Webinar

Jan 28, 2021

The Belonging Project Webinar Series: Empowered Resilience: Tools for Thriving in 2021

A 3-part series presented by The Belonging Project

Cost

Cost is free, but registration is required.

As lawyers, we are familiar with the rigor of the practice of law and related demands. The realities of 2020 has challenged us to learn new ways to become resilient, succeed, and thrive. Join to learn tips, tactics, and strategies from law firm and law department leaders.

We encourage you to register for all three sessions, but you may register for as many as you’d like.

SESSION 1: Strengthening Resiliency Through Mindfulness
SESSION 2: Empowering Resilient Leadership
SESSION 3: Building Resilient Networks

SESSION 3: Building Resilient Networks

Thursday, January 28
2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Eastern
1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Central
12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Mountain
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Pacific

About the Program

A focused conversation of lessons learned through internal and external networking, mentoring, sponsoring, allyship and belonging.

Speakers

Kori S. Carew, Esq., Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer, Seyfarth

Kori S. Carew, Esq., an attorney, TedX speaker, and community builder who generates awareness and understanding of critical human issues by creating the space and climate for open dialogue that is meaningful, enables people to expand their perspective and drive positive change.

With grace and truth, she is a disruptor, womanist and social justice advocate. With a multi-national, multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual family background, she brings a keen sensitivity to belonging and inclusion across differences.

Kori is the Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer at Seyfarth Shaw, LLP, an international AmLaw 100 firm. Using advocacy and organizational strategy to address structural barriers to diversity in the workplace, she brings an incisive voice, unapologetic questioning of the status quo, and a lifelong fascination of human potential to empowering women and marginalized people. She is a nationally sought-after speaker on topics of diversity, inclusion and belonging, inclusive leadership, talent engagement and development, authenticity and leveraging power. Her TedX, Just belonging: finding the courage to interrupt bias can be found here.
Sabera Choudhury, Principal, Charles River Associates

Sabera Choudhury is a Principal at Charles River Associates and has extensive experience in litigation consulting, investigations, intellectual property and licensing management reviews. Ms. Choudhury’s litigation consulting work has involved the determination of damages for litigation and bankruptcy proceedings involving tax and transfer pricing issues, the valuation of IP, M&A transactions, fraudulent conveyance issues, and financial misrepresentations.

She has led multiple complex global investigations involving Xerox, Ahold, and Computer Associates. While at PwC, she built the Securities Investigations/Litigation practice in London as a center of excellence and spearheaded the growth of the service line in Europe. She also led a global PwC team to develop methodologies for PwC’s global Disputes and Investigations practice to ensure global standardization and authored PwC’s global engagement methodology for key practice areas: Securities Litigation/Investigations and FCPA Investigations/Compliance & Due Diligence.

Ms. Choudhury has worked on behalf of corporations and their officers and directors, litigation counsel, insurers, bankruptcy trustees, the U.S. Department of Justice, and international tax authorities. During the course of her career, Ms. Choudhury has worked for global companies in industries such as financial services, manufacturing, high-tech, telecommunications, and energy.

Ms. Choudhury is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Rasha Elganzouri Gad, Partner, Quarles & Brady LLP

Rasha is a Partner in the firm's Real Estate Group. Her practice covers a wide range of complex commercial real estate transactions, including acquisitions and dispositions, financing, construction, joint venture formation, development, leasing, hotel acquisition, development and management, structuring of entities for investment, and cross border commercial transactions. She has over twenty years of experience working for top-tier international law firms based in the United States, Dubai, UAE, and Cairo, Egypt.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rasha has advised clients on the impact of relevant provisions related to "Force Majeure" or "Unavoidable Delays" in construction contracts, leases, and loan documents; guidance on commercial landlord responses to tenants and borrowers negatively impacted by COVID-19 requesting rent relief or debt service relief; and guidance on how to close a real estate deal during a government shutdown.

Rasha regularly represents clients in a variety of practice areas including office, retail, hotel, shopping center, health care, industrial, data centers, multifamily, and mixed-use projects across the country. Her clients include private REITS, pension fund advisors, private and institutional investors, and real estate developers and owners.

