CMCP2021 – CMCP Annual Business Conference
Conference Planning Committee
Arjun Agarwal
Senior Counsel, International Litigation Chevron Upstream
Arjun Agarwal is Senior Counsel in the International Litigation Management group at Chevron. Arjun is part of the legal team that manages disputes (arbitration and litigation) arising from Chevron’s oil and gas exploration and production activities outside of North America. Matters include disputes with foreign governments, government investigations, FCPA and Alien Tort Statute, non-U.S. environmental disputes, employment, property and general commercial disputes. Specifically, Arjun serves as the primary litigation attorney for “major” and “significant” disputes on Chevron’s international major capital projects encompassing onshore and offshore oil and gas developments; various processing facilities (e.g., LNG plants and refineries); transportation; power; and pipelines. Arjun has/is managing construction disputes in Asia, Australia, West Africa, UK, and Kazakhstan valued in excess of $3 billion.
He is responsible for ensuring that all disputes are handled efficiently in a cost-effective manner consistent with Chevron’s Objectives-Based Litigation Technique (“COBALT®”), which is a structured and disciplined technique for achieving reliability, efficiency and world class performance in litigation management. Arjun retains and manages outside counsel from all over the world. Prior to his current litigation role, Arjun was part of the Major Capital Projects legal group at Chevron. In this role, he was responsible for negotiating high-value contracts for Chevron’s global major capital projects (upstream, midstream, and downstream), including EPCI, EPCM, FEED, pre-FEED, and various one-off and master purchase orders.
Arjun has been a vocal champion of diversity and inclusion initiatives throughout his career. He is a member of Chevron’s Law Function Diversity Council whose mission is increase diversity and inclusion among legal professionals both inside and outside the Chevron Law Function.
Arjun attended the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. Arjun received his Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University School of Law and is admitted to practice in all courts in California.
Michael Armstrong
Director, Legal Affairs - Labor & Employment
Live Nation Entertainment
Michael Armstrong is Director of Legal Affairs – Labor & Employment for Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. He provides employment legal counsel for all Live Nation businesses, divisions, and subsidiaries, including Ticketmaster and House of Blues. Mr. Armstrong previously worked as a labor, employment, workplace safety, and commercial disputes litigation attorney for multiple global/national law firms. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Armstrong was a human resources manager for The Walt Disney Company, Stanley Black & Decker, and Target Corporation. He is a pro bono attorney for the U.S. Marine Corps/1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, and for The Compton Initiative. Mr. Armstrong was elected to the CMCP Ambassadors Council in 2021.
Dyanne Cho
Dyanne Cho
Baker Hostetler LLP
Dyanne is a sixth-year commercial litigation associate. She regularly handles matters in state and federal courts and has considerable experience developing litigation strategy, drafting key motions, preparing witnesses for deposition, taking and defending depositions, and managing large-scale ESI document review projects.
Dyanne has worked with clients in various industries, including automotive manufacturing and distribution, food and beverage, healthcare, hospitality, and retail. She also has experience defending consumer protection and data breach class action cases. Dyanne utilizes the depth and breadth of her experience by applying her diverse skill set to her clients’ unique needs.
Dyanne has two dogs, Morty and Mabel, loves to sing, and has recently taken up a new hobby – building and painting model cars.
Rachel Douglas
Associate
Andrade Gonzalez LLP
Rachel Douglas graduated Order of the Coif from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and graduated Magna Cum Laude with her bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine University.
Ms. Douglas is a dedicated advocate committed to solving problems, providing excellent counsel, and doing the highest quality work with a client centered approach to legal practice. She has represented numerous clients in federal court, state court, and administrative hearings. She also has extensive experience with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and the Government Claims Act (Government Code §§ 810-996.6).
While in law school, Ms. Douglas excelled academically, ranking at the top of her class and earning a designation as a Sayre Macneil Scholar and a position on the Dean’s Honor List. She also served as the Chief Justice in Loyola Law School’s Scott Moot Court and was the highest scoring student in Appellate Advocacy.
