Susan L. Blount
Senior Vice President, General Counsel
Prudential Financial Inc.

Susan L. Blount is senior vice president and general counsel of Prudential Financial, Inc. and is responsible for overseeing the company’s law, compliance and business ethics organizations.

Blount joined Prudential’s Law Department in 1985 as an attorney in the company’s commercial real estate operations. During her 20-year career at Prudential, Blount has held a variety of leadership positions including assistant general counsel for Prudential’s Residential Services Company. Blount also served as vice president and secretary for the Company, and in that capacity, played a critical role in Prudential’s demutualization including the development of a shareholder services capability. In 2000, she assumed responsibility for the Operations and Systems and Intellectual Property sectors of Prudential’s Law Department. In 2002, she assumed responsibility for supervising the legal support for the Company’s financial management organization. Most recently, Blount served as vice president and chief investment counsel, and oversaw the Investment Division legal teams.

Prior to joining Prudential, Blount was an associate at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis.

She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Montclair State University and the N.J. Commission on Higher Education.

Blount attended the University of Chicago. She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in history and a J.D., with honors. She is a member of the bars of New Jersey and Illinois.

James C. Carter
Vice President and General Counsel
Nike, Inc.

Current position and responsibilities: Vice President and General Counsel for Nike, Inc. Duties include management of global legal services of Nike, Inc., strategic planning and legal counsel to business units and management. In addition to his legal department responsibilities, global government affairs also reports to Mr. Carter.

Prior employment: 1998 through 2002: General Counsel/USA and Americas Regions, Nike, Inc. 1978 to 1998: member of the Portland, Oregon law firm of Schulte, Anderson, Downes, Carter and Aronson. Performed duties of managing shareholder. Practice focused on litigation and counsel in areas of real property, business torts and professional liability. Clerk to the Honorable Robert E. Jones, Circuit Court for the State of Oregon, 1976. (Judge Jones is now a senior status Federal District Court judge).

Education: JD, University of Oregon School of Law, 1976; BA, Economics, Stanford University, 1971.

Professional memberships: Oregon State Bar, American Bar Association, American Corporate Counsel Association.

Volunteer activities: Chair of Board of Directors, Classroom Law Project (current); Member of Executive Committee and Board of Directors, Oregon Business Association (current); Member, Dean’s Advisory Counsel, University of Oregon School of Law (current); Board of Bar Examiners (1987 to 1990, Vice-Chair, 1990); Board of Directors, Portland Parks Foundation (2001 – 2005).

Daniel Cooperman
Senior Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel
Oracle Corporation

As General Counsel of Oracle Corporation, Mr. Cooperman’s responsibilities include worldwide legal policies, corporate governance and securities compliance, mergers and acquisitions, commercial licensing, intellectual property, employment law, litigation, patent law and legal support for Oracle’s various business units. He also manages Oracle’s Legal Department and serves as Secretary to the Board of Directors. 

Mr. Cooperman is currently serving as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Software & Information Industry Association, the largest trade association in the software industry, Treasurer of the Association of General Counsel and a member of the Board of Directors of the Oracle Education Foundation. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Committee of Corporate General Counsel and is on the Advisory Council for the Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School.

Prior to joining Oracle in February, 1997, Mr. Cooperman was a partner with the San Francisco-based law firm of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen (now known as Bingham McCutchen), and served as chair of McCutchen’s 65-lawyer Business & Transactions Group and Managing Partner of the firm’s San Jose office. In his law practice, which centered on the representation of emerging and established technology-based companies, Mr. Cooperman specialized in acquisitions, strategic alliances and corporate partnering transactions and the negotiation of licensing, marketing and distribution contracts.

Mr. Cooperman graduated summa cum laude with highest distinction in economics from Dartmouth College in 1972. He then attended Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and School of Law, receiving both his M.B.A. and J.D. from Stanford in 1976. Prior to joining McCutchen, he was a consultant in strategic planning with McKinsey & Company’s San Francisco Office.

David C. Fannin
Executive Vice President & General Counsel
Office Depot

David Fannin joined Office Depot in 1998 as Senior Vice President & General Counsel. He was named Executive Vice President in August 2000. In this position, he has overall responsibility for all of Office Depot's legal affairs, as well as serving as an adviser in the areas of strategic planning and mergers and acquisitions. David has over 30 years experience in corporate law departments and private legal practice. Prior to joining Office Depot, David was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Sunbeam Corporation from 1994 until 1998.

Robert Manfred
Executive Vice President of Labor Relations and Human Resources
Major League Baseball

Since 1998, Robert D. Manfred, Jr. has served as Executive Vice President of Labor Relations for Major League Baseball.  His primary responsibility is Baseball’s collective bargaining relationship with the Major League Baseball Players Association.  He served as the chief negotiator for the Clubs in both 2002 and 2006.  Mr. Manfred is also responsible for the collective bargaining relationship with the World Umpires Association and the human resources function in the Commissioner’s Office in New York.

