. She also served in 2004 as the president of the Japanese American Bar Association. She earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Loyola Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wellesley College.

STEVE CHOI is the Executive Director of the MinKwon Center for Community Action, which STEVE organizes, CHOI educates, and serves the Korean and Asian communities in New York. Choi was formerly at the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund as Director of the Korean Workers Project, the only such effort providing free legal services to low-wage Korean immigrants. He also has experience with the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center in Boston, Greater Boston Legal Services, and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Los Angeles. Choi received his B.A. from Stanford University in History with Honors and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He has received awards such as the Korean American Association’s “Man of the Year” Award, the Wasserstein Fellowship, the Skadden Fellowship, and the Harvard Law School Asian Pacific American Alumni Award. MCCA.COM

MARITA ETCUBAÑEZ is Director of Programs at the Asian American Justice Center. AAJC’s mission is to advance civil and human rights for Asian Americans, and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all. Etcubañez coordinates the work of AAJC’s attorneys and program staff, including collaboration MARITA with the Advancing Justice affiliates. ETCUBAÑEZ Etcubañez has over a decade of experience providing legal assistance to low-income individuals, working with the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center in Washington, D.C.; Homeless Persons Representation Project in Baltimore, Maryland; and Texas Rural Legal Aid in Plainview, Texas. Etcubañez received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan.

JAMES DERRY is the Associate General Counsel & Chief IP Officer at Arbitron JAMES (NYSE: ARB), DERRY an international media and marketing research firm. He is responsible for complex licensing, privacy, data security, litigation, antitrust, IP, international, and advertising. Previously, he worked at the world’s largest consumer package goods company and at an international software company. Derry began his career in a large law firm’s D.C. office. He graduated from law school in 2001 and served as an editor for Law Review. Derry is a registered U.S. patent attorney and holds the CIPP - US/IT/C/E designations. He is a recipient of the 2012 ACC Inaugural Top 10—30 Something’s Award recognizing excellence in the in-house legal profession and is a finalist for the 2012 WMACCA’s Outstanding In-House Counsel Award.

RIO GUERRERO is a partner with the U.S. immigration law firm Guerrero Yee LLP in New RIO York City. For GUERRERO over a decade, his firm has successfully represented corporate and individual clients with their immigration matters in all 50 United States and abroad. In 2012, the Filipino-American National Historical Society honored Rio with the Contributions to Excellence Award, recognizing his success as an attorney and pro bono service to the Filipino-American community. A respected member of AILA, he serves as one of eight appointed members on its National Committee on Health Care Professionals. In 2009, he formed and currently Co-Chairs the AABANY Immigration and Nationality Law Committee. Since 2007, he has taught as an Adjunct Professor of Immigration Law at the City University of New York - SPS. He is an Edward V. Sparer Fellow of Brooklyn Law School.

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NAPABA’S BEST LAW YERS UNDER

For Jason Leung, Ridout & Maybee LLP in Toronto, Canada, a foundation for support was not always there, so he helped build one. Leung is a founding member and past president of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL), NAPABA’s only Canadian affiliate. “Since FACL was founded in 2007, its membership has grown to almost 250, and it has established itself as a strong public advocate for the Asian Canadian community,” says Leung, who is also the first Canadian lawyer to serve on the NAPABA Board of Governors.

WORDS OF ADVICE BU40 honorees did not get to where they are in their careers by doing it alone. Most credit a network of peers and mentors who have pushed and encouraged them to take risks. Although the idea of having a mentor seems customary or even expected, finding one is not always easy. “Don’t be afraid to seek out a mentor,” says Ho, a child of immigrant parents who could not always help her navigate her academic and career paths. “I had to seek out my own mentors and had to build the confidence to do just that.” Building a network of mentors is only one of the “DON’T BE AFRAID several ways BU40 honorees have succeeded. But what TO SEEK OUT A also makes a successful candidate is his/her MENTOR. I HAD TO BU40 ability to stand out, and SEEK OUT MY OWN for James Derry, associate general counsel and chief IP MENTORS AND officer at Arbitron, Inc., that HAD TO BUILD THE meant being authentic. “It is very easy to try and mold CONFIDENCE TO your attitude and personality to conform with your work DO JUST THAT.” environment,” Derry says. —Melissa Ho “I’m not suggesting that one act in an unprofessional manner, but you have to be ‘true’ to yourself and stand by what you believe in, not what others tell you to believe in.” Anyone can attest that being the best is hard work. But hours at the office and with clients really do not matter if there is no balance between the professional and personal. “Work your tail off when you are at the office, but try your best to get back home and have dinner with your family as

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

PROFILES

often as possible. The work will always be there, but your kids won’t always be kids,” says Leung.

REACHING MONUMENTAL HEIGHTS The NAPABA BU40 Award aims to highlight the careers of rising APA lawyers. Past honorees have gone on to establish incredible careers. This year’s class joins a distinguished group of past BU40 honorees that include Honorable Jacqueline H. Nguyen of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the first Vietnamese American federal judge and first APA woman federal appellate judge; and Frank Wu, current dean of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, the first APA to teach at Howard University Law School, and the first APA dean of Wayne State University Law School. There is no doubt that this year’s class will follow in the footsteps of their predecessors and blaze trails for those to come. It will be interesting to see what these young lawyers have in store in their prospering careers. NAPABA congratulates the 2012 class of BU40 as they continue to move mountains, break barriers, and reach monumental heights.

MARK HANASONO is a senior trial attorney and team leader for the Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defender office. He represents indigent clients in felony cases, including capital murder, MARK and supervises a team of HANASONO attorneys in APD’s central office. Hanasono was also a deputy public defender for the Los Angeles County Public Defender. Over his career, Hanasono has tried 85 jury trials. He was a law clerk for District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Stephanie Duncan Peters, and an extern for U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi. Mark serves as secretary for the Japanese American Bar Association, and was appointed to the State Bar Criminal Law Section Executive Committee. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, and summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from University of California Berkeley.

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LABONI HOQ is the litigation director at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, where she leads APALC’s impact litigation efforts. Prior to that, she was an associate at two LABONI civil rights law firms, and a litigaHOQ tion associate at Sidley Austin LLP in Los Angeles. Hoq graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a B.A. in 1996, Cambridge University with a M. Phil. in 1998, and Columbia Law School with a J.D. in 2001. In 2001, she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to South Africa to clerk on its Constitutional Court and conduct research on indigenous land rights. Hoq has been listed in the Southern California Super Lawyers Magazine® - Rising Stars edition since 2008.

PEGGY HO is Senior Vice President, Associate Counsel, with LPL Financial where she supports the PEGGY company’s HO corporate initiatives, including securities law compliance, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. She was the lead attorney in the company’s successful IPO in 2010. Previously, she was an associate with Ropes & Gray, where she concentrated on private equity debt financings. Ho currently serves as co-president of the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts and has served on its board since 2009. She previously served as host committee co-chair for the 2009 NAPABA national convention. Ho earned a J.D. from Georgetown University, an M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. She is married and has two young sons.

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NAHO KOBAYASHI is a partner in the Debt Finance Department at McGuireWoods LLP in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Co-Chair of the Firm’s Recruiting Committee. She regularly represents lenders in complex senior financings involvNAHO ing companies in the healthcare, KOBAYASHI timberlands/forest products and media/telecommunications industries. Kobayashi is a member of MAP-Bar (the Asian-American bar association for Mecklenburg County), and the board of trustees for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; prior to moving to North Carolina in 2007, she served as vice president of and board member-at-large for the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association. Kobayashi is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University (B.A., High Honors) and the Duke University School of Law (J.D., cum laude) and was a 2006/2007 Georgia Superlawyers Rising Star.

MELISSA HO is a shareholder at Polsinelli Shughart in Phoenix, Arizona. She practices in MELISSA the areas of HO government investigations and white-collar criminal defense representing and advising individuals and corporations who are targets of complex governmental and regulatory investigations. Ho is a registered patent attorney and a former felony crimes prosecutor. Fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, she is actively involved with Asian and Asian Pacific American communities. She is past-president of the Arizona Asian American Bar Association, Commissioner of the City of Phoenix Pacific Rim Advisory Council, and sits on a number of State Bar committees and sections. Ho is a graduate of Arizona State University’s Barrett’s Honor College and the University of Arizona James E. Rogers School of Law.

