The Driving Diversity in Law & Leadership [Virtual Summit]: Boston

Christina Licursi serves on Wolf Greenfield’s Executive Committee and is a shareholder in the firm’s Trademark & Copyright Practice Group where she advises clients on branding strategies and understanding the business and legal risks associated with the adoption, use, and registration of trademarks. She is very active in the Boston start-up ecosystem. She has a strong business acumen and demonstrated ability to work closely with all levels of business. Her clients cover a variety of industries, including biotechnology, e-commerce, food and beverage, clothing, medical devices, and software and telecommunications.

Renuka Drummond is Chief Legal Officer at MediaKind. Renuka has 20 years’ experience representing public companies, private equity, hedge and sovereign wealth funds and portfolio management for domestics and global companies. 

Over the last 10 years she has specialized in Mergers & Acquisitions. In her previous role as Associate General Counsel at Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ: 100), she worked alongside the corporate development team, senior executives and various business teams to deliver its global M&A strategy. 

Before going in-house, Renuka held the role of Counsel, Mergers & Acquisitions at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP over a seven-year period. Prior to that, she held corporate positions at international law firm Baker Botts LLP.

She has a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law, New York and a B.A. from Wellesley College, Massachusetts.

Rachel Roy serves as Associate General Counsel, Global Employment Law Lead for VMware, Inc. a cloud computing and virtualization technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, CA.  In her role, Rachel leads an international team of employment attorneys responsible for providing business-oriented employment law advice and risk-aligned solutions that drive the success of VMware and its 34,000+ employee population located in over 60 countries.  

Before joining VMware, Rachel had extensive stints both in private practice and with other multinational companies.  Following law school, Rachel joined Jackson Lewis as an associate, where she focused on employment litigation, investigations, and counseling.  She left private practice to serve as senior employment counsel for Publicis Groupe, an 80,000-employee public relations and advertising public relations company, followed by a stint as Associate General Counsel, Global Employment and Compliance, for Sensata Technologies, where she was responsible for all labor, employment, and compliance-related matters globally, including matters such as international investigations, anti-corruption/anti-bribery program initiatives, data privacy, and regulatory compliance.  

Molly is the Head of Legal for Citizens’ Enterprise Experience Organization, where she supports the Digital, Payments, Marketing and Data Analytics teams in the delivery of a best-in-class digital experience designed to drive customer growth and strengthen the Bank’s brand and reputation.  Molly also leads Citizens’ Intellectual Property practice, managing the Bank’s domestic trademark and patent portfolios and advising on enforcement matters.  Molly has more than 20 years of experience counseling clients on emerging technology and strategic transactions in both private practice and in-house settings.   

In addition to her practice-related work, Molly is committed to developing and sustaining a diverse and inclusive culture within the legal profession.  She serves as the Chair of Citizens’ Legal Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council, is a founding member of Citizens’ Pro Bono Committee and mentors diverse first-year law students.  Outside of work, Molly is a member of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts DEI Board Committee and chairs the Advisory Board of a local social service organization.  Molly earned her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law and her B.A. from Hamilton College.   

Stefanie J. Fogel is Co-Chair of DLA Piper’s Global Consumer Goods, Food and Retail Sector and Co-Chair of the US Food and Beverage sub-sector, focusing her practice on multi-national food and consumer product regulation and compliance, food and consumer product recall response, corporate compliance, and commercial, class action and multi-plaintiff litigation. Stefanie works with large multinationals and start -ups in trending areas of the food and supplement space to include plant based alternatives and hemp based CBD products.

She represents national and international manufacturers of foods and dietary supplements, retail clothing, manufacturing equipment, chemical products, bio-technology detection devices and a variety of consumer products. Stefanie serves as a national and international advisor to these clients in the area of product safety, cross-border distribution and enforcement, crisis management response, and industry trends. She has extensive experience advising on FDA, USDA, TTB, and CPSC related regulations, including label compliance, claims risk assessment, import and export issues, FSMA, and supply chain management. She is also a seasoned trial lawyer and has represented clients both locally and as national coordinating counsel in toxic torts, consumer fraud, mislabeling and misuse and product liability matters, against individual, multi-district, and class action claims. She has also developed a global multidisciplinary crisis management team to quickly and effectively address issues arising out of recalls, contamination, natural disasters, equipment failure, and environmental leaks and spills.

