By: Joann S. Lublin

November 14, 2011

Michael C. Woodford just got a crash course in how to protect your reputation when you’re forced out of a high-level job.

The specifics of Mr. Woodford’s situation were anything but typical: The 51-year-old British chief executive of Japan’s Olympus Corp. got fired in October after challenging his employer over costly transactions it now admits were bogus. But how to handle a dismissal well is an increasingly common dilemma given brisk turnover in the management suite nowadays.

Mr. Woodford’s approach was to fight back. He told journalists why he thought he was fired and turned over internal documents he said supported his version of the story. (Olympus says it dismissed its CEO owing to differences in management style.)

His allegations sparked probes by U.S. and Japan authorities, sank Olympus’s stock and led to the ousters of other top executives at the company. Mr. Woodford believes keeping quiet about his dismissal would have tarnished his reputation for integrity.

“If people understand why you left a company, you hope they have a better opinion of you,” he says. So far, no one has offered to hire him. “A lot of people think I am mad” for speaking out, Mr. Woodford admits. “You can hurt yourself by doing the right thing.”

His experience highlights the importance of carefully orchestrating a forced exit. “Overconfident executives often underestimate the reputational damage from being pushed out of their jobs,” says Laurence J. Stybel, president of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire, a leadership consultancy. Handled well, you can preserve your reputation and improve your chances for landing fresh employment. Here are some strategies to pursue:

– Line up your own public-relations adviser — fast.

“The best time to retain a PR person is when you receive hints of an imminent ouster,” suggests Laurel G. Bellows, principal of Bellows Law Group P.C. in Chicago. “A good public-relations person can influence coverage of this humiliating event, minimizing the hit to your reputation,” says the attorney, who negotiates executive employment and separation agreements.

Carol Bartz, former CEO of Yahoo Inc., waited too long to seek PR help, according to legal and communications specialists. Board members impatient over the Web company’s lack of a turnaround fired her in September. During a Fortune interview the next day, she called Yahoo directors “doofuses” and said “these people f—ed me over.”

Ms. Bartz’s comments caused such a stir that she subsequently hired a crisis-communications specialist. She declined to comment for this story.

– Get involved in preparing corporate announcements about your exit.

CJ Fraleigh was forced to resign this fall as chief executive of Sara Lee Corp.’s North American business. Board members changed their minds about having him run the unit as a publicly held concern once the food conglomerate splits in two next year.

Mr. Fraleigh learned about the board’s decision on a Friday. Over that weekend, he lobbied Sara Lee colleagues to revise their proposed press release, a person familiar with his thinking said.

The original draft said he “agreed to leave the company.” At his request, the final version stated he resigned “to pursue other opportunities.” The company turned down his request to include language saying he was leaving behind a well-developed team. “The majority of his changes were incorporated,” a Sara Lee spokesman said.

Gail Meneley, co-founder of Shields Meneley Partners, a career-transition firm that serves displaced top executives, says such individuals should use other exit-related negotiations to win influence over the wording of their departure announcement.

“You might improve your negotiating stance by delaying agreement on your severance package unless your employer honors the points that you want included in the official announcement,’” Ms. Meneley says.

– Turn the tables on your employer – without violating your contractual ban on disparagement.

Ms. Bartz’s 2009 contract barred her from knowingly disparaging Yahoo officers and directors for five years after leaving. Despite her critical remarks — which included an email to Yahoo employees complaining she was fired by phone — the company gave her roughly $10 million in severance.

Directors felt they had “many more important things to worry about” than whether Ms. Bartz had harmed their reputations by calling them “doofuses,” a person familiar with the situation said. Refusing her severance “would have proved her point,” a person close to Ms. Bartz added. A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr. Woodford wouldn’t say whether his Olympus contract forbids disparagement of his longtime employer. Either way, he insists, “you are morally and legally obliged to make people aware of wrongdoing.”

– Let powerful allies defend you.

Hewlett-Packard Co. directors ousted CEO Mark Hurd following an ethics probe in August 2010. Billionaire Larry Ellison, a close friend who runs Oracle Corp., emerged as his strong advocate.