BLOSSOM KAN is an assistant general counsel at MetLife. Kan’s focus is on disputes relating to the BLOSSOM sale or perKAN formance of life insurance products, annuities, and investments. Kan also handles FINRA, SEC and state regulatory matters, advises on enhancements to compliance, mitigates litigation risk, and works on public filings and disclosures. Prior to joining MetLife, Kan was at the law firms of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Orrick Herrington and Sutcliffe. Kan is a member of the board of directors of PALS, which provides mentorship to diverse law students. Kan is a graduate of Yale University and NYU Law School. She has also co-authored two novels published by St. Martin’s Press, China Dolls and Young, Restless and Broke.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

NAPABA’S BEST LAW YERS UNDER

PROFILES

NICOLE KUBISTA is a litigator for the Minnesota Office of the Public Defender. She has litigated thousands of cases and secured acquittals for her clients on charges such as murder, criminal sexual conduct, drugs and weapons. Nicole is part of NICOLE an elite public defender forensic KUBISTA science litigation unit specializing in DNA evidence. Upon graduation from the University of Minnesota Law School, she was a law clerk for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the country’s highest court of appeal. She has served as president of the NAPABA-Minnesota Chapter, vice chair of the Saint Paul Human Rights Commission, and coached the Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition Team for Hamline Law School. She lives in Minnesota with her partner Jenny and their eight-year-old son.

EDWARD LEW is principal counsel at The Walt Disney Company in Burbank, ED California, LEW where he advises Disney Interactive and Disney Technology Solutions and Services on transactions and issues related to new/connected media and technology. Lew is a past president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Los Angeles County and serves on its Advisory Board. He also is the current president of OCA-Greater Los Angeles Chapter. He received his B.A. degrees in Economics and Ethnic Studies, with distinction, from UC Berkeley, and his J.D. from the UCLA School of Law. While at UCLA, Lew served as Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Pacific American Law Journal and co-chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Law Students Association and Southern California Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

JASON LEUNG is an intellectual property lawyer and director at Ridout & Maybee LLP’s Toronto office. His law practice is directed to the preparation and prosecution of patent applications in all areas of technology and trademark applications. He also provides clients JASON with patentability, infringement, LEUNG validity, and trademark registration opinions. He is the current author of the Canada chapter in the Kluwer Manual of Industrial Property and writes a bimonthly column for Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Leung is a founding member and a past president of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers and currently serves on the board of governors of NAPABA as the Northeast regional governor. He also serves on the boards of the Toronto Lawyers Association and LibraryCo Inc.

TIRZAH ABE LOWE is a partner at Knobbe Martens and practices trademark, copyright and TIRZAH Internet law. ABE LOWE Lowe has over 600 trademark filings to her name and has protected the brands of such clients as Carl’s Jr., Ruby’s Diner, Taco Bell, Shaquille O’Neal, and Oscar de la Hoya. She is currently NAPABA regional governor and president of the Orange County Asian American Bar Association, and co-chaired the 2012 NAPABA Western Regional Conference. She has received multiple awards and recognition for her work, including the “Rising Star” Award from ACC-Southern California, “40 Under 40” from OCMETRO Magazine, “10 Movers & Shakers” from Live Orange County Magazine and “Five Associates to Watch” from the Daily Journal. Lowe graduated from Yale University and UCLA School of Law.

SAM PARK is a partner with Winston & Strawn, where he focuses on patent litiSAM gation and PARK counseling. As a registered patent attorney, Park has advised more than a dozen different pharmaceutical companies on over a hundred different drug products. He routinely assists clients in determining patent and litigation strategies throughout a drug’s lifecycle, from soup to nuts. Park also is a skilled litigator and has obtained favorable outcomes on a broad range of high-stakes patent cases, including one of the “top verdicts of 2011.” He is the immediate past president of KABA Chicago and an honorary board member of AABA Chicago. Park received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and J.D., magna cum laude, from Loyola University Chicago Law School.

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JUDGE CARLA WONG MCMILLIAN serves as the state court judge of Fayette County, Georgia. A graduate of Duke University and the University of Georgia School of Law, Judge McMillian was a partner with Asbill & Brennan LLP CARLA WONG Sutherland and a law clerk for the Honorable MCMILLIAN William C. O’Kelley of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. In 2010, she was one of the recipients of the Georgia Most Powerful and Influential Women Award from the National Diversity Council. Judge McMillian was also selected as a Georgia Super Lawyers Rising Star for 2007 and 2010. Judge McMillian is on the board of directors of GAPABA. She is the first elected APA woman judge in the State of Georgia.

JEANNIE SUK is professor of Law at Harvard Law School where she teaches criminal law JEANNIE and family SUK law. She is the first tenured Asian American woman in the school’s history. She served as a law clerk to Judge Harry Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court. Her book, At Home in the Law, won the Law and Society Association’s top prize for most outstanding book published that year. Her influential writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship to support work on her next book, The Trauma Society, to be published by Scribner.

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TEENA-ANN V. SANKOORIKAL is a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. She has a broad litigation practice, with particular experience in intellectual property matters, as well as antitrust law, securities and the Alien Statute. Her recent representaTEENA-ANN Tort tions include victories for IBM, SANKOORIKAL Qualcomm, Warner Brothers Records and choreographer Mary Anthony in litigation concerning antitrust, patents, copyrights and trade secrets. Sankoorikal has lectured and written about complex litigation, intellectual property and ethics for the PLI. In addition to mentoring associates, she frequently speaks on leadership and law panels for various APA bar and law school organizations. Sankoorikal graduated cum laude from Yale University with majors in chemistry and sociology and received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was on the Law Review.

VINOO VARGHESE is the principal at Varghese & Associates, P.C., a criminal and asset forfeiture VINOO defense firm VARGHESE founded in 2006. Varghese has tried almost 30 criminal cases to verdict and written over a dozen appeals including one of three amicus briefs filed in the United States v. Rajaratnam, the largest insider trading case in American history. The firm’s cases have been featured in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. In 2000, Varghese began his career as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. In 2005, he was named senior assistant district attorney and was appointed to run a unit that prosecuted attempted murders of NYPD officers. Varghese graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 2000 and from New York University in 1996.

CALVIN K. WOO is Of Counsel at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP, where he CALVIN practices finanWOO cial/commercial litigation and white collar criminal defense. He has extensive trial and appellate experience representing businesses and individuals in a wide range of high stakes, complex commercial and civil actions. He also defends institutional and individual clients in the defense of government investigations and prosecutions. Prior to entering private practice, Woo served as an assistant district attorney in Investigations Division of the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office. Woo is a past president of the Connecticut Asian Pacific American Bar Association and is an active member of its board of directors. Woo is a graduate of the University of Rochester and the George Washington University Law School. D&B

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

QUEST FOR EQUALITY BY T OM C A L A RC O

MARY ANN SHADD CARY HAD MANY DREAMS. SHE SOUGHT A BETTER LIFE FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR, EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL, REGARDLESS OF RACE OR GENDER, AND A WORLD WHERE WHITES AND BLACKS LIVED IN PERFECT INTEGRATION. BRASH AND DEFIANT, SHE CONFRONTED RACIAL AND GENDER PREJUDICE LIKE FEW OTHERS IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

Born to free blacks, Abraham and Harriet Shadd, in Wilmington, Del., in 1823, the fearless Mary Ann Shadd Cary was the oldest of 13 children and the great-granddaughter of Hans Schad, a German mercenary who fought in the French and Indian War and married a free black woman. Her father, a shoemaker, became troubled after the founding of the African Colonization Society, whose purpose was to send black Americans back to Africa.