Stefanie has lectured across the country on subjects relating to food regulatory, litigation and compliance matters, supply chain risk and management, food safety, information management, and in-house and expert witness preparation, as well as civil practice litigation issues. She is well-versed in food and dietary supplement industry trends and has experience necessary to navigate the complex and nuanced food regulatory arena.

Stefanie also concentrates on data strategy, data privacy, and data security process management, records and information management (RIM), and data privacy. She has developed protocols for the implementation of national and international document retention schedules, records management programs, e-discovery strategic plans, and ISO auditing for a variety of industries. She also works with global companies in a variety of industries to develop data strategies integral to new product development.

She is a member of DLA Piper’s governing Policy Committee and the Hiring Committee and is also proud to be the co-founder and co-chair for DLA Piper’s National Leadership Alliance for Women (LAW) Program.

Stefanie is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York and has been admitted in various other states pro hac vice.

Smita Aiyar is Associate General Counsel for Elsevier (a RELX Group Company), an information and analytics company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content.

Ms. Aiyar is responsible for providing legal support for commercial, product, marketing & intellectual property matters for Elsevier Health & Commercial Markets products and services globally, with a focus on licensing and technology transactions. She is an active member of Elsevier’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee and Data Protection & Privacy Governance Council.  Prior to joining Elsevier, she served as IP Counsel for the Council of the Better Business Bureaus (the parent organization to the 100+ Better Business Bureaus) in Arlington, Virginia.   She started her legal career as an associate with an AMLAW50 firm in New York City advising on intellectual property and technology transactions. 

Ms. Aiyar is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Emory University School of Law. 

Bisi Akinola is an experienced attorney who partners effectively with companies and leaders by providing practical legal advice and support to enable her business partners achieve their objectives. Over the last 20 years, Bisi’s practice has focused on inbound and outbound technology counselling, licensing, privacy, commercial legal and marketing support in domestic and international markets. Bisi began her legal career in Aberdeen, Scotland at the Burness Paull law firm before working in-house at several companies including the French multinational, Schlumberger. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she joined one of the leading Silicon Valley firms, Fenwick & West. She worked as a Corporate attorney representing over 40 start up companies from inception to acquisition or initial public offering and representing a number of public company clients. During her time at Fenwick, she led buy-side  M & A for Symantec and Cisco acquisitions and sell-side transactions for numerous start-up companies. She joined a vibrant start-up called Zazzle as the second attorney providing IP counsel to the company’s C-suite and addressing a variety of legal issues. Bisi transitioned to LinkedIn where she served as Legal Director for two of the fastest growing business units at LinkedIn. As Senior Legal Director at Box, a Cloud Content Management company, Bisi led a team of lawyers counselling on privacy matters and overseeing global commercial transactions. She currently works at Ginger, a telehealth start-up, where she partners with multiple teams on innovative legal issues in the healthcare industry. Bisi graduated Magna Cum Laude from  University College London. She is licensed to practice in California, Nigeria, England and Wales and CIPP/E certified. Bisi sits on the board of Unreasonable Capital, an investment fund that partners with entrepreneurs addressing the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems. 

Arden Joseph joined Deutsche Bank in 2015 as Assistant Vice President and Counsel in the Americas Legal Department located in Jacksonville, Florida.  In her role, she negotiates derivative contracts for hedge funds, corporate and institutional clients. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, she spent eleven years at Citigroup in New York as a senior member of their capital markets legal team. There, she partnered extensively with various stakeholders as a transactional attorney. She also served as a subject matter expert for the FX prime brokerage desk.  Ms. Joseph earned a Juris Doctorate from Albany Law School and her Bachelor of Science in Finance from New York University, Stern School of Business.

