ESQ Participant Bios
Landis C. Best '92
Partner
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
New York, N.Y.
Landis C. Best has litigated a wide range of commercial disputes, including insurance, securities, and communications matters. Some of her notable representations include winning dismissal of defamation claims brought by a state court judge against a prominent cable company, defending a national broadcasting company in a copyright infringement action involving a famous speech that presented novel questions concerning the 1909 Copyright Act and the First Amendment, and representation of numerous media companies as amici and submission of briefs amicus curiae in the United States Supreme Court and appellate courts on issues of importance to the media industry. Best clerked for the Honorable Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William H. Rehnquist and the Honorable N. Carlton Tilley, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
Rock Chenkin '82
Partner
Zeichner Ellman & Krause, LLP
New York, N.Y.
David Chenkin is a certified anti-money laundering specialist and an administrative partner at the firm of Zeichner Ellman & Krause. After graduating from Duke Law School in 1982, he began his career at a boutique firm specializing in representing entertainment, sports, and general commercial clients. As a litigator, Checkin represents major financial institutions and other clients in civil, criminal, regulatory, and compliance related matters and represents clients in connection with investigations initiated by Congress and by federal, state, and local prosecutors and regulators. In addition, he handles confidential internal investigations for clients facing potential civil, criminal, and regulatory exposure. Checkin frequently speaks about anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing issues at conferences which are attended by regulators, members of the financial services industry, and law enforcement and has also addressed members of the central banks of other countries on these issues. Chenkin received his BA in accounting from Queens College in 1979.
Ron Coleman '86
Partner
Parker, Hudson, Rainer & Dobbs LLP
Atlanta, Ga.
Ron Coleman focuses his practice on complex business litigation, particularly in the areas of intellectual property, franchise, and trade regulation litigation. He also has substantial experience representing clients in commercial and business tort litigation, product liability litigation, as well as in federal and state appellate litigation. In addition, he has represented clients in numerous arbitrations, mediations, mini-trials, and other types of ADR processes. Coleman regularly represents national franchisors in a wide variety of matters, including cases involving breach of franchise agreements, good faith and fair dealing, fraud, RICO and antitrust violations, and constitutional challenges to state statutes, and he has also handled appellate matters before Georgia appellate courts, various federal courts of appeal, and the United States Supreme Court.
Michael Devlin '89
Managing Partner
Pharos Capital Group
Nashville, Tenn.
Michael Devlin has been directly involved in private equity investments for eighteen years. He was a vice president and founding member of the business development group of Goldman Sachs, where he was instrumental in identifying and developing proprietary trading positions for the firm. He was also actively involved with the Goldman Sachs principal investment area, where he sourced and developed several investments in the U.S. and Asia. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Devlin practiced corporate law for three years at Davis Polk & Wardwell in the securities and merger and acquisition areas. Devlin is a founder of Pharos Capital Group. He is a graduate of Yale University where he was a Yale-China Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar recipient, and he received his law degree from Duke Law School. Devlin is on the board of trustees of the Yale-China Association and is on the board of directors of the National Center for Boundless Playgrounds, a non-profit organization.
Thomas Dunn '92
Partner
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
New York, N.Y.
Thomas E. Dunn is a partner in the firm's corporate department. His diverse corporate practice encompasses mergers and acquisitions, private equity, joint ventures, and securities-related matters.
Judge Yvonne Evans '76
N.C. Resident Superior Court Judge
Mecklenburg County
Charlotte, N.C.
Judge Yvonne Evans is a Mecklenburg County superior judge in the state of North Carolina. After graduating from Duke Law School in 1976, Evans worked for the law firm of Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, and later worked at the Children's Law Center. After serving for ten years as a county district judge, Evans became a county superior judge in 2003. Evans has also been involved with community organizations, including work with the United Way, The Links, Inc., and the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church.
Stacey Friedman '97
Partner
Sullivan & Cromwell
New York, N.Y.
Stacey Friedman is a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell's litigation group. Her practice focuses on commercial litigation, including complex securities, class action, derivative, antitrust, and employment litigation. Friedman has represented clients in federal and state litigation, before arbitration panels, in civil and criminal investigations, as well as in proceedings involving the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the NYSE, and the European Commission. Friedman is a member of Sullivan & Cromwell's diversity committee.
Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe '88
Vice President and General Counsel
Duke Energy
Charlotte, N.C.
Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe is vice president and general counsel of commercial businesses for Duke Energy and leads the group responsible for providing legal services to the company's commercial business operations. Ghartey-Tagoe joined the company in 2002 as chief regulatory counsel for Duke Power. Before joining the company, Ghartey-Tagoe was a partner with McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Va., and was previously an attorney with two other law firms in Richmond and Washington, D.C. for approximately 10 years. He also taught a seminar on regulated industries at the University of Richmond T.C. Williams School of Law as an adjunct faculty member from 1995 to 2000. Ghartey-Tagoe is a member of the boards of directors of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Charlotte and Progress in Education Inc., a charitable and educational organization he helped found in 2000 to assist secondary schools in Ghana improve their quality of instruction. In 2000, he was appointed by Governor Gilmore of Virginia to serve on the board of visitors of Virginia State University, one of the nation's most venerated historically black institutions of higher learning. A native of Ghana, Ghartey-Tagoe earned his JD from Duke Law School and a BA, with joint honors, in economics and finance from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.
Jeffrey Golden BA
Partner
Allen & Overy
London, England
Jeffrey Golden joined Allen & Overy as a partner in the international capital markets department in 1994 after 15 years with the leading Wall Street practice of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He is co-head of Allen & Overy's U.S. law and derivatives practices and has extensive experience of a wide range of capital markets matters, including swaps and derivatives, international equity and debt offerings, U.S. private placements and listings and mergers acquisitions and joint ventures. Golden has appeared as an expert witness in several high profile derivatives cases and has served on the American Bar Association's working group on the rule of law and economic development, as well as the Financial Markets Law Committee's working groups on amicus briefs, emergency powers legislation and Enron v. TXU. Golden is chair of the American Bar Association's section of international law, and he also serves on the Commission on the World Justice Project and the ABA Rule of Law Initiative Board. He studied at Duke University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Columbia University School of Law, from which he received his JD degree with honors in 1978. He is general editor of the Capital Markets Law Journal and a member of the editorial board of Derivatives Use, Trading & Regulation.
Susanne Haas '87
Vice President & General Counsel
Environmental and Combustion Control
Honeywell International Inc.
Susanne Haas, LLM '85, JD '87, is vice president and general counsel for environmental and combustion control, a division of the automation and control business of Honeywell International Inc. Haas is responsible for all legal affairs of her business which has revenues of about $2.5B worldwide. Environmental and combustion control products include, among others, gas valves, thermostats, boiler controls, air cleaners, humidifiers, and commercial building control systems. Haas received a law degree from Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany before coming to Duke Law School.
Kathleen Hamm '88
Managing Director, Chief of the Securities Practice Group
Promontory Financial Group, LLC
Washington, D.C.
Kathleen Hamm is a managing director at Promontory Financial Group, where she heads the securities practice group and specializes in securities and corporate regulatory, compliance, and enforcement issues. Hamm has extensive experience designing, evaluating, and managing regulatory, surveillance, and compliance systems and programs. She also specializes in conducting internal fact-finding investigations, assessing corporate governance structures, and providing regulatory analysis and advice on new technology and strategic relationships. Before entering private practice, Hamm spent almost ten years with the SEC in its division of enforcement.
Courtney Holohan '98
Partner
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Chicago, Ill.
Courtney Holohan began her career at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in 1999, and became a partner in 2004 in the firm's nationally-recognized, 260-member intellectual property group. In January of 2008, Holohan was named an Illinois Super Lawyers "Rising Star" by Law and Politics, which identified her among the top 2.5% of all lawyers in Illinois who are under 40 or who have been practicing for 10 years or less. Holohan litigates complex intellectual property matters for a wide variety of privately held and publicly traded clients, ranging in size from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, in federal courts across the country. She has led and managed all aspects of litigation involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, false advertising, unfair competition, and trade secrets, on behalf of both intellectual property owners and accused infringers. Holohan has been trial counsel to clients in jury and bench trials, appeals, preliminary injunction hearings, evidentiary hearings, and mediations. She serves on Kirkland & Ellis's recruiting committee and summer associate committee. She was awarded the 2008 Pro Bono Service Award at Kirkland & Ellis for her work on behalf of pro bono clients.
