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Program on In-House Counsel’s Inaugural Conference: Navigating Modern Challenges and Responsibilities

January 23, 2015 @ 8:30 am - 5:30 pm

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Program on In-House Counsel’s Inaugural Conference: Navigating Modern Challenges and Responsibilities

[caption id="attachment_3530" align="alignright" width="300"] Joseph West, President and CEO, Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and Nancy Abell, Paul Hastings.[/caption]

On Friday, January 23, 2015, the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law presented its inaugural Program on In-House Counsel exclusively for general counsel and in-house counsel of public and private companies. The program is designed for in-house counsel rather than outside counsel, with topics tailored to address current issues in-house counsel face. The panelists delivered fresh, sophisticated and substantive presentations on important legal topics and there were opportunities throughout the day and at the closing reception for in-house lawyers to network with one another.

The Inaugural Conference, Navigating Modern Challenges and Responsibilities, focused on the challenges of heightened public scrutiny coupled with fierce competition. In-house counsel are expected to maintain a diverse workforce, ensure the safety of their consumers, ward off cybersecurity threats, and comply with the demands of regulators—all while staying competitive. As companies manage these responsibilities, in-house counsel are increasingly expected to provide strategic, business-oriented guidance. Panelists included counsel from Ford Motor Company, Hawaiian Airlines, Quest Diagnostics, Google and Lyft, among others. Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, delivered the keynote address.

The Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy at UCLA Law intends to present an annual program customized to in-house counsel and their needs. Future programs will include such topics as different models of in-house departments; attracting, managing and retaining legal talent; issues raised by in-house counsel wearing multiple hats as well as addressing cutting-edge legal issues facing the corporate client. Panelists will be drawn from in-house counsel, outstanding practitioners, leading academics and others who can add substantial value to the presentation. The Institute is committed to developing high-quality presentations that actually benefit in-house counsel and hosting conferences in which in-house counsel can have the opportunity to meet and socialize.

UCLA School of Law is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This activity qualifies for five hours of MCLE credit, including credit in legal ethics and elimination of bias.

The registration fee ($125 for general registration and $75 for UCLA alumni) includes the Friday conference, lunch, closing reception, and materials.
Agenda

Program on In-House Counsel: Conference on Navigating Modern Challenges and Responsibilities
Presented by the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law
Friday, January 23, 2015 – 8:30 am to 5:30 pm – UCLA Campus

8:30 am – 9:00 am             Registration and Coffee

9:00 am – 10:30 am           Welcome and Opening Remarks by UCLA School of Law Dean Rachel Moran and Panel One: Corporate Diversity 

  • Nancy Abell, Partner | Employment Law Department, Paul Hastings LLP
  • Devon Carbado | The Honorable Harry Pregerson Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
  • Sophia Muirhead | Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, The Conference Board
  • Stephanie Neuvirth | Chief Human Resources & Diversity Officer, City of Hope
  • Joseph West | President and CEO, Minority Corporate Counsel Association

10:45 am – 12:00 pm       Panel Two: Corporate Compliance

  • Stephen Bainbridge | William D. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
  • Jonathan Broder | Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, Conrail
  • David Leitch | Group Vice President & General Counsel, Ford Motor Company
  • Peter Menard | Partner and Leader of Public Company Corporate Governance and Compliance Practice, Sheppard Mullin
  • Hoyt Zia | Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Hawaiian Airlines, Inc.