Megan Fouty is the General Counsel and CHRO at Glowforge, Inc., a Seattle-based technology start-up that designs and produces 3D laser printers.  Megan oversees the Legal, HR, customer support organization, recruiting, and the facilities team at Glowforge. Megan joined Glowforge’s executive team during a period of rapid growth. Megan came from heading up the legal team at Convoy, Inc. another Seattle-based technology start up. In addition to her day job, Megan founded and runs Diversity University, a company that provides diversity, equity, and inclusion tools such as trainings, project management, or assists in investigations for companies, law firms, and organizations. Megan’s background includes both law firm and in-house experience with previous senior legal positions at Moss Adams, one of the country’s largest public accounting firms and Expeditors International, a Fortune 500 international logistics company.  Megan serves on the board of directors for Providence Pediatric Hospice of Seattle. Recently she was awarded thetop ten 30 somethings by ACC national,  received the “Legal MVP Award” by SimpleLegal, she was listed in Marquis 2022 Who’s Who in America, was featured on the International “The Counsel” Podcast, and was recognized  by  Women, Influence and Power in Law for Championing Diversity in-house and for Innovative Leadership.  She has spoken around the country on a wide range of topics and is seen as a prominent leader in the legal community. She recently published her bookThe Art of Networking, providing women, underrepresented individuals, and anyone looking for career progression or to grow a more robust network with tangible tools and advice to do so.

Priya Sanger is Deputy Legal Counsel at Patreon, a SaaS payments platform company helping to fund the creative class. They provide an online membership payments platform for Artists and Creators to engage with their supporters, and get paid easily and predictably without ads. Previously she spent 5 years at Google as a product and payments counsel, providing consumer and business strategic advice and leading product internationalization in Ads & Commerce. Before Google, Priya worked at Wells Fargo where she worked in different attorney roles: as a product and strategy lawyer, M&A lawyer, privacy lawyer, regulatory & compliance lawyer, and commercial lawyer. She also served as President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, which represents 8000 lawyer members in San Francisco and provides justice for the under-served.

Melanie focuses her practice on internal and governmental inquiries and investigations, high-stakes litigation, and risk counseling and assessments, focusing on the life sciences and financial services industries. Melanie also assists companies with commercial disputes and advises private and governmental entities on issues related to litigation prevention, governance, data privacy, and emerging life sciences technologies.

Vermell Emerson Hill has a passion for educational equity and advocacy. He is a technologist who balances professional responsibility with civic engagement. His heart for education led him to establish a scholarship at Colorado State University that focuses on funding educational opportunities for young women of color. Additionally, he serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Clarence F. Holmes Omega Psi Phi scholarship foundation, an organization that funds scholarship opportunities for young men of color.

In his community, he serves as a leader in the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. and has taken on leadership roles in community and youth engagement initiatives. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Families Against Violent Acts, an organization that started as a grassroots movement to address violence and its impact on the Montbello neighborhood of Denver, Colorado in which he was raised.

Professionally he is a Security Engineer for Raytheon Technologies and is responsible for architecting the security posture of technological infrastructure that commands spacecraft both pre-launch and in orbit.

Understanding the value of education, he holds a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science from Colorado Technical University and currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at Regis Jesuit University in the Anderson College of Business and Computing.

Following her undergraduate education at Bucknell University, Liza worked for six years as a political consultant, community organizer, and fundraiser for several prominent political organizations and non-profits. In 2010 she decided to follow her passion for the law and attend the Northeastern University School of Law.  Following law school, she accepted a position as a Securities and Enforcement Litigator at Bingham McCutchen in Boston, which shortly thereafter became Morgan, Lewis and Bockius.  At Morgan Lewis Liza handled a wide variety of matters, including large securities class actions, SEC and DOJ investigations, internal investigations, and an assortment of complex business litigation.  In 2021 Liza joined Cengage as Litigation and Compliance Counsel, managing the company’s active litigation, assisting with ongoing anti-piracy efforts, and working with a cross-functional team to enhance the company’s Ethics & Compliance Program.  Liza currently lives (and works remotely) in Cumberland, Rhode Island with her wife and three children (and a puppy coming in May 2021!).

Chris has spent the bulk of his career in federal service. He started that service as a law clerk to the Honorable James P Jones of the Western District of Virginia, and went on to serve as an Enforcement Attorney for the Federal Election Commission. While at the FEC he worked on more than 50 enforcement actions; he focused on matters that involved improper coordination with Super PACs, illegal contributions made in the name of another, and “testing the waters” schemes concerning Presidential campaigns. He was the lead attorney on a matter that resulted in the largest civil penalty in FEC history for foreign interference in US elections. He also completed special projects, such as a detail with the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. 

Chris currently serves as the Vice President of Government and Political Activities for Morgan Stanley. There, he ensures the Firm’s compliance with laws on lobbying, pay-to-play, and ethics. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University School of Law and West Virginia University.

At Experian, Ms. Reilly supports numerous business units with diverse needs and changing priorities. She leads sales-side contract negotiations and drafts and negotiates a variety of customer and vendor agreements while incorporating business concepts, ensuring accurate reflection of business relationship, and providing optimal legal protections for Experian.

At Experian, Ms. Reilly is a proud member of the Experian Pride Network ERG and frequently participates in the Network’s Town Halls and other events dedicated to diversity and inclusion.

Prior to joining Experian, Ms. Reilly was an Associate Attorney at a globally recognized law firm specializing in international, corporate, and regulatory matters. She focused her practice primarily on complex business litigation, compliance, and corporate transactions. Ms. Reilly primarily represented clients in civil and regulatory enforcement matters, civil litigation, and internal investigations. Additionally, Ms. Reilly counseled clients on the development of corporate policies and conducting risk assessments and advised clients on the formation, development, and implementation of various compliance and privacy-related policies and programs to various companies. 

Ms. Reilly lives in Boston, MA, and enjoys running, hiking, traveling, and all things the New England Patriots. 

Dr. Kelly Morgan leads Arbor’s legal team to safeguard the company’s research activities and drive the IP strategy for short and long term growth.  Prior to joining Arbor, Dr. Morgan worked with multiple start-up companies at a premier venture firm to guide development of initial IP, as well as educate and train early team members.  Originally trained as a cancer immunologist, Dr. Morgan brings over a decade of post-graduate experiences, both from her research bench and law firm training, aiding in opportunistic research design with proven impact on corporate development.  

Suffolk University Law School, JD.

Yvette Politis is Associate General Counsel, Labor and Employment counsel with RELX Inc.  RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers and is the parent organization to LexisNexis, LexisNexis Risk & Business Analytics, Elsevier Scientific, Technical and Medical and Reed Exhibitions.  

As in-house labor and employment counsel, Ms. Politis is responsible for employment counseling, litigation management, HR and management training and corporate compliance initiatives.  Prior to joining RELX, Ms. Politis was an attorney in Seyfarth Shaw’s Boston office.  Ms. Politis received her JD from Boston College Law School and graduated from Cornell University with an undergraduate degree in Industrial and Labor Relations.  

As the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Carmen has extensive experience as a trial lawyer, investigator and crisis manager.  She focuses her practice on internal investigations, corporate compliance, civil litigation, and white collar criminal defense.  Carmen also has significant experience with sexual harassment investigations and claims, and high-stakes employment litigation.

During her tenure as  the U.S. Attorney from 2009 to 2017, Carmen led an office of more than 200 attorneys and support staff in Boston, Worcester and Springfield.  She oversaw the investigation and litigation of many significant and complex criminal and civil cases in matters involving financial and securities fraud, healthcare fraud, public corruption, money laundering, cybercrimes, national security, organized crime and violent crime.  Among other high profile matters, she directed the prosecutions of Whitey Bulger and the Boston Marathon bomber.  Carmen also had significant achievements in the healthcare fraud arena, leading the District of Massachusetts to some of the largest civil healthcare fraud settlements in U.S. history.  Carmen served as Co-Chair of the Attorney General’s Healthcare Fraud Working Group from 2010 through 2015. Carmen was also a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee from 2012 until 2014, and a member of the AGAC’s subcommittees on Civil Rights, White Collar Crime, Terrorism and National Security and Cyber Crimes/Intellectual Property.  She earned high marks for her ability to manage high-profile situations under the media spotlight, to provide leadership and direction in crisis situations, and to facilitate decision-making between law enforcement partners, political leaders and community representatives.

