Alan M. Utay, executive vice president, general counsel and chief administrative officer at Alliance Data Systems Corp., has worked at the Plano-based credit-card processing and marketing research company for nine years. Before that, he was a partner in Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Dallas, where he helped Alliance Data go public in 2001. [See his GC profile here.] Here are Utay’s answers to a few GC best-practices questions, edited for length and style:
Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, senior reporter, Texas Lawyer: What are the most important factors you consider when hiring outside counsel?