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm          Lunch and Keynote Address 

The Honorable Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice, California Supreme Court

1:45 pm – 3:00 pm            Panel Three: Managing Threats to Corporate Cybersecurity

  • Kristen Eichensehr | Visiting Assistant Professor, UCLA School of Law
  • William O’Shaughnessy | Deputy General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated
  • Alexander Southwell | Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
  • John Villasenor | Professor of Electrical Engineering and Public Policy, UCLA
  • Mallory Duncan | Senior Vice President and General Counsel, National Retail Federation

3:15 pm – 4:30 pm            Panel Four — Corporate Lobbying and Regulatory Affairs

  • Andrea Ambrose Lobato | Counsel, Lyft
  • Jeffrey Leacox | Co-Managing Shareholder of Sacramento Office of Greenberg Traurig LLP
  • Thomas Lue | Corporate Counsel, Google
  • Todd Maron | General Counsel, Tesla Motors, Inc.
  • Elizabeth Pollman | Associate Professor of Law, Loyola Law School

4:30 pm – 5:30 pm           Reception


Panelist Biographies

Keynote Speaker

Justice Goodwin Liu is an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. He was confirmed to office by a unanimous vote of the California Commission on Judicial Appointments on August 31, 2011, following his appointment by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. on July 26, 2011.

Before joining the state’s highest court, Justice Liu was Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). His primary areas of expertise are constitutional law, education law and policy, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has published widely on these subjects in books, law reviews, and the general media.

Justice Liu is a prolific and influential scholar. He has published articles on constitutional law and education policy in the California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, NYU Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. His 2006 article, “Education, Equality, and National Citizenship,” won the Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, conferred by the Education Law Association. Justice Liu is also a popular and acclaimed teacher. In 2009, he received UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the university’s most prestigious honor for individual excellence in teaching. He earned tenure at Boalt Hall in 2008 and was promoted to Associate Dean. The Boalt Hall Class of 2009 selected him as the faculty commencement speaker.

Justice Liu serves on the Board of Trustees of Stanford University. He has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Excellent Education, the American Constitution Society, the National Women’s Law Center, and the Public Welfare Foundation. In 2008, he was elected to the American Law Institute. He has also served as a faculty advisor to the California College Prep Academy, a public charter school co-founded by UC Berkeley and Aspire Public Schools.

Justice Liu attended Stanford University and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1991. He attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a masters degree in philosophy and physiology. Upon returning to the United States, he went to Washington D.C. to help launch the AmeriCorps national service program and worked for two years as a senior program officer at the Corporation for National Service.

Justice Liu graduated from Yale Law School in 1998, becoming the first in his family to earn a law degree. He clerked for Judge David Tatel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then worked as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, where he developed and coordinated K-12 education policy. He went on to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the October 2000 Term. In 2001, he joined the appellate litigation practice of O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C., and worked on an array of antitrust, white collar, insurance, product liability, and pro bono matters.

Diversity Panelists

Nancy Abell is a partner in the Employment Law Department of Paul Hastings’ Los Angeles office.  Nancy is a trial lawyer who works exclusively in the representation of private and public employers in all aspects of employment law and litigation.  Nancy has written and lectured extensively on labor and employment law issues.  Her publications include “An Employer’s Guide for Preparing Affirmative Action Programs” and the Federal Contractor Affirmative Action Compliance chapter of Employment Discrimination Law. Nancy is consistently recognized as one of the best employment litigators in California.  She has been named in The Best Lawyers in America for 25 years and she is consistently recognized as one of the top employment defense lawyers in California by Chambers USA.   Nancy received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law (Order of the Coif and Order of the Barristers) and her B.A. from Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges.

Devon Carbado is the Honorable Harry Pregerson Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. He is a nationally recognized figure in the field of Critical Race Theory and is actively involved with shaping a nationwide discourse on race, identity, and the law.  He writes in the areas of Critical Race Theory, employment discrimination, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and identity. He is editor of Race Law Stories (Foundation Press) (with Rachel Moran), and has published a book on employment discrimination titled “Acting White” (Oxford University Press) (with Mitu Gulati). In 2005 Professor Carbado was named an inaugural recipient of the Fletcher Foundation Fellowship.  Modeled on the Guggenheim fellowships, it is awarded to scholars whose work furthers the goals of Brown v. Board of Education.  Devon received his J.D. from Harvard

Sophia A. Muirhead is Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary of The Conference Board. Sophia organizes global legal compliance which includes devising and implementing policies to mitigate risk, developing staff policies and training in areas that touch on law and compliance, and creating and monitoring corporate governance and compliance policies and procedures. During her career at The Conference Board, Sophia has identified, developed, managed, and executed critical management research projects in ethics and compliance, marketing and finance, corporate citizenship and sustainability, and human capital. Before joining The Conference Board, Sophia was an attorney in private practice specializing in corporate and securities law.  Sophia received a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. magna cum laude and honors in political science from Hunter College.