Independently, Mr. Ellison sent the New York Times an email that castigated the H-P board’s decision and praised Mr. Hurd for having done “a brilliant job” reviving the tech giant. He hired Mr. Hurd as Oracle’s president a month later.

Influential acquaintances can also help by arranging introductions and alerting potential employers. You should brief contacts in advance about your best qualifications and why you left, experts say.

– Encourage your outside boards to investigate.

The head of a consumer-services concern quit a few years ago after a board clash over his management style. At his suggestion, another public company where he held a directorship looked into his exit.

“I didn’t want anyone to question my integrity,” the ex-CEO explained. Those board members “concluded it was a silly witch hunt.” He kept his seat.

“When you’re pushed from the executive suite, inviting outside scrutiny is a very intelligent move,” says Gail Golden, a Chicago leadership consultant. “It reflects confidence that you are a class act.”

The original article can be found here.

The American Bar Association is front and center in an effort to make gender equality a national priority.  The initiative, called Vision 2020, is organized by Drexel University College of Medicine’s Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership.  The ABA is one of 46 national allies, representing more than 20 million women and girls.   The movement is hoping to leverage those numbers to accelerate gender equality by the year 2020, the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage.

“It’s crucial for the American Bar Association, whose focus is on justice and equality, to be a part of this call to action for national fairness in the area of gender equality and the pay issues that we’re working on here,” said ABA President-Elect Laurel Bellows, who participated in Vision 2020’s Second Annual Congress in Chicago.  “If we step forward and speak loudly and forcefully in favor of equality, as we have been doing, and connect with like-minded organizations, there’s no reason in the world why we can’t achieve gender equity in the very near future.”

Vision 2020’s first goal is to achieve pay equity, so that equal pay for equal work is the norm in America.  Developed by Vision allies, three of the strategies for achieving that goal are:

1)  Create a communications campaign on achieving pay equity;
2)  Build national, forceful coalitions for action; and
3)  Educate women and the public on pay equity issues.

Roberta Liebenberg, former chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, and commission Staff Director Veronica Munoz led a breakout session to develop action items for the strategies.  Among the ideas were tactics aimed at heightening awareness of National Equal Pay Day on April 17.

Vision 20/20 allies like the commission acknowledge the hard work ahead. Liebenberg put the challenge of reaching the goal into perspective.  “It is clear that for women to achieve positions of real power and influence in American society, they must achieve economic power,” she noted. “Unfortunately, today, women earn just 77 cents for every dollar paid to a man, and this pay disparity is particularly acute for women of color.”  African American women earn just 64 cents and Hispanic women just 52 cents for every dollar paid to a white man.  Over a lifetime, that pay gap adds up to an average lifetime shortfall of $700,000 for high school graduates; $1.2 million for college graduates; and $2 million for professional school graduates, she said.

Four other goals include increasing the number of women in senior leadership roles; educating employers about the value of policies and practices that enable men and women to share fairly their family responsibilities; educating new generations of girls and boys to respect their differences; and mobilizing women in America to vote, with particular emphasis on a record-setting turnout in 2020.

Source: American Bar Association

Original article can be found here.

Chicago lawyer Laurel Bellows was voted in today as the American Bar Association president-elect at the association’s Annual Meeting in Toronto, becoming the fifth woman to hold that position. She will serve a one-year term before becoming ABA president in August 2012. Bellows is principal of The Bellows Law Group, P.C.

As president-elect, Bellows will continue to support the vision and mission of ABA leadership and will further the goals and messages of the organization.

“Despite the current recession, our association remains strong in membership and strong financially because of the many ways we serve the needs of our members and address issues that traditionally define us as lawyers — issues such as liberty, justice and fairness,” Bellows said. “We stand here today ready to fight for adequate funding for our justice system and to respond to our members’ expectations to make each lawyer a better lawyer for having joined the ABA.”

Before being chosen ABA president-elect, Bellows served as chair of the association’s policymaking House of Delegates (2006-2008), the second highest elected office in the ABA. Bellows chaired the Commission on Women in the Profession and served as a member of the ABA Board of Governors, where she chaired the Finance Committee. She was also president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents and chair of its Metropolitan Bar Caucus.

