Michelle Banks
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer
Gap Inc.

Michelle Banks is Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer of Gap Inc. located in San Francisco, California. In her current role, Michelle is responsible for oversight of the archives, records & privacy; legal; corporate compliance; corporate governance; government affairs & public policy; and stock administration functions. She joined the Gap Inc. Legal Department in 1999. Prior to becoming General Counsel in 2006, Michelle established and led Gap Inc.’s corporate compliance and corporate governance functions. Before joining Gap Inc., Michelle worked in-house in California as Legal Counsel for the Golden State Warriors NBA team, and in Japan as American Counsel for ITOCHU Corporation, a publicly held trading company. Michelle was also associated with several law firms, including Morrison & Foerster in California and New York. Her law firm practice focused on corporate finance and international transactions. Michelle was admitted to the California bar in 1988. She graduated from UCLA with degrees in Law and Economics. Michelle is a member of Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), Bar Association of San Francisco, Bay Area General Counsel, General Counsel Roundtable, and Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA). She serves on the Board of Directors of MCCA and is Chair of the Executive Advisory Council of ACC. Michelle has spoken at numerous professional events, including the Conference Board, the Practicing Law Institute, Compliance Week, the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics, the Society of Corporate Secretaries & Governance Professionals and Vault/MCCA. Michelle lives in San Francisco and Sonoma, California, with her husband and seven year old son.

Hanifa Baporia

Assistant General Counsel

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Hanifa Baporia is an Assistant General Counsel at Sun Microsystems, Inc. in charge of licensing for EMEA and India. Ms. Baporia has been with Sun Microsystems for ten years. Prior to joining Sun Microsystems, Ms.Baporia worked at Hewlett-Packard Company and was in private practice at the law firm of Cooley Godward LLP. Ms. Baporia is also a Certified Public Accountant beginning her career as a CPA first at Arthur Andersen LLP and then at Oracle Corporation. Ms. Baporia earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and her law degree at the University of California Hastings College of Law.

Charles S. Birenbaum

Labor and Employment Relations Partner and San Francisco Managing Partner

Winston & Strawn LLP

Charles Birenbaum is a labor and employment relations partner and managing partner of Winston & Strawn’s San Francisco office. He has experience in administrative, judicial, and arbitration litigation, collective bargaining, and NLRB practice, and advises employers on labor matters related to mergers, acquisitions, sales, reorganizations, consolidations, outsourcing, temporary employment, subcontracting, and project development.

Mr. Birenbaum represents management clients in federal and state litigation and administrative practice. His experience includes cutting-edge representation of power generators in employment law matters nationally; appellate and trial court precedents for employers in temporary, technical, and staffing services; and appellate, trial court, and legislative testimony for key precedents in the mining industry.

Mr. Birenbaum’s trial experience includes race harassment cases in U.S. district court, noncompetition matters in California Superior Court under Cal. B&P Code 17200 et seq., and unfair labor practice matters.

He has extensive NLRB experience throughout the United States, including representative cases for various bargaining units. He also has considerable experience in union “greenmail” activities before federal, state, and local government entities such as the California Energy Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as county and municipal councils, boards, and departments. In addition, Mr. Birenbaum has extensive experience handling labor disputes of all kinds, including strikes, jurisdictional disputes, and picketing.

Mr. Birenbaum has counseled and represented national construction and engineering firms and energy industry employers in collective bargaining and arbitration matters. For example, he recently negotiated contracts with the Machinists Union for two steel plant bargaining units; negotiated four project agreements for $1.2 billion in power plant construction; and negotiated a greenfield contract for a health care chair with San Francisco Union Local 399. He defeated the Teamsters in an NLRB election at a fiberglass manufacturing facility, and obtained victories in arbitration and unfair labor practice cases involving unlawful picketing, employee discharges from employment, and other issues.

