By Ann W. Parks

Former solicitors general Paul D. Clement and Walter Dellinger spoke about recent Supreme Court business cases at the Corporate Counsel Institute March 12. The discussion was moderated by Georgetown Law Professor Steven Goldblatt.

Keynote speaker Dennis Archer, a former Detroit mayor, former Michigan Supreme Court judge and past president of the American Bar Association.

Luncheon speaker Cokie Roberts.

Many of the nearly 300 attorneys who gathered in Hart Auditorium March 12 for this year’s Corporate Counsel Institute knew from past experience that the conference — sponsored by Georgetown Law’s Continuing Legal Education for 13 years running — would help keep them up to date on the most critical developments facing corporate law departments and law firm corporate counsel today.

And the attendees and speakers who came to CCI were well aware that they were facing a corporate landscape that was vastly different than the one that existed just one year ago. On a day when Bernard Madoff pled guilty to securities fraud and perjury, in a week when Americans would learn of bailout recipient AIG paying $165 million in bonuses to its executives, corporate and law firm counsel assembled for the two-day program listened perhaps a little more closely this year as a group of experts discussed recent Supreme Court business cases, “thunderbolts” in Delaware corporate law, priorities at the Securities and Exchange Commission and more.

“In the legal world in which we live, the last 10 years have been somewhat remarkable … astounding, unnerving, clearly challenging,” said keynote speaker Dennis Archer, a former mayor of Detroit who also served on the Michigan Supreme Court and became the first African American president of the American Bar Association. Archer began his address to the conference by emphasizing the importance of the work done by corporate lawyers every day.

“You are the professionals, you are the gatekeepers, you are also sometimes known as the ‘Dr. Nos’ of the legal world, because you have to stand up and say no to whatever might be proposed,” he said.

Archer spoke of the current legal environment, with corporations reducing their general counsel budget and sending some of their legal work overseas to India. He also spoke of the continuing need for diversity in business, and the lawyer’s role in helping the country to be financially strong again.

“We really are going to have some serious challenges,” he said, predicting that the legal profession is going to be the most helpful in turning the country around. “At the end of the day, it’s what you do that’s going to make a difference.”

Realignment election

At a luncheon in the Sport and Fitness Center lobby, journalist Cokie Roberts of National Public Radio and ABC News was on hand to discuss the recent presidential election — specifically, whether it could be reasonably be called a “realignment” election (one that dramatically changes the structure of political power).

“We won’t know whether it was a realignment election or not, until we have a couple more election cycles, because one election does not a realignment make,” said Roberts, who is the daughter of two members of Congress — Lindy Boggs and the late Hale Boggs — as well as a longtime political commentator. “But there are a few signs out there that certainly point to it.”

Roberts compared the recent presidential election to the one in 1980, when Republican Ronald Reagan defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time in 28 years. By the time of the 1984 election, Roberts said, “everybody understood that the 1980 election had ushered in an entire generation of conservatives and conservative change.”

And some of the same dynamics — the youth vote, the partisanship, and the racial and gender demographics of the vote — are in place right now, Roberts noted. “It really does look like we could be at a realignment,” she said, noting that we could also see the kind of overreaching that tends to occur with a one-party government. “But it is self-correcting at some point; that is the genius of the system.”

Warp speed

Among the many panel sessions conducted during the two-day Institute was a review of Supreme Court business cases by two former solicitors general, Paul D. Clement and Walter Dellinger. The discussion was moderated by Georgetown Law Professor Steven Goldblatt. John P. “Sean” Coffey (L’87), John G. Finneran Jr. (L’81) and Vice Chancellor Stephen P. Lamb (L’75) of the Delaware Court of Chancery were among the many alumni participating, joining Adjunct Professor John K. Villa for a discussion of recent developments in Delaware law.

Breakout sessions focused on internal investigations within corporations; privacy and data security; “avoiding corporate financial mistakes” and more.

“It seems to me that we are moving really at warp speed,” Marc Gary (L'77), executive vice president and general counsel of Fidelity Investments and chair of CCI’s advisory board, said at the start of the conference. Many of the present changes — the economy, the business climate and the legal regulatory scheme — are not merely cyclical but truly transformational in nature, he noted.

“The steep economic downturn has ratcheted up the pressure on business leaders to reduce costs, and of course, that means costs of legal departments and we are feeling that heat,” Gary said. “It’s fitting that … we are here in Washington, D.C., which now, more than ever, has become the center of our nation — not only for government but in terms of what’s happening in the financial sector as well.”