Source: American Bar Association

Can be found here.

She commended what she called the “unstoppable, unbeatable power of this association.” “We together we have changed laws; we have changed policies; we have changed attitudes; we have changed lives,” she said. She detailed several goals she hoped the association would work toward: to end trafficking of women and girls, improve legal education, propose national legislation to ensure national security while protecting privacy, and help solo and small firm law practitioners. The ABA president-elect automatically becomes the president of the association for the next year-long term. Bellows will serve as president for the 2012-13 term.

Video of speech and original article can be found here.

When Today’s Chicago Woman started recognizing “100 Women Making a Difference” 23 years ago back in 1988, we noted that few of our highly accomplished honorees were household names. “Perhaps,” we mused, “this is because most haven’t received much press outside of their chosen fields.” Today, women at the pinnacles of their careers are much more likely to be household names. Ariel President Mellody Hobson appears regularly on Good Morning America to share financial advice. Emily Barr, president and general manager of ABC-7 Chicago, has consistently led her news team to place first in the ratings. Dr. Annabelle Volgman is one of the most sought-after experts on women’s heart health. But for every highly visible woman, there are dozens more who work tirelessly behind the scenes, whose accomplishments go unsung to the general public. We parsed the qualifications of hundreds of women to narrow down our 2011 list of women in finance, law, education, philanthropy, media, government, marketing, culture and other realms to compile this list of those who have truly made an impact on their fields, the City of Chicago and the world beyond our city limits. Clearly we have omitted women who are, indeed, making a difference. But we limited our selection to 100.

Source

By J. Nick Augustine J.D., The Law Publicist

Humbling. This is the word I use to describe my experience when chatting with the leaders of our legal community.  Over 200 guests attended this year’s Super Lawyers and Rising Stars reception. It was a hit! It was my pleasure to attend and write about the event. In this short article I will highlight some of the benefits and little-known nuances of the Super Lawyers and Rising Stars lists.

Peer review and selection make us all judges of those selected to Super Lawyers and Rising Stars. The candidate pool closes this Thursday, June 30, 2011. Super Lawyers and Rising Stars are named and listed based on the publication’s evaluation of their stated criteria. Points are assessed and used in the vetting process.

Indeed there is a thorough, multiphase criteria used by Super Lawyers research team in selecting the lawyers for inclusion to a Super Lawyers or Rising Stars list. I met with Matthew Kusilek, Senior Associate Publisher, before attending the 2011 Super Lawyers and Rising Stars reception. Let me share more about my chat with Matt, after I first tell you about my experience at the event.

Not 30 seconds after arriving and checking in I saw two friends who are listed in Super Lawyers and I was pleased to see them attending the event. I was also happy to see another friend, this year’s cover, Ms. Laurel Bellows. She certainly qualifies for inclusion to Super Lawyers, and I am sure her clients appreciate knowing she holds this credential.

On the benefits of selection to the Super Lawyers list, one of the honored guests I interviewed, Attorney Kim Kamin of Schiff Hardin, LLP, who offers the following comments:

Q: “How has the Super Lawyers publication been valuable to your practice, and what recommendations would you make to an attorney less familiar with the publication and its benefits?”

A: “I have been named in the Super Lawyers/Rising Stars list in Chicago Magazine a couple of times and each time it has been a great honor. Existing clients and prospective clients do take note and I am always surprised by the number of readers who congratulate me. Now that Martindale has become purely pay-to-play with respect to publicizing my AV rating, selection to the Super Lawyers list plays an important role in communicating peer recognition and credibility. I would encourage attorneys who are not familiar with the process to be sure to participate in the nomination process when given the opportunity. It is important that the process of identifying Illinois lawyers for inclusion be as comprehensive and reflective as possible. I also encourage attorneys to read the rules carefully to avoid unethical lobbying or other improper actions. Such behavior is not allowed and could result in disqualification resulting in disgrace and dishonor to those who are detected.”  Kim Kamin, Schiff Hardin LLP

Being selected to a Super Lawyers or Rising Stars list is a feather in your cap; moreover, perspective clients and referral sources rely on the quality of the attorneys listed in the Super Lawyers publications. Many know that well-credentialed and listed attorneys have done the right things to earn such designations.