Robert White, Executive Director, California Minority Counsel Program (CMCP)

Robert White is the Executive Director of California Minority Counsel Program (CMCP) California’s leading legal diversity organization for business attorneys of color, recognized nationally for its achievements in promoting the business and professional development of attorneys of color. As Executive Director Robert provides strategic leadership of the organization, thought leadership on diversity, advises the Board of Directors and manages staff and volunteers in developing creative and inclusive programming and resources.

Robert was formerly the first ever Director of Alumni Career Services at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Manager of Corporate Services Training for Robert Half International, Vice President and Senior Counsel in the Wells Fargo Bank Law Department and a Corporate Associate at Jackson Tufts Cole & Black, LLP. He has also operated a consulting practice including organizational development, workshop facilitation, and business and career coaching.

Robert is a graduate of Morehouse College, and was a Marshall Scholar at the University of Kent, England. He received his law degree from Stanford Law School and holds an M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Golden Gate University. He has volunteered and held leadership positions with numerous professional associations and community organizations including the ABA, NALP, the Public Interest Law Project and the Coalition of Black Excellence.

Cameron Woods, Counsel, Global Labor & Employment Law, McDonald’s Corporation

Cameron W. Woods works as Counsel for the Global Labor and Employment Law team at McDonald’s Corporation, where he primarily manages employment litigation while providing advice and counsel on employment-related issues to the business. Prior to McDonald’s, Woods worked as associate counsel at Allstate Insurance Company, where he practiced regulatory compliance and public policy law before joining the labor and employment team. Most recently, he joined the faculty at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law as a remote adjunct professor. Woods is also the host of the Empower Hour podcast, sponsored by the Executive Institute on Inclusion, where he interviews various women on color with hopes that men learn to be better allies through their powerful stories.

Woods was the first student to complete the joint degree JD/M.S.Ed. program at Southern Illinois University School of Law. In law school, he was selected as an intern with the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Chicago chapter’s annual diversity summer internship. Woods is also a proud alumnus of the University of Arkansas, where he earned his B.A. in Political Science and Journalism. He is a member of various community-based programs in both Chicago, including serving on ACC-Chicago’s marketing committee, and his home state of Arkansas.

Moderator:

Jan Anne Dubin, CEO and Founder, Jan Anne Dubin Consulting

A legal industry pioneer, Jan Anne Dubin is the CEO and Founder of Jan Anne Dubin Consulting. Jan is an award-winning consultant with over 35 years of experience leading, innovating, and serving as a change-agent and connector.

Celebrating more than 10 years of delivering value and results to more, JADC assists organizations and individuals to better serve client needs by focusing on building long-term relationships, strategic communications, revenue generation and building brand, profile and visibility. Jan serves as an executive coach where she provides strategic guidance and counsel to organizations and individuals by assisting people to achieve breakthroughs. Jan has coached 1000s of lawyers, law students and marketing professionals including corporate law department and law firm leadership and high-potential individuals. Jan is a career-long champion of diversity and inclusion and is passionate about her work in this area.

SESSION 2: Empowering Resilient Leadership

This session was held on January 14, 2021, and is no longer available for registration.

About the Program

A focused conversation of lessons learned through leadership, executive presence, and strategic communications.

Speakers

Kori S. Carew, Esq., Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer, Seyfarth

Ona Dosunmu, C.E.O. & Executive Director, California Lawyers Association

Ona Alston Dosunmu is the C.E.O. and Executive Director of the California Lawyers Association (CLA), a nonprofit, voluntary, state-wide bar association and the new home of the Sections and the California Young Lawyers Association. Established in 2018, CLA’s mission is to promote excellence, diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and fairness in the administration of justice and the rule of law. As Executive Director of CLA, Ona leads a team of 30 employees serving nearly 100,000 members, making CLA the second-largest voluntary bar association in the country.

Before coming to CLA, Ona served as Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary and Chair of the Inclusion and Diversity Committee at the Brookings Institution. At Brookings, Ona served as a key member of Brookings’s senior executive team. She was responsible for managing the institution’s legal affairs, mitigating legal risk, and advising the Institution’s Trustees, senior executive team and staff on a wide array of legal, managerial, and policy issues ranging from foreign operations, to conflicts of interest, to compliance. She also contributed to the Institution’s international expansion and helped establish its first Office of the General Counsel.

Prior to joining Brookings, Ona worked as an associate at several large international law firms. She received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and earned her B.A. in journalism and M.A. in sociology from Howard University.

