USC
As University of Southern California alumni digest the news of ex-medical school dean Carmen Puliafito’s alleged drug-fueled escapades—and the university’s handling of the scandal—USC’s president announced last week that it had tapped Debra Wong Yang, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, to conduct a “thorough” investigation.
The university didn’t call the firm’s internal review independent. And the Los Angeles Times, which first broke the USC story, made a point of detailing the strong ties that Yang and her firm have to the school.
Yang once taught at USC’s Gould School of Law, where firm managing partner Kenneth Doran earned his degree and later served as board president. In 2014 the law school touted Gibson Dunn’s “100 percent participation” in an alumni fundraising drive. And Yang has done legal work for USC before, representing the university in 2012 when parents of Chinese students who were killed near campus brought wrongful death claims.
In a different Gibson Dunn investigation, Yang had earned scrutiny over her ties to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose office hired the firm to investigate his administration’s conduct in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal.
The Gibson Dunn team included Yang, a former prosecutor who was a Christie friend and fundraiser. The firm ultimately issued a report clearing the governor of wrongdoing.
But in the USC matter at least, the firm’s institutional connections don’t raise red flags, according to Columbia University Law School professor and corporate governance expert John Coffee Jr.
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