The American Law Institute Elects Four New Council Members
At its 92nd Annual Meeting held earlier this month, The American Law Institute’s membership elected four new members to its Council. The Institute is governed by its Council, a volunteer board of directors that oversees the management of ALI's business and affairs.
“We rely on our Council to provide critical feedback and guidance on our law reform projects,” said ALI President Roberta Cooper Ramo. “Our Council, all accomplished lawyers, judges, and legal scholars, reflects a broad range of specialties and experiences. This diverse group of new Council members will reinforce our already exceptional group, as well as bring fresh perspectives to all of our projects.”
The new Council members are:
Ivan K. Fong is Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel at 3M, where he oversees all legal, legal policy, compliance, and government affairs matters for the company. Prior to joining 3M in 2012, Mr. Fong was the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Before that, he was Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of Cardinal Health, Inc. He also was previously Senior Vice President and General Counsel of GE Vendor Financial Services; Chief Privacy Leader and Senior Counsel, Information Technology of GE; and Deputy Associate Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. He also has been a partner with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.
He served as a law clerk to Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the Supreme Court of the United States. He holds a B.C.L. from Oxford University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He is a registered patent attorney.
Steven S. Gensler is the Associate Dean of Research and Scholarship and the Welcome D. and W. DeVier Pierson Professor of Law at The University of Oklahoma College of Law. He teaches courses on civil procedure, conflict of laws, federal courts, complex litigation, and alternative dispute resolution. He served as a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules from 2005 to 2011, and currently serves as a member of the Local Civil Rules Committee for the Western District of Oklahoma and as the Vice Chair of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Civil Procedure Committee.
Professor Gensler began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Deannell Reece Tacha on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and to Judge Kathryn H. Vratil on the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. He joined the University of Oklahoma law faculty in 2000 after serving two years as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. During 2003-2004, he was the Supreme Court Fellow at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Samuel Issacharoff is the Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law. His research deals with issues in civil procedure, law and economics, constitutional law (particularly with regard to voting rights and electoral systems), and employment law. Professor Issacharoff was the Reporter for the ALI’s Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation.
Professor Issacharoff is a 1983 graduate of Yale Law School. After clerking for Judge Arlin M. Adams on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, he spent the early part of his career as a voting rights lawyer. He then began his teaching career at the University of Texas in 1989, where he held the Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law. In 1999, he moved to Columbia Law School, where he was the Harold R. Medina Professor of Procedural Jurisprudence.
Kathleen O’Sullivan is a partner and co-chair of the appellate practice at Perkins Coie LLP in Seattle, where she represents clients in a wide range of complex litigation in trial and appellate courts across the country. Ms. O’Sullivan is an attorney member and the current Chair of the Washington Commission on Judicial Conduct. She served as an Appellate Lawyer Representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference from 2010 to 2013, and was a member of the Ninth Circuit Attorney Admission Committee from 2009 to 2012. She has been active in the Washington State Bar Association and the Federal Bar Associations.
After receiving her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1996, she was a law clerk for Judge Harold Greene on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and Judge Margaret M. McKeown on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Additionally, at the meeting three Council Members took emeritus status. The three new emeritus members are N. Lee Cooper, of Maynard Cooper & Gale PC, George H.T. Dudley of Dudley, Topper and Feuerzeig, LLP, and Carolyn Dineen King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
