OPENING REMARKS

Preet Bharara
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York

On May 15, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Preet Bharara to become the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.  Mr. Bharara’s nomination was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 7, 2009, and he was sworn in on August 13, 2009. 

As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Bharara oversees the investigation and litigation of all criminal and civil cases brought on behalf of the United States in the Southern District of New York, which encompasses New York, Bronx, Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Sullivan counties.  He supervises an office of more than 220 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, who handle a high volume of cases that include domestic and international terrorism, narcotics and arms trafficking, white collar crime, public corruption, gang violence, organized crime, and civil rights violations. 

As U.S. Attorney, Mr. Bharara has applied renewed focus on large-scale, sophisticated financial frauds by creating two new units – the Complex Frauds Unit and the complementary Civil Frauds Unit.  The Civil Frauds Unit has collected close to $500 million in settlements since its inception, including multi-million dollar settlements with Deutsche Bank and CitiMortgage for faulty lending practices and other fraudulent conduct.

In addition to prosecuting financial fraud, the Complex Frauds Unit is tasked with addressing the threat of cybercrime and has prosecuted core members of the computer hacking groups, LulzSec and Anonymous.  Together with the FBI, the office also recently announced the largest international takedown of defendants allegedly engaged in the theft of personal identification information and other crimes over the Internet. 

Recognizing the growing nexus between international narcotics trafficking and terrorism, Mr. Bharara merged two previously independent units to form the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit.  The Unit works closely with partner agencies and international law enforcement, and is responsible for prosecuting leaders and associates of organizations that engage in transnational acts of terrorism, narco-terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and money laundering. 

Under Mr. Bharara’s supervision, the office continues to combat corruption in city and state government.  The office remains at the forefront of prosecuting corruption in Albany and at the local level, bringing charges and securing convictions against multiple elected officials and other corrupt public servants.  The office also has prosecuted more than 500 members and associates of various gangs operating in the Bronx, Newburgh, Yonkers and other areas in an effort to make communities in the Southern District safer for residents. 

Since Mr. Bharara’s appointment as U.S. Attorney, the office successfully extradited and prosecuted one of the most notorious arms traffickers in the world, Viktor Bout, who is now serving a 25-year sentence.  The office also obtained a life sentence for Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, and for one of the Al Qaeda plotters of the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa.  In addition, the office has convicted scores of insider trading defendants, including Raj Rajaratnam, who was sentenced to 11 years, and Rajat Gupta.

The office recently secured the guilty plea of Peter Madoff for his role in his brother Bernard’s Ponzi scheme that included an agreement to a 10-year sentence, the statutory maximum. Together with the Madoff trustee, the office also achieved the largest forfeiture in U.S. history – $7.2 billion from the estate of Jeffrey Picower.

Mr. Bharara recently concluded a two-year term as a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee and as Chair of its Subcommittee on White Collar Fraud.  He is Co-Chair of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Working Group of the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

Prior to becoming the U.S. Attorney, Mr. Bharara served as Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts.  During his tenure, he helped to lead the Senate Judiciary Committee investigation of the firing of United States Attorneys.

From 2000 to 2005, Mr. Bharara served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted a wide range of cases involving organized crime, racketeering, securities fraud, money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and other crimes.

Mr. Bharara was a litigation associate in New York at Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman from 1996 to 2000 and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher from 1993 to 1996.  He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with an A.B. in Government in 1990, and from Columbia Law School with a J.D. in 1993, where he was a member of the Columbia Law Review.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Michele Coleman Mayes
Vice President and General Counsel
The New York Public Library 

Michele Coleman Mayes is vice president, general counsel and secretary for The New York Public Library (“NYPL”) and a member of the senior management group. Mayes is responsible for guiding NYPL's legal strategy to enable NYPL to achieve its mission. She joined NYPL in August 2012.

Mayes brings extensive legal, corporate and government experience to NYPL. From 1976 through 1982, she served in the United States Department of Justice as Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit and Brooklyn, eventually assuming the role of Chief of the Civil Division in Detroit. 

