wmacca 4q06 - Association of Corporate Counsel

Board Members
and Contacts
President
Eric D. Reicin
Vice President and Associate General Counsel
Sallie Mae, Inc.
703.984.5528
[email protected]
President-Elect
Mary E. Kennard
Vice President and General Counsel
American University
202.885.3285
[email protected]
Vice President and Programs Chair
Mollie D. Roy
Associate General Counsel and Asst. Secretary
Freddie Mac
703.903.2456
[email protected]
Secretary
Thomas D. Hickey
[email protected]
Treasurer
Joseph M. Titlebaum
General Counsel and Secretary
XM Satellite Radio Inc.
202.380.4066
[email protected]
Immediate Past President
Marian Block
Vice President and Associate General Counsel
Lockheed Martin Corporation
301.897.6314
[email protected]
ACC Honors WMACCA, Watchman
WMACCA received honors as outstand-
The award covers the period from April
ing large Chapter of the Year from the
Association of Corporate Counsel at the
2005 through April 2006, when both
Marian S. Block, vice president and associ-
ACC Annual Meeting in San Diego in
October. This was the second year in a
ate general counsel of Lockheed Martin
Corporation, and Eric D. Reicin, vice
row that WMACCA was chosen as large
President and associate general counsel of
Chapter of the Year, and the third time in
six years.
Sallie Mae, Inc., served as WMACCA
presidents.
WMACCA, now the largest ACC chapter with 1,500 members from more than
WMACCA member Gregory R.
Watchman, assistant general counsel of
500 corporations and private-sector organizations, was selected for its membership
Freddie Mac, received the Jonathan S.
Silber Award as the outstanding commit-
growth and retention (and the growth of
tee member of the year for his strong con-
its service area into all of Virginia), its
strong line-up of educational programs and
tributions to the ACC Employment &
Labor Law Committee. Watchman, who
networking events, and its special projects,
including the Corporate Scholars Program
has been in-house for only a year, was
selected for his work as a co-chair of the
that places law students in summer internships at member companies, its 25th
Anniversary celebration and creation of
subcommittee on policy, and his development of programs for the Committee and
articles for the ACC Docket. WMACCA
the Corporate Counsel Awards, outreach
to law schools, advocacy for the profession,
and its public relations initiative.
congratulates Watchman on this honor
and his achievements.
Board of Directors
Frank R. Borchert
Charles DeLeon
Robert E. Gans
Kevin S. Lapidus
Manik Rath
Judith Sapir
Curtis L. Schehr
Rhonda S. VanLowe
Karen Wishart
Ilene G. Reid
WMACCA Chapter
6928 Race Horse Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20852
Fourth Quarter 2006
Focus
Eric Reicin
President’s Message
Reicin Is No Nostradamus, the State
of the Organization, and Thank You
As my term as the
25th president of WMACCA closes, I have
a few parting comments about the current
and future state of in-house practice and our
organization. I also have many people to
thank.
Predictions
While I am no Nostradamus, this year has
offered me the opportunity to interact with
many colleagues in the in-house community,
the media, our friends in the law firms, and
regulators on both the state and federal
level. I have a few thoughts on where I
think the in-house practice of law, and for
that matter, the practice of law generally
might be going over the next 10 or 15 years.
I think that we are at the end of several
trends and in the infancy of many others.
Membership Cocoordinators
Mary Legg
General Counsel
Firm Advice
703.848.0626
[email protected]
Judith Sapir
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
APCO Worldwide
202.778.1704
[email protected]
Jennifer McGarey
Vice President & Assistant General Counsel
RCN Corporation
703.434.8530
[email protected]
Lisa Sotir
General Counsel
NEA Member Benefits
301.251.9600 x 3228
[email protected]
Executive Director
4
Ilene Reid
301.230.1864
[email protected]
My “educated” predictions for the year
2016 are:
The law firm consolidation trend will continue and major corporations will employ
mega-firms only for the most sophisticated
litigation, transactional, tax, regulatory, and
M&A work. Discovery, billing, and document work will be viewed as “commodities”
to be outsourced to volume and overseas
providers. Conflict of interest rules will be
largely ineffective. Midsize firms will
become less prevalent in major metropolitan
markets. Paralegals and para-professionals
will handle work that first and second year
associates used to perform.
