Join us on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, for the first meeting of the new year, and hear directly from clients!

Topics include: 

• What are clients thinking about today?
• What trends are affecting the relationship between in-house and outside counsel?
• How are alternative fee arrangements working -- how can they benefit both parties in the relationship?
• Does legal project management help in-house lawyers better predict and manage the cost of legal services?
• What do clients wish their outside lawyers did better? Or less of?
• And, has social media had any impact on hiring or communications with outside law firms?

Learn from our knowledgeable panel.  Invite your managing and marketing partners, and bring your questions

Natalie S. Abbott, Senior Employment Counsel for North America, Saint-Gobain Corporation

Natalie S. Abbott is Senior Employment Counsel for North America at Saint-Gobain Corporation, the world’s largest building materials company, as well as a global leader in the production of abrasives, glass containers, flat glass, high performance plastics, and industrial ceramics with $8.1 billion in annual sales in North America, 24,000 employees and over 200 locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Natalie is a seasoned employment law advisor who provides strategic advice to businesses on a wide range of labor and employment-related matters including terminations, hiring, investigations, compensation, employment agreements, and personnel policies. Her counseling and litigation experience cover a wide variety of employment law matters, including laws dealing with employment discrimination, wage and hour requirements, employee raiding, unfair competition, trade secrets, disability accommodation, leaves of absence, and workforce reductions. In addition, Natalie provides employment training and compliance review services.

Prior to joining Saint-Gobain, Natalie was Senior Vice President Human Resources and Employment Counsel for TNS North America, Inc., the global leader in custom market research services. She began her practice in the Labor and Employment Group of Pepper Hamilton, LLP where she advocated for management in employment-related claims before state and federal courts, administrative agencies, and in alternative dispute resolution settings. She also assisted clients in responding to union organizing campaigns, advised management regarding collective bargaining issues, and represented companies in unfair labor practice proceedings and arbitrations.

Natalie received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and a B.A. in Philosophy from The Ohio State University.

Saint-Gobain is the world’s largest building materials company, as well as a global leader in the production of high-performance materials and glass containers. North America, Saint-Gobain recorded sales of $6.8 billion in 2009. It employs some 19,000 people in more than 350 locations across the U.S. and Canada. Among the Saint-Gobain brand family are CertainTeed, Norandex, Verallia, Saint-Gobain Abrasives, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Saint-Gobain Crystals, Saint-Gobain NorPro and Saint-Gobain ADFORS.

Steve Winnie, GC and COO of Campus Door Holdings Inc.

Steve Winnie is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Counsel for CampusDoor, a technology-based education finance company. He also heads the Compliance Department. In this role, Steve oversees all operational, legal and regulatory matters and manages all outside counsel relationships. Steve has established a robust Regulatory Compliance Program at CampusDoor which includes a Quality Control Review and Reporting Process which serves to mitigate regulatory risk across all loan programs. Steve originally joined CampusDoor in February 2006 and left in 2008 after the Lehman bankruptcy filing to join Sallie Mae as Associate Counsel.

He rejoined CampusDoor in late 2009. Prior to working for fake rolex uk CampusDoor, Steve worked in private practice in the Commercial Litigation Department of Philadelphia based Pepper Hamilton, LLP. Steve is a graduate of the ABA National Compliance School held in Atlanta, Georgia. He is admitted to practice law before the state and federal courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

CampusDoor: CampusDoor was founded in 1995 to deliver student loans to borrowers and their families via web-based application systems. Today, that sounds too basic for any company’s vision statement. But in the mid-nineties, the Company pioneered dozens of firsts: the first on-line private, credit-based student loan application with a live underwriting and response system; the first truly branded student loan; the first venture capital funded, privately owned private education lender.