The process has three phases. Phase 1, begins with the creation of the candidate pool or peer nominations or inclusion through research. Phase 2, each candidate is evaluated on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement. Phase 3 and the last phase is review of the candidate by peers within their primary area of practice.  Final selection is determined grouping candidates based on firm size. Attorneys with the highest totals from each category are selected. Attorneys are grouped with other lawyers of comparable firm size.

An attorney in the candidate pool earns nomination and research points; the research points remain, if you do not make the list in year one, you might in a subsequent year. Staying in touch and updating your Super Lawyers profile with documentation of your professional achievements is important. Selection to a Super Lawyers or Rising Stars list one year does not ensure selection in succeeding years.

Nomination Open notices are emailed soon after the annual list is published in a market. Active participation in the Super Lawyers process is the best way to be certain you are part of the candidate pool each year. Super Lawyers does not allow candidates to lobby or solicit nominations. For example, a lawyer, never before seen by the research team, who receives countless nominations in a short period of time is inherently suspect. Do not lobby or solicit nominations. The best way to learn more about Super Lawyers and Rising Stars and the publications is to visit them online at Superlawyers.com or to reach out and learn more from your Associate Publisher or the staff at Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business.

Source

“Laurel Bellows translated her passion for justice and equality into a renowned career as an attorney.  Her accomplishment derives not only from her position as principal of her own law firm and President-elect of the American Bar Association, but from using her career to effect positive change in our community and our country.  Exploiting the lawyer’s ability to change the law and drive policy, Laurel advocates for equality of pay and ensuring that the number of women corporate leaders increases.  Laurel lives by the words of Marian Wright Edelman—another wise woman and lawyer—who said, “If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.”  Laurel will share her perspective on integrating social responsibility into daily life, motivating each of us to create positive change while ensuring personal success and satisfaction.”

More information regarding the event may be found here.

The House will make Bellows’ selection as president-elect official in August during the annual meeting in Toronto. Bellows, managing partner of the Bellows Law Group in Chicago, will then serve a year as president-elect before she begins her one-year term as president at the close of the 2012 annual meeting in Chicago.

Coming after a series of ABA presidents who have largely shunned issues beyond the core concerns of the legal profession, Bellows’ speech to the House sounded a clarion call for the ABA to return to taking positions on matters of wide public debate.

“Our inalienable rights seem at odds with government intrusions into our liberties in order to protect our national security, which is truly under attack,” she said. “Fair and impartial judges are tossed off the bench because voters disagree with decisions grounded in law.”

“Lawyers are not leading the debate on these great issues,” she said. “I know there’s a lot to be said for staying out of policy debates—for the ABA to be only a trade association of lawyers, for lawyers.”

“But I don’t believe we live by bread alone. I believe that the mission of the ABA goes beyond making us better lawyers and helping us put bread on the table. Lawyers want us to speak out on matters that affect lawyers and issues that define us as Americans. For lawyers to matter and for this association to truly matter, our voice must be heard on the great issues—issues that affect the rights and liberties of all Americans.”

“My vision for the ABA is that we lawyers do what we are trained to do. Let us take the lead in framing the debate on the great issues which affect the rights and liberties of all Americans,” Bellows said.

Bellows served as chair of the House, the second-highest elected office in the ABA, from 2006 to 2008. She also served as chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, and as a member of the ABA Board of Governors, where she chaired the Finance Committee. She is a former president of the 22,000-member Chicago Bar Association.

Source

You may listen to the recorded radio broadcast here.

Published in Illinois Super Lawyers

In the lobby of the Chicago Bar Association (CBA) building stands a statue of Lady Liberty rising from—or, depending on your perspective, being devoured by—a block of bronze. It was donated by Laurel Bellows and her husband.

“[The statue] will tell you all that you need to know about me,” says Bellows, a former CBA president.