Stephanie Neuvirth is Chief Human Resources and Diversity Officer at City of Hope and a member of City of Hope’s Executive Team. She oversees all areas of human resources.   In addition, Stephanie leads the strategic identification, development and implementation of comprehensive human capital strategies, programs, policies and procedures to support the institution’s short- and long-term goals.  Stephanie currently serves on the board of the California Diversity Council and is the President of the Los Angeles, Diversity Council.  Stephanie received her B.A. from the University of Denver and her M.B.A  from Alliance International/USIU in San Diego.  She is a certified senior professional in human resources and a certified human capital strategist.

Joseph K. West is President & CEO of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA).  At MCCA Joseph developed programs to identify barriers to inclusion in the profession and eradicate them.  He has developed training and mentorship programs to help in-house counsel and firm members advance in their respective positions.  Joseph has launched research projects ranging from global diversity, to a study of Generation Y lawyers, to corporate legal department demographic surveys and toolkits.   Joseph was recently awarded the 2014 Beacon of Diversity Award from the Black Entertainment Sports Lawyers Association.  This year the Delaware Barristers Association also recognized him with the 2014 Louis L. Redding Lifetime Achievement Award and The Washington Business Journal honored him with the 2014 Minority Business Leader Award. Joseph received his J.D. from Tulane Law School Law School where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Black Letter Law Journal, a member of the Board of Student Advisors, and winner of the Northeast Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition.

Corporate Compliance Panelists

Stephen Bainbridge is the William D. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law.  Stephen is a prolific scholar, whose work covers a variety of subjects, but with a strong emphasis on the law and economics of public corporations. He has written over 90 law review articles which have appeared in such leading journals. Bainbridge’s most recent books include: Corporate Governance After the Financial Crisis (2012); Business Associations: Cases and Materials on Agency, Partnerships, and Corporations (8th ed. 2012) (with Klein and Ramseyer); Agency, Partnerships, and Limited Liability Entities: Cases and Materials on Unincorporated Business Associations (3d ed. 2012) (with Klein and Ramseyer); Mergers and Acquisitions (3d ed. 2012); and The New Corporate Governance in Theory and Practice (2008).  In 2008, 2011, and 2012, Professor Bainbridge was named by the National Association of Corporate Directors’ Directorship magazine to its list of the 100 most influential people in the field of corporate governance.  His blog, ProfessorBainbridge.com, was named by the ABA Journal as one of the Top 100 Law Blogs of 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Jonathan M. Broder, is Vice President of Corporate Development & Chief Legal Officer for Consolidated Rail Corporation (CONRAIL).  Jonathan’s practice focuses on commercial, regulatory and strategic planning.  He also holds responsibility for Conrail’s real estate portfolio, business development, government and public affairs as well as its insurance requirements.  Prior to joining Conrail, Jonathan began his practice at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia.  He received his J.D. from Temple University and an A.B. in History from Oberlin College.

David G. Leitch is the the Group Vice President and General Counsel of Ford Motor Co.  Prior to joining Ford, David served as the Deputy … Assistant to President George W. Bush and the White House’s Deputy Counsel where he advised the President and his staff on a variety of legal issues, including issues involving the war on terror, judicial nominations, legislative proposals and ethics.  David has held a distinguished career in government and law serving as Chief Counsel for the Federal Aviation Administration and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel. David received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, School of Law.  He received his undergraduate degree from Duke University.