At the largest corporations, the current
practice of in-house counsel “picking” their
friends and former colleagues to send work
to will end and the professional procurement
groups (also called strategic sourcing groups)
will use far more sophisticated modeling,
auctions, and RFPs. Although everyone will
still want “alternative” billing arrangements,
complex projects will remain on an “hourly”
(time and materials) basis. We will have
fond memories of the $600 an hour senior
partner rate, but we will be outraged by a
$300 an hour first year associate rate. These
rates will diminish large law firm representation of all but the wealthiest individuals.
During the past 20 years, we have seen a
dramatic shift in the speed and efficiency of
the practice of law with the addition of each
new technology (overnight mail, fax, electronic word processing, electronic legal
research, email, efiling/knowledge management, internet search, video conferencing,
and Blackberrys). This trend will continue
mostly to the detriment of our personal lives
and to the “perceived” benefit of our clients.
It will continue to fall to us to encourage our
clients to prioritize and recognize when
immediate turnaround is required and when
further thought is preferable.
The troubling trend of the criminalization of
legal malpractice (e.g., HP) and the pressure
to waive privilege (exerted by auditors and
law enforcement) will continue for the next
continued on insert
Congratulations to Winners
of Second Annual Corporate
Counsel Awards
More than 300 WMACCA members and
our friends and colleagues celebrated the
finalists and winners of the WMACCA
Second Annual Corporate Counsel Awards
at a lovely reception on November 2.
“WMACCA honors individuals and inhouse departments that have demonstrated
significant and noteworthy achievements,
exemplified remarkable character, ethics
and integrity, and elevated the role of inhouse counsel in the profession,” said Eric
D. Reicin, WMACCA president and vice
president and associate general counsel at
Sallie Mae, Inc. “It is important to our
organization to recognize fellow in-house
counsel and celebrate their achievements.”
“The finalists and winners exemplify the
important contributions that all in-house
counsel make to the success of their companies and organizations,” said Manik K.
Rath, Vice President and General Counsel
of LMI, and the chair of the Corporate
Counsel Awards.
The winners of the 2006 WMACCA
Corporate Counsel Awards are:
continued on insert
Pragmatic Practices in
Privilege Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
ACC Honors WMACCA, Watchman . . .6
Pragmatic Practices in Privilege Protection
Susan Hackett
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Association of Corporate Counsel
[email protected]
The continued vitality of the attorney-client
privilege1 is threatened by a number of governmental policies—foremost among them
those of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Because of these policies, companies that
have been accused of wrongdoing or that are
engaged in voluntary self-evaluation or selfreporting are often forced to waive their
attorney-client privileges in order to be
judged as “cooperating” with prosecutors or
enforcement officials. Erosion of the attorney-client privilege has a negative and concrete impact: executives and directors who
would like to consult with corporate counsel
about the most sensitive issues are confused
about whether the corporate attorney-client
privilege will apply to their conversations
with counsel and thus their communications
with lawyers are “chilled”; lawyers investigating allegations of wrongdoing are worried
about how their honest attempts to unearth
and correct serious problems may be used
against the company’s interests in the future;
and line employees who lack the sophistication or means to protect themselves can be
deprived of their Constitutional rights and
left without the protections we would guarantee to any other person whose actions are
under scrutiny as a result of a government
investigation.
Much of the public discourse on this issue to
date has focused primarily on documenting
the existence of privilege erosion and arguing
the merits or privilege protections in the
modern corporate context (and demanding
reform of abusive policies that undercut privilege): while ACC’s work in this area is creating substantial advances,2 very few people
offer practical applications that corporate
counsel and clients should consider adopting
to protect themselves before or during a privilege attack. So here it is! ACC conducted
research (through extensive confidential
interviews) with in-house counsel to identify
the key issues ACC members face and to catalogue the various approaches employed to
address those issues.