It’s a comment on what Bellows calls “our fragile democracy” and a visual expression of the nature of justice. For her, some days liberty is on the rise; others it’s sinking in quicksand.

The contrast certainly says a lot about Bellows, who is both a consummate people person and a fighter who sometimes heads into particularly tough negotiations carrying a briefcase that’s decorated with skulls and crossbones.

“Laurel is small in stature, which is more than compensated for by her generosity of spirit and warm smile,” says her friend, Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Hyman. “But she is also undaunted by obstacles. She’s a powerhouse of gutsy determination.”

It’s hard to imagine that anything—a block of bronze, the justice system or an opposing attorney—could possibly devour Bellows.

The daughter of a commercial auctioneer and an actress, Bellows grew up an only child in Highland Park and later, after her parents divorced, Chicago. Her mother’s ability to communicate on stage, seemingly an obvious touchstone for a successful litigator, was not something Bellows inherited.

“I didn’t grow up being outwardly focused,” says the 62-year-old partner at The Bellows Law Group. “I wasn’t an actress and I never auditioned. I was too shy and uncomfortable onstage.”

Instead, from a young age, she played the piano like her concert-pianist grandmother. The attention to detail of that classical training carries over into what she does today.

“Both require patience and putting your entire soul into your work,” Bellows says. “You have to focus on every detail. You can’t ignore the slightest sentence or phrase.”

But one thing Bellows never learned as a child was a lesson siblings often provide for their brothers and sisters, whether they like it or not. Bellows had no idea how to fight.

“You could hurt my feelings in a second,” she says. “Toughness? That came later.”

After getting her undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969, Bellows took a job promoting a German product named The Handi Screen—a see-through cover for frying pans that let you see if your bacon was done without spattering grease all over the kitchen.

“It was fantastic,” Bellows says of the job, which allowed her to get involved in all aspects of the business: licensing, letters of credit, importing, managing ad budgets and accounting.

After a few years, Bellows knew it was time to move on—to either law or business school. Since she’d already spent a few years in the business world, she says, “the young brain thought, ‘I’ll apply to law school.’”

Bellows wound up at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she was one of only a handful of women in her class and emerged in 1974 into a job market in which big firms rarely hired female attorneys. And when they did, those women didn’t wind up litigating or developing business practices. Instead they were employed in areas such as wills, trusts and real estate.

Bellows’ first job was with a firm that soon imploded, when one of the name partners died.

Shortly thereafter, she interviewed with an attorney who had a small firm and was looking for a female lawyer he could train as a litigator. His theory was that women excelled at building personal relationships and that this ability to connect would make them better before a jury.

That attorney was Joel Bellows, who, along with a few other lawyers, operated out of an office upstairs from a trading firm and specialized in representing commodities brokers.

Bellows was about to get into court and learn how to fight—just not in the way that she had anticipated.

“When I first came to Joel, I didn’t know where nonfederal court was,” says Bellows, who worked for the U.S. attorney while at Loyola. But when she joined her future husband’s firm, he informed her that she would not be cutting her teeth with the brokers or business litigants.

“Not my cases,” he told her. “Not my clients.”

Instead, Joel Bellows sent her to what they called “women’s court” at 11th and State, where her clients had few resources. The defendants were, indeed, all women, typically facing prostitution or shoplifting charges. Most could pay an attorney only their bond premium, about $50. It was a place where everyone except the defendants had power. The judge would ask each woman if she wanted an attorney.

“The defendants were street-wise,” says Joel, “and someone like Laurel, who cared—climbed down into the trenches with her clients—became in such high demand that, when a defendant was asked if she wanted a lawyer assigned to her, she would say, ‘I want the little blonde who fights.’

“Every day, Laurel would come back with a string of adoring working girls and shoplifters in tow. Invariably, she would be angry about some institutional abuse suffered by a client and she wouldn’t let it go. [She] wouldn’t shrug it off.”

Laurel was filled with what her husband says is the single most identifiable character trait of the seven attorneys who work at their firm: “indignation for abuse of authority.”

Day after day, she was on her feet in women’s court or arguing personal injury cases, experiencing what she calls “the thrill of being able to defend someone.”