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n addition to the Colonization Society, the enforcement of restrictive black codes in the North had galvanized free blacks to protest. National Negro Conventions began in 1830, and Abraham was the convention’s president in 1833. He also was one of six blacks who participated at the organizational meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society that year.1 Abraham moved his family to West Chester, Pennsylvania, an area dominated by friendly Quakers. In fact, the Shadd family was not alone among blacks moving to Chester County as racial tensions had heightened in Delaware. With no schools in Wilmington for black females, the move made education available to all of the Shadd children. Not only free blacks flocked there but also fugitive slaves. Hundreds came through and were aided by the Underground Railroad, for which Abraham was an agent.2 He also prospered in business and purchased a farm and some real estate. 3 Mary Ann meanwhile grew into a tall, slender woman with “bright sharp eyes,” as her contemporary, William Wells Brown, described her. At age 16, she began teaching in Wilmington. During the next 12 years, she taught in Trenton, N.J.; Norristown, Pa.; and New York City. As she matured, her strident nature began to manifest.4

In 1848, she wrote a short tract, “Hints to the Colored People of the North,” parts of which were published in Frederick Douglas', North Star. It lectured free blacks on how to improve their condition. This was a time of great ferment in the antislavery movement. Not only did it lead to the growth of the Underground Railroad but to efforts at political reform such as support for black male suffrage, for which Abraham was a leading spokesman. At the same time pro-slavery forces were retaliating. Organized gangs in adjacent Lancaster County terrorized free blacks, and it was not uncommon for whites to forcibly enter the homes of blacks in search of fugitive slaves.5 A development that pushed many free blacks to leave the U.S. was the passage of the second Fugitive Slave Law on September 18, 1850, whose provisions made it easier for slave catchers to retrieve fugitive slaves, and threatened the freedom of free blacks. A general climate of hysteria developed among blacks in the North. Many made a hasty pilgrimage to Canada. It was the beginning of a mass exodus that would continue right up to the Civil War.6 The following year, Mary Ann joined her father at the Great North American Anti-Slavery Convention in Toronto. Abraham also was looking for a new homeland. The promise of antislavery that had seemed so bright a decade earlier had faded.7

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Image courtesy of the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum.

CloCKwise from left: provinCial freeman offiCe wHere JoHn Brown stayeD in CHatHam, CanaDa; mary anne sHaDD Cary HoUse in wasHington D.C.; tHe site of tHe JoHn Brown CHatHam Convention wHere tHe aBolitionist first reporteD His plan to start a slave insUrreCtion in tHe U.s. soUtH.

the prOmised land at the convention in toronto, mary ann met henry Bibb, probably the most famous fugitive slave in canada. The year before, his slave narrative had met with perhaps the greatest success since frederick douglass’s narrative, and it led him to move to Windsor, canada, just over the border from detroit and the first stop for many fugitive slaves. earlier that year, he had started his newspaper, The voice of the Fugitive, and an ambitious project, the refugee home society, that offered plots of land to fugitive slaves. he persuaded mary ann to come to Windsor to help them.8 mary ann decided to open a school. her optimism and enthusiasm did not prepare her for the struggles she was about to face, and from this point onward, her life would be a never-ending battle against prejudice, injustice, and deceit. fortunately, many of her family members had moved to canada along with her father and mother, who purchased a DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

homestead in Buxton. In 1850 West canada, which became ontario in 1867, passed the common schools act. This law forbid black students from attending white schools unless no other school was provided. mary ann was unaware of the racism that had been growing with the influx of blacks into canada. despite support from Bibb when she opened her school, she faced financial difficulty. Black families could not afford the tuition. consequently, she made an appeal for funding to the american missionary association (ama). connections that she had made through her father assisted her in obtaining a grant of $125.9 however, disenchantment with mary ann grew in Windsor. Though the historical record is vague, it appears that her association with white missionary alexander mcarthur was a factor. The source of the discord may have been Bibb’s refugee home society (rhs), which shepherded

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the transition of fugitive slaves into canadian life and depended primarily on contributions from benefactors. mary ann and rev. mcarthur believed that once fugitive slaves had received their initial assistance, they needed to rely on their own initiative to make a new life. This conflicted with the dependency that was fostered by the rhs. mary ann also wrote letters to the ama and The Liberator claiming that Bibb had used funding for his own benefit. meanwhile, she continued to have financial difficulties and closed her school. Bibb, she felt, was behind this.10 mary ann’s resentment toward Bibb continued with her publication of “notes of canada West,” a 44-page MCCA.COM

pamphlet that extolled the virtues of as the Rev. Cyrus Foote and Hiram newspaper but without success, and Canada West and attacked the RHS.11 Wilson for misuse of funds as it had who died suddenly at his home in Further escalating the confrontacriticized Henry Bibb. No one was Windsor on August 1, 1854. The only tion was Mary Ann’s announcement immune to Mary Ann’s barbs. Black mention of his passing by the Freeman to publish a newspaper that would abolitionists Josiah Henson and even was a brief death notice in the August compete with The Voice of the Fugitive. Frederick Douglass, who supported 12 issue. Mary Ann acknowledged herself as its her throughout her career, were the It became increasingly evident business agent, but hid the truth that source of her emnity. that Mary Ann was the editor of the she was also its publisher and editor. After a year in Toronto, it was Freeman, and on October 28, she Being the first black female editor decided to move the newspaper to stopped hiding it. She admonished in North America, she feared that Chatham, a village with a prosperous readers not to send any more letters the public would not accept her or a and educated black community. Some to the editor that began, “Dear Sir.”14 Like her school, the newspaper was newspaper edited by a black woman.12 months later, in January 1856, Mary Called the Provincial Freeman, Mary in constant financial difficulty, and Ann married Thomas Cary, a black Ann located its offices in Toronto Mary Ann began travelling throughbarber from Toronto. Nevertheless, and published she quickly its first issue on returned to her March 24, 1853. fundraising efforts, It proclaimed and she and Cary the paper’s goal lived separately, “[to] represent the something that 40,000 Negroes, continued throughIT BECAME INCREASINGLY freedmen, fugiout their marriage. tives, wealthy and They would have EVIDENT THAT MARY ANN WAS poor, recently two children, in THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMAN, arrived in Canada addition to the AND SHE STOPPED HIDING IT. ….”13 Featured three Cary had by a SHE ADMONISHED READERS on the front page previous marriage. NOT TO SEND ANY MORE was an attack Shortly after the LETTERS TO THE EDITOR THAT on the Refugee birth of her first BEGAN, “DEAR SIR.” Home Society child in August and its “begging” 1857, publication philosophy. of the Freeman ceased. From that THE ONLY point forward, its VOICE IN publication would CANADA WEST out Canada West and in the U.S. to be sporadic through 1860. However, The second issue of the Provincial appeal for funding. While she did 1858 was an exciting year. She was Freeman was long in coming. The this, her sister Amelia served as editor. involved in a dramatic rescue that explanation was that “the proprietors” The Freeman published informayear of young Sylvanus Demarest, were attempting to determine if public tion about fish dinners, bazaars, fire who was being taking into slavery by support warranted further editions. company parades, school graduations, a slave catcher, W. R. Merwin, and When fire destroyed the office of the meetings of literary societies, church whose train stopped in Chatham on Voice of the Fugitive on October 9, services, and other Canadian news. the way to Detroit. Along the route 1853, it left a void, and on March 25, There also were many descriptions in London, the man and the boy were 1854, the Freeman resumed publicaof antislavery activities in the U.S. observed by citizens who telegraphed tion. Five months later, it no longer with William Still, the Philadelphia their concern to Chatham. When had to concern itself with Bibb, who abolitionist, a regular contributor.15 It the train arrived, it was greeted by an also criticized white abolitionists such had tried to resume publication of his armed group of at least 100 citizens, MCCA.COM