Mr. Birenbaum’s industry-wide representation has included trade association litigation and appellate work, legislative testimony, and administrative record-making and advocacy for the following industries: energy, mining, temporary/technical/staff services, construction, and health care. He also is active in corporate planning and strategy for development, particularly for energy and health care employers.

Mr. Birenbaum received a B.A. in Government, with honors, from Oberlin College in 1979 and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1982.

Jennifer W. Chaloemtiarana

Global Finance and Governance Counsel

Levi Strauss & Co.

Jennifer Chaloemtiarana is the Global Finance and Governance Counsel at Levi Strauss & Co. She joined LS&CO. in 2007, and currently manages legal affairs activities related to LS&CO.'s securities compliance and financing matters, corporate governance, shareholder relations and corporate secretary functions.

Prior to joining LS&CO., Ms. Chaloemtiarana was Associate General Counsel for Netflix, Inc., where she managed a full range of securities, governance, commercial and compliance matters.  Previously, she was a corporate associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, and served as a clerk for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.  Ms. Chaloemtiarana is a graduate from Cornell University and the University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of the Michigan Law Review.

Karen Cottle
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Adobe Systems Incorporated

As senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Adobe, Karen Cottle manages the company's legal interests, including intellectual property protection, licensing and corporate governance, as well as public policy and anti-piracy enforcement.

Prior to joining Adobe in 2002, Cottle served as general counsel for Vitria Technology, Inc. Previously, Cottle worked at Raychem Corporation as division counsel before being promoted to vice president, general counsel and secretary of the company. She served as business litigation partner and associate at the law firm of Farella, Braun and Martel and clerked for the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

She is a member of the California and Utah state bars and holds both a juris doctorate from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, and a bachelor's degree in government from Pomona College.

Diane Domeyer

District Director

Robert Half Legal

Diane Domeyer is a District President for Robert Legal, a division of Robert Half International (RHI), the world’s first and largest specialized staffing firm.  In this role she oversees operations for the division throughout the Western U.S.

Diane joined RHI in 1991 after professional success in international banking and sales.  Her first role with the company was as an outside sales professional for RHI’s financial staffing divisions.  She later assisted with the launch of RHI’s OfficeTeam division as an administrative recruiter.  Following a successful launch of the new service line, Diane was called upon to assist with launching new locations and providing training across North America.  She became the Executive Director of OfficeTeam in 1997 to oversee 175 locations and over $150 million in revenue. 

In 2000, Diane transitioned to a new role as the Executive Director for Technology Strategy, where she led the business arm of IT at the RHI corporate offices.  Her responsibility was to strategically integrate technology into the overall service model of all of RHI’s specialized divisions. 

In 2004, Diane returned to the role of Executive Director of OfficeTeam, where she expanded the division to more than 300 locations worldwide and more than $775 million in revenue. 

In early 2008, Diane took on her current role as District President for Robert Half Legal, the division of Robert Half International specializing in the placement of attorneys, paralegals and legal support professionals for law firms and corporate legal departments.

Matthew Fawcett

Senior Vice President & General Counsel

JDS Uniphase Corporation

Matt Fawcett is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for JDS Uniphase Corporation (NASDAQ: JDSU) a global supplier of broadband and optical solutions.  Prior to joining JDSU, Mr. Fawcett provided a broad array of corporate, commercial and intellectual property advice to Fujitsu, and before that in private practice at Morrison & Foerster.  Mr. Fawcett graduated from UCLA School of Law (JD 1992) and U.C. Berkeley (BA 1989).  Mr. Fawcett can be reached at matthew.fawcett@jdsu.com.

Michael Ford

Executive Vice President

American Discovery

Michael Ford is Executive Vice President of American Discovery. Michael leads the company’s strategy, global expansion, product development, and business development initiatives.  His career has been concentrated on systems and technology integration, labor resource deployment, and management of outsourced applications for global corporations and U.S. Federal Government agencies.  His legal industry experience includes Legal Outsourcing, Electronic Data Discovery, and Case Management for several Fortune 100 Pharmaceutical, IT, Insurance, and Financial Services companies, including their outside counsel. 

Michael began his career in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) with a concentration in IT, Telecom, and Data applications for global companies. Additionally, he has served as an advisor for two of the largest U.S.-based BPO organizations on new market deployments, ROI analysis, and outsourcing risks. 

Michael has previously held senior leadership positions with industry leading companies including Qwest Communications International, Encore Discovery Solutions, FPL Group, NetworkOmni, and MCI. He received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of South Florida and a B.S. in Economics from the University of Miami. Additionally, he has participated in executive education programs at the University of Texas, in Austin.

Michael is a frequent speaker on global outsourcing applications with emphasis on value drivers, risk, security, and compliance.

David Hickey

Partner

Winston & Strawn LLP

David Hickey is a litigation partner in the firm’s Los Angeles office concentrating his practice in class actions, corporate and securities law, and international commercial disputes and arbitration. Mr. Hickey is a vice chair of the firm’s E-Discovery Practice Group and a member of the firm’s Technology Committee.

Mr. Hickey has extensive experience representing clients at trial. He has served as lead counsel in more than 30 jury trials and numerous non-jury trials. He also serves as a domestic and international arbitrator, mediator, and judge pro tem.

Mr. Hickey also has extensive experience with business and legal outsourcing.  He led a 10-member team to conduct a HIPAA investigation of Business Process Outsourcers in India and the Philippines; the team traveled to more than 50 Indian cities and worked with state authorities in India and the equivalent of the FBI in the Philippines.  He evaluated more than a dozen legal process outsourcers located in India and the Philippines; provided recommendations regarding training, process and work flow, integration with U.S. litigation teams, and ethics.

Joy Jaeger

Corporate Counsel/Director, Employment Law

ROSS STORES, INC.

Joy Jaeger serves as Corporate Counsel/Director, Employment Law at Ross Stores, Inc. headquartered in Pleasanton, California. Ross is a Fortune 500 company traded on Nasdaq (ROST) with roughly 40,000 employees and 900 off-price retail stores operating under the “Ross Dress for Less” and “dd’s discounts” names. Joy manages a variety of employment disputes for Ross, including litigation, agency charges, investigations and complaints.

Prior to joining Ross in 2008, Joy practiced employment litigation in the San Francisco law firm of Gordon & Rees LLP. Joy also worked for the San Francisco law firm of McCormac & Associates where she represented employees.

Joy earned her law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law and her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Antone Johnson

Vice President Legal Affairs

eHarmony, Inc.

Antone Johnson serves as Vice President, Legal Affairs and Corporate Secretary at eHarmony, Inc., where he originated the role and built the in-house legal function beginning in 2006.  Antone is responsible for the company’s worldwide legal and government affairs, managing the legal department and advising the company’s senior management and Board of Directors in strategic and corporate governance matters.  He directs an international legal team to support the operations of the company’s flagship eHarmony® service (the Internet’s #1 trusted relationship service with more than 20 million registered users) and its network of dating and relationship, wedding planning and parenting websites.  Antone has deep roots in the consumer Internet and digital media industries, having served as Corporate Counsel to pioneering broadband Internet content and access provider Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM) from 2000 to 2002 and media, entertainment and technology company Gemstar-TV Guide International (Nasdaq: GMST) from 2002 to 2004, and Assistant General Counsel at Intermix Media, Inc. (AMEX: MIX) and its MySpace.com subsidiary during its period of hyper-growth and global expansion, culminating in the company's $650 million sale in 2005 to Fox Interactive Media (a News Corporation company).  Prior to Excite@Home, Antone was a corporate attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, where he represented emerging growth technology companies and financial institutions in M&A, corporate finance, joint ventures, technology and content licensing transactions and general corporate matters.  He holds a J.D. with honors from Columbia University School of Law and a B.A. cum laude in Economics from Williams College.