Joel adds, “And the clients were loyal. In later years, they came back with house closings and the like. Maybe a dozen years ago, I got a call from one of Laurel’s clients who called looking for Laurel—under her maiden name—because she had created a stuffed olive that she wanted patented and Laurel was the only lawyer she had ever had.”

Laurel remembers learning the ropes of litigation in women’s court. “I became passionate about fighting for my clients—and fighting was the word,” she says. “I needed to be in their corner.”

That is the Laurel Bellows with the bellicose briefcase and two pillows on a chair in her cheerful Rookery office. One says: “Get Over It.” The other reads: “You Can Agree With Me … Or You Can Be Wrong.”

After establishing her reputation as a tough advocate for commodities and securities clients, women from those industries began coming to Bellows with their employment issues. They wanted advice on how to get out of their jobs without losing all that they’d earned, or they needed someone to negotiate their way into a job with better protection.

Before long, her practice became focused on executive compensation law—from employment contracts to severance packages; or, as she puts it, “marriage and divorce—corporate style.”

Severance brings with it all the trauma of a real divorce.

“[Clients] are frightened, no matter how significant they are, and the separation is usually out of their control,” Bellows says. “If you’re representing a CEO who has always been taken care of by his company, all he knows is that he’s on the street. They’re not sure who to turn to. Some come to me before they’ve even told their families.”

That is where the other Laurel Bellows emerges: the woman who is adept at reading others and able to work toward resolution by understanding the emotions and objectives of all parties involved, no matter how acrimonious the situation.

“Laurel is extraordinarily attuned to people, meaning that she is very social, very dynamic and she really listens,” says Monica Weed, general counsel at Navigant Consulting Inc. and a Bellows client. “I’m guessing that, if you were inside of her brain, Laurel is constantly reading you, based on the things you are saying, and filing them away in categories.”

Bellows says she goes into each negotiation knowing that she must be more than a fighter. There always remains a singular goal—all parties must perceive her to be trustworthy.

“Problems are only solved by people who trust each other,” she says. “Even among adversaries.”

That guides everything Bellows does on the day of a negotiation, including how she dresses.

“You need to present yourself in a way that makes the other party trust you,” she says. “You should moderate your dress, your language and your agenda to fit the situation. You need to know your audience and you need to be flexible.”

That flexibility is often passed along to her clients, many of whom are ready to go to war by the time Bellows comes on the scene. While most lawyers of her caliber are adept at addressing what will and won’t work from a litigation perspective, Bellows looks for ways to resolve matters before trial and oftentimes before a heated formal negotiation. Much of her work, Weed says, is behind the scenes.

“She will drill down—almost like being in therapy—until you get to the nub of what’s really bugging you, then she starts creating a solution,” Weed says. “What I value about Laurel is that her advice is well-grounded in the law, but also very practical. She’s good at saying, ‘We could do that, but what about this?’ She enjoys getting to the practical business resolution.”

Personal connections

When Joel met Laurel, he saw someone who was young and enthusiastic, who shared his professional values of working hard, keeping your nose clean and representing your client as well as humanly possible. He saw someone he thought he could train to be a good attorney.

There were, however, a few things he missed, including the fact that they would eventually marry and have a daughter together. That they would become partners in their own firm and that she would be in line to become the president of the American Bar Association (she is currently unopposed and will likely become president-elect this August). Or that she would become a fighter as fierce as he was, while maintaining her gift at connecting with others.

“My natural attitude then and now, 40-plus years later, is that if you’re dealing with somebody who doesn’t see things your way—sue them,” he says. “Laurel’s position is that if they don’t see things her way—convince them. After being in day-to-day contact with her for so long, now at least I consider if an accommodation is possible before suing them.”

And on the days when the justice system seems to be tilted in the wrong direction, Laurel Bellows can suit herself to the situation. She is both fighter and therapist.

Which makes the reason she will never be devoured fairly simple.

“What I didn’t appreciate [about Laurel] that I recognize now,” her husband says, “is that she’s just very, very good at dealing with people.”

Source: superlawyers.com