Appointments: January 2014

1) Forest Laboratories, which develops and markets pharmaceutical products in the US, recently announced that Robert Bailey has been appointed senior vice president, chief legal officer and general counsel. In this role, he is responsible for managing the legal affairs of the company and also serves as its corporate secretary. He reports to Brent Saunders, CEO and president, and serves as a member of the Forest executive team. He succeeds Herschel Weinstein, who has served as Forest’s general counsel since 2006. 

Bailey most recently served from 2007 to 2013 as executive vice president for law, policy and communications at Bausch & Lomb. Before joining Bausch & Lomb in 1994, he was an attorney at Nixon Peabody. 

2) Katherine Brennan has succeeded Melvin Schwarz as general counsel of Guy Carpenter, the reinsurance subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies. She has also been made a member of Guy Carpenter’s board of managers and global operating committee, and reports to Peter Beshar, executive vice president and general counsel of Marsh & McLennan Companies, and Alexander Moczarski, president and CEO of Guy Carpenter. 

Brennan joined the Marsh & McLennan Companies legal team in 2008 and most recently served as senior counsel for corporate and securities matters. She has also served as assistant corporate secretary and has worked closely with the board, including acting as secretary of the audit committee. Prior to joining the company, Brennan was a corporate lawyer at Dewey & LeBoeuf, where she also completed secondments with Ambac Assurance and Scottish Re Group.

3) Commercial real estate firm Liberty Property Trust has announced the addition of Herman Fala to the company as general counsel. A highly regarded expert in real estate law, Fala joins Liberty from Cozen O’Connor, where he chaired the company’s real estate practice group. Prior to joining Cozen O’Connor in 2009, Fala chaired the real estate department at WolfBlock for 10 years. 

Fala is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School. He is a fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, has been named a star individual among Pennsylvania real estate lawyers by Chambers USA, and has been named one of the best lawyers in America for 23 straight years.  

4) Elisa Garcia is the newly appointed executive vice president and chief legal officer of Office Depot. Formed by the merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax, Office Depot is a leading global provider of products, services and solutions for every workplace.

In her new role, Garcia is responsible for managing legal, regulatory, compliance and government affairs worldwide, and also has responsibility for the loss prevention function. She further serves as general counsel and secretary for the company. 

Previously, Garcia served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Office Depot. Prior to joining Office Depot, she was executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Domino’s Pizza in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Earlier in her career, she served as Latin American regional counsel for Philip Morris International and corporate counsel for GAF. She began her legal career as a corporate associate with Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York. 

Garcia serves on the boards of the American Arbitration Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession, and the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce, and as an advisory board member for the Corporate Pro Bono Institute.  

5) The board of directors of Miller Industries, the world’s largest manufacturer of towing and recovery equipment, recently announced that Frank Madonia, executive vice president, secretary and general counsel, has been given additional responsibilities for compliance and internal audit. 

Madonia has been executive vice president of Miller Industries since September 1998 and has been its general counsel and secretary since April 1994. From July 1987 to April 1994, he served as vice president, general counsel and secretary of Flow Measurement. Prior to 1987, he held various legal and management positions for United States Steel, Neptune International, Wheelabrator-Frye, the Signal Companies and Allied-Signal.

6) TV Guide Network (TVGN), a highly distributed entertainment network owned by CBS and Lionsgate, has announced the appointment of David Mandell as executive vice president and general counsel. Mandell now oversees all legal matters for TVGN, reporting to Dennis Miller, president of operations, and Brad Schwartz, president of entertainment and media. 

The company says Mandell ‘will play a critical role as TVGN continues building the network with new original programming and expands its distribution footprint in full screen and HD.’ He is responsible for overseeing all of TVGN’s business and legal affairs, including corporate development, content distribution agreements, production and programming acquisition deals, and intellectual property rights. 

Most recently, Mandell served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Mandalay Digital Group, where he managed corporate development and strategic planning, business and legal affairs, and corporate governance and regulatory matters. Previously he served as senior vice president of business and legal affairs at Gemstar-TV Guide International, where he negotiated complex carriage agreements in the area of cable, satellite and internet protocol TV programming distribution, as well as structuring domestic and international programming license and distribution agreements. Prior to working at Gemstar-TV Guide, Mandell was vice president of business/legal affairs at Playboy Entertainment Group. 

7) NuStar Energy has announced that Amy Perry and Karen Thompson, both of whom held vice president and assistant general counsel positions at the company, have received significant promotions to senior vice president and general counsel. Perry is promoted to senior vice president, corporate secretary and general counsel for corporate and commercial law, while Thompson is promoted to senior vice president and general counsel for regulatory and environmental litigation. 

In a statement, the company states: ‘Amy Perry and Karen Thompson have done an outstanding job of handling many complex legal issues, ranging from overseeing complicated acquisitions to successfully resolving challenging legal disputes.’ Their existing roles at the company are now expanding as they become members of the senior leadership team. 

Since joining the company nearly 11 years ago, Perry has overseen its corporate finance and commercial transactions, corporate governance, external legal reporting and employee benefits issues. Prior to NuStar, she served as counsel for corporate law at Valero; prior to that she practiced corporate, M&A and securities law at DLA Piper in New York City and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Austin, Texas. 

In her new role, Perry continues to be responsible for the same areas within the company’s legal department and continues to serve as corporate secretary, but now  also oversees the ad valorem tax and right-of-way departments. 

Thompson joined the company 12 years ago, and since that time she has resolved many complex issues, providing legal advice and support regarding litigation, disputes and environmental and regulatory matters. Prior to joining the company, she served as managing counsel for Valero and practiced law at Mayor Day Caldwell & Keeton in Houston, Texas. 

Thompson continues to be responsible for all litigation and regulatory issues, and now also oversees the risk management, health, safety and environmental, and customs and trade functions.

8) Scientific Games recently announced that Andrew Tomback has joined the company as senior vice president and general counsel. Scientific Games is a developer of technology-based products and services and associated content for the worldwide gaming and lottery markets.

Tomback comes to Scientific with 25 years of experience in government service, business and private practice. Prior to joining the company he was a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder, a premier Washington-based law firm, where he was a key litigator in the company’s New York office. Before that he was a partner at Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy. 

Prior to entering private practice, Tomback was deputy general counsel of the Resolution Trust Corporation, and he also served as an assistant US attorney in the Criminal Division of the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. 

9) Stephen Yu recently joined Infoblox as executive vice president and general counsel. Yu is responsible for all legal affairs at Infoblox, which delivers automated network control solutions, the fundamental technology that connects end-users, devices and networks. He is also responsible for the company’s intellectual property portfolio, government affairs, public policy and corporate citizenship.  

Yu brings more than 20 years of experience leading legal teams and advising on corporate, commercial, intellectual property and litigation matters around the world. For the past seven years he has served as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of tech firm Rovi. In that position, he led and managed the company’s legal function. Prior to his role at Rovi, Yu served as general counsel of Aspect Communications, a provider of contact center solutions, Riverstone Networks, a provider of Ethernet network solutions, and Palm, a provider of mobile computing solutions.