In 1982, Mayes entered the corporate sector as managing attorney of Burroughs Corporation. As Burroughs and Sperry Corporation merged, creating Unisys Corporation, she was appointed staff vice president and associate general counsel for Worldwide Litigation. In 1992, she joined Colgate-Palmolive Company as vice president and associate general counsel U.S. In 1993, she was promoted to vice president of Human Resources and Legal for North America and ultimately became vice president, legal and assistant secretary, and elected a corporate officer. In 2003, she joined Pitney Bowes as senior vice president and general counsel. In 2007 she assumed the role of executive vice president and general counsel for Allstate Insurance Company, a position she held until joining NYPL.

Mayes is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Bar Association, Commission on Women in the Profession - The Margaret Brent Award, and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association Trailblazer Award. In 2009, Mayes was recognized as one of the most Influential General Counsels in America by The National Law Journal and by Ethisphere Institute in 2011 Attorneys Who Matter.  In 2012, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The American Lawyer.

In 2011, Michele and Kara Baysinger co-authored a book entitled Courageous Counsel, which chronicles the rise of women general counsel in the Fortune 500.

Mayes is a member of the board of Legal Momentum. 

Teri Plummer McClure
Chief Legal, Communications and Compliance Officer
UPS

Teri Plummer McClure serves as the company's chief legal, communications and compliance officer. In this role, she oversees all UPS ethics and compliance, audit and legal initiatives in more than 220 countries and territories where the company does business. Teri leads UPS worldwide public affairs and government relations efforts advocating increased global trade, stronger business competitiveness, and improved economic growth worldwide, as well as many other public policies.  She also leads the global communications and brand management function at UPS, one of the most recognized and trusted brands in the world.

She advises and supports the UPS Board of Directors and is a member of the Company's Management Committee, a team responsible for setting strategy and profit and operating plans for the company's worldwide operations.

A native of Kansas City, Kansas, Teri received a bachelor's degree in marketing and economics from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and a juris doctorate degree from Emory University School of Law in Atlanta. She began her legal career in private practice focusing on labor and employment-related civil litigation and prior to joining UPS, practiced with the Troutman Sanders law firm in Atlanta.

Teri joined the UPS Corporate Legal Department in 1995, and was promoted into various legal roles including vice president. In 2003, she became president of the Central Florida District. Before returning to the Legal Department, she held special assignments in UPS logistics and distribution and served as UPS Compliance Manager. 

Teri was appointed General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in 2006.

In addition to her corporate responsibilities, she is a member of various bar associations and serves on the board of trustees of The UPS Foundation, which distributed more than $49.2 million in charitable giving in 2012.   In addition, Teri serves on the boards of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, Emory University Board of Trustees, The Task Force for Global Health, and Lennar Corporation. She has served as former co-chair of the Georgia Supreme Courts Committee on Civil Justice. Among her many notable accomplishments, Teri received the Equal Justice Works Scales of Justice Award in 2010 for supporting lawyers in public service and in 2008 received the Emory Law Distinguished Alumni Award.

Teri, her husband and their daughters live in Atlanta where they are active with many church-related, civic and community organizations.

MODERATOR

Paul M. Barrett
Assistant Managing Editor & Senior Writer
Bloomberg Businessweek

Paul M. Barrett is an assistant managing editor and senior writer at Bloomberg Businessweek, a position he assumed in September 2005. He is responsible for writing cover articles on subjects ranging from the energy industry to national politics to the gun business.

Prior to joining Bloomberg Businessweek, Barrett was an editor and legal affairs reporter forThe Wall Street Journal. At various times, he held the positions of Supreme Court correspondent, Page One special projects editor, and Page One news editor at theJournal. Prior to that, he was a staff writer and editor forWashington Monthly.

Barrett is the author, most recently, of GLOCK: The Rise of America’s Gun (2012), a New York Timesbestseller. His earlier books areAmerican Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion, which was named to Best Books of 2007 lists by the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and Publishers Weekly, and The Good Black: A True Story of Race in America(1999). He is currently working on a book about the Chevron oil pollution case in Ecuador, which is scheduled for publication by Crown in 2014.

Barrett is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds an A.B. from Harvard College. He teaches as an adjunct professor at New York University Law School.