Peter M. Menard is a Senior Partner in the Corporate Practice Group of Sheppard Mullin’s Los Angeles Office and is the Co-Chair of the firm’s Capital Markets/Public Companies team. Peter’s principal areas of practice are corporate governance, securities law compliance and corporate transactions. He is a frequent commentator on issues of corporate governance, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act, and corporate social responsibility.  Peter has been recognized by Super Lawyers: Corporate Governance; Securities & Corporate Finance, as one of the Best Lawyers in America and is rated AV Preeminent.  Peter serves on the board of directors of the Junior Blind of America and the Huntington Medical Research Institutes.  He is an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.  Peter received his J.D. from the University of Michigan, his M.A. from the University of Michigan and B.A. from Santa Clara University.

Hoyt H. Zia is Senior VP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. and a member of the Consuelo Foundation Board. Prior to joining Hawaiian, he was the publisher of Hawaii Business magazine, and before that the executive director of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, an international telecom industry non-profit organization based in Honolulu. For most of his career, however, he was an attorney who practiced in San Francisco and Honolulu, both in law firms and in-house with Motorola, Inc. and Amfac/JMB Hawaii, Inc. Hoyt served in the Clinton Administration as Chief Counsel for Export Administration, Department of Commerce, in Washington, DC. He received his J.D. from University of California-Los Angeles School of Law and his B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Managing Threats to Corporate Cybersecurity Panelists

Mallory Duncan is Senior Vice President and General Counsel at the National Retail Federation. He is responsible for coordinating strategic legislative and regulatory initiatives involving customer data privacy, bankruptcy, fair credit reporting and truth-in-lending. Prior to joining NRF, Mallory served as corporate counsel in the Washington office of J. C. Penney Company, Inc., where he advised stores and headquarters on federal and state legislative and regulatory issues. Mallory was an attorney advisor in the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission and was previously associated with the law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan. He has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations throughout his legal career, including the National Hospice Foundation. His publications include the Federal Trade Commission’s Policy Guidance on Civil Penalties and co-authorship with Anne P. Fortney of “Fair Credit Reporting Act Creates New Duties for Employers,” Credit World, May/June 1998.   Mallory is a graduate of Pomona College and Yale Law School.

Kristen Eichensehr is a Visiting Assistant Professor at UCLA School of Law.  Her primary research and teaching interests are in cutting-edge international, foreign relations, and national security law issues. Before joining the UCLA faculty, Eichensehr clerked for Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court of the United States. Eichensehr also served as Special Assistant to the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State and practiced at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C., where she specialized in appellate litigation, international and national security law, and cybersecurity issues. Eichensehr is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Cybersecurity, Terrorism, and International Law.  Eichensehr is a graduate of Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and Yale Law School.

William J. O’Shaughnessy, Jr. is Deputy General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, which he joined in 2007.  He is responsible for the Company’s corporate governance, securities, corporate finance, executive compensation and benefits matters, and oversees legal support for real estate, laboratory operations, government contracts, healthcare IT and other matters. Prior to joining Quest Diagnostics, William served for over 12 years at Morgan Stanley, including as Executive Director and Assistant Secretary.  William is past President of the Stockholder Relations Society of New York.  He is an active member of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals, having served as president of the New York chapter, on the national Board of Directors, and as the national Secretary.  Currently, he serves on the Society’s national Nominating Committee.  Since July 2014, he has been a member of the Broadridge Independent Steering Committee.  William is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and Muhlenberg College.

Alexander H. Southwell is a Partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s New York office.  Alex is a Co-Chair of the Firm’s Information Technology and Data Privacy practice group and is also a member of the White Collar Defense and Investigations, Crisis Management, Securities Enforcement, and Litigation practice groups.  Prior to joining the Firm, Alex served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.  Alex received his J.D. from New York University and a B.A. from Princeton University.

