Features August 2018

First came the spinoff: a $2.8 billion divestiture involving years of groundwork and organizational restructuring. All the while, a secondary move—the acquisition of two separate companies by the business spinning off—was in the works. Known as a Reverse Morris Trust, the highly complex transaction resulted in a $4.4 billion, publicly traded company, though not before […]

It started out as a favor for a colleague in academia. R. Mark McCareins certainly wasn’t seeking out the opportunity to instruct a law course at one of the world’s leading graduate business schools; he’d had one previous stint standing up in front of a class full of law students—and, well, let’s say it wasn’t […]

A proud Gamecock, George Jurch has attended alumni banquets at which the estimable Lou Holtz has spoken. “The best motivational speaker I ever heard,” says Jurch of the retired football coach whose years at the University of South Carolina were marked by a couple of Outback Bowl victories in the early 2000s. “Every time you […]

While a membership at BJ’s Wholesale Club costs just $55, for many shoppers that may not be walking-around money. Bargains abound, but with customers counting pennies, it’s to the warehouse club’s interests to communicate just how much potential members can save. Which competing retailers may take exception to, especially when BJ’s promises “up to 25 […]

Epiphanies can strike at any time: in moments of peace or panic, on a living room recliner or streets half a world away. Victoria Newman’s came right in the middle of a Caesar salad. While attending a conference for general counsels in Naples, Florida, Newman had dinner with a longtime legal head at a Canadian […]

Ask any general counsel or legal director what they love most about their job, and certain refrains are likely to follow. It’s the sheer scope of the work, they might say—how no two days are ever the same. Or the people they work with. Or the pride of contributing to something bigger, a mission. Dan […]

It was 2014, and for 35-year-old Uche Ndumele, life felt pretty close to perfect. He and his wife, Annie, had grown enamored with New York City. His employer, the online services giant AOL, was proving the perfect outlet for his bourgeoning securities and corporate governance expertise. For someone who’d always worn his aversion to change […]

Shortly after being upgraded to associate counsel of Nationwide Title Clearing Inc. in 2013, Matt DePasquale was called into the chief legal officer’s area and given what might have seemed a battlefield promotion. “The boss says, ‘I have a lot on my plate, I need for you to take over litigation,’” DePasquale remembers from his […]

Say a law firm is asked by a client to pursue an intellectual property (IP) case, despite having no IP staff to speak of. In the past, the firm would have to devote extensive crash-course resources to researching the issue internally—or more costly still, use outside counsel. Now, with just a few key words—“intellectual property […]

For years, every time Karla Jones-Wilson visited the 19,500-seat Kemper Arena, whether for a college basketball game or Disney On Ice with her kids, she couldn’t help but think she was enjoying the Kansas City landmark for the last time. By 2015, the arena—like many built in the 1970s—had fallen on hard times, precipitated by […]