Laura Kibbe

Senior Vice President, eDiscovery Solutions

Epiq Systems

As Senior Vice President, Ms. Kibbe oversees Epiq Document Review Solutions which provides contract document review services for large data collections by qualified attorneys.

Ms. Kibbe has over 17 years of legal experience. Prior to joining Epiq, she was Senior Corporate Counsel and Managing Director of the Discovery Response Team at Pfizer, Inc., where she managed all discovery activity, from mass tort to commercial, employment and third party subpoena requests. Prior to Pfizer, Ms. Kibbe was an Associate at Kaye Scholer LLP in New York and an Attorney for Texaco Inc. in White Plains, NY.

Ms. Kibbe received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law and her B.A., magna cum laude, in Legal Studies from Manhattanville College. She is an attorney licensed to practice in New York and Connecticut.

She is a member of Sedona Working Group 1 and EDRM Working Groups, a board member of EDRM Advisory Board, a member and advisor of Corporate E-Discovery Forum and a co-chair of Thomson/ West Legal Works E-Discovery Conference. Ms. Kibbe has authored articles on various discovery issues for Law Technology News, Inside Litigation and Corporate Counsel magazine and is a frequent national speaker on discovery issues.

Ike Krasniewicz
Senior Corporate Counsel, Real Estate Law
Gap Inc.

Ike Krasniewicz is Senior Corporate Counsel, Real Estate Law of Gap, Inc., in San Francisco. Since joining Gap in 2004, Ike has served as lead in-house counsel to Construction, Store Design, Procurement, Occupancy Accounting, Real Estate Finance and Lease Payables Departments. He also works directly with off-shore consultants to prepare and negotiate estoppel and SNDA documents and collaborates with various internal departments on complex real estate planning issues.

Prior to his time at Gap, Ike was at Berg Greenleaf & Ruscitti LLP where he managed a wide variety of matters including general corporate matters, commercial transactions, real estate, insurance and litigation.

Ike is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Law where he was a Regent Scholar and served as Economic Law Society Chair. He is licensed in Colorado and registered in-house counsel in California.

Mark LeHocky
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
ROSS STORES, INC.

Mark LeHocky is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Ross Stores, Inc.  Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, Ross is a Fortune 500 company (NASDAQ: ROST) with fiscal 2008 revenues of $6.5 billion, over 40,000 employees and roughly 1,000 off-price retail stores operating under the “Ross Dress for Less” and “dd’s discounts” names.  Mark manages Ross’ legal affairs, devoting the bulk of his time to corporate governance, larger scale disputes and outside counsel management.

Prior to joining Ross, Mark was Vice President and General Counsel for Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc., the nation’s largest manufacturer and distributor of ice cream products.  In 2002, he helped engineer Dreyer’s multi-stage merger with Nestlé, S.A.  Prior to joining Dreyer’s, Mark was a principal in the San Francisco law firm of Freeland, Cooper, LeHocky & Hamburg, where his practice focused on litigating antitrust, intellectual property and other complex business disputes.

Mark also serves as an appointed mediator for the United States District Court for intellectual property, antitrust and other complex business disputes, and has taught at Bay Area law and business schools on the subjects of antitrust law and the interplay of litigation and business decision-making.

Mark received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Peter Lurie

General Counsel & Co-Founder

Virgin Mobile USA

Peter Lurie is general counsel of Virgin Mobile USA, and, as co-founder, he played a key role in the formation and launch of the company. He has broad management and strategic responsibilities, and he focuses on negotiating relationships with key partners, including major media—he has structured some of the more innovative deals in the digital media—retail, technology, financial and manufacturing companies. He has played a critical role in guiding the company from the start-up phase, through its national launch and subsequently rapid growth, the completion of several capital transactions and an initial public offering.