We interviewed a significant number of
CLOs (as well as in-house compliance, litigation and governance counsel), at corporations of various sizes in a wide range of
industries (including consumer goods, retail,
manufacturing, high tech, financial services,
insurance, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications). We also interviewed a number of
outside counsel to these corporations, as well
as current and former government officials
responsible for investigating and prosecuting
allegations of corporate wrongdoing, in order
2
to garner any additional thoughts they could
share.
The resulting research shows that privilege
erosion problems generally fall into one (or
more) of the following categories: audit
process, internal investigations, individual
rights of employees, document retention policies, limited waiver issues, and prosecution
agreements and corporate monitorships.
The full resource documenting all of these
practices is now available online at INSERT
URL. For more information generally on
ACC’s efforts to change privilege practices in
the prosecutorial and regulatory community,
or for additional research material on this
topic, go to ACC’s privilege homepages at
www.acca.com/php/cms/index.php?id=84.
To whet your appetite, I’ve outlined below
the top ten practices at work in departments
that are at the cutting edge of privilege protection. As always, if you have comments or
suggestions on this article or our privilege
work generally, please feel free to contact me
at 202.293.4103, ext. 318 or [email protected].
And stay tuned for more info and updates
about the legislation we helped to draft that
will be coming to the floor of Congress during the lame duck session, and perhaps to
vote in the early part of next year.
ACC’s Top Ten Privilege Protection
Practices for In-house Counsel
Document Control Practices
1. Don’t become your client’s worst enemy
on privilege protection by over-asserting privilege … don’t place the “attorney-client privileged” imprimatur on every e-mail, fax cover
sheet, letter and document just because you
authored it. Over-asserting privilege actually
weakens your ability to argue for the protection of truly privileged documents because it
will appear that you don’t know how to use
the legend judiciously.
2. When writing, memorialize that the client
requested the legal advice by writing words
such as: “In response to your request for legal
counsel on this issue.” Also, ensure the distribution of the privileged work is limited solely
to those parties intended to receive it in the
client group. This suggests careful dissemination tactics, such as avoiding email attachments which are easily copied and forwarded
to others, and adding a header to each page
of your documents that states something like:
“Do not distribute this document to anyone
other than those listed as recipients without
permission of the legal department.” Finally,
it is prudent to think before writing at all.
While we don’t suggest that you never write
anything down, remember that what is not
memorialized cannot be produced (unless the
attorney is called as a witness, which is less
likely to be allowed. Sometimes a walk down
the hall to conduct a conversation in person
is more effective and is certainly more easily
protected than a lengthy and detailed email
that will generate all kinds of interest in its
production.
In the Internal Investigation Context
3. Segregate the “facts” (e.g., the factual
“results” of your internal investigation) from
documents that contain attorney work product (e.g., an outline of legal strategies, legal
inferences or conclusions), so as to make a
“produce-able” internal investigation report
that does not contain privileged material.
The attorney-client privilege doesn’t protect
facts from being produced and most lawyers
and their clients want to cooperate with
auditors or investigators by producing what it
is that the investigator needs to conduct his
work and the defense counsel for any errant
employees may need to develop their defense.
Since only lawyer-client communications or
lawyer impressions and work product in
anticipation of litigation are protected, segregate these in a separate place that allows you
to produce factual reports without waiving
privileged material.
4. Consider the best involvement of nonlawyer or lawyer (not-practicing law) employees who work in company compliance,
internal audit, risk management, and reporting functions. Non-lawyers who are asked to
assist in-house counsel can be seen as agents
of lawyers for purposes of protecting privilege,
but they can also perform tasks that are
undertaken without agency: namely, those
tasks consistent with their corporate offices
and that corporate counsel, and which could
become public should their work be
requested in the future. If they are not working under your agency, you may be able to
produce their findings without waiving privilege and satisfy your opponent’s request for
facts; if they are working under your agency,
it may be possible to claim privilege to insulate their work from discovery.
5. Avoid executing affidavits that contradict
accusations against the company; otherwise,
corporate counsel may become a fact witness
and any hope of asserting privilege may disappear. Counsel may also find that such
actions as signing the company’s Sarbox 404
reports can be seen as a verification of company assertions, and can lead to a finding of
waiver.
