mhugard's Recent Blog Posts

Deal Makers and Breakers: “The Corporate Healthcare Attorney” – An Interview with Linda Hatcher of Theodora Oringher

Submitted by mhugard

It has been a great year here at Deal Makers and Breakers. I’m pleased to announce the last interview of my tenure as a Writer-in-Residence features Senior Attorney Linda Hatcher of the Los Angeles firm, Theodora Oringher.

Ms. Hatcher has extensive legal experience with business formations, operations, transactions, and regulatory matters. In her extremely varied practice, she represents physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare providers and businesses related to the health care and life science industries with their business formations, ventures, contracts, licenses, regulatory compliance, and other general legal matters. In addition to her professional activities and involvement on the leadership of several bar associations, she is very involved in the mentoring activities of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles (“WLALA”). Scroll to the end of the post for her full bio.

Ms. Hatcher’s experience as a Senior Attorney and her corporate healthcare expertise qualify her as a “Female Powerhouse.” Below, read her advice on personal marketing development, breaking into the corporate and healthcare law industries, and engaging in mentoring activities with your local bar associations.

Please describe your pre-legal educational and professional background. My undergraduate degree was in business administration, with an emphasis in management. I wanted a career in corporate management and then, eventually, to own my own business. At that time, I had not contemplated a career in law.

I was recruited out of college by American Hospital Supply Corporation, which, at the time, was a large medical supply company that became part of a company now known as Baxter. I was in an accelerated management program, designed so that the managers could help the company continue to expand quickly. The position was exciting and a great experience. It required learning a substantial amount in a very short period of time, and I had the opportunity to obtain great responsibility early on in my career.

Deal Makers and Breakers: "The Boutique Corporate Law Firm Founder and Managing Partner" - An Interview with Heather McCormick of Credo Law Partners

Submitted by mhugard

After a short hiatus, Deal Makers and Breakers is back! This month’s column features Heather McCormick, founder and managing partner of Credo Law Partners, a Los Angeles corporate law firm.

Ms. McCormick has experience providing general business law representation to emerging growth companies, venture capitalists, private equity firms, and other corporate clients. She represents some of Los Angeles’ preeminent private equity funds, as well as the area’s upcoming technology companies. Scroll to the end of the post for Ms. McCormick's full bio.

Describe your education and early professional background. As an undergraduate, I attended the University of Pennsylvania. When I graduated from college, I worked at Merrill Lynch in Manhattan before going to law school, which I highly recommend. Prior work experience gives you a better perspective on school and also gives you better understanding of what a high-level professional service ethic is before you embark on a career in a law firm.

What was your major at the University of Pennsylvania? English.

So you went from English to… From English to Wall Street. Don’t ask me how, but I’m glad I did.

When you were at the University of Pennsylvania, did you know you wanted to start a career on Wall Street? I really wanted a “jump in and learn” position. Wall Street is full of intense positions that give you the opportunity to do just that. I am incredibly grateful for having developed a financial background through that work experience and through my MBA. I’ve found that having a financial background is a definite edge in building a corporate practice. It’s a skill that not too many corporate lawyers have, so it’s very useful.

Why did you decide to go to law school after being on Wall Street for a couple of years? Since college, I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in law – not necessarily because I knew any lawyers or had any idea what they did – but because I took a legal studies course while at the University of Pennsylvania, and it just made sense to me. I knew my mind worked that way, and I thought a career in law would be a good fit. Actually, when I first went to law school, I thought that I was likely to be a litigator. I had no idea at that point in time what that entailed. After working on my first pro bono litigation case out of law school, I knew it wasn’t for me. I realized that I like the productive aspects of corporate law as opposed to the combative aspects of litigation.

Deal Makers and Breakers: "The Venture Capital & Emerging Companies Corporate Law Partner" - An Interview with Suzanne Graeser of Morrison & Foerster

Submitted by mhugard

This month’s Deal Makers and Breakers features Suzanne Graeser, a corporate law partner in the Palo Alto office of Morrison & Foerster. Ms. Graeser’s practice focuses on emerging companies and venture capital investment, with an emphasis on entity formation, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financing, and executive compensation. Ms. Graeser is the West Coast chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Emerging Companies and Venture Capital Group, the former Chair of the Executive Committee to the California State Bar’s Business Law Section, and an advisor to the Business Law News.

