Legal Service Management Workshop
For each workshop, ACC assembles a faculty of legal practitioners with extensive knowledge of value-based fee structures and management practices, experienced in law department and law firm management as well as consulting. In addition to preparing curricular materials and teaching, faculty members serve as facilitators as you work through business cases in small groups to apply your new management tools.
FACULTY INCLUDE
 Lisa Damon
Lisa Damon is a key member of Seyfarth Shaw's senior leadership team. She serves on the firm's Executive, Administrative and Compensation Committees, and also has executive oversight of the firm's SeyfarthLean initiative. Her vision and guidance have been highly instrumental in adapting SeyfarthLean's core principles of delivering client value, collaboration and efficiency to all firm departments and practice groups. Lisa, who is a certified GreenBelt, leads teams of lawyers and staff to bring SeyfarthLean to clients across a broad platform of legal services. Under Lisa's leadership, SeyfarthLean has gained significant attention and she is regularly asked by high profile organizations, such as the Association of Corporate Counsel, to share best practices and other knowledge.
Lisa is the National Chair of Seyfarth Shaw's 350 attorney Labor & Employment Department, and she represents management in the area of labor and employment law with an emphasis on litigation of claims of sex, race and age discrimination and harassment. She consults with clients on avoiding such litigation, through improved management policies and practices, positive employee relations, training and diversity assessment. Lisa also works with management to devise and refine diversity programs, helping companies limit class action liability and achieve diversity objectives
 Bill Garcia
Bill Garcia is Principal and Chief Legal Officer at Eagle Key Consulting LLC. He works with law firms, law departments, and professional services firms in areas including inside-outside counsel management, value based engagements, and client service program development. Bill is the former Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives at Howrey LLP and worked with firm management to develop a strategic vision; acquire and integrate partner groups; and structure and manage the firm’s client service organization. He advised firm clients on the development of alternative fee/value based billing arrangements; the formation and operation of preferred legal vendor programs; and created and managed the firm’s Strategic Client Program. In March 2011, he was appointed by the partnership dissolution committee of Howrey, and subsequently by the Bankruptcy Trustee, to serve as part of the wind down team for that firm. He previously served for more than a decade as inside counsel at Gannett where he advised on antitrust, advertising, distribution and other matters and managed the commercial litigation docket. He later served as Vice President/Compliance Oversight at MCI during its emergence from bankruptcy. He holds a J.D. from the University Of Chicago Law School and an A.B.mcl from Harvard University. He also has held several leadership posts in the ABA Section of Litigation, including Co-Chair of the Committee on Corporate Counsel.
Kenneth A. Grady
Kenneth A. Grady is Deputy General Counsel for Wolverine World Wide, Inc., a publicly held global marketer, distributor and retailer of footwear and apparel. He retired from the General Counsel and Secretary position at Wolverine World Wide in 2012, and has been assisting with a transformative acquisition and with the new General Counsel’s transition to the company. He also has held general counsel, in-house counsel and executive positions with PC Connection, Inc., KB Toys, Inc., Payless ShoeSource, Inc. (formerly part of Collective Brands, Inc.) and HNI Corporation. Ken also has experience as the Vice President and General Manager of a “lean” manufacturing and distribution facility, including more than 1,500 hours of lean implementation experience in the U.S. and Japan.
Prior to his in-house positions, Ken was a partner in the international law firm McDermott, Will & Emery and an associate in a boutique Chicago law firm. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree (summa cum laude) from Drake University; a Master of Management degree in Finance from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where he was an F.C. Austin Scholar; and a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University’s School of Law where he was on the editorial board of the Journal of International Law & Business and a recipient of the Lowden-Wigmore Prize. Ken also has completed graduate level studies in experimental psychology. Ken has participated as a presenter in various ACC and other organization sessions on issues ranging from Internet legal issues to in-house counsel practice management, and is a member of ACC’s Board of Directors, Advocacy Committee and Value Challenge Steering Committee.
 Nancy Jessen
Nancy Jessen has more than 20 years of experience working with legal organizations on a variety of strategic and operational issues. Her focus has included the areas of organizational structure, cost containment, outside counsel
management, process improvement and strategic technology utilization. Prior to joining Huron, Nancy was with Navigant Consulting, Inc. and Arthur Andersen, LLP. Her career also includes working for a private law firm and a software development company focused on billing, accounting and financial management software for the legal community.
Examples of Nancy's experience include leading the development of a new outside counsel management program that resulted in a standard process and criteria for selection and management of outside counsel including scope of work, fee arrangements and evaluation and leading a project to improve the efficiency of a law department and ensure that resources focus on the highest value work. Nancy has also led an effort to analyze the law department of a major P&C insurance company to understand the current operations, align the department with the corporate strategy and identify cost saving opportunities.
Nancy has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Management Information Systems from Iowa State University. She is a member of the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM) and has spoken at a number of conferences, including the Association of Corporate Counsel, IACCM, vendor conferences and various law department forums.