As U.S. Attorney, protecting the civil rights of the residents of Massachusetts was a top priority for Carmen, and she implemented the District’s first Civil Rights Unit aimed at reinvigorating enforcement of federal civil rights laws.  She also broadened the Office’s outreach and engagement efforts, meeting regularly with community groups on a variety of issues to promote public safety, community policing and civil rights.

Prior to becoming U.S. Attorney, Carmen honed her litigation skills as both a federal and state prosecutor, as well as a defense attorney, trying over 60 jury cases to verdict.  She was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Economic Crimes Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and also served for eight years as an Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County, where she supervised the District Court prosecutors, and prosecuted homicides, sexual assaults and robberies.

In 1991, on behalf of the National Football League, Ms. Ortiz investigated allegations of sexual harassment made by a sportswriter against the New England Patriots. In 1992, she was part of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee team that investigated “October Surprise”, the Congressional inquiry into allegations that members of the 1980 Reagan-Bush presidential campaign delayed the release of 52 Americans held hostage by Iran.

Catherine provides counsel on all aspects of corporate immigration, including nonimmigrant visa options and permanent residence. She represents clients in various industries, including financial services, insurance, fashion design, and computer software.

Prior to joining Fragomen, Catherine practiced immigration law for a well known New York-based firm. While in law school, she was a member of the Syracuse Law Review, 2001-2003. She was also a graduate assistant in immigration law for the university’s Slutzker Center for International Services, and held an internship with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Carson Burnham co-chairs the Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Practice Group of Ogletree Deakins. She is a shareholder based in the Boston office.

Carson’s expertise includes multijurisdictional investigations into employment law and compliance matters including sexual harassment, bullying, assault, breach of finance and sales protocols, kickbacks and compensation fraud and other employment-law matters of particular importance to US headquartered multinationals. Carson also specializes in a practical and efficient approach to sensitive, executive-level negotiations, assisting her clients with hiring, management, and terminations worldwide. Carson has unique experience with labor and employment issues in cross-border M&A from a multidisciplinary perspective, and is often called upon to partner with corporate firms to assist from the kickoff of a transaction through post-close integration. Carson designs and implements global ethics protocols for US-headquartered multinationals and enables her clients to implement compensation plans and harmonized benefits practices with a solutions-oriented approach that maintains efficiency at the global level and compliance at the local level. Carson also manages employment litigation for clients abroad, most recently in the Netherlands, Spain and France. She is frequently asked to speak about addressing the challenges of effectively managing a global workforce.

In addition to her own practice, Carson established the Cross-Border Practice Group of Ogletree Deakins, a team of international attorneys based in five countries with experience handling employment law. Some recent representative projects handled by Carson and the team include global restructurings; overtime and wage/hour compliance in multiple jurisdictions; investigating allegations of sexual harassment and criminal assault (France, UK, Brazil, Thailand); investigating allegations of abuse of financial protocols, including benefits fraud, unauthorized discounting and alleged kickbacks (Japan, France, Brazil); drafting and coordinating the rollout of global sales compensation plans, retention bonus plans, codes of conduct and electronic communications policies; advising concerning choice of law, the enforceability of US judgments overseas and the extraterritorial application of US laws applicable employees employment laws to foreign decision makers; managing disability issues; preparing and delivering comparative anti-harassment trainings; measures to mitigate the multidisciplinary risks associated with Global Mobility assignments; negotiating executive terminations as well as handling performance and conduct-based terminations. The Cross-Border Practice Group consists of lawyers with in-house experience working for multinationals, lawyers experienced in cross-disciplinary matters such as white collar crime, M&A, immigration and tax; lawyers with educational and language experience in a multitude of foreign countries including China, Cuba, Brazil, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Austria, and Ireland; and German, Japanese, Chinese and Korean lawyers with experience working in the United States.

Prior to joining Ogletree, Carson was the Vice President of Global Employment Law for Novell, Inc. In that capacity, Carson managed a global team of attorneys, oversaw worldwide employment litigation and separation negotiations, served as counsel to the company’s Compliance and Ethics Committee, held responsibility for the employment-law aspects of the company’s transactional activity (including post-close integration) , chaired its Global Policy Committee, served as counsel to its Global Sales Incentive Compensation Committee, and regularly advised Internal Audit concerning international labor and employment matters, signature authority protocols, pricing review procedures, separation costs and incentive compensation issues. In this role, Carson frequently participated in the company’s Board and Audit Committee meetings and worked on a daily basis with the company’s executive team. Carson is best known for finding creative, simple and efficient solutions for her clients’ complex employment law problems around the world.

Stephanie Vitale is Director, Safety & Insurance Litigation US East at Uber Technologies, Inc.  She oversees the eastern half of the United States for the insurance litigation team, which handles claims and litigation related to Uber’s U.S. insurance policies, both general liability and auto. Prior to joining Uber three years ago, she litigated insurance defense matters in Chicago, Illinois.

Tibby is currently General Counsel for Navisite, LLC, a remote database management company with offices in the US, India, and in the UK. Tibby works on all commercial contract and corporate matters, including M&A, corporate governance and compliance, pending litigation, and more. She manages a team in India and in the US. Prior to joining Navisite, Tibby was Corporate Counsel and Corporate Secretary at CiBO Technologies in Cambridge, MA, an ag-tech start-up. She started her career in the Corporate Finance department at a large law firm in New York, Bryan Cave, before spending several years in legal higher ed. Tibby recently went back into a practicing role, which brought her to the conference last year. 

Chelsea Loughran is a shareholder in Wolf Greenfield’s Litigation Practice Group, where she focuses on complex patent litigation and post-grant matters in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device fields. Chelsea has experience litigating cases in federal district courts across the country as well as before the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). She chairs the Public Services Committee and Diversity Committee at Wolf Greenfield.

Kate Gallin Heffernan is a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the Boston office of Epstein Becker Green, where she acts as the Managing Shareholder. She advises academic medical centers, hospitals, research institutes, universities, and other research organizations and stakeholders on issues related to: Human subjects protection, Research compliance and misconduct, Research affiliations and contracting, Investigator and institutional conflicts of interest, Repositories for data, genomic, and tissue research and the downstream uses of stored materials FDA requirements for clinical investigations, Treatment with investigational products pursuant to FDA’s expanded access program and “Right to Try” laws, Research involving human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent cells Multi-site global trials, and Privacy of research subjects’ information.

In addition to her research-focused practice, Ms. Heffernan advises clients on general patient care issues, including clinical informed consent and the protection of sensitive health information, as well as organ donation and transplantation.

Ms. Heffernan’s prior experience advising from both outside and within the institutional setting has given her an appreciation of the hurdles that health care organizations face not only in analyzing and understanding the complex regulatory scheme in which they pursue their mission, but also in developing and implementing solutions that work.

Ms. Heffernan is a frequent speaker and author on many issues related to the legal and ethical issues raised by academic and clinical research, and her writings have appeared in, among other places, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Journal of Medical Ethics, Transplantation, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Cell Stem Cell, The Hastings Center Report, IRB: Ethics and Human Research, BNA Medical Research Law & Policy Report, and Bloomberg Law’s Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences News.

Ms. Heffernan is involved with policy and thought development on the national and international scene. Serving on a panel appointed to advise the Health Resources and Services Administration, she contributed to a proposed ethical framework for the conduct and oversight of organ donor intervention trials. The framework was subsequently endorsed in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s report Opportunities for Organ Donor Intervention Research: Saving Lives by Improving the Quality and Quantity of Organs for Transplantation, for which she served as an invited reviewer. The Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP), which advises the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on challenging issues related to human subjects research, invited Ms. Heffernan to present to SACHRP on this topic in July 2019.

Ms. Heffernan serves as a member of the planning committee for the Advancing Ethical Research Conference, an internationally attended conference jointly sponsored by Public Responsibility in Medicine & Research (PRIM&R) and Boston University, at which she is a regular faculty member. She has also served as a member of several working groups of the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center at Harvard University’s Global Health Institute, an interdisciplinary group of academics, health care providers, and industry convened to recommend concrete solutions for challenging ethical issues in international research. Ms. Heffernan has an enduring interest in bioethics, pursuing advanced study in June 2009 through a fellowship in medical ethics at Harvard Medical School, Division of Medical Ethics. She served on the Institutional Review Board of South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Massachusetts, for several years.