John Villasenor is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Public Policy at UCLA and a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.  He is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Cybersecurity, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford.  Professor Villasenor’s research considers the broader impacts of key technology trends including the move to the cloud, the globalization of technology product design and manufacturing, advances in digital communications and electronics, and the increasing complexity of today’s networks and systems.  He writes frequently on these topics and on their implications with respect to cybersecurity, communications systems, digital media policy, intellectual property, and digital privacy.

Corporate Lobbying and Regulatory Affairs Panelists

Jeffrey Leacox is the Co-managing Shareholder of Greenberg Tarurig, LLP’s Sacramento office.  He has represented businesses and trade associations before the California Legislature, the Governor and state agencies for more than two decades. Jeffrey helped negotiate and draft many laws governing electronic information and commerce, including the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, the California Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act of 2004 and the California Anti-Phishing Act of 2005. He also lobbied laws concerning database security, financial privacy, anti-spam measures, telemarketing restrictions, internet jurisdiction and online contract formation. Jeffrey has been recognized by  The Best Lawyers in America, Technology Law, 2013-2015, as a team member in U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Government Relations Law Firm of the Year,” 2014.  He is rated, AV Preeminent 5.0 out of 5.  Jeffrey received J.D. from the University of California at Davis School of Law and his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College.

Andrea Ambrose Lobato is currently the Policy Counsel at Lyft, where she works with government relations, engineering, and operations teams to oversee and implement compliance measures in different jurisdictions. Prior to joining Lyft, Ms. Lobato was the Director of Legal Content at Judicata, a startup based in San Francisco working to build better research and analytics tools for lawyers. Before joining Judicata, Ms. Lobato practiced appellate law at Horvitz & Levy for several years, where she represented clients in before the California Supreme Court, California Court of Appeal, and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She also clerked for the Honorable Arthur Alarcon on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and worked as a civil litigator at Latham & Watkins. Ms. Lobato attended college at UC Berkeley and law school at the University of Southern California.  Born and raised in Los Angeles, Ms. Lobato currently lives in San Francisco with her husband John, in-house counsel at Palantir Technologies, and her pug-chihuahua, Quincy.

Tom Lue is Legal Counsel for Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) and Google [x]. He advises on Google’s self-driving car project, Project Tango (3D-mapping tablet), Project Ara (modular smartphone), and other breakthrough technologies. He is a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School where he teaches a course on legal counseling for new and innovative technologies, and he previously taught at Columbia Law School. Before joining Google, Tom served as Acting General Counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget, where he advised the White House and Federal agencies on a wide range of fiscal, regulatory, litigation, and legislative issues. Tom served as a law clerk for Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Reena Raggi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Gerard E. Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Prior to his government service, Tom worked at the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Todd A. Maron serves as General Counsel of Tesla Motors, Inc. Prior to joining Tesla, Todd was an associate at Jaffe and Clemens, where he practiced family law since 2006. Prior to joining Jaffe and Clemens, Todd was an associate at Irell & Manella, where he handled a variety of commercial litigation matters, ranging from intellectual property litigation to securities litigation and a number of other commercial disputes. Todd earned his J.D. from the New York University School of Law received his B.A. with honors from the University of Michigan.

Professor Elizabeth Pollman is an Associate Professor of Law at Loyola Law School.  She teaches business law courses and her research focuses on the entity status and constitutional rights of corporations, as well as on law and entrepreneurship.  Before joining the Loyola faculty, Pollman was a fellow at the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, and a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School. She previously practiced as a transactional lawyer and business litigator at Latham & Watkins in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. She clerked for the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Elizabeth received J.D. with distinction from Stanford Law School where she was also Order of the Coif and her A.B. with distinction from Stanford University.

Details

Date:
January 23, 2015
Time:
8:30 am - 5:30 pm
Event Category: