It’s no fish story to say Tony Dal Ponte works in one of the most highly regulated industries in the U.S., or that his compliance net grew with new responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dal Ponte is the general counsel and assistant corporate secretary for Pacific Seafood Group, ranked the world’s 15th largest seafood producer […]
Features Region: West
Sarah Levitt – AECOM
When one oversees legal matters stemming from public projects, success is defined quietly. The less litigation the better. Preemptive practices spare long-term headaches. Cooperation rather than confrontation with authorities goes a long way when resolving government investigations. Such was the case for AECOM recently when a public procurement court in South America concurred with the […]
Joy (Bily) Bender – The Dutra Group
The $20 million contract awarded this past spring for The Dutra Group to dredge a channel in the Columbia River shows the depth of the company’s capabilities. Joy (Bily) Bender digs nearly as deep. General counsel of operations for the past three years and a member of Dutra’s legal team since 2012, she oversaw the […]
Richard Taylor – Nordic Naturals
If you ask a group of general counsels about their background, there’s a good chance they all find their way to their current roles the same way. Most cut their teeth at a law firm for a couple of years before making the move in-house. But Richard Taylor became general counsel for Nordic Naturals after […]
Alan Schmitz – Connect for Health Colorado
Alan Schmitz couldn’t believe news stories about federal and state bills being passed that were 500 or 1,000 pages long. It didn’t seem real. Who would write that many words—and who would read them? He would. Since encountering those stories, Schmitz has spent the last seven years helping people understand the 900-page Affordable Care Act […]
Thomas Peistrup – InStyler
Bedhead, helmet hair, frizz—hair’s not easy to tame. Neither, it turns out, are the tools used to battle it. As Thomas Peistrup explains, the hair straighteners, curling irons, blow dryers and other devices made by InStyler have become so popular that consumers aren’t the only admirers. Counterfeiters, too, want to tame your mop. The Max […]
Steve Chiang – RPX
Typically, when a company holds a patent, the underlying product or technology is one that the company itself has created and intends to sell. Other times, those patents are acquired by non-practicing entities, companies that don’t develop or sell the related product—but can employ aggressive litigation tactics to make money off businesses that do. Enter […]
Brandon Williams – Steve Harvey Global
Most law students are terrified of the Socratic method, where professors put them on the spot to test their knowledge. Some lawyers, however, embrace that fear and use it to drive them, Brandon Williams says. In fact, when he traded in his Emory Law student seat for a counsel desk at the international law firm […]
Yun Kim – KOTRA Los Angeles
At an age when most children are begging their parents for a puppy, playing with dolls, or squealing with delight at birthday parties, Yun Kim of South Korea knew exactly what she wanted to do when she grew up: become an English-speaking attorney in the U.S. In 2008, with a law degree and work visa […]
Chris Weinstock – PennyMac Loan Services
The customer is always right and, for well over a year, that customer has been demanding a remote mortgage. Post-pandemic, that’s likely to be the new normal. So notes Chris Weinstock, who’s long taken the pulse of prospective home buyers. During the late 1990s, he aided their cause as a deputy general counsel at Countrywide […]
