GC Mid-Atlantic
A day in the life of a general counsel can often be filled with daunting tasks -- providing advice and counsel on legal and policy issues, anticipating and guarding against legal risks and acting as a compliance officer and even as a business adviser. Yet, despite the time constraints and pressures of the job, Heather Steinmiller, general counsel of Commerce Insurance Services, still manages to find the time to perform pro bono work, offering legal services to those who need it the most.
Fulton County Daily Report
Plenty of general counsel travel on international business, but in Georgia there is one GC who also flies the planes. Randall H. Davis is vice president and general counsel of Phoenix Air Group Inc., a worldwide provider of specialized jet aircraft services. Davis figures about 75 percent of his time is spent on legal work, while the other quarter of his time, he flies -- either in a pinch when the company's full-time pilots are booked or just when a trip sounds like fun.
The National Law Journal
After 20 years in private practice, James Coughlin's decision to go in-house was "life changing." As GC of Six Flags Inc. -- the world's second-largest theme park operator and host to some 25 million visitors in 20 parks throughout North America -- Coughlin enjoys the breadth of practice. He could be doing environmental law one day and employment law the next. His advice for anyone contemplating an in-house move: "Be prepared to be taken outside your comfort zone."
Texas Lawyer
John Gessner is the GC and corporate secretary for Dallas-based Texas Wings, the franchisee of the Hooters restaurant chain, famous for its provocatively attired waitresses. Gessner handles conventional restaurant legal issues for Hooters, such as employment law matters, but also more idiosyncratic issues particular to the chain, such as navigating local government politics and keeping the chain's expansion plans on track despite critics who deem the restaurant immoral or exploitative of women.
The National Law Journal
Aflac Inc. GC Joey M. Loudermilk was hired 25 years ago as the first in-house attorney for the insurance giant, which counts more than 40 million insured in the United States and Japan. Some of the legal team's duties include handling the contract work for the Aflac Duck commercials, ubiquitous in the United States and in Japan -- where the duck smiles, laughs and even dances, in contrast to the more curmudgeonly American version.
Corporate Counsel
Timothy Steinert has repeatedly found himself at the forefront of Chinese law. He was at Coudert Brothers in Beijing when it became the first international firm approved to practice in China, and he worked on the first listing in New York by a Chinese company. Last May, as a partner in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's Hong Kong office working on Alibaba.com's IPO, he was invited to make the leap in-house. He jumped; in July he was named general counsel of the Alibaba Group.
Fulton County Daily Report
After working for law firms in Boston and Atlanta, Lori Shapiro took an in-house job with Employment Learning Innovations, a workplace training company. In her role as GC for seven years, she taught some of the company's offerings for business people. The trick to public speaking, she said, is preparation combined with practice. Shapiro, now an in-house counsel for Graphic Packaging International, gets plenty of practice speaking as the 2008 president of the Association of Corporate Counsel Georgia chapter.
Fulton County Daily Report
Despite increasing scrutiny, pressure and responsibilities, most general counsel report deep satisfaction with their jobs, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel's eighth annual Chief Legal Officer Survey, released last month. The survey also found that GCs continue to spend most of their time on corporate transactional work and that records management will be the next big issue for GCs to tackle in 2008.
Fulton County Daily Report
After a dozen years with Turner Broadcasting System Latin America, vice president and regional counsel William Muller is fluent in Spanish. But litigation in Latin America often involves cultural as well as language differences. "Sometimes the most inoffensive things can be taken a different way," Muller said. For example, the Cartoon Network was sued in Brazil by a group of magicians who felt that a promo spot depicting a second-rate magician performing poorly executed tricks defamed all "hat magicians."
