6:00PM-8:30PM
Career Networking Event
A Speed-Roundtable Discussion
Alternative Careers: Using Your Law Degree Outside the Law Firm
Looking for an alternative career choice or just a chance to network? Join us for an evening of "speed-roundtable" discussions. After brief introductions, our panelists will rotate from table to table, answering your specific questions about their career paths. They will offer tips for changing career paths, caution against pitfalls and share industry opportunities. The pace will be fast, invigorating and leave you feeling optimistic about what the future can hold for you. Don't miss this unique Law School alumni event!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
6:00 PM Networking Reception
7:00 PM - 9:15 PM Roundtable Discussions
The Russian Tea Room
150 West 57th Street
New York, NY
Cost: $50 per person
Please Register Online by Wednesday, November 11th or by calling the Alumni Affairs Office at 607.255.5251.
See Who's Coming
Meet Our Roundtable Hosts
Suzanne Dressler Brown, JD '94
Special Gifts Officer, Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation
Suzanne is the Special Gifts Officer for Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation in Mountainside, NJ. Suzanne recently took on this position and is responsible for all major and planned gifts for the Hospital. For the previous three years she planned and implemented all the hospital's major fundraising events. Before leaving law, she was an associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in NYC. She is married to fellow class of 1994 graduate, Thomas Alan Brown II. Together they have 2 daughters, age 12 and 7 and one son, age 10.
Richard J. Caples, JD '77
Executive Director, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company
Richard J. Caples has directed the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company's operations for 24 years (one of the longest and most successful tenures in modern dance). During this time, he has raised more than $12 million, enabling Lubovitch to create more than 60 new dances for the company - as well as additional dances for other companies. He has produced more than 500 performances, seen live by more than a million people in more than 20 foreign countries and 30 American states. He has served on panels of various national arts organizations, and currently serves as Vice Chair on the board of Dance/USA, as well as on the boards of Doug Varone and Dancers, and Project Ballet Theater. Previously he served on the boards of Laura Dean Dancers & Musicians and the Artists Community Federal Credit Union. He was educated at Yale (BA with special honors), Johns Hopkins (MA) and Cornell (JD). After practicing law in NYC with Shearman & Sterling, in 1983 he was appointed Executive Director of the Santa Fe Festival Theatre. In 1984 he joined the Lubovitch company in his present capacity. Time permitting, he continues to provide extensive legal and other professional services to a variety of other arts organizations and individual artists, including 50 choreographers in Pentacle's Help Desk program, where he served as a mentor for 6 years.
Julie Crotty, AB '86, JD '96, MBA '96
Assistant Director of Mediation, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
Julie manages the mediator roster, the administration of mediation cases, and conducts marketing and educational outreach for FINRA Dispute Resolution. She began her career as a legal and business consultant with Goldman Sachs before initiating her dispute resolution career. She has worked as a full-time mediator for the New York City Commission on Human Rights and a contract mediator with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, primarily mediating employment discrimination cases. She also helped to design, implement, and market a new mediation program at the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, where she now serves on the mediator roster.
Julie has conducted mediation trainings, guest lectured at law school clinics, and given seminars on employment law issues around the country. She created an award-winning public service announcement promoting mediation, and wrote, moderated, and helped produce two FINRA webcasts introducing parties to arbitration and mediation.
Katherine Ward Feld, MBA '82, JD '83
Vice President & Corporate Counsel, Prudential Financial
Katherine is responsible for new business initiatives for mutual funds and separately managed wrap accounts since 2005. She was previously Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Alger Management, Inc., New York, NY; Vice President and Senior Counsel at Oppenheimer Funds, Inc., New York, NY; and Associate Attorney, Brown & Wood, New York, NY. She encourages her classmates to consider careers in compliance, internal audit and risk management. She also notes the importance of maintaining client connections, which is how she moved from a law firm to an in-house position.
