Features Region: West

The importance of leadership development is a topic rarely covered in the standard law school curriculum. But for Caren Weakley, vice president and managing general counsel, risk, for Radiology Partners, the largest physician-owned radiology practice in the U.S., this development is intrinsic. Since joining the company in 2019, Weakley has overseen everything from litigation and […]

It seemed like just another morning—until employees got to their desks to find pudding cups with a note reading: “The proof is in the pudding.” To explain: The day before, incoming Ligand Pharmaceuticals CEO John Higgins gave a speech to employees about his philosophy, his goals for the company and the “period of high change” […]

The building had been grossly underused since the late 1960s. The former Encanto Boys and Girls Club and its 18,000 potentially valuable square feet essentially gathered cobwebs and dust in a distressed part of San Diego. But how that’s changed, the commercially zoned facility having been bought for $4.2 million last December by a minority-run […]

As she completed her master’s in computer science, a job in the legal industry seemed quite unimaginable for Charandeep Kaur. Little did she know that a remarkable transformation was simmering beneath the surface in law departments. “At the time, I didn’t realize that legal operations was a burgeoning field. What was supposed to be a […]

It was a firm and a position worth waiting for—marking a historic progression—remembers Christianne Kerns, thinking back to joining Hahn & Hahn 17 years ago. It was there where she later became the first female managing partner of the prestigious 121-year-old Pasadena, California-based law firm which has transitioned from a historic “old-line firm” into a […]

A winning team on the verge of stepping into the big leagues. That’s what Christy O’Connor was promised when her reputation in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry garnered an offer to take over the legal department at Ibex. At the time, the Washington D.C.-based company was focused on going public, and O’Connor had aided […]

Between the endless hours of contract review, keeping an eye on the ever-changing regulatory landscape and advising the C-suite and board of directors, the burdens shouldered by today’s corporate counsel can be as daunting as they are dynamic. But with the typical in-house workload having increased by more than 90 percent—at a time when resources […]

Real estate law being Christopher Moles’ stock in trade, he had minimal experience on the mergers-and-acquisitions front in 2014. That necessitated some fast learning, as his employer of the previous four years—a then modest but ambitious Silicon Valley brokerage house—had agreed to be absorbed by an industry heavyweight. There were no guarantees that the then […]

The Golden State among the most litigious, it might become even more so come the new year when a host of new laws in California go on the books. Christine Kurek, vice president of legal at Activision Blizzard Inc., a publicly traded interactive entertainment company focusing on video games and esports, will be among those […]

It’s a program that had long made first-time homeownership a possibility for K-12 public school teachers of modest means, but education is not solely dependent upon teachers. Thus, reasoned the California Housing Finance Agency in 2017, other people also indispensable to public education should be recognized in the name of the program. Hence the Extra […]