In the Audit Context
6. Several themes emerged as leading practices employed by clients when auditors
demanded the production of source materials
(including privileged documents) as the only
acceptable means of to establish the com-
pany’s actions and financial fitness. Several
members focused significant attention on
negotiating the terms of info production in
advance establish clear “rules of the road”
regarding the need to produce privileged documents. These efforts were designed to work
with auditors to identify in advance what
they really need / try to find a way to get
them the facts without sacrificing privilege.
Some suggested that when these negotiations
with the more junior auditors assigned to
your campus failed or floundered, that they
were nonetheless successful in the end if they
went over the junior auditors’ head and
pushed back against waiver demands with the
company’s relationship partner in the audit
firm (or when they contacted the audit firm’s
mother ship offices). Others reported success
when they requested MFN clauses (most
favored nation) that bootstrap the client’s
treatment to the best treatment offered by
the auditor to any client or to any entity
related to the client (since some companies
have the same auditor working for 200 subs,
many of which are located in jurisdictions
that have a continuing tradition of more
respect for privilege claims asserted by clients.
Client Education and Employee Rights
7. Take a hands-on, proactive approach to
client education about the privilege, what it
protects, and how it is likely to be used,
waived or lost within today’s investigation,
prosecutorial, or audit context. Be upfront in
the cool light of day about the extent to
which an attorney can (or can’t) offset
employee concerns that sensitive conversations with counsel will end up being used
against them personally in the future. This
hands-on approach will often help bolster the
confidence of employees about what they can
do to preserve privilege themselves, as well as
what they should expect privilege to protect
(or not), so that when the pressure is on, your
job won’t be to begin educating clients who
are already nervous (at best) and very likely,
hostile and confused about how their actions
or statements will be viewed or used.
8. Learn how to give the so-called
“Corporate Miranda” (aka Upjohn warnings)
and talk with executive management in
advance of troubles about how they plan to
treat employees who are accused or suspected
of wrongdoing. Such conversations should
include discussion of reimbursement/advancement of fees under corporate indemnification
policies, joint defense agreements and their
possible terms and applicability, whether
employees who are accused will be provided
with counsel retained by the company, and
so on.
Corporate counsel is not the lawyer for any
individual employee interviewed about a
company failure or problem, but the
employee is owed that reminder, and perhaps
more: if their actions were not inappropriate
or a determination of wrongdoing has not
been made, the employee remains a part of
the client group you represent. Even if you
are obligated to remind non-cooperative
employees that their uncooperative behavior
in an investigation could lead to discipline or
termination (and some companies consider it
a best practice to include such a policy in
their employee handbooks), employees have
rights that you must respect and will scrutinize any discrepancies between corporate
policies and practices and the treatment
afforded them — you don’t want to be seen
as “writing” or re-writing your policy in
response to a red-hot controversy.
Privilege and the Board
9. One of the surprise findings of this project
was the number of in-house counsel who
expressed concerns about privilege problems
in the relationship with board members.
These members were focusing on ensuring
that any directors’ engagement letters with
their own lawyers made clear that such a representation is limited to the individual’s conduct in their capacity as a board member so
as to avoid problems of board members
telling their own lawyers about privileged
issues in a fashion that could lead to waiver
of a corporate privilege (since the personallyretained outside counsel might share privilege
with the board member, but not the company.) Others were working to ensure that
any agreement between the entity and board
members contains a claw-back provision for
privilege protection. Still others were focusing on developing policies that would help
determine how and under what circumstances the board will make waiver decisions
when a privilege waiver demand is presented
(the worry being that individual managers
might not be properly authorized to make a
privilege waiver decision on behalf of the
entity, but that the board might be too likely
to succumb to waiver demands without full
consideration of the potential perils (such as
future third party litigation demands) that
may ensue. Finally, several of those interviewed were carefully considering how to
handle any future claim by board members
that they were acting on the advice of company lawyers if targeted in an investigation –
almost surely leading to a waiver in order for
the board member to prove his defense.