Ms. Heffernan has been listed in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business in the Massachusetts – Healthcare category (2017-2020), selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the field of Health Care Law (2021), and included on the 2018 New England Super Lawyers list in the area of Health Care.

Before joining Epstein Becker Green, Ms. Heffernan was a partner, and served as the chair of the Academic and Clinical Research Group and vice chair of the Health Care & Life Sciences Group, at a New England regional law firm. She previously operated her own practice as the founder of KGH Advisors LLC, after having worked in the Research and Technology division of the Office of the General Counsel at a not-for-profit, integrated health care system in Massachusetts. Prior to that, she practiced in the health care group of an international law firm.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Marks is an experienced trial lawyer who focuses her practice on both securities and corporate governance litigation, as well as complex civil disputes. She represents clients throughout the litigation lifecycle, from pre-litigation issues and risk mitigation to securing case dismissals on the pleadings, through fact and expert discovery, to trial judgment or settlement. Betsy currently serves as co-chair of Latham’s Women Enriching Business (WEB) Committee in Boston and also serves on the firm’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Review Board. A mother herself, she has mastered the delicate balance between caregiving and career.

Katie is AVP, Assistant General Counsel at Berkshire Residential Investments (Berkshire), where she assists with legal matters in connection with the day-to-day operations of the company including corporate, employment, real estate, landlord-tenant, litigation, insurance, risk and crisis management matters. She is an active member of Berkshire’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee and Environmental & Social Governance Committee. Prior to joining Berkshire, Katie served as Assistant Counsel at Admirals Bank, where she advised and represented the bank on a wide range of legal and regulatory matters. An avid civil rights advocate, Katie first began her legal career doing workplace rights and employment discrimination work before transitioning into an in-house role. Katie holds a B.A. from Trinity College and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law. She is also a member of the National LGBT Bar Association and the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Clients turn to Kate when they are most concerned about losing their confidential proprietary information and trade secrets or when other companies have hit them with a shot across the bow alleging violations of common and statutory laws for hiring a new employee or group of employees. Kate is a nationally recognized authority in trade secret and unfair competition law and companies rely on her experience to counsel them in protecting their business assets both before and after a dispute arises. Not only is she a problem-solver, she is also a trusted business advisor and collaborative partner, learning her clients’ business so that she can help formulate and mold their policies and practices for protecting trade secrets and confidential information, and recommend and employ winning strategies in litigation involving these issues.

Kate is her clients’ first call when they face challenges with unfair competition, trade secret misappropriation, and other intellectual property theft, restrictive covenant litigation, complex commercial disputes, wrongful termination, and internal workplace misconduct and compliance complaints. In addition to representing her clients across the country on such matters in federal and state courts, arbitrations and mediations, she is also frequently retained to conduct complex investigations concerning executives, internal workplace misconduct and other internal complaints. Her services also include preparation of individual and multistate employer noncompete, nonsolicit, nondisclosure and other restrictive covenant agreements; advice regarding onboarding of employees or groups of employees from a competitor, or departing employees joining a competitor; and preparation and implementation of trade secret protection programs, including trade secret audits.

Kate is currently a member of the firm’s executive committee, the co-chair of the firm’s national Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Competes group, and she is the chair of the ABA Committee on Trade Secrets and Interference with Contracts. Kate is the immediate past national chair of Seyfarth’ s Litigation department, has led a variety of litigation and business counseling practice areas, and she has collaborated with other firm non-litigation departments on client and industry initiatives. These various Seyfarth and industry leadership roles enhance her client service by giving her up to the minute access to emerging legal trends, best-practices and benchmarking information, as well as a deep knowledge of firm and industry talent that can be tapped for specialized client needs.

Kate has also studied and employed the most innovative techniques in the legal industry, including value-based pricing, process improvement, and project management and service delivery that affect the business side of many in-house legal departments.

Kate also has considerable experience in devising and managing alternative, value-based fee structures. She is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt and applies Lean Six Sigma and SeyfarthLean principles to her practice, counseling clients on process improvements, data analytics, and project management.