Ryan Duckett
Senior Associate
Nixon Peabody LLP
Ryan is a senior associate in the business law department at Nixon Peabody LLP. Additionally, Ryan was appointed by Mayor Garcetti in 2019 as a Los Angeles City Commissioner for Nightlife, Hospitality & Entertainment. He is the 3 time sitting President over this LA City Commission. He has also been selected as a California Super Lawyers’ Rising Star from 2017 through 2021. And recently, Ryan was selected to sit on CMCP’s Ambassador Council as Secretary of the Board.
Ryan’s practice consists of representing business from inner-city communities, as well as innovative companies and multiple high net-worth individuals, such as CEOs, entrepreneurs, entertainers, agents & producers, advanced technology companies, angel investors & shareholders, executives and their boards. In short, Ryan’s focus is finding efficient business solutions.
Through a combination of transactional work, negotiations and litigation, Ryan wears multiple hats allowing him to represent clients as outside general counsel. He advises on business related matters such as disclosures, fiduciary duties, shareholder rights, business risks and opportunities, as well as the benefits and downfalls of pursuing litigation from a cost analysis perspective.
Interestingly, during his time as a litigator and trial attorney, Ryan has built a unique specialty in pre-litigation resolution for matters ranging from adverse partnership disputes to shareholder and joint venture negligence, breach and fraud claims in the private equity and investment financial sectors.
While sitting on Ambassadors’ Council, sitting as President of his City Commission, and working as a senior associate, Ryan still manages to find time to spend with his family while continuing to develop his education and his practice’s bandwidth.
Stephanie Elder
Associate
Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP
Stephanie Elder is a results-oriented, ardent litigation attorney who handles complex matters in state and federal courts across California. Stephanie is passionate about achieving the best possible outcome for her clients and she leverages this enthusiasm with her practical, problem-solving approach to litigation. A diverse practitioner, Stephanie has litigated cases across a variety of areas of law, with a focus on labor and employment. She partners with employers to ensure their policies, procedures, and actions comply with California’s evolving employment laws, which can vary across the state and from city to city. Stephanie also routinely represents clients in partnership, real estate, and other business disputes. Her clients include public companies, private businesses, and high net-worth individuals.
Marwa Elzankaly
Of Counsel
McManis Faulkner
Recently named to The National Law Journal’s “Winning Litigators”, and a 2021 Super Lawyer, Marwa represents business executives and corporate clients in commercial and general civil disputes. She was a Partner at McManis Faulkner for five years, and is now Of Counsel, where she handles high stakes commercial matters. Marwa has taught Business Law at UC Berkeley, and served on the Northern District’s Standing Committee on Professional Conduct. She is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Alexander Community Law Center, at Santa Clara University School of Law. A testament to her skill set is leading the first successful challenge to the No Fly List in the nationally reported Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security, overturning the Northern District four times on appeal.
Shirish Gupta
Mediator
JAMS
Shirish Gupta is an award-winning neutral with JAMS known for combining deep analysis with emotional intelligence. He specializes in employment, IP, founder disputes, ADA, securities and cross-border contractual disputes. He’s a long-standing friend of CMCP, having attended the last 13 business conferences.
In 2014, The Recorder conducted an extensive survey of Bay Area attorneys and named Shirish the Best Independent Mediator.
Shirish is an active, hands-on mediator who works with the parties until the matter is fully resolved.
Shirish serves as a Lecturer at UC Berkeley Law School and an Adjunct Professor at UC Hastings, where he teaches mediation and negotiation.
Shirish has been a leader in the majority and diverse bar associations. Shirish served as Co-Chair of the California State Bar Council of Sections and President of the South Asian Bar of Northern California.
When not mediating, Shirish can usually be found on a soccer pitch refereeing.
Kevin Kelly
Associate Attorney
LTL Attorneys LLP
Kevin is an associate in LTL’s complex commercial litigation and employment groups. He has a wide array of experience litigating complex matters in federal courts, state courts and arbitration panels, on behalf of Fortune 500 companies, public entities, and individuals in a variety of matters ranging from complex commercial disputes to employment disputes. Kevin has successfully engaged in all stages of litigation; he has developed initial strategies and drafted complaints, prepared and responded to motions, taken and defended depositions and coordinated discovery, prepared examination outlines for trial, second-chaired trials, and prepared post-trial and appellate briefs.