Limited Waivers
10. When faced with a demand for privileged material, try to negotiate some kind of
protection from future third party discovery;
also try to limit waiver to certain categories of
information to avoid entire subject matter
waivers. The jurisdictions are split on
whether to recognize so-called limited waiver
agreements (the majority have held that such
agreements are not enforceable). These
efforts may not succeed, but it is the only
chance of insurance against future third party
claims that counsel may have if forced to
waive to the government. No one likes the
idea of limited waiver, but in today’s environment, if your back is up against the wall, it
may be the best you can do.
In conclusion, do think pro-actively about
how to protect your client’s rights to confidential counsel, and do not simply acquiesce
when your client’s privilege rights are contested or waiver of material is demanded.
Given recent progress in making our case
before courts, Congress and the public on this
issue, it is no longer considered suicidal for a
company to protest a waiver demands; it is
increasingly acceptable to push back and very
unlikely that you will be retaliated against in
a fashion that worried many corporate counsel only a few months back. Prosecutors and
enforcement officials are increasingly on
guard against the appearance that they are
making unfounded privilege wavier demands
outside of the courtroom context.
1. Although the “attorney-client privilege”
(maintaining the confidentiality of communications between an attorney and client) is distinct
from the “work product doctrine” (precluding
adversaries from discovering the work product
of attorneys developed in anticipation of litigation), these protections are closely related.
Except where specifically noted, for ease of
exposition in this document the terms “attorney-client privilege” and “privilege” are used to
refer collectively to both protections.
2. ACC and its partners in the Coalition to
Protect the Attorney-Client Privilege (including the US Chamber, the NAM, the Business
Roundtable, the American Chemistry Counsel,
the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers, the ACLU, and others, including the
ABA which cooperates with our efforts have
made substantial progress in demanding and
securing privilege reforms: in March of 2006,
the US Sentencing Commission announced
that it would amend offensive privilege waiver
language inserted at the request of the Justice
Department in the Corporate Sentencing
Guidelines; we’ve hosted hearings in the US
House and Senate that have solidified bi-partisan support for censoring prosecutorial and
enforcement practices that undermine the privilege (and that have now led to the introduction
of legislation to essentially repeal the
Thompson Memo’s provisions that inappropriately define cooperation as requiring companies
to surrender their privilege and other rights, and
we’re making progress convincing courts, the
media, and others that our privilege concerns
are not only justified, but vital to the health and
assurance of corporate compliance efforts. For
more information, see ACC’s privilege homepages at at http://www.acca.com/php/cms/
index.php?id=84.
3
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE, continued from page 1
few years until a backlash results in a more reasonable approach.
Several other jurisdictions will adopt rules similar to the D.C. rules
concerning multi-disciplinary practice (MDP), and, over the next
decade, companies will find better ways of creating captive law
firms/consulting practices. See, D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct
Rule 5.4 (Professional Independence of a Lawyer). The multi-jurisdictional practice (MJP) debate (e.g., Maryland in-house attorney
practicing for her client in California without a California bar
license) will move away from the states and become an international MJP debate.
With the changing demographics of our country and the workforce
over the next several decades, firms and organizations will see more
diversity in their ranks, but not enough. We will underestimate the
impact of the baby boomers retiring from practice (given current
trends, for the foreseeable future, there will be more baby boomer
attorneys retiring in the next decade than new attorneys admitted
to practice).
In-house counsel will continue to gain respect both within the legal
community and the business community. The revolving door
(movement among government, firms, and in-house) will accelerate over the next decade. In an increasing regulatory environment,
individuals with law degrees will populate more of the executive
suite than today.
WMACCA will consist of 5,000 members from more than 1,000
organizations. In-house counsel compensation will be on par with
most big firm attorneys (ok, now I am just being wishful).
There will be at least one television channel dedicated to sitcoms
about attorneys.
