Features August 2019

By all accounts, the acquisition was a perfect fit; a way for Panduit to augment its network infrastructure business with an established audio-visual presence, in the form of AV luminary Atlona. Even the deal itself—a handover completed in 2018, and Panduit’s largest to date—was quick and seamless for the company and its general counsel, Chris […]

In the apparel industry, ideas are a company’s lifeblood. Fresh designs, new fashion lines, trendsetting concepts—businesses have entire teams dedicated to brainstorming the next big thing. With a multitude of ideas, one can imagine the legal touch points are as many and close together as pencil stripes on a blouse. Among them, corporate governance, employment, […]

There’s a scene in “Big,” the 1988 film about a boy whose wish to be a grownup magically comes true, where the lead character, played by Tom Hanks, invites his best friend to see his new office at the headquarters of MacMillan Toy Company. Surrounded by the latest games and gadgets, many of which have […]

For some, finding a career path is a matter of choice. For Dan Zavodnick, it was more a matter of circumstance and necessity. In October of 2008, one year after landing at a prominent New Jersey law firm, Zavodnick was laid off, along with the firm’s other first-year associates, victims of the country’s deepening recession. […]

By the summer of 2009, less than a year after the collapse of investment firms Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the U.S. financial crisis was in full effect—and Gopal Burgher was about to experience it firsthand. With his firm on the cusp of a desperate merger, one he knew he wouldn’t survive, the 37-year-old attorney […]

Grupo IGS keeps growing in Mexico, and General Counsel Enrique Aguilar helps make sure it is growing right. The private equity firm is near to closing a deal for industrial properties worth $140 million. It is looking at new affordable housing opportunities. The breadth of its holdings spreads throughout the country and tests Aguilar’s abilities […]

With the aging Baby Boomer population and a critical shortage of nurses and other skilled health professionals, Joseph Balestrino sees an impending “tsunami” as he ponders the next chapter for 26 percent of the U.S. population. While not a health care professional himself, he primarily sticks to the law. The general counsel for Grane Healthcare, […]

It’s a career path that runs from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to above the Arctic Circle—with a cameo on the “Jimmy Fallon Show” thrown in for good measure—but Katie Norton says it’s not hard to follow. “There’s a lot about my story that’s nontraditional in the legal industry,” she says. “I wasn’t a person […]

One of the beautiful things about working close to Killington is being able to hike up a beautiful mountain on a fresh winter morning, snowboard down the slopes at dawn and still get to work on time. That peace and tranquility weaves itself into the fabric of Colin Owyang’s life as general counsel at the […]

Whenever he brings his trumpet onstage to jam with fellow musicians, John Cheek isn’t thinking about his first incendiary solo. Instead, he listens and waits for the moment when the rhythm and harmony of the group would suffer without his sounds. In his role as chief intellectual property counsel (IP) for Tenneco—and upcoming Tenneco spinoff […]