ACC NCR and Williams and Connolly Present: Brothers in Law

Please join us for this unique program featuring Jim and John Villa and moderated by Leslie Thornton. This light-hearted discussion will follow the similar, but different career paths, of the private practice attorney and the road in-house. We will highlight lessons learned, war stories, alternative view points in the evolving relationship between inside and outside counsel. Our speakers will discuss the unique challenges that in-house counsel face and what law firms are doing to partner and team with their clients to tackle these challenges efficiently and effectively.

ACC NCR members may know Jim Villa from his ACC NCR fame, as well as his other professional accomplishments, including General Counsel of Hensoldt Inc., former Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Versar, Inc.; and Trial Attorney at the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division.

John Villa is a partner at Williams & Connolly, who served on the firm’s executive committee for almost 20 years. John has been listed as one of the top 100 trial lawyers in America by Benchmark Litigation and is the author of Corporate Counsel Guidelines co-published by ACCA and West and several other treatises and casebooks. John is an adjunct at Georgetown and Columbia Law Schools teaching on the professional responsibilities of corporate counsel.

Leslie Thornton is an experienced public-company director, currently serving on the Boards of Directors for Career Education Corporation and Southwest Gas Holdings, as well as on the Advisory Board of Encrypted Sensors, a security technology start-up. From 2011-18, Leslie was Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of WGL Holdings Inc. and Washington Gas where she helped to lead WGL through its $6.4 billion merger with an international energy infrastructure company in 2018.