If you are intrigued by this list and would like to learn more about
what the real “experts” think about the future of the legal profession and demography in general, I recommend the materials found
on the website of the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal
Profession (available at www.law.harvard.edu/programs/plp/), the
ABA materials dedicated to the future (available at
www.abanet.org/tech/ltrc/research/futures/home.html), the Robert Half
International Future Law Office website (available at
http://www.futurelawoffice.com/), the Demographic Research website
(available at www.demographic-research.org/), and the University of
Michigan Population Studies Center website (available at
www.psc.isr.umich.edu/).
The State of Our Organization and Thank You
2006 has been a year of growth for WMACCA, with many successes and the laying of a foundation for future opportunities. WMACCA is an organization that is changing with the needs of our 1,500
in-house counsel members from more than 500 corporations and
private sector organizations in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. We
are the largest regional in-house counsel bar association in the
United States and the largest chapter of the Association of
Corporate Counsel (ACC).
This year, WMACCA began the process of increasing its visibility
and impact and expanded into an additional advocacy and public
relations role. To that end, we reached out to the leadership of the
D.C., Maryland, and Virginia bars. We met with the editorial
boards of regional publications. We are regularly delivering content
to Legal Times, law.com, Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, ACC
Docket, Business Wire, and other media sources and publications.
Next year, I am confident we will do more as in-house counsel need
a voice that better reflects our increasing prominence within our
corporations and the legal profession. WMACCA is the right
vehicle to promote our professional contributions and insight.
In addition to the services we have provided to the D.C. metropolitan area for the last 26 years, this year we expanded our service area
to the entire Commonwealth of Virginia and hosted several events
in Richmond. I expect these services to expand in 2007.
WMACCA has continued to provide significant opportunities for
CLE, community service, and networking. We have prided ourselves on being one of the premier organizations of CLE programming for in-house counsel in the country. In 2005, we held more
than 50 programs and events, and have held 60 this year. Under
the leadership of our Vice President and Program Chair, Mollie Roy
(Freddie Mac), we enhanced our signature lunch programs and this
year hosted former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell,
former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, former Virginia
attorney general Jerry Kilgore, former SEC general counsels
Giovanni Prezioso and Jim Doty, and our December program featured four former counsels to the president of the United States. In
April, top attorneys for the NFL, NBA, MLB, and LPGA discussed
their experiences as in-house counsel for major professional sports
leagues. We also continued to sponsor programs featuring some of
the leading current government officials such as Nanette R. Everson,
general counsel, CFTC; Kayla J. Gillan, board member, PCAOB;
John E. Higgins, Jr., deputy general counsel, NLRB; and Cari
Dominguez, EEOC chair. We also introduced new longer-format
programs, such as a “mini MBA” program for in-house counsel in
April, our Employment Law Conference in June, and our 101 series
of programs this past fall.
also are proud of our “partnerships” with most of the major law
firms in the region and look forward to providing those firms further opportunities to work with us over coming years.
WMACCA’s developments and growth over the past year have not
gone unnoticed. We are honored that ACC selected us as outstanding large Chapter of the Year for the second year in a row in
October. ACC recognized us for our variety of programs, our special projects, our outreach, public relations, and advocacy programs,
and our overall commitment to serving our members.
One of our leaders deserves special recognition. I would like to formally acknowledge and thank Ilene Reid, our Executive Director.
I cannot overstate the impact Ilene has on the success of our organization. I know the entire Board joins me in thanking her for all
that she does for WMACCA.
to serve you this past year. I have learned a great deal. We are in a
period of the rise of the in-house counsel. With increased regulation of our companies and organizations, there has been an
increased demand for sophisticated counsel with deep organizational knowledge. In addition, these developments have produced a
change in the perception of the significance of the role in-house
counsel play. (Of course, many of us felt that it was simply a wellkept secret.) This trend, I am sure, will continue, making this an
exciting time to be in-house. I am pleased and proud to be part of
this community.
Eric D. Reicin is the 25th president of the Washington Metropolitan Area
Corporate Counsel Association (WMACCA). The views expressed in
this document are solely those of the author in his personal capacity and
not necessarily those of the entire membership of WMACCA or his
employer, Sallie Mae, Inc.