Ms. Graeser’s experience as a partner in an Am Law 100 law firm and her corporate law expertise qualify her as a “Deal Maker and Breaker,” and her energy, enthusiasm, and grounded perspective have made her a true “Female Powerhouse.” Below, read her advice on succeeding in a corporate law setting, retaining women in positions of power, and managing work-life balance.

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You are currently a successful corporate partner and West Coast Chair of the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital Group at Morrison & Foerster. What was your first legal position out of law school?

In the summer of my second year of law school, I worked as a summer associate at a business law firm in San Jose, California. The summer program gave me the opportunity to work in many different areas of law, including corporate, litigation, real estate and tax. After doing a little bit of everything (even estate planning), I found that my interest was in the corporate arena, in helping businesses grow and being part of a team with long-term client relationships.

After graduating, I joined the San Jose firm as a corporate associate and did a lot of merger and acquisition (“M&A”) work. Back then, my clients were mostly family-held businesses that wanted to minimize taxes, which meant reducing the appearance of profitability. This was quite a different objective from my current venture-backed clients and a challenge when the clients wanted to be sold for maximum value.

When and why did you transition to Morrison & Foerster?

In the early 1990s, I made partner at the San Jose firm. By the mid 1990s, the economy and the legal market were doing poorly, and I hit a professional plateau. Several of my former colleagues had moved to Morrison & Foerster (“MF”) and were very happy there. With its deeper international platform, MF provided me with greater opportunities to expand my practice. In 1995, I decided to move to MF.

Can you describe a typical day for in you in your practice?

My typical day varies depending on the state of the economy. Before the economic crisis, I spent about 40-50% of my time on M&A

Deal Makers and Breakers: "The Consultant" - An Interview with Beth Inadomi of The Podesta Group

Submitted by mhugard

Practicing attorneys are not the only Deal Makers and Breakers in the corporate setting, and they aren’t the only one with a law degree. This month’s column features Beth Inadomi, a Principal at top government relations and public affairs firm, the Podesta Group. Her full bio appears at the end of the interview.

Ms. Inadomi isn’t the traditional corporate law firm “Deal Maker and Breaker,” but she is definitely a female powerhouse. Below, read how she turned her interest in “space law” into a full-time legal career and created her own path to success.

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Did you always have an interest in government, science, and technology?

I graduated UCLA with a degree in Political Science. In college, I focused my work on comparative government and political parties and was interested in the way that people govern themselves. I’ve also always had an interest in the space program. When I was seven or eight years old, a NASA space mobile came to visit my elementary school in Orange County, California. Suddenly, I was captivated by the fact that there was a space craft on its way to Mars and how human ingenuity and technology could figure out a way to get a space craft there, take pictures, and send those images back. From that point on, I always kept track of what the space program was doing.

My father is a retired attorney, and he followed a much more traditional path in the law. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles and a partner in a firm in Southern California. When I started law school, it was definitely with an eye of perhaps eventually working with him.

At the time, UC Davis School of Law offered a course on the “Law of Sea, Antarctica, and Outer Space.” The professor was visiting from McGill University, a school in Montreal, Quebec with an air and space law program. There were four of us in the seminar, and even by UC Davis standards, that was small. I found the class really fascinating. There was little case law, few treaties, and lots of academic speculation on the subject. That’s when I started thinking that this was the sort of legal topic that I would be interested in – an area of law that had not been well trod. I even co-authored a Law Review Comment (titled Who’s the Captain Kirk of this Enterprise?: Regulating Outer Space Industry Through Corporate Structures, 18 UC Davis L. Rev. 795 (1985)) on space law.

The other part of this decision-making process was that being a woman, and being a woman of color, I was fairly cautious about my opportunities in a traditional law firm, and I was a little more hesitant to go down that path. It was about this time I realized that I was not interested in transactional work, and it propelled me to do something that was much more outside the box. It made me look at things that were less traditional and more policy oriented.

What was your first legal position outside of law school?

While some of my colleagues were off working in nice, lucrative jobs at law firms, I took a 6-month position with the NASA Ames Research Center for $2,000 a month and no guarantees.