Mr. Manfred graduated from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1980.  He received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1983, where he was an articles editor of the Harvard Law Review.  While at Harvard, he wrote a Note concerning contribution limitations under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.  Following law school, Mr. Manfred served as a clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro in the District of Massachusetts.

Following his clerkship, Mr. Manfred joined the Labor and Employment Law Section of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP resident in the Washington, D.C., office.  He became a partner in the firm in 1992.  At Morgan, Lewis, Mr. Manfred represented employers in numerous industries, including transportation, healthcare, professional sports and airlines.  He participated directly in the formulation and negotiation of economic and non-economic proposals for Major League Baseball in two separate rounds of collective bargaining (1990 and 1994-96).  He represented individual teams in salary arbitrations and in grievance arbitrations and provided advice to teams on their individual salary negotiations with players.  Outside the professional sports context, Mr. Manfred negotiated agreements with nurses, operating engineers and service employees on behalf of the Washington Hospital Center.

In addition to this collective bargaining experience, Mr. Manfred represented a number of clients in employee-benefit related matters.  He served as counsel to the employer trustees on a number of jointly administered pension and health and welfare funds.  He also represented multi-employer funds in federal court litigation under the Multi-Employer Pension Plan Amendments Act.

Mr. Manfred’s other litigation experience includes the representation of employers in actions brought under the Railway Labor Act and various federal anti-discrimination statutes.

Active in professional organizations, Mr. Manfred is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, is a member of the Labor Section of the American Bar Association and is a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia Bar Associations. 

Michele Mayes
Senior Vice President And General Counsel
Pitney Bowes Inc.

Michele Coleman Mayes assumed the position of Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Pitney Bowes in February 2003.  In that capacity, she is responsible for the legal affairs of the Company.  In addition, she also oversees the Company’s Government Affairs group, the Office of the Corporate Secretary, and its Corporate Governance function, which includes Environmental Health and Safety and Global Ethics and Business Practices. Her extensive legal and global business experience was obtained as a result of holding a variety of positions.

From 1976 through 1982, Ms. Mayes served in the United States Department of Justice as Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit and Brooklyn, eventually assuming the role of Chief of the Civil Division in Detroit. In 1982, she entered the corporate sector as Managing Attorney of Burroughs Corporation. Her career continued to evolve as Burroughs and Sperry Corporation merged, creating Unisys Corporation, for which she was appointed Staff Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Worldwide Litigation.

In February 1992, she joined Colgate-Palmolive Company as Vice President and Associate General Counsel U.S. In 1993, she was promoted to Vice President of Human Resources and Legal for North America.  She next became Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Assistant Secretary, and effective May 2001, she was promoted to Vice President, Legal and Assistant Secretary and elected a corporate officer, a position she held until joining Pitney Bowes.

She joined the board of Legal Momentum in 1996, and served as Chair from 2001 to June 2006.  In 2004, she was elected to the boards of Assurant, Inc. (NYSE: AIZ) and The Business Council of Southwestern Connecticut.  She also is a member of the American Bar Association, where she formerly served as Co-Chair of the Arbitration Committee and a member of the Commission on Women in the Profession.  She has been admitted to the Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania bars; she received her bachelors degree from the University of Michigan and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

In 2003 Ms. Mayes received the Margaret Brent Award from the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession and the Trailblazer Award from the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.  In the November 2003 edition of Black Enterprise, she was identified as one of America’s top black lawyers.

She resides in New York City.

Interviewed by:
Cathy Fleming
President
National Association of Women Lawyers

Bruce Sewell
Sr. Vice President & General Counsel
Intel Corporation

Bruce Sewell is senior vice president and general counsel of Intel Corporation. As general counsel, he is responsible for legal and government affairs worldwide for Intel. Sewell also represents Intel on several professional, legislative and policy boards.

Previously, Sewell served as Intel’s director of litigation and as assistant general counsel. Sewell joined Intel in 1995 as a senior attorney advising various business groups on such wide-ranging topics as antitrust compliance, licensing and intellectual property. Sewell was also a frequent contributor on complex transactions, including in the areas of corporate alliances and acquisitions.

Prior to joining Intel, Sewell was a litigation partner at Brown and Bain PC and, earlier, an associate attorney at the firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis.

Sewell was admitted to the California Bar in 1986 and to the Washington, D.C. Bar in 1987. He is also admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Sewell received a J.D. from George Washington University in 1986 and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Lancaster in the United Kingdom in 1979.

Interviewed by:
Roger Carlile
Senior Managing Director & Leader, Forensic & Litigation Consulting Segment
FTI Consulting