Finally, I would like to thank the membership for the opportunity
CONGRATULATIONS, continued from page 1
■ Outstanding Chief Legal Officer—James C. Fontana, Alion
Science & Technology Corporation
■ Outstanding In-House Counsel—Sherrese Smith,
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive LLC
■ Outstanding Law Department—Marriott International Inc.
■ Community Service Award—Adam Palmer, National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children
James C. Fontana, senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of Alion Science & Technology Corporation, was named
Outstanding Chief Legal Officer for his efforts in guiding Alion
through nine major transactions, for which he served as lead negotiator and principal transaction counsel. In addition, Mr. Fontana
also directed and managed Alion’s filing of eight bid protests of federal contracts in the past two years, most of which were successful.
He also has served for two terms as Chairman of the Board of Easter
Seals for the Greater Washington-Baltimore Region.
As the specialization of in-house counsel has followed the specialization of law firm counsel, we also have expanded our in-house
only “forums” or specialty committees (such as corporate and securities, employment, IT/IP, associations, and non-profits). In 2005,
we created a successful government contracts forum. This year, we
created two new forums, litigation and global issues.
Sherrese Smith, deputy general counsel of Washingtonpost.
Newsweek Interactive, was named Outstanding In-House Counsel
for the instrumental role she plays in the day-to-day legal operations
of washingtonpost.com, newsweek.com, slate.com and budgettravelonline.com. Ms. Smith oversees all business deals, electronic publishing issues, employment and labor issues, content and publication
issues, and intellectual property issues for these online publications.
She also is involved in numerous civic activities.
Under the leadership of president-elect, Mary Kennard (American
University), our board task force on governance led to the revamping of our by-laws and other governance improvements. In 2006,
our corporate scholars program, under the direction of Brandon
Fitzgerald (U.S. Foodservice) and Vanessa Allen (Philip Morris
USA, Inc.), continued to flourish, providing internships to law students in the legal departments of area corporations and non-profits.
Under the leadership of board member Karen Wishart (TV One
LLC), we further developed our outreach to local law schools
including for the first time law school outreach in Richmond. We
The Outstanding Law Department Award went to Marriott
International, Inc., for the active steps it takes in providing opportunities for its lawyers to collaborate with the business people they
serve. Particularly noteworthy were a database tool implement by
the department in the past year to enable business units to easily
access information about executed legal contracts and operating
agreements, and a database of information about law firm diversity
that was developed in support of the company’s and department’s
goal to promote the use of diverse vendors.
Adam Palmer, director of the office of legal counsel for the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, received the
Community Service Award, for his numerous projects to protect
society from those who use technology for criminal purposes, particularly when the victims are innocent children. Mr. Palmer teaches
JAG and other prosecutors about internet crimes against children,
and is working with Harvard Law School and the National District
Attorney’s Association to develop a model curriculum for law students focused on prosecuting technology crimes.
The awards reception also featured the presentation of a special
WMACCA Corporate Counsel Career Achievement Award Award
to Stephen A. Bokat, senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and a former WMACCA director and former chair of the Association of Corporate
Counsel, the parent organization of WMACCA. Mr. Bokat was
recognized for his strong leadership of the Chamber’s legal function
in its representation of the nation’s business interests.
The panel of judges for the Corporate Counsel Awards was comprised of: Marian S. Block, Vice President and Associate General
Counsel, Lockheed Martin Corp.; Mike Daniels, Executive
Chairman, Mobile 365; Claudio M. Grossman, Dean, Washington
College of Law at American University; Mary E. Kennard, Vice
President and General Counsel, American University; Fred Krebs,
President, Association of Corporate Counsel; Michael Lustbader,
Principal, Arlington Capital Partners; Manik Rath, General
Counsel and Corporate Secretary, LMI; Eric D. Reicin, Vice
President and Associate General Counsel, Sallie Mae; Robert A.
Stern, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Sodexho Inc.
A portion of the proceeds from the reception will go to a non-profit
foundation that supports the WMACCA Corporate Scholars
Program, a diversity pipeline program that provides summer internships in in-house legal departments for students from local law
schools.