Previously, Lurie served as principal of a private equity group for a German bank, which completed the first public offering of a private equity fund of funds in Europe. Prior to that, he worked on mergers & acquisitions and private equity transactions at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Lurie is a graduate of Dartmouth College and The University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of The University of Chicago Law Review.

Brian Martin

Senior Vice President & General Counsel

KLA-Tencor Corporation

Brian M. Martin is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of KLA-Tencor Corporation.  Prior to joining KLA-Tencor, Mr. Martin served in senior legal positions at Sun Microsystems, Inc. for the past 10 years, most recently as Vice President, Corporate Law Group, responsible for legal requirements associated with Sun’s corporate securities, mergers, acquisitions and alliances, corporate governance and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and litigation management.  Mr. Martin also supported Sun’s worldwide sales activities and for several years served as its chief antitrust counsel.  Prior to his career at Sun, Mr. Martin was in private practice where he had extensive experience in antitrust and intellectual property litigation.  Mr. Martin earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Rochester and his J.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School. Mr. Martin is an adjunct professor of  law at Buffalo Law School where he teaches a class on the ethical issues faced by in-house counsel.

Sarah McConnell
Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary
ABM Industries Inc

Sarah McConnell serves as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for ABM Industries Incorporated (NYSE: ABM).  Assuming her position in 2008, Ms. McConnell reports to the President & CEO and is the chief legal officer for ABM, one of the leading facility services providers in the United States.  Founded in 1909, ABM has revenues in excess of $3.6  billion, is a top U.S. employer with more than 100,0000 employees and provides janitorial, facility, engineering, parking and security services for thousands of commercial, industrial, institutional and retail facilities across the United States and British Columbia, Canada.

Prior to joining ABM, Ms. McConnell served as Vice President, Assistant General Counsel and Secretary for Fisher Scientific International – a $6 billion manufacturer and distributor of products to the health care, life science, scientific research and safety industries for customers in more than 150 countries.  She was Acting General Counsel during the company’s $10 billion merger with Thermo Electron Corporation in 2006.  Earlier, Ms. McConnell was Vice President and General Counsel of the company’s Fisher HealthCare division.

Ms. McConnell’s extensive experience as a senior corporate counsel also includes serving as General Counsel for Benchmark Electronics; Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary for Hewlett Packard Company; and Senior Counsel at Cooper Industries.  Ms. McConnell began her legal career as an Associate with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Ms. McConnell received her law degree from the University of Texas Law School.  She graduated magna cum laude from Texas A&M University with a bachelors of arts degree in history and a minor in Spanish. 

Ms. McConnell and her husband, Mark, reside in New York.  Her interests include sports, reading and travel.

Joseph Ramirez

Vice President & Associate General Counsel

Adobe Systems Incorporated

Mr. Ramirez is the Vice President of Licensing and Associate General Counsel of Adobe Systems Incorporated.  In this position, he is responsible for overseeing all of Adobe's desktop and enterprise licensing programs. Additionally, his  team provides legal support to Adobe's Business Process Business Unit (Acrobat and LifeCycle offerings).  Previously, Mr. Ramirez was general counsel of Brio Software  and Network Computing Devices, both NASDAQ traded companies.

Daniel Solomon

Director of Intellectual Property and Litigation

Virgin Mobile USA

Daniel Solomon is the Director of Intellectual Property and Litigation in the Legal & Business Affairs Department at Virgin Mobile USA.  He manages Virgin Mobile’s litigation caseload, which includes such areas as intellectual property, securities law, employment, and advertising and marketing; and supervises the company’s handling of a diverse range of regulatory matters.  He also oversees the patent, trademark and domain-name portfolios of the company.  In addition, Dan is active in negotiating and drafting agreements to support the IT, Customer Care and Mobile Data Services departments in the company.

Dan joined Virgin Mobile’s Legal & Business Affairs Department in 2006.  Previously, he was an attorney at Kenyon & Kenyon, an intellectual-property law firm in New York City.  He is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.