Nearly 15 years later, the Company, its original founders and employees have experienced the ups and downs of the financial world. Sold to Lehman Brothers in 2006, the Company grew to become one of the largest private loan providers in the U.S. After Lehman invested millions of dollars in CampusDoor’s proprietary processing systems and expanded an operating facility capable of through-putting billions in loans each year, the founders re-acquired the Company from Lehman in late 2009. Now poised to re-enter, albeit, a changed student loan industry, the Company is seeking strategic partners in its quest to once again revolutionize higher education finance. 

Angela Jones, Counsel, Comcast Interactive Media

Angela Jones provides legal support to Comcast Interactive Media (CIM), Comcast Converged Products, and Comcast’s Cable and Content Acquisition groups on various “new media” content and technology-related matters. She drafts and negotiates broadband content license agreements and the new media portions of cable affiliation agreements for the purpose of licensing programming for distribution on Comcast’s various digital platforms (video-on-demand, XfinityTV.com and Comcast’s IP-enabled set-top-box). She also provides legal support to CIM’s product and engineering groups on product requirements and considerations in the context of existing partner contracts and regulatory requirements, and drafts and negotiates consulting and service agreements for vendors and licensed technology used in connection with Comcast’s online products.

Angela handles agreements with respect to Comcast’s “TV Everywhere” and video-on-demand dynamic ad insertion initiatives, and advises CIM’s marketing and advertising groups on advertising guidelines, online sweepstakes and promotional stunts. She spearheaded the creation of a unified set of advertising guidelines that apply across all Comcast platforms. She manages CIM’s post-merger FCC compliance process with respect to content partner notifications and requests for carriage, and manages and monitors CIM’s deal flow, including co-running monthly commercial deal meetings with the business teams and providing legal counsel on the strategy relating to termination, renewals and renegotiations of deals.

Before joining Comcast, Angela practiced at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP, where she was a member of the Business and Finance Group. She represented privately held and public company clients in various matters, including mergers and acquisitions, debt financing, equity financing, purchase of assets out of bankruptcy, corporate governance, commercial agreements, and general corporate law. She also represented public company clients in connection with reporting obligations under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and filings under the Securities Act of 1933, including initial public offerings, issuer tender offers, rights offerings and PIPE transactions. Angela also represented corporate clients in connection with large-scale outsourcing transactions.

Angela is a graduate of Juniata College and received her J.D. from the College of William and Mary – Marshall Wythe Law School.


Moderator:
James L. Allison, General Counsel, Murray Devine

Jim Allison is General Counsel of Murray Devine. In addition to his in-house counsel duties, he is involved in the management of financial advisory and valuation engagements and general business development. His special emphasis is on distressed entity and bankruptcy related matters. Before joining Murray Devine, Jim had managed an affiliated entity that served as financial advisor for a distressed debt fund with $1.4 billion of assets composed primarily of middle market commercial and industrial credits.

Previously, Jim had been a partner in the law firm of Duane, Morris & Heckscher where he was a member of the Reorganization and Finance Department. There, his reorganization and bankruptcy practice was augmented by a corporate sub-specialty that included general outside counsel representations, sophisticated corporate restructurings and internal fraud investigations in both the for-profit as well as the not-for-profit contexts. Jim has been active in the financial transaction community for over 20 years and has extensive experience in a wide variety of industries. He has a sophisticated understanding of secured lending, bankruptcy and liquidation issues as well as strong negotiation, analytical and financial skills.

Jim currently serves on the boards of directors of four healthcare companies and a medical software company. He is also a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive and Finance Committees of the Silver Springs-Martin Luther School, a social services agency serving children with serious emotional and behavior-related problems.

Jim received a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1983 and Bachelor of Arts degree from Bucknell University in 1980. He is admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. He is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Turnaround Management Association and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Conference. Jim has also lived and worked in Munich, Germany, serving as a visiting attorney for one year with the firm of Norr, Stiefenhofer and Lutz.

We are most grateful to our sponsor for this program, The National Law Review

The National Law Review is one of the nation’s highest traffic legal websites. In-house counsel and business professionals consult the National Law Review to find legal analysis written by attorneys from premier law firms. There is no log in to access the database and new articles are being added on an hourly basis.

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