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who boarded the train and freed Demarest. Seven arrests were made, among them Mary Ann's brother, Isaac Shadd. But it was revealed that Merwin actually kidnapped Demarest in New York City, and the charges against Isaac and the others were dropped. Demarest remained with Isaac’s family until his mother came to get him.16 The year 1858 also was marked by the visit of abolitionist John Brown, who held his “secret” Chatham Convention during which he revealed his plan to incite an insurrection by the slaves in the South. One of his goals at the convention was to recruit volunteers for his guerilla army. Forty-seven delegates attended the convention, including Isaac Shadd, Mary Ann's brother, and Osborne Anderson, who worked as a printer for the Freeman. The THE FRONT PAGE OF THE PROVINCIAL Shadds strongly supported FREEMAN FROM MARCH 25, 1854. Brown and allowed him use of the Freeman office. THE DREAM ABANDONED Employees of the Freeman also drew Mary Ann followed the Civil War lots to determine who would join closely. In January 1864, she was Brown’s army, and Anderson won.17 In June 1858, the paper resumed asked to help recruit black soldiers. publication, and Thomas Cary joined She responded enthusiastically and the staff. But his sudden death on traveled through the North much November, 29, 1860, only four as she had when she promoted the months after the birth of the Carys’ Freeman. But in this cause, she was second child, turned to a new page in much more successful. She had begun Mary Ann’s life. to turn her back on the Promised From 1860 to 1863, she operated Land of Canada. As the number a school for blacks at Chatham along of American black immigrants in with her sister. She also edited A Voice Canada increased, so had the level of from Harper’s Ferry, an account of prejudice. What Mary Ann had fled John Brown’s 1859 raid by Osborne to avoid had recreated itself there. Anderson, who was one of six memFollowing the war, she moved to bers of Brown’s army who survived. Washington, D.C., with her chilDIVERSITY & THE BAR®

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dren. The nation’s capital had become a mecca for black Americans. While teaching school during the day, Mary Ann enrolled in the first law school class at Howard University in 1869. A great deal of conjecture about her time there has surfaced, but there is no doubt that she along with Lemma Barkaloo, who was admitted to St. Louis School of Law, were the first black American women admitted to law school. However, she did not graduate until 1883, and there is speculation that her gender played a role in the delay.18 During this period, most law schools prohibited the admission of women, and those women who were able to find a law school to accept them often were denied entry into the bar.19 During this period, Mary Ann also wrote a number of articles dealing with women’s suffrage, temperance, and education, for the New National Era of which Frederick Douglass had become editor and publisher. She also joined the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA), attempting but failing to register to vote in 1871, and addressed the national convention of the NWSA in 1878.20 After the New National Era stopped publishing in 1874, Mary Ann’s outlet for expression closed. Her attempt to publish her own biography was rejected and younger editors were not interested in hearing the old rhetoric that she trumpeted. Nevertheless, her drive to improve the condition of her race and her gender never slackened. Finally, she received her law degree and was admitMCCA.COM

THE YEAR 1858 WAS MARKED BY THE VISIT OF JOHN BROWN, WHO HELD HIS "SECRET" CHATHAM CONVENTION DURING WHICH HE REVEALED HIS PLAN TO INCITE AN INSURRECTION BY THE SLAVES IN THE SOUTH.

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ted to the bar, after which she set up practice in D.C., though never receiving enough income to sustain herself. In 1893, when she died, her estate was valued at $150. Her obituary in the Washington Bee stated: “While she may have been eccentric (sic) at times, she was a woman of kind disposition.”21 D&B Jane Rhodes, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington, Indiana: 1998; 10; Bella Gross, “The First National Negro Convention.” Journal of Negro History, Oct. 1946: 435: William C. Kashatus, Just Over the Line (West Chester, PA: Chester County Historical Society, 2002): 57. 2 Kashatus, Op. Cit: 59-60; Rhodes, Op. Cit: 12 3 Rhodes, Op. Cit: 15 4 Peter C. Ripley, ed. The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. II, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991): 191-192. 5 Roderick W. Nash, “William Parker and the Christiana Riot,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 46, No. 1, January, 1961: 25. 6 Fred Landon, “The Negro Migration to Canada after the Passing of the Fugitive Slave Act.” Journal of Negro History, Jan. 1920: 23. 7 Rhodes, Op. Cit: 52 8 Ibid: 22. 9 Ripley, Op. Cit: 184-185; 1

Rhodes, Op. Cit: 36-40. Rhodes, Op. Cit: 65-69. Ibid: 43-44; Cheryl MacDonald, “Last Stop on the Underground Railroad,” The Beaver, Vol. 70, Canada’s National History Society, February, 1990. 12 Rhodes, Op. Cit: 83-84 13 Daniel Hill, The Freedom Seekers, (Toronto: Stoddardt Publishing, 1981): 187. 14 Ripley, Op. Cit: Introduction. 15 Alexander Murray, “The Provincial Freeman,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 4, No. 2, Apr 1959: 133 16 Rhodes, Op. Cit: 132-133; Ripley, Op. Cit. 17 John Stauffer and Zoe Trodd, The Tribunal: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid, (Harvard University Press, 2012): 228; Rhodes, Op. Cit: 129-131. 18 Rhodes, Op. Cit: 185-188. 19 Leila Robinson, “Survey of Women Lawyers in the US – 1890,” The Green Bag, Vol. II, Boston, 1890: 13, 14, 28. 20 Rhodes, Op. Cit: 197-199. 21 Ibid: 211 10 11

In order to assist and acknowledge law firms that are committed to advancing diversity and inclusion in the legal profession The Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) created the Firm Affiliate Network (FAN). As an affiliate, you will be better prepared to meet the expectations of top clients demanding diversity. FAN benefits include listing of your attorneys in the Diverse Outside Counsel Database (DOCD), which is regularly circulated to MCCA member companies and Association of Corporate Counsel members. Join FAN today and let your diversity efforts open doors for your firm.

Let us help strengthen your firm’s diversity efforts Apply to become a firm affiliate today To start enjoying all the benefits of FAN, complete the online application at www.mcca.com

For more information contact: David Chu Director of Membership & Development 202-739-5906 or davidchu@mcca.com

Fan Affiliate_D&B_NOV Halfpg_FINAL.indd 1

10/31/2012 11:49:24 AM

annual

MCCA 12th Annual CLE Expo | March 5-7, 2013 Hard Rock Hotel | San Diego, CA

2013

12th Annual CLE EXPO

March 5-7, 2013

Hard Rock Hotel

San Diego, CA

is like m usi c to t h e e ar

E CL

Sponsors as of Dec.17, 2012

DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

Co-sponsored by

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

MCCA.COM

This 1.5 day conference provides the best return on your investment in the CLE marketplace !

ATTEND MCCA’S 12TH ANNUAL CLE EXPO! The goal of MCCA’s CLE Expo is to deliver the most up to date continuing legal education by a diverse panel of speakers to help you meet the challenges in your department on a daily basis. The conference provides opportunities to sharpen your skills and fine tune your abilities to keep pace in an increasingly demanding workplace. And you can learn in an environment committed to inclusiveness for all.

NEW PRACTICE MANAGEMENT & SKILLS BUILDING CLASSES This year MCCA has added a practice management track and skills-building classes to provide you with tools that expand your knowledge base, enhance your value, and enable you to increase the profit and efficiency of your organization. These new classes address topics like creating and using metrics to establish yourself and your department’s worth, project management techniques for lawyers, and best practices and techniques for managing outside counsel. You also will not want to miss our new workshops that will improve your negotiation skills and teach you how to mediate disputes.

INVITATION-ONLY NETWORKING EVENT

ADVISORY BOARD

This year MCCA is launching a new, invitation-only networking event to allow in-house counsel to expand their rolodex of outside counsel and to permit outside counsel to connect with companies that may be looking for assistance in particular practice or subject matter areas. Organizations or individuals interested in participating in this networking event should contact David Chu, MCCA’s Director of Membership, via email: at davidchu@mcca.com.

Thomas L. Sager Award Reception Join MCCA for a reception that recognizes the Thomas L. Sager Award winner for the West Region and that kicks-off the 12th Annual CLE Expo. The Sager Award is given to law firms that have demonstrated a sustained commitment to advancing the hiring, retention, and promotion of diverse attorneys. The deadline for applications is January 18, 2013. To apply, or for more information, contact David Chu at davidchu@mcca.com or visit www.mcca.com.

HONORARY CO-CHAIRS Michelle Banks

Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Compliance Officer Gap Inc.

Javade Chaudhri Executive Vice President & General Counsel Sempra Energy

Rebecca Bortolotti Vice President, Chief Technology Counsel ConAgra Foods

John E. Page

Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Golden State Foods Corp.

Marci Rubin

Executive Director California Minority Counsel Program

Drucilla S. Ramey Professor of Law Golden Gate University School of Law

Guy Rounsaville Financial Services Attorney & Bank Director

Ahmed J. Davis Principal, National Chair Diversity Initiative Fish & Richardson P.C.

Rob Jones Corporate Attorney American Airlines, Inc.

Alex Ponce de Leon Discovery Counsel, Intel Litigation Group Intel Corporation

Janice P. Brown Founder & Senior Partner Brown Law Group

Peggy Foran Chief Governance Officer, Vice President and Corporate Secretary Prudential Financial

David A. Lebowitz Assistant General Counsel HR Legal Pitney Bowes Inc

Jennifer Sim Senior Corporate Counsel, Brand Services (IP) Gap Inc.

Stacy Campos Director and Lead Counsel, Employment, Labor & Workers’ Compensation PG&E

Maxine Graham Chief IP Counsel American Express Company

Kristen Ludgate Assistant General Counsel 3M

Gregory O. Olaniran Partner Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP

Marcelo Halpern Partner Perkins Coie LLP

Douglas H. Marshall Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary Xerox Corporation

Cecilia O. Vega Senior Corporate Intellectual Property Counsel, Transactions General Electric

Rafael Medina Managing Counsel, Litigation Practice Group McDonald’s Corporation

Carol Ward Vice President and Corporate Secretary Mondelēz International, Inc.

Kathlyn Card Beckles Managing Director and Associate General Counsel JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA Sabina Clorfeine Senior Counsel Sempra Energy Kevin Coles Vice President, Legal DHL Global Business Services

Heather Hutchinson Director, Legal Affairs Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. Deborah J. Israel Shareholder Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, LLP India Jewell Legal Director, Law Department Sony Electronics Inc.

Rosalyn Mitchell Associate General Counsel Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Adrienne Williams Senior Attorney Microsoft Corporation Linda Wong Partner & CEO Wong Fleming, P.C.

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CONFERENCE AGENDA 2013 TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013 5:00 PM 7:00 PM

REGISTRATION

5:30 PM 7:30 PM

THOMAS L. SAGER AWARD RECEPTION (ADMISSION INCLUDED WITH CLE EXPO REGISTRATION)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 8:30 AM11:00 AM

INVITATION-ONLY NETWORKING EVENT

11:00AM5:00 PM

REGISTRATION

12:00 PM2:00 PM

OPENING PLENARY & LUNCH: CRIMINAL LAW ISSUES FOR IN-HOUSE COUNSEL

2:00 PM 3:30 PM

3:30 PM 4:00 PM

GOVERNANCE & COMPLIANCE

DISPUTE RESOLUTION & LITIGATION

101. Disclosure Best Practices and SEC Update

TRANSACTIONS & CONTRACTS

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

LABOR & EMPLOYMENT

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

201. Effective Litigation Budgeting and Management

301. Getting a Handle on UserGenerated Content in New Media

401. Executive Compensation Master Class

501. Hot Topics in M&A

601. Project Management for Lawyers

202. Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Ask About E-discovery

302. A-Z of Consumer Data and Privacy

402. NLRB Developments

502. Derivatives, Hedging, and Financing Transactions

602. Outside Counsel Management Tools for In-House Counsel

203. Negotiation Skills Workshop

303. Brand Protection in the 21st Century

403. A Map to Healthcare Reform Compliance

503. Real Estate Rebound

603. Accounting for Lawyers

204. Mediation Skills Workshop

304. It’s Go Time for the America Invents Act and IP Case Law Review

404. Mobile Computing in Today’s Business Environment

504. Doing Business in Eastern Europe

604. Using Technology Solutions to Enhance Productivity

405. How to Prevent Workplace Conflict and Violence

505. Update Your Form Contract

605. Metrics and Proving Your Worth

BREAK

4:00 PM 5:30 PM

102. Domestic and International Anti-Corruption Law

5:30 PM 7:00 PM

NETWORKING RECEPTION

THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013 8:00 AM 9:00 AM

BREAKFAST & REGISTRATION

9:00 AM 10:30 AM

103. Getting the Right Compliance Infrastructure

10:30 AM 11:00 AM

BREAK

11:00 AM 12:30 PM

12:30 PM 2:30 PM

2:30 PM 4:00 PM

104. Procurement Compliance

LUNCH & PROGRAM: TAKE YOUR BOARD FROM BETTER TO BEST 105. Managing Relationships with Shareholders

205. Arbitration as a Means of Dispute Resolution

305. Open Innovation: The New Model of Research and Development

4:00 PM 4:30 PM

BREAK

4:30 PM 5:30 PM

CLOSING ETHICS PROGRAM: DON’T GO OVERBOARD BY PRACTICING OVERSEAS!

5:30 PM 7:00 PM

NETWORKING RECEPTION

CONFERENCE DETAILS REGISTRATION CONFIRMATION

Registration is NOT confirmed until payment has been received by MCCA. Electronic confirmation of your registration will be sent within ten business days of receipt of payment or upon completion of payment process if registering online. Full registration includes access to conference sessions, written and electronic course materials, and scheduled meals. Program sessions are subject to limited attendance due to facility capacity constraints, so please pre-register for your desired courses. MCCA is not responsible for any expenses associated with travel, lodging, or other costs incurred by the registrant, including in the event that MCCA must cancel the conference for any reason. Audio or video recording or transcription of any portion of the seminar is prohibited unless express consent is granted by MCCA.

CANCELLATIONS & SUBSTITUTIONS

All cancellations must be received in writing; telephone cancellations will not be accepted. Cancellations received in writing by February 8, 2013 will be fully refunded minus a $50.00 administrative fee. Individuals canceling in writing after February 8 but prior to March 1 will receive a full credit towards attendance at MCCA’s 13th Annual CLE Expo (only monies paid for the 12th Annual CLE Expo will be credited; after applying credit, any balance due is the responsibility of the registrant). If written confirmation of cancellation is not received by March 1, no refunds or credits will be issued of any kind. Credits will be processed after the meeting. Substitutions are always welcome; please submit a written request along with a completed registration form for the new individual in order to transfer the registration. Cancellations and requests for substitutions should be submitted to education@mcca.com

HOUSING

MCCA is holding a block of rooms at the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego at the rate of $229/night (single/double). For reservations call 1-866-751-ROCK and ask for the MCCA CLE Expo rate or go to www.mcca.com/cleexpo2013 to book online. But hurry, the cut-off date for this rate is February 1, 2013. It is likely this block will sell out, so book your rooms today. Rooms booked after the noted cutoff date will be at prevailing hotel rates.

DISCOUNTED AIR FARE

American Airlines is the official airline of the 2013 CLE Expo! Book on American and save 5% off of published rates. Travel discounts are valid March 2-10 to San Diego, CA (SAN). To make a discount reservation, please call American Airlines Meeting Services Desk at 800-433-1790 or go to www. AA.com and use promotion code 5533DQ.

Session Descriptions OPENING LUNCH PROGRAM:

Criminal Law Issues for In-House Counsel

No lawyer wants his company to be subject to criminal prosecution or sanction. Find out the areas where your company has the highest risk for criminal prosecution, and what you can do to eliminate that risk.

THURSDAY LUNCHEON PROGRAM:

Take Your Board from Better to Best

Learn best practices for board development, assessment, management, and planning. Presented in collaboration with the National Association of Corporate Directors.

CLOSING ETHICS PROGRAM:

Don’t Go Overboard By Practicing Overseas!

Some lawyers are “practicing law” in foreign jurisdictions without even realizing it. Learn what can constitute the practice of law in non-U.S. jurisdictions, and avoid running your career aground by violating ethics rules.

GOVERNANCE & COMPLIANCE TRACK 101. Disclosure Best Practices and SEC Update

Learn what companies are doing with respect to the most topical disclosure items like say-on-pay, board diversity, and conflict minerals. Review the areas in which the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is most likely to be active in President Obama’s second term.

102. Domestic and International Anti-Corruption Law

Learn best practices and new developments under laws like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the UK Anti-Bribery Act to ensure that your organization maximizes profits legally in all of the countries in which it operates.

103. Getting the Right Compliance Infrastructure

Different companies have different needs. Learn how to ascertain the type of compliance program(s) your company needs. The session will also address effective compliance structures and systems, as well as the necessary budgetary and other resources needed to implement a successful compliance program.

104. Procurement Compliance

Customers and vendors are demanding more “protection” than ever. How should companies manage their compliance obligations from customers? What is the best way to handle requests for audit rights, or to respond to questionnaires? Learn from a panel of customers and suppliers to find out how to navigate this thicket.

105. Managing Relationships with Shareholders

Explore the best practices to maintain harmonious relations with your company’s shareholders—including proxy advisory firms and socially responsible investor cohorts.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION & LITIGATION 201. Effective Litigation Budgeting and Management

Supervising litigation is one of the biggest challenges for in-house counsel. Discover how to budget and manage litigation in a way that permits you to execute your company’s strategy and objectives.

202. Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Ask About E-discovery

E-discovery is one of the biggest buzzwords in litigation, but what precisely does it mean, and how do you prepare your organization for it? Learn how to stay out of harm’s way and to deal with all of e-discovery’s challenges—including those involving “cloud”-based discovery.

203. Negotiation Skills Workshop

Attend an intensive workshop led by “black belts” in negotiation. Learn how to get the best deals for your internal or external clients. Participants will put the tips and techniques into practice by engaging in mock negotiations.

204. Mediation Skills Workshop

Do you understand what mediation is, and how to effectively use it as a dispute resolution tool? Learn core mediation techniques and put your new skills into practice by engaging in a mock mediation.

205. Arbitration as a Means of Dispute Resolution

Is your company employing arbitration as a means of dispute resolution? What are the benefits and drawbacks of arbitration? Learn whether arbitration makes sense for your organization, and how to employ it for maximum advantage.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 301. Getting a Handle on User-Generated Content in New Media

What are the rules of the road when customers create content or interact with media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? Find out how to stay out of harm’s way and the best practices from the leading companies in this arena.

302. A-Z of Consumer Data and Privacy

Companies are collecting more data from consumers. What are the best practices and policies for handling and using this data? Hear the latest domestic and international legal developments in privacy. You will also receive model policies and suggested practices from our panel of experts.

303. Brand Protection in the 21st Century

Learn how the world’s most important brands protect and maintain their value through a sophisticated mixture of copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, and public relations efforts.

304. It’s Go Time for the America Invents Act and IP Case Law Review

The patent revolution begins in 2013. Get up to speed on the new law, and learn about the key U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Circuit cases that impact the intellectual property (IP) landscape.

305. Open Innovation: The New Model of Research and Development

In-house research and development is being supplanted by Open Innovation (OI): a process where internal and external expertise combine to maximize collaboration systems, crowd sourcing techniques, and social networking principles to create faster-than-ever ideation. Learn what you must do to allow your clients to take advantage of OI.

LABOR & EMPLOYMENT 401. Executive Compensation Master Class

Not up to speed on this important topic? Don’t miss this master class on emerging trends, as well as the dos and don’ts, of executive compensation.

402. NLRB Developments

From social media policies to the potential provision of employee data to unions, find out what the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has in store for 2013 and beyond.

403. A Map to Healthcare Reform Compliance

Our panel of experts will help you ensure that your organization knows all of the ins and outs of complying with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

404. Mobile Computing in Today’s Business Environment

Smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous. Should employees be permitted to perform work on their personal mobile devices? What are the best practices regarding the personal use of corporate property? Learn the policies and procedures that will protect your organization and its employees.

405. How to Prevent Workplace Conflict and Violence

Lawyers are often called upon to address legal issues regarding workplace conduct, but they rarely receive training on how to effectively manage and prevent workplace conflict. Behavioral, human resources, and legal experts will help you learn how to help maintain conflict- and violence-free workspaces.

TRANSACTIONS & CONTRACTS 501. Hot Topics in M&A

Learn about the current trends and issues in international and domestic mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

502. Derivatives, Hedging, and Financing Transactions

Swaps, futures, options: What does it all mean? This session will address the current regulatory environment, and also explain how companies manage financial risk, so that you can help yours do it in a way that avoids legal exposure.

503. Real Estate Rebound

As the economy slowly begins to recover, the real estate market is as well. Learn what’s going on in commercial real estate, the types of provisions your company can negotiate, and how to position your company to take advantage of the changing market.

504. Doing Business in Eastern Europe

Many businesspeople are talking about countries like Brazil, Russia, India, and China, but fewer are aware of the opportunities available in countries like Georgia, Latvia, Belarus, and Lithuania. Learn about the exciting opportunities in this emerging part of Europe.

505. Update Your Form Contract

Our panel of contract experts will lead an interactive discussion about language to include—and to exclude—to make your contracts airtight.

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT 601. Project Management for Lawyers

Lawyers are businesspeople, and non-lawyers have been using project management principles for years to drive success. Learn how to plan, organize, secure, manage, lead, and control resources to achieve specific goals.

602. Outside Counsel Management Tools for In-House Counsel

Learn what your peers are doing with respect to work allocation between inside and outside counsel, appropriate success metrics, fee arrangements, and requests for proposal.

603. Accounting for Lawyers

A strong understanding of accounting concepts and principles is critical for every lawyer. Refresh your understanding of core accounting principles, and learn about changes in the accounting rules that will affect your organization.

604. Using Technology Solutions to Enhance Productivity

With budgetary pressures increasing and headcount decreasing, many counsel are turning to technology in order to maintain productivity. Learn about the software and hardware solutions that your peers have implemented for knowledge management and enhanced efficiency.

605. Metrics and Proving Your Worth

You know the value that you provide. How do you clearly demonstrate that value? Learn from in-house counsel who have developed metrics and tools to demonstrate the legal department’s value to their peers in other departments.

annual

3 WAYS TO REGISTER

MAIL ONLINE www.mcca.com/cleexpo2013 form and check to: (credit card only)

CONTACT INFORMATION REGISTRATION ITEMS

MCCA’s 12th Annual CLE Expo | March 5-7, 2013 Hard Rock Hotel | San Diego, CA

2013

FAX form to (202) 739-5999

Minority Corporate Counsel Association 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20004

NAME TITLE ORGANIZATION ADDRESS CITY

STATE

PHONE

ZIP CODE

FAX

E-MAIL

Please indicate your registration type:*

$625 In-House Counsel Early Bird Rate (Deadline: January 11, 2013) $725 General Registration Early Bird Rate (Deadline: January 11, 2013) $725 In-House Counsel (After January 11, 2013) $825 General Registration (After January 11, 2013) $625 Members of MCCA, CMCP & ACC/FANs/CLE Expo Sponsors Rate** $625 In-House Counsel Group Rate (Rate is per person; 3+ from the same law department)

1/11/2013 Questions? Special Requests? EMAIL education@mcca.com

SESSIONS

Please indicate the session number you would like to attend for each time interval: Wednesday, March 6, 2013 2: 00 PM - 3:30 PM 4: 00 PM - 5:30 PM

Thursday, March 7, 2013 9: 00 AM - 10:30 AM 11:00 AM -12:30 PM 2: 30 PM - 4:00 PM

101 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM L EPM - 3:30 PM 102 2:00 P 103A M 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Yes, I will attend the Thomas L. Sager award Reception, Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM (Complimentary with CLE Expo registration)

PAYMENT METHOD

REGISTRATION FORM

(General registration applies to law ﬁrm attorneys and employees of legal service providers.)

Note: Registration is NOT CONFIRMED until payment has been received. CHECK (Enclosed) CREDIT CARD NUMBER

VISA

AMERICAN EXPRESS

MASTERCARD EXP. DATE

PRINT CARDHOLDER’S NAME CARDHOLDER’S SIGNATURE BILLING ADDRESS

Check here if billing address is the same as listed in contact information

*By submitting this form, you agree to MCCA’s cancellation policy. MCCA is a not-for-profit organization classified under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. MCCA’s tax identification number is 13-3920905. ** MCCA corporate members receive up to 3 complimentary registrations to attend the CLE Expo. Contact a staff member at education@mcca.com for details.

ASSOCIATION FOCUS

BY DIANNE HAYES

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHINESE LAWYERS ASSOCIATION DEVELOPING A NEW GENERATION OF LEADERS FOR 37 YEARS, THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHINESE LAWYERS ASSOCIATION SCCLA has been a source for

networking, training, and developing well-prepared legal professionals in the Chinese and Asian American community in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Incoming president Cyndie M. Chang hopes to take SCCLA to the next level by continuing the fight for inclusion and increasing the ranks in corporate settings and as partners, especially for Asian women. While there are numerous gains and success stories among members, Chang said there is still work to be done. “There is still an important need for an organization like ours,” says Chang, a commercial litigator and partner at Duane Morris LLP. “There are many reasons diversity is important. I still see the challenges for minorities to break through certain legal areas. We try to monitor anything that affects us. There are issues of ignorance and racism that still need to be addressed.” One of the oldest and larg—CYNDIE est Asian bar associations, SCCLA’s goals have been to advance the professional growth and interests of Chinese and Asian American lawyers, jurists and law students; and improve Chinese and Asian American community access to legal services. It also promotes the interests of the Chinese American and broader Asian Pacific American (APA) communities. SCCLA is one of six bar organizations in the Los Angeles area supporting Asian American interests including the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Japanese American Bar Association, Korean American Bar Association, Philippine American Bar Association, and the

South Asian Bar Association. The groups regularly partner for networking and community service projects. “SCCLA’s founding may be the result of the large number of Asian American practitioners in the Southern California area,” says Chang about the organization that is affiliated with the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) and the Los Angeles County Bar Association (LACBA). The organization is also represented in the State Bar’s Conference of Delegates. “We do have a very robust organization with so many facets,” says Chang, who will begin her term in April. “SCCLA is, has been, and continues to be a critical component for my professional development. It has helped me frame my perspective about issues that affect the legal profession.” She adds, “SCCLA is definitely very supportive of women and works to address issues that affect their advancement. Personally, it has given me the confidence needed in my own professional development. It helps to have a network of other aspiring female leaders in M. CHANG the bar.” SCCLA training and professional development programs include the In-House Counsel Diversity program, Lawyers Luncheon, Meet the Judges Series, and professional networking mixers. Some of the key events have included the “Phoenix Rising”—Minority Attorney Leadership Program, and a Trial Skills Workshop. Kenneth Chiu, a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, is the current SCCLA president. He credits the association for having an impact on his own development, providing him with support since law school through career development workshops, networking, and structured leadership training as a board member.

“WE TRY TO MONITOR ANYTHING THAT AFFECTS US. THERE ARE ISSUES OF IGNORANCE AND RACISM THAT STILL NEED TO BE ADDRESSED.”

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

MCCA.COM

“It’s provided me with a lot of oppor t u nit ie s, prof e s sion a l ly and personally,” says Chiu. “SCCLA offers a lot of the networking that you would expect, meeting judges as well as fellow CYNDIE CHANG AND KENNETH CHIU prosecutors. For me, it’s been a good way to get to know private practitioners and those in private law firms who I otherwise wouldn’t come in contact with doing criminal work. I’ve met a lot of my personal friends through SCCLA.” According to Chiu, SCCLA’s annual awards banquet attracts 600-800 Asian Pacific American lawyers, students and those working in the legal profession. SCCLA also hosts a summer associate networking mixer for law students who are clerking. “Out of the mixer, informal mentor relationships are formed,” Chiu said. “We’ve found that this organic approach works better than formal mentor matching.” Law students are supported by SCCLA through training, informal mentoring, and networking. They also receive financial support through scholarships and fellowships. The SCCLA Scholarship Fund awards several scholarships of $1,000 each to law students based on academic merit, financial need, and demonstrated commitment to serving Asian American communities. Two non-voting board seats are reserved for law students who participate in all other aspects of board activity. SCCLA members include in-house counsel, state and federal judges, general counsel, government attorneys, faculty, solo and small practice attorneys, as well as law students and non-Chinese members. Both Chiu and Chang acknowledge an appreciation for the structured climb through the ranks of leadership, MCCA.COM

which requires presidents to have served in every office before becoming president. “We are a little more structured than some bar groups,” Chiu said. “It has a practical purpose in developing organizational history. We also wanted to put in a structure that throughout your tenure, each position gives you a new skill. You have to know how the finances of the board work to be president. There are different things that we want each board member to learn. When they leave our board they will have the skills that can be used elsewhere. “For us, being on the board is a kind of informal leadership skills and organizational training,” says Chiu who is preparing to pass the baton to Chang. “We don’t want new members to feel the pressure of someone who has been on the board so long that they are not open to new ideas. Our hope is that board members will use the experience from being a scholar board member or scholar officer to be a part of a larger board. ” While training and development are at the core of SCCLA’s priorities, Chiu says community outreach is another priority for the organization. SCCLA has promoted equal access to justice for the Asian Pacific American community through a monthly pro bono legal clinic in San Gabriel Valley, a youth mentorship project, a holiday toy drive and food basket program at the Chinatown Service Center, as well as a charity golf tournament. D&B Dianne Hayes is a freelance editor and writer based in Maryland. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

DIVERSITY NEWS

BY BRIANNA WILLIAMS

CELEBRATING OUR DIFFERENCES AND EMBRACING THE “NEW” DIVERSITY: THE BUSINESS CASE FOR BEING YOURSELF

This article was republished with the consent of Chambers and Partners.

I’M DIFFERENT. AND TODAY, THAT’S A GOOD THING.

creamy deliciousness of my grandmother’s bread pudding sprinkled with her sage advice, my diversity is not premised Diversity, in its most inclusive sense, encompasses much upon genetics. Instead my diversity is defined by the life I’ve more than sex and color. Instead, the concept of diversity led, the paths I’ve embarked upon, and the gems I’ve picked has evolved to embrace and appreciate various dimenup along the way. In 2012, the “new” diversity means much sions and offerings that transcend the usual trappings of more than just the color of my skin. protected classes. The gumbo of life experiences, culture, In addition to being an attorney, I’m a divorced mother and perspective that define us as individuals—characterof two boys, a freelance designer, a jazz pianist, and a istics that make us different from our colleagues—are fast self-confessed tech junkie. My work as a programmer has becoming the “new” diversity. appeared in the Chemical Physics Letters, I have credits as It comes as no surprise that many companies, both large a designer and performer on nationally released CDs, and and small, have begun to realize that to compete in today’s I regularly volunteer with the Boy Scouts. On any given rapidly changing world, a day, you may find me advising a diverse workforce is no longer an major hotel and restaurant chain option but a mandate. The busion its legal rights, designing ness case for diversity recognizes artwork for a creative profesthat a complement of professionsional and teaching him/her als with a rich variety of unique how to protect it, helping an viewpoints provides a distinct educational institution settle a advantage in the marketplace. contractual dispute, camping Understanding the needs of the in the wilderness with a rowdy individuals we serve necessargroup of young boys, or fronting ily requires the perspective of a a jazz band after work. Beyond diverse team working together. the fact that I’m an African I celebrate my personal American-female, I’m different. diversity—the insight I’ve It is these differences, however, gained through my life’s jourthat make me a valuable member neys. Although these expeof the team. Indeed, my diversity riences may have initially has directly resulted in measur—BRIANNA WILLIAMS been shaped by my race and able value to our firm and to our gender, the outcomes are my clients. For example, when I took own. This collection of distinct ideals defines who I am; my the lead in drafting an employee handbook for two of the rich history makes me a better adviser and a more valuable most recognized hotels in the world, I produced not only a colleague. From my mother’s difficult decision to send me top-flight legal document, but channeled my experience as away from California to an all-girls Catholic School in New a designer to deliver a fully designed print-ready product for Orleans to expand my awareness of various cultures, to the distribution. Having been an entertainer in the lobby of an

“THE BUSINESS CASE FOR DIVERSITY RECOGNIZES THAT A COMPLEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS WITH A RICH VARIETY OF UNIQUE VIEWPOINTS PROVIDES A DISTINCT ADVANTAGE IN THE MARKETPLACE.”

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

MCCA.COM

2013

BRIANNA WILLIAMS

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upscale New Orleans hotel prior to entering private practice, I knew exactly how to relate to these employees because they used to be my colleagues. Likewise, I frequently listen to live jazz with one of our clients—and occasionally even sit in with the band. Not long ago, during an informal discussion while listening to the music we both love, this client asked that I prepare a proposal to provide legal services pertinent to a business meeting we had earlier in the day. I readily obliged. While these examples represent only a microcosm of the myriad of opportunities I’m regularly presented with to integrate my personal formula of diversity with my career as an attorney, I can readily see how leveraging my diversity— that is, being 100 percent me 100 percent of the time—has yielded measurable results. I’m different, yet I celebrate my diversity and have become a witness to the unlimited potential created by being myself. This new diversity is quickly becoming a best practice—and before long, companies will wonder how they ever did business without requiring their employees to be themselves all of the time. D&B Brianna Williams is an associate at Stokes Roberts & Wagner ALC. She can be reached at bwilliams@stokesroberts.com. Follow her on Twitter @creativelawgirl.

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IN CLOSING...

You have developed one of the country’s most successful IP Litigation practices. Can you tell us your most satisfying victory or moment as an IP Litigator?

BILL LEE HEADED THE APPLE LEGAL TEAM’S VICTORY OVER SAMSUNG THAT WILL LEAD TO A DIVERSIFICATION OF PRODUCTS IN THE MARKETPLACE, ACCORDING TO THE NEW YORK TIMES. HE SPOKE RECENTLY WITH DIVERSITY & THE BAR.

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There are two cases that come to mind. We lost a jury verdict of nearly $2 billion in a case for Abbott in East Texas. While we predicted it would be difficult to win the case before that jury, losing was still a disappointment. We appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the court reversed the verdict in its entirety. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. By that time, the verdict, if it had been sustained, would have totaled $4 billion. The reversal was very satisfying. Centocor Ortho Biotech, Inc. v. Abbott Laboratories, 636 F.3d 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2011). The second case was the jury trial between Apple and Samsung which we tried last August in California. We obtained a verdict of over $1 billion for Apple and a finding against Samsung on all claims. The public interest in the case was enormous and the stakes were high. It was a good win. Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al., Case No. 11-CV-01846-LHK (United States District Court, N.D. Cal., San Jose Division) IP Litigation has become increasingly prevalent these days as our economy becomes more technology based. What role does IP Litigation play in shaping tomorrow’s marketplace and where do you see the practice going over the next five to 10 years?

For the last 100 years, technology has been a key driver of the national and now international economies. That will remain true in the years to come. The protection of intellectual property in a manner that encourages innovation and creativity will be critical. As a result, the global intellectual property laws and the manner in which they are enforced are key. The largest intellectual property wars result from new and disruptive technologies and the convergence of technologies. That was true for the steam engine and later the microproces-

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sor and now for smartphones. Intellectual property litigation will always be an important tool in resolving these battles. While it is impossible to predict what those next technologies will be, we can be sure there will be litigation that results. We recognize that attorneys—particularly those in private practice—face incredible demands on their time. Please tell us how you have juggled being a co-managing partner, running a busy litigation practice, being a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and fellow of the Harvard Corporation, and fulfilling your commitments to your family, among many other things?

There have been three keys to my efforts to balance these activities: First, each of us needs to set their own priorities. For me, my family has always come first and they know it. Second, we need to recognize that the goals of being a good lawyer and professional and a good family member are sometimes consistent but sometimes conflict. Making compromises between the competing goals is just something we each have to do. Third, I have had extraordinary folks at the firm with whom I have worked. I can trust and rely upon them and consequently can freely delegate to them. They make me look better professionally than I am. You were one of the country’s fi rst Asian American managing partners of a major U.S. law fi rm. How has legal practice changed during your career? What advice do you have for young lawyers from underrepresented backgrounds entering the profession today?

Law practice has changed enormously. It is more national and international, more demanding, faster moving, and more challenging and complex. There are more competing demands on a lawyer’s time, and we are expected to be “on call” all the time.

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“[MY FATHER] TOLD ME, ‘NEVER FORGET YOU ARE CHINESE BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL. BE PROUD OF WHO YOU ARE.’ EACH OF US IS ORIGINAL AND SHOULD BE PROUD THAT WE ARE.”—BILL LEE The best advice I can give is the advice my father gave me. He told me, “Never forget you are Chinese because no one else will. Be proud of who you are.” Each of us is an original and should be proud that we are. Don’t try to be a copy. We note that many of your mentees include women. For example, one of your successors as co-managing partner of WilmerHale is Susan Murley, former transactional department chair. What does the diversity of the managing partners say about your firm’s culture and, more importantly, what does it mean to you?

WilmerHale has a long history of leading efforts to diversify the profession. We were one of the first firms to have Jewish lawyers join us almost 70 years ago, one of the leaders in bringing women to law firm practice, and a leader in opening the doors of practice to people of color. It is no coincidence that I was hired 36 years ago, that I became the managing partner, or that my successor is a woman. That is part of culture and who we are. D&B

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

CHRISTIAN S. NA Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary Xylem Inc.

Christian S. Na has been named senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary for Xylem Inc., a water technology company focused on addressing the world’s most challenging water issues. He brings diverse legal experience after working for several global industrial companies. Since 2010, Na, 41, has served as deputy general counsel for CIRCOR International, Inc., a global manufacturer specializing in highly engineered industrial products. From 2007 to 2010, Na was group vice president and general counsel at Danaher’s product identification division. He also served as adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He received his B.A., cum laude, from Boston University, and his J.D. from Boston University School of Law.

GILDA LIVINGSTON SPENCER Senior Vice President Allstate

Gilda Livingston Spencer joined Allstate as senior vice president in charge of dispute resolution services. In this role, she will oversee corporate and claim litigation and specialty operations law. Prior to joining Allstate, Spencer was vice president and chief litigation counsel for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. She managed a staff of associates across six practice areas and led the advancement of diversity at Nationwide, where she spearheaded new initiatives that promoted diversity in recruiting and vendor management. Before coming to Nationwide she was an assistant U.S. attorney in Columbus, Ohio. Spencer earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from Ohio State University and her J.D. from the University of San Diego Law School.

COMPILED BY JOSHUA H. SHIELDS

MARTY LORENZO

LUCY HELM

Partner Mintz Levin

Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary Starbucks

Marty Lorenzo, a 2012 MCCA Rainmaker, has accepted an offer to be a partner at Mintz Levin in its San Diego office. He represents public and private companies, and often acts as outside general counsel. He handles international mergers and acquisitions, post-merger integration and consolidation matters, reorganization of international assets, global corporate structuring and integration projects, and other crossborder business law issues. Lorenzo is general counsel for the Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund. He is also a member of the alumni board of the University of San Diego School of Law and the chair of their diversity committee. Lorenzo earned both his B.A. and J.D. from the University of San Diego.

Lucy Helm was appointed executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary for Starbucks in May 2012. She has been a partner at Starbucks for more than 12 years. She leads the company’s law and corporate affairs department, supports the Starbucks board of directors, and serves as a member of the company’s senior leadership team. Prior to Starbucks, Helm was a principal at Riddell Williams P.S. in Seattle, where she was a trial lawyer specializing in commercial, insurance coverage, and environmental litigation. In addition to her work at Starbucks, she also sits on the board of the Washington YMCA Youth & Government Program. She received her B.A. in political science, with highest honors, from the University of Louisville, and is a cum laude graduate of the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.

Please send your submissions to our Movers & Shakers feature to joshshields@mcca.com Please include a high-resolution photo (300 dpi or greater), along with an electronic version of the applicable announcement.

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We believe that our philosophy and practice of inclusion—soliciting, valuing, and incorporating the myriad viewpoints of our lawyers—makes the firm more creative, stronger, and better able to address the evolving issues in the workplace. Ogletree Deakins is one of the largest labor and employment law firms representing management in all types of employment-related legal matters. The firm has more than 650 lawyers in more than 40 offices in the United States and Europe.

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