Dear Northeast Chapter Members:

These are exciting times for ACC-Northeast.  Change is in the air, and it is not just the color of our autumn leaves.  Our September 30 Board of Directors meeting brought some new developments for the Chapter.  I have been elected to replace Paul Cushing as our Chapter President.  Kathleen Burke has been elected as our Treasurer, and Christine Nickerson has been elected as our new Secretary.

Board members Jody Acford, Susan Alexander, Dennis Hart and Winston Henderson have retired from the Board.  Their seats have been filled by Andrea DiFabio, James Peck, Edward Seksay and Thuy Wagner.

I offer my deepest thanks to our retiring Directors and Officers; under Paul Cushing’s capable leadership they were an essential part of a strong and energetic leadership team which oversaw marked growth in Chapter membership and an increase in both the quantity and quality of services offered to our members.  Paul in particular deserves special mention for the sheer quantity of effort, unbridled enthusiasm and creativity, and good old-fashioned determination he brought to every project during his service as President.  He is a true asset to our Chapter and we look forward to our continued collaboration with Paul in his Board committee work.  Please join me in thanking Paul, Jody, Susan, Dennis and Winston for their dedicated service to our Chapter.

And please join me in welcoming our new Directors and Officers as we continue to grow and expand the scope of our Chapter’s undertakings.  The newly constituted Board will be appointing Committee Chairs at our next meeting, so you will hear more about our Committees in the next update.

Leadership rotation was not the only change ushered in at our September meeting.  I am very pleased to announce that our Board has adopted a new set of by-laws to replace and modernize the rather basic set which have been in place since the Chapter’s earliest days.  The new by-laws have many features which bring us up to par with the governance practices of ACC’s other large and busy Chapters. 

Space limitations prevent me from going into a great deal of detail in this update, but I do want to highlight one important new element which deserves special comment.  Our new by-laws add term limits for our Directors and Officers.  After careful consideration of the issue, an ad hoc Governance Committee of the Board recommended term limits for Directors and Officers, implemented by means of a classified and staggered Board structure.  The goal is to ensure a continual supply of fresh energy and perspectives while also balancing the need for experience and institutional knowledge to keep the Chapter functioning smoothly. 

These by-laws and the related Policy Regarding Financial Controls, Document Retention and Integrity adopted with them, put our Chapter on a very strong governance foundation befitting one of the larger Chapters in the ACC system.  Anyone with questions about the new By-Laws and Financial Controls Policy is encouraged to contact Louise Rothery to request a copy. 

Another welcome change we saw this Fall was the chance to host the first ACC Annual Meeting in our history here in the Hub.  I hope those of you who were able to attend some or all of the conference agree that it was a very successful Annual Meeting.  ACC was very pleased to announce that the number of in-house counsel attending actually exceeded those attending last year.  This year’s attendees packed a wide variety of excellent educational programs, networking functions, and social events into a very busy three and a half days. 

In other news, we partnered in mid-September with Goodwin Procter to host an excellent program on the “process” aspects of M&A, and with Greenberg Traurig in early October to examine “post-hype” best practices in electronic discovery. 

Looking forward, we have programs planned for November 12: “Everything You Need to Know About Ethics You Learned In Kindergarten - Or Did You?”, with Goulston and Storrs in Boston; and December 2: “New Trends and Emerging Issues in Selecting, Protecting and Enforcing A Trademark”, with Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds at a suburban location to be announced.  And in early December: our ACC-Northeast Holiday Party with Bingham McCutchen watch for further details.

I hope to see you these events – member participation in events is the lifeblood of our Chapter, and I encourage everyone to try to squeeze out the time to take advantage of the excellent programming and community- and network-building opportunities our Chapter provides.

And finally, as immediate Past President Paul Cushing has previously reminded us, these are difficult times economically, so everyone is encouraged to assist fellow members in transition by helping them network, and wherever possible, offering opportunities to perform contract work.  Our Chapter website has a page devoted to members looking for work and www.acc.com has many resources for those in transition.

We are over 900 strong and growing.  Let's finish this year on a strong note and continue to grow and flourish in 2010.

Sincerely,

Christopher Mirabile

President, ACC-Northeast Chapter