Bill Howell '98
Partner
Baker Botts LLP
Dallas, Tex.
Bill Howell advises clients on securities, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters. He also has extensive experience in private equity, venture capital and other fundraising matters, as well as in a wide variety of information technology transactions for software, Internet, and other technology companies. Howell represents clients in complex mergers and acquisitions, tender offers involving publicly traded entities, strategic alliances, and joint ventures. He also represents issuers and investment banking firms in various corporate finance transactions, including initial public offerings, registered offerings of debt securities, venture capital investments, and financings with commercial banks and other institutional lenders.
Julie Jordan
Partner
Sullivan & Cromwell
Washington, D.C.
Julie Jordan is a member of the firm’s criminal defense and investigations group. She specialized in white-collar criminal defense and has worked on a wide array of prosecutions, regulatory enforcement matters, and corporate internal investigations. Jordan also works on a variety of securities and other commercial matters, and is currently working on a securities class action and derivative litigation involving HealthSouth.
Peter Kahn '76
Partner
Williams & Connolly LLP
Washington, D.C.
Peter Kahn has a diverse complex civil and criminal litigation practice in which he appears on behalf of his clients in federal and state courts. In his more than 30 years of practice, Kahn has represented a wide variety of clients, both corporate and individual. He has handled issues such as claims of breach of contract, fraudulent conveyance, theft of trade secrets, internal corporate investigations, fraud, RICO, tax evasion, medical and legal malpractice, employment issues, election law violations, personal injury, antitrust, and government contracts. Although Kahn purposefully has not specialized or limited his practice, he has spent considerable time focused on litigation involving international issues, both before American and foreign tribunals including, but not limited to, business disputes, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases, and extradition matters.
Linda Martin '96
Partner
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
New York, N.Y.
Linda Martin has extensive experience in large, complex commercial litigation and international arbitration, including in the areas of insurance and reinsurance, securities, Lanham Act and false advertising disputes, bankruptcy-related litigation, and general commercial matters. Martin's experience includes the successful representation of J.P. Morgan Chase in a breach of guarantee contract action against Motorola, as well as in various litigations arising out of the bankruptcy of Commercial Financial Services, Inc. More recently, she has represented the firm's clients in arbitrations in London, Vancouver, and New York. In addition to her trial and arbitration work, Martin has represented various clients in connection with fraudulent conveyance and other bankruptcy-related matters, including successfully negotiating the resolution of a trading dispute arising from the downfall of Enron Corporation. Martin serves as a member of the Future Forum at Duke Law School, and is a member of the Board of Directors of The Children's Tumor Foundation. She also serves on the recruiting, litigation training, technology, and women's committees for Simpson Thacher.
Julie McEvoy
Partner
Jones Day
Washington, D.C.
Julie McEvoy has successfully represented corporate and individual clients in a broad range of civil and criminal litigation matters implicating antitrust, corporate control, and fiduciary liability issues. She has substantial experience in all phases of complex civil and criminal cases, from prelitigation counseling and investigation through discovery, trial, and appeal. McEvoy also has extensive experience conducting internal investigations of alleged wrongdoing, coordinating individual and company responses to government inquiries, and negotiating appropriate resolutions with government authorities around the world.
John Methfessel '86
President and CEO
Verdatum
New York, N.Y.
John Methfessel is the president and CEO of the digital-dictation voice solution firm Verdatum. He is also chairman of the board of OmniGlobe International, a business process outsourcing firm with offices in Maryland and Gurgaon, India. Methfessel is on the executive board of Methfessel & Werbel in Edison, N.J., where he spent 17 years as a trial attorney, 12 of them as managing partner.
Deanna Tanner Okun '90
Commissioner
U.S. International Trade Commission
Washington, D.C.