Steven A. Flyer, JD '91
Managing Principal, Gotham Equity Partners LP
Steven Flyer is a Managing Principal of Gotham Equity Partners, L.P., an independent merchant banking firm that focuses on middle market private equity transactions. Mr. Flyer is a member of Gotham's Executive Committee and Investment Committees. Prior to joining Gotham, Mr. Flyer was an investment professional of CNPE Management, the private equity arm of an international family office. Previously, Mr. Flyer was a Managing Director of Trimaran Capital Partners, L.L.C., where he was responsible for sourcing, structuring, negotiating and managing private equity transactions, as well as being responsible for the investor relations and overall administration and operations of Trimaran Capital Partners. Prior to joining Trimaran Capital Partners, Mr. Flyer was an Executive Director in the Leveraged Finance Group of CIBC World Markets Corp. responsible for CIBC's $400 million Argosy Merchant Fund. Prior to joining CIBC World Markets Corp., Mr. Flyer practiced law at Dewey Ballantine LLP focusing on mergers and acquisitions, securities and private financings.
Mr. Flyer has served on the boards of directors of Transportation Technologies Industries, Inc., El Pollo Loco, Inc., and Consolidated Advisors, LLC. Mr. Flyer received his B.A. from Columbia University/Columbia College and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Phyllis Weiss Haserot, AB '65, MRP '67
President, Practice Development Counsel
Phyllis Weiss Haserot is the President of PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT COUNSEL, a business development and organizational effectiveness consulting and coaching firm. Her primary focus currently is improving relations among the generations in the workplace through in-firm workshops, facilitating dialogues, forums and writing. A pioneer in marketing/business development for law and other professional service firms, she also works with firms on professional development coaching and training, retention and lateral integration, strategic marketing planning, implementing flexibility and workplace conflict resolution. Through her in-house programs, conference sessions, webcasts, blogging, *Cross-Generational Conversation* Forums, monthly e-Alerts and articles, she has established a reputation as the "go-to" person on workplace inter-generational issues. She has developed the *Next Generation, Next Destination* program to achieve advance transitioning planning to benefit senior partners and executives as well as the professional growth of younger partners and their firms overall.
A frequent speaker and facilitator, she is the author of THE RAINMAKING MACHINE and THE MARKETER'S HANDBOOK OF TIPS & CHECKLISTS (both West 2009). Phyllis has a book in progress titled "Cross-Generational Conversation." She was co-founder of the New York Metro chapter of the Legal Marketing Association and served on the Board.
Bernadette A. Meyler
Associate Professor, Cornell Law School
Professor Meyler's research and teaching focus primarily on the intersections between constitutional law and the common law, British and American legal history, law and literature, and law and religion. Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous law reviews and peer-reviewed journals, including, among others, the Stanford Law Review, Cornell Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Law, Culture, and the Humanities, Diacritics, Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, and Theory and Event. She received a Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies and a Chancellor's Fellowship to pursue her doctorate in English at the University of California, Irvine. Following law school, she clerked for the Hon. Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Professor Meyler is admitted to the New York Bar. She is also a member of the Graduate Field of English and founded and leads Cornell's annual Law & Humanities Colloquium. Professor Meyler is currently working on two book manuscripts - Towards a Common Law Originalism, and Theaters of Pardoning: Sovereignty and Judgment from Shakespeare to Kant.
Brian P. Moran, JD '93
Attorney, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, LLP
Brian Moran graduated from Brown University in 1984 and spent the next few years teaching emotionally disturbed children, working in a preventive child abuse agency in the South Bronx and working with drug addicts as well as families with AIDS throughout the city. After graduating from Cornell Law in 1993, he worked as a litigation associated at Cahill Gordon & Reindel and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Brian then left the law and served for four years as an assistant commissioner for the New York City Administration for Children's Services with responsibility for teenagers in the city's foster care system. In 2001, Brian joined Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker's litigation department. Brian continues to practice litigation, and concentrates a significant amount of his practice on pro bono cases and community service.
Daniel (Don) A. Shacknai, JD '93
Deputy Fire Commissioner for Legal Affairs/General Counsel, Fire Department of New York City
Don Shacknai serves as Deputy Fire Commissioner for Legal Affairs/General Counsel, overseeing all FDNY employment law, litigation, and legislative matters. He also oversees the Department's Community Affairs, Family Assistance, Grants, and Medical Services units. Mr. Shacknai previously served as Deputy General Counsel for the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS). Before joining ACS, he worked at the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and clerked for the Honorable Myron H. Bright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Mr. Shacknai worked in New York City as a social worker and advocate before receiving his law degree from Cornell.
