Features Corporate Counsel

It was late October, and as John Fenner spoke with Vanguard, he wished the Houston Astros well as they battled the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. As vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer of the heavy industrial contractor Turner Industries, Fenner felt a kinship with the Texas metropolis that the American […]

Joshua Markus comes across as the complete package. Bright, articulate, friendly and in good humor, he makes a good first impression. Perhaps, best of all, he seems to have a lot of substance, which had to be among the reasons his services weren’t just retained, but upgraded, after his company was bought last year, fittingly […]

Jason Groves has been an attorney for more than 20 years, but it wasn’t until 2011 that he was personally thanked by clients for changing their lives. That was the year that Groves joined Medifast, a Maryland-based nutrition and weight loss company that had just nabbed the top spot on Forbes magazine’s list of America’s […]

The way Juliana Cobb looks at it, she was given the benefit of a few months’ head start when her longtime employer, NANA Development Corp., informed in June that it would no longer need her services as senior corporate counsel. Having been in-house counsel for what has been known as WHPacific, Inc. since 1998 and […]

Free to chart his own course after mitigating a most acrimonious proxy battle as general counsel of Fiesta Restaurant Group, Joseph Zirkman probably won’t have much time to himself for long. This last autumn found the articulate, affable and business-savvy Brooklyn Law School grad consulting for various companies from his Dallas area home and anticipating […]

It’s not a magic pill—nothing really is—but over 50 clinical studies have attested to the positive effects of Chromax® as a weight-management supplement as well as for cognitive function and an all-around healthy glucose metabolism. Chromax, chromium picolinate, has been affirmed as GRAS (generally recognized as safe) for use in foods and beverages, and is one […]

There was a time when John Spiegleman expended his legal and real estate expertise on behalf of companies that managed lavish hotels, high-end apartments, urban retail buildings and the lushest golf courses. Nowadays, as executive vice president and general counsel of Denver-based DCT Industrial Trust (NYSE:DCT), he’s more likely to apply his know-how to developing, […]

Judi Otteson’s big advice sounds simple: Don’t be a jerk. Be gracious and listen to people. But because traits like kindness and compassion are sometimes confused with weakness, Otteson has learned to lead with conviction, while staying true to her naturally easy-going personality. She’s an attorney who can be both friendly and effective. “[There are] […]

When general counsels retire after decades at a family-run, longstanding company, who do they possibly ask to fill their shoes? Attorneys like Joseph Perkins, whose fresh perspective can help modernize a legal department. In 2015, Perkins was recruited to NIBCO Inc., a global manufacturer of valves, fittings and flow control products, so the company’s former […]

In 1988, when Joe Slavens joined the family business, Northwest Bank and & Trust Company, there were more than 15,000 small, community banks in the U.S. Today, Slavens estimates there are closer to 5,000. Since Slavens joined, Northwest Bank & Trust Company has gone through a labyrinth of challenges in order to survive and serve […]