 Patrick Lamb
Patrick Lamb is a founding member of Valorem Law Group. Valorem represents corporate clients in business disputes, and is at the forefront of helping clients solve their business disputes and coping with pressures to reduce legal spend using nontraditional approaches, including use of non-hourly fee structures, coordination with LPOs or contract lawyers, joint venturing with other firms and implementation of project management tools to handle lawsuits or portfolios of litigation. Pat has, for years, been an outspoken critic of the billable hour model, including the annual rate increases that have become part of the legal tradition.
Pat is the author of the recently published book Alternative Fee Arrangements: Value Fees and the Changing Legal Market (2010). More information about Pat, his book and Valorem can be found at www.valoremlaw.com.
 Rob Lipstein
Rob Lipstein is a partner in Crowell & Moring's Antitrust, International Investment, Trade and Arbitration (ITA), and Intellectual Property Groups, and is co-chair of the Antitrust Group and chair of the ITA Group Steering Committee. As chair of the firm's Finance and Contingent Fee Review Committees, Rob also leads the firm's value-based billing initiatives, working within the firm and with clients to craft and implement value based fee agreements. Rob has worked closely with ACC on its Value Challenge, and is a core faculty member for ACC's Legal Service Management curriculum.
In private practice in Washington, D.C. since 1978, Rob counsels clients on all aspects of antitrust and trade regulation issues, with particular expertise on mergers and acquisitions; product distribution; and the interaction of antitrust and intellectual property laws. Rob has decades of industry specialization in a broad range of industries, from chemicals and industrial gases, to hazardous waste, consumer electronics, musical instruments and technology/telecommunications. Rob is the architect of distribution agreements that have become the standards in several industries, and has assisted companies to establish and enforce unilateral Minimum Advertised Price and Minimum Retail Price policies.
FACILITATORS INCLUDE
 Renee Karibi-Whyte
Renee Karibi-Whyte currently oversees law department marketing development and research initiatives for Practical Law Company. Her focus includes identification of key issues and concerns of in-house counsel, particularly as they relate to efficiency and cost containment.
Prior to joining Practical Law Company, Renee worked with American Conference Institute, where she managed a team of attorneys that researched, developed and facilitated conferences for in-house and private practice attorneys on diverse issues, ranging from law department management to regulatory compliance and litigation strategies. In this role, Renee researched, developed and facilitated events on reducing legal costs for in house counsel, providing in-depth, practical information and concrete take-aways. Under Renee's direction, her team developed and ran over 70 events per year focused on helping attorneys improve their practice and the bottom line.
Renee previously practiced at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, worked with the US Judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and served as a Trial Attorney in the Environment and Natural Resources division in the US Department of Justice Honors Program. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she clerked for the then-Chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
 Peter Gutelius
Peter Gutelius is Assistant General Counsel, Royal Bank of Canada and is responsible for a team of lawyers and para-professionals who manage RBC's commercial disputes, globally and across business platforms. As part of his management of commercial disputes Peter is active in the development and implementation of value billing strategies and RBC Law Group's eBilling and matter management system. Peter is a graduate of Queen's University (B.A. Hons. 1987) and Dalhousie University (LLB. 1991). He was called to the bar of Ontario in 1993 and joined RBC in 1999.
 Kathryn D. Kirmayer
Kathryn D. Kirmayer is a trial attorney who specializes in complex business litigation and arbitration. Kathy has particular expertise in disputes that disrupt or threaten to disrupt long-term commercial relationships, such as joint venture disputes, long-term supply disputes, and licensing disputes. She is experienced in the unique challenges posed by litigation and arbitration against critical business partners, whether long-term joint venturers or key suppliers or customers. Kathy’s active docket also usually includes antitrust cases, including recovery matters on behalf of long-term firm clients, as well as substantial pre-litigation counseling.
Kathy is the Chair of the firm's Litigation Group in D.C., whose attorneys handle business disputes of all types, including contract, business torts and fraud, unfair competition and trade practice, and licensing. She is also a member of the firm’s Finance and AFA committees, and frequently writes and presents on the subject of value-based billing.
Kathy joined the firm in 1989 after earning her law degree magna cum laude from Washington & Lee University School of Law, where she was a member of the Law Review and the Order of the Coif. She has a B.A. in psychology from Williams College, where she was captain of the swim team and a four-year All American. She is a member of the American Bar Association Sections on Litigation and Dispute Resolution, and she previously served on the Task Force on Civility of the D.C. Bar Association. Kathy is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia. She lives in Maryland with her two children, and is an avid open water swimmer.
 Michael Mills
Michael Mills is the chief executive officer of Neota Logic, which enables experts to deliver knowledge in an operationally useful form – as expert systems consulted interactively online or embedded in transactional systems.
He was for 20 years the chief knowledge officer and co-head of technology at Davis Polk & Wardwell after practicing as a litigation and bankruptcy partner at Mayer Brown.
Mr. Mills received a B.A. from Reed College, where he learned to program an IMB 1620 minicomputer in machine language and Fortran. He attended the University of Chicago Law School, then served as law clerk to a United States District Judge in Oregon.
He is vice chairman of Pro Bono Net, which provides innovative technology for the nonprofit legal sector.
|
Practice Area
Region
Resource Type
|