Ona has served in a variety of volunteer leadership roles with the Association of Corporate Counsel. She served on the board of the Children’s Law Center and on the advisory boards of Corporate Pro Bono and Georgetown’s Corporate Counsel Institute.

Randall Lehner, Associate General Counsel, Litigation at Guaranteed Rate

With more than twenty years of experience in private practice in financial services litigation and regulatory investigations, Randall is now working for Guaranteed Rate on dispute avoidance, revenue recovery, alternative dispute resolution and litigation defense across a broad spectrum of issues in the mortgage industry.

Randall has also prosecuted and defended a wide range of complex commercial litigation matters including director and officer liability, contract disputes, breaches of fiduciary duty, trade secrets and non-competition clauses, lender liability, class actions and insurance coverage.

Amy Yeung, General Counsel & Chief Privacy Officer, Lotame

Amy leads all legal, compliance, and privacy functions at Lotame, and is instrumental in informing Lotame’s product roadmap. Amy is a recognized thought leader advising executive management and business leads on industry-disruptive technology, digital innovation, and data analytics initiatives in all company lifecycles at companies such as Comscore, Dataminr, and ZeniMax. Prior to these experiences, Amy was in private practice at WilmerHale and clerked with the Delaware Court of Chancery. Amy is Co-Chair of Communications of the Law Department Management Network of the Association of Corporate Counsel, appointed as a board member to Duke University Alumni Association, and recently completed her term as co-chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

Amy holds a Juris Doctorate degree from Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago.

Moderator:

Jan Anne Dubin, CEO and Founder, Jan Anne Dubin Consulting

SESSION 1: Strengthening Resiliency Through Mindfulness

This session was held on December 10, 2020, and is no longer available for registration.

About the Program

A conversation on success strategies to utilize mindfulness tools and techniques to create wellbeing by strengthen core leadership skills and applying life lessons.

Speakers

Panelists:

Brenda Jacobsen, President, Mindful Communications

Having served as the CEO for two vibrant organizations, Brenda Jacobsen has spent more than two decades as a dedicated thought leader driving performance to achieve results. She is personally committed to improving the health and wellbeing of those with whom she interacts. Today, Brenda serves as the President of Mindful Communications. Mindful works with organizations that understand the value of investing in the wellbeing of their team, and that it's only through human performance that companies can thrive.

Laura Maechtlen, Partner & National Labor and Employment Chair, Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Laura Maechtlen is the National Chair of the Labor and Employment Department at Seyfarth Shaw LLP and a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee. Her practice is focused on employment litigation and includes the defense of class, collective and multi-plaintiff actions. Laura also has experience litigating against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) in systemic actions, both at the early charge stage and in large-scale EEOC pattern-and-practice litigation.

Laura is a national leader on issues related to diversity and inclusion in the legal industry, and has held a variety of leadership positions through which she has advocated for systemic improvement in the legal industry in the areas of diversity and inclusion. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the California Minority Counsel Program. She is a previous Latina Commissioner for the Hispanic National Bar Association, President of the National LGBT Bar Association, Chair of the CA Minority Counsel Program, and Fellow for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD).

Laura speaks and publishes regularly on a variety of employment law and litigation topics, and issues regarding diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, and has been quoted on those topics by the San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Reuters, The Recorder, Vogue, The Daily Journal, the Insurance Journal, CIO.com [cio.com], Employment Law 360, and others. She has also served as a contributing editor to multiple editions of The Fair Labor Standards Act (ABA) and The Developing Labor Law (BNA).

Kathleen Pearson, SPHR, Strategic Chief Human Resources Officer, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw, LLP

As Chief Human Resources Officer, Kathleen Pearson is responsible for developing and executing human resource strategy in support of the overall strategic direction of the firm.

Kathleen provides strategic leadership specifically in the areas of employee relations, talent management, benefit administration, change management, organizational and performance management, training and development, and compensation. In addition to overseeing all HR-related functions for the firm, she is a member of Pillsbury’s executive committee, the firm’s leadership body that establishes business and operational priorities, shapes firm direction and sets policies in conjunction with the management Board. Kathleen holds an Master’s degree in Law Firm Management and Strategy.

Moderator:

Jan Anne Dubin, CEO and Founder, Jan Anne Dubin Consulting

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