Deanna Tanner Okun, a Republican from Idaho, is the commissioner of the United States International Trade Commission. Okun was nominated to the ITC by President Clinton on Nov. 10, 1999, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Nov. 19, 1999. She was sworn in as a member of the Commission on Jan. 3, 2000, for a term expiring on June 16, 2008. Prior to her appointment, Okun served as counsel for international affairs to Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) from 1993-1999, where she was responsible for the international trade issues with which the senator was involved as a member of the Senate Finance Committee. She also handled international energy and foreign relations issues for the senator in his position as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Earlier, Okun served as a legislative assistant to Sen. Murkowski, where she was responsible for his Foreign Relations Committee work, with an emphasis on East Asian affairs. Prior to her work with the senator, Okun was an associate attorney and member of the international trade group at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Hogan & Hartson.
Chad Pinson '98
Partner
Baker Botts LLP
Dallas, Tex.
Chad Pinson has broad experience defending clients in commercial litigation, class action, privacy, consumer law, consumer fraud, credit reporting, wrongful death, and products liability matters. In the course of his practice, he has represented a number of major corporations proceeding both as plaintiff and as defendant in complex commercial disputes. Pinson represents clients in both state and federal courts across the country, as well as in arbitration proceedings, in cases involving such issues as compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, breach of contract, professional malpractice, RICO, and deceptive trade practices. He also handles litigation centering on wrongful death claims. Pinson regularly represents clients on a national basis in multiple state and federal forums.
Bobby Sharma serves as a the chief legal counsel and a key business executive for the National Basketball Association's Development League and its various operating entities, having joined the NBA in July 2002. Overseeing various legal, business, and basketball operations related matters, as well as development and administration of all league policies and procedures, Sharma is also responsible for negotiating, drafting, and managing all NBA D-League agreements, including those involving team ownership and operation, arena leases, sponsorships, marketing, product licensing and merchandising, broadcasting, intellectual property, contests and sweepstakes, security, drug testing, and employment (involving oversight of NBA D-League human resources, including league office staff, players, coaches, and referees). Sharma received both his BA and JD from Duke University. After law school, he served on the presidential campaign staff of former U.S. Senator, and NBA Hall of Famer, Bill Bradley. Prior to joining the NBA, Sharma practiced litigation in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and New York City, most recently with Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
Douglas Wheeler '66
Partner
Hogan & Hartson
Washington, D.C.
Douglas Wheeler's environmental practice focuses on federal regulatory issues, with an emphasis on matters pertaining to land use and growth management; endangered species habitat, wetlands, and watershed management; water supply and distribution, including infrastructure development; management of agricultural and timberland resources; and historic preservation. Wheeler has helped to shape many of the laws and programs that now constitute national environmental policy, including habitat conservation planning pursuant to the Endangered Species Act, conservation and mitigation banking, and transferable development rights. From 1991-1999, he served as California's secretary for resources and was responsible for all of the state's natural and cultural resource programs. During his tenure, Wheeler developed nationally-recognized strategies to integrate economic and environmental goals and to effectively manage the state's natural resources in the face of rapid growth and development. He also served as senior executive of nonprofit environmental and conservation organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation (executive director, 1977-80); the American Farmland Trust (president, 1980-85); the Sierra Club (executive director, 1985-87); and the World Wildlife Fund (vice president, 1987-91).
Neil Williams '61
General Counsel (Ret.)
AMVESCAP PLC.
Neil Williams, a corporate and foundation director, is the retired general counsel of AMVESCAP PLC., one of the world's largest investment management complexes, with activities in over 25 countries. The principal brand names of AMVESCAP are Invesco, AIM, and Atlantic Trust. Before joining AMVESCAP, Williams was a partner in the law firm Alston & Bird, which he led as managing partner from 1984 through 1996, focusing on business law, particularly corporate finance and merger/acquisition activity. Williams is lead director of NDC Health and chairs the governance committee of Acuity Brands. He is a retired director of Attorneys Liability Assurance Society, a Bermuda-based insurer of a substantial number of large U.S. law firms. Both as a practicing lawyer and as a director and trustee, he has had a continuing interest in corporate governance issues and has made presentations on the subject at a number of continuing legal education and director seminars. Williams also chaired the board of trustees for Duke University from 1983-1988, and was instrumental in the formation of Duke Management Company, the University's investment management arm, and served as a director from its inception through 1997. Duke University awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1990.
