Description

This lecture will discuss two fundamental (and sometimes conflicting) roles of in-house lawyers — wise counselor who helps advance the business and the protector of that business. In formulating advice to achieve these goals, a general counsel must employ expertise in a wide range of fields: law, ethics, communications, risk management, public policy, politics, and corporate citizenship. He/she must also navigate complex internal relationships with business leaders, the board, peer senior officers, and the bureaucracy, as well as challenging external relationships with stakeholders, governments, NGOs and media in nations and regions across the globe. The successful general counsel achieves the right balance between his/her roles by employing the full toolkit of skills, managing his/her key relationships and viewing the issues he/she confronts in all their dimensions. While a challenging exercise, the job is an opportunity to be a leader and “statesman” of a business.

About The Speaker

Michael Solender is the Global Vice Chair and General Counsel of EY (formerly Ernst & Young) – the Big Four accounting and professional services organization with 270,000 personnel in 150 countries. In that role, he oversees the organization’s more than 300 legal personnel in 48 countries. He also serves as legal advisor to the senior leadership of the organization and its Global Executive. From 2009 to 2014, he was the Americas Vice Chair and General Counsel for EY.

Mr. Solender is also a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School. From 2008 to 2016, he was a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School, where he taught several courses. He also taught at Harvard Law School as a Distinguished Visitor from Practice from 2012 to 2014.

Before joining Ernst & Young (from 2004-08), Mr. Solender was the General Counsel of The Bear Stearns Companies Inc., the global financial services firm, where he supervised the Legal and Compliance Department around the world and was advisor to senior management and the board of directors. In 2007-08, he chaired the General Counsels Committee of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s (SIFMA).

In 2000-01, Mr. Solender was the General Counsel of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) – the federal government agency charged with protecting the public from dangerous consumer products – where he received the Chairman’s Award for distinguished service and participated in a number of matters that received national attention. From 1991-2000, Mr. Solender was a partner and an associate at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Arnold & Porter, specializing in litigation and regulatory matters.

Mr. Solender graduated in 1989 from Yale Law School, where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal, and in 1986 from Columbia University, from which he received a B.A. summa cum laude and where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Oxford University (Lady Margaret Hall) in 1984- 85.