Christine Kim
Partner
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Christine Kim (she/her) is a partner in the Real Estate practice group at Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Christine represents a range of clients including private funds, financial institutions, pension funds, and insurance companies. She handles a variety of commercial real estate transitions, including acquisitions and dispositions of office, industrial, multifamily residential, retail, hospitality, and development properties throughout the United States. She also represents clients in all aspects of real estate financing, including permanent, construction, and securitized mortgage loans, joint venture, credit facilities, multi-property loan portfolios, loan modifications, and loan assumptions. Christine resides in Pasadena, California with her husband, two daughters, and two Australian Shepherds.
Pamela Lujan
Director, Legal Counsel, Corporate & Securities
Oportun, Inc.
Pamela Lujan is a Director in the corporate legal team at Oportun. In her current role, she focuses on corporate and securities law matters, including equity and debt security offerings, financings, corporate transactions, periodic reporting and disclosure matters.
Pamela is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion and serves as the co-chair for Oportun’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Council and co-founded the company’s Hispanic/Latinx employee resource group. Pamela is actively involved in the legal and technology community and currently serves on the board of Latinas in Tech, a nonprofit organization based in Silicon Valley. She also previously served on the board of the San Francisco La Raza Lawyers Association. She is one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 under 40 honorees for 2021.
Samir Najam
Associate General Counsel, Corporate & Securities
Zynga Inc.
Samir Najam is the Associate General Counsel, Corporate & Securities for Zynga Inc., a social gaming company. He also oversees the Industry Affairs function at the company. Prior to joining Zynga in 2018, Samir worked as a corporate attorney at both Tesla Inc. and SolarCity Corporation. Before going in-house, Samir was a mergers& acquisitions associate in the San Francisco office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati after starting his legal career as a general transactions associate at the Texas law firm of Jackson Walker LLP.
Samir holds bachelor’s degrees in Biology and in Economics (concentrations in Finance and Health Care Management) from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Magan Ray
Principal Shareholder
Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Magan Pritam Ray is the first-ever South Asian Principal Shareholder at international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP where she serves as Co-Chair of the Asian Affinity Group. Magan has wide-ranging experience in all facets of employee benefits including the design, implementation, and operation of retirement, health and welfare, cafeteria, fringe benefit, and non-qualified deferred compensation plans. Magan regularly advises Fortune 500 companies on the business impact and strategic response to evolving legal requirements and industry changes impacting benefit plans. Magan also represents companies undergoing audits before the IRS and DOL. Magan currently serves on the Coastside Recovery Initiative Task Force and served as the immediate past Chair of the ACLU of Northern California Foundation and Union Boards. Magan graduated from Stanford Law School (with honors) in 1994.
Bryan Webster
Senior Attorney
eBay Inc.
Bryan Webster is an advocate and technology counsel. He has twenty-year career in the law specializing IP and Product law. Currently, he is a Senior Product Counsel at eBay, Inc, driving the Buyer Experience, API and AI teams, amongst others, toward their business goals. Before eBay, Bryan has spent his career in private practice at several AMLAW 100 firms in Washington, D.C. and before joining ebay, he was at the Microsoft Corp. He holds a J.D. from the Columbus School of Law, the Catholic University of America and a BSEE from Syracuse University.
Cody Gillians
Senior Corporate Counsel
Autodesk, Inc.
Cody Gillians is a Senior Corporate Counsel at Autodesk, Inc., a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Cody is responsible for counseling the Product Design and Manufacturing collection of software products. In this role, Cody counsels product, engineering, and marketing teams on various legal issues related to privacy, intellectual property, commercial transactions, licensing agreements, and products liability.
Before joining Autodesk, Cody was Product Counsel at Uber supporting the Driver product team. Prior to Uber, Cody practiced as a patent litigator at Mayer Brown in Washington, D.C.
Prior to his legal career, Cody was a hardware design engineer at IBM for 8 years. He received his JD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his BS in Electrical Engineering from Florida A&M University.