Deal Makers and Breakers: "The Academic" - An Interview with Professor Afra Afsharipour

Submitted by mhugard

When I think of corporate law scholarship, I think of UC Davis School of Law Professor Afra Afsharipour. Professor Afsharipour teaches future lawyers the basics of business law while also impacting the legal landscape with interesting, timely, and relevant research on corporate law matters.

After graduating from Columbia Law School and clerking for the 11th Circuit, Professor Afsharipour joined Davis Polk and Wardwell LLP in their Manhattan and then Menlo Park offices. Professor Afsharipour has experience working in all things corporate, including: Securities, Financial Institutions, and Mergers and Acquisitions. She is now a professor at UC Davis teaching and conducting research on Business Law Pedagogy, Indian Corporate Governance, Reverse Termination Fees, and Cross Border M&A. Professor Afsharipour is also a featured blogger on the M&A Law Prof Blog.

Professor Afsharipour is a powerhouse, and I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing her. Sit back and read about her journey from human rights fellow to corporate scholar, her typical day, and her advice to female law students and attorneys pursing a corporate career in this tough economic environment.

Can you tell me a little bit about your educational background? Did you plan on pursuing a career in corporate law?

Professor Afsharipour: No. I was a typical government and political science major as an undergraduate with minors in international relations and women’s studies. I had always been very focused on human rights, women’s rights, and women’s access to economic rights. I actually went to law school at Columbia very much focused on these issues. In law school, I served as a human rights fellow and worked for a well-known South East Asian women’s rights organization that trained other female activists and regional women’s organizations so that they could effectively access international law and the UN system.

I was very young when I started as an associate at Davis Polk. I really hadn’t had much work experience outside of the public interest sector, and Davis Polk was such a well-respected law firm. From what I had heard from a number of people who had been associates with the firm, it was a place where I (1) would have the opportunity to do a lot of pro bono work, which I was very interested in given my interest in human rights issues, and (2) would be very well trained. I really cared about being somewhere that would invest in my education as a young lawyer and where I could use some of my international background in doing international-related work. I was also heavily in debt from undergrad, law school, and clerking for a year on the 11th Circuit, and I thought that working at Davis Polk would be an opportunity for me to pay back my debt.

Describe your experience as an associate at a top international corporate law firm.

Professor Afsharipour: When I went to the New York City office of Davis Polk, I had already clerked for a year, so I started out technically as a second-year associate. At that time, the firm had a system where associates rotated through different practice groups. This was in fall of 2000. Securities and M&A work were both fairly dead given what was going on with the dotcom crash and so forth, so I started off in the credit transactions group and worked on project finance transactions as well as credit agreements and amendments.

I then rotated to the financial institutions group. That was where I really fell in love with corporate law, business law, and the private sector generally.

Deal Makers and Breakers: Female Powerhouses and The Corporate Arena

Submitted by mhugard

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a couple of my female law school friends. These two women are highly successful students, at the top of their class, and incredibly smart, funny, and talented. In preparation for this column, I had wanted to test my suspicions on what female law students think about corporate law and the attorneys who practice it. These two women were the perfect subjects.

Between discussing up-in-coming law school events and legal accounting classes, I posed this question: “What comes to mind when you think of a thriving, high-powered business lawyer?” And, without hesitation, my law school friends began to describe to me their idea of the “typical” business attorney – an affluent, designer suit-clad middle-aged male.

For me, the interesting point of this conversation was not that these ladies automatically made assumptions about the wealth of my hypothetical professional. Nor was it particularly revolutionary that they made general assumptions regarding age and race. No, what was interesting to me was that these law students, these highly intelligent and qualified female law students automatically assumed that my hypothetical corporate lawyer was a man. And to be honest, the same thought had crossed my mind.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t want to automatically envision the high profile female corporate attorney. I know she exists. Further, it’s not as though she is completely absent in the media. Every few years, her character enters television's prime time. She is highly intelligent, powerful, and exquisitely dressed. Her hair is always perfectly coiffed, and she effortlessly spouts smart, witty comments. But who are the real life versions of these women? Where do they work? What do they do? And, most importantly, how did they get there?

This column is devoted to finding these women and allowing them to share their stories. Join me as I explore the corporate landscape and the role of women in it. But before I introduce the female players, let’s introduce their playing field...