Press Release
March 3, 2009

Goodwin Procter Sponsors Third Annual Public Company Directors Forum

BOSTON, March 3, 2009 – Goodwin Procter, in conjunction with Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, recently held its third annual Directors Forum. The event was limited to 100 members of public company boards and focused on a variety of strategic issues facing directors in 2009.

“In the current environment, the directors of our public company clients are highly sensitive to both the reputational and strategic risks facing the companies they serve,” said Stuart M. Cable, a Goodwin Procter partner. “We were honored today to facilitate a discussion between Tuck School’s Professors Finkelstein and Argenti and 100 directors of our public company clients.”

R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence and of counsel to the firm in Goodwin Procter’s Business Law Department, spoke about the potential transformations proceeding from innovations in energy, including the growth of alternatives to conventional petroleum, and the impact of these and other developments on the war against terrorists and those who support them. He put a special emphasis on homeland defense and how we can make our society and economy more resilient. Woolsey specializes in a range of alternative energy and security issues.

Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at Tuck School of Business, led a session on “The Strategic Logic of Mergers and Acquisitions,” in which he examined what currently works and what doesn’t, in the world of mergers and acquisitions. Finkelstein is a nationally-renowned expert on strategic leadership, corporate crises and the management of mergers and acquisitions. He is the author of Strategic Leadership: Top Executives and Their Effects on Organizations, Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn From Their Mistakes and Breakout Strategy.

Speaking about “Reputational Risk and Management,” Paul Argenti, Professor of Corporate Communication at Tuck School of Business, discussed best practices for managing reputation from a variety of industries, with particular emphasis on the energy, technology, life sciences and financial services sectors. Given the increasingly hostile environment for business worldwide, Argenti stressed the idea that companies need to develop strategies that go beyond creating a safety net and instead develop an opportunity platform based on risk mitigation to enhance performance.

About Goodwin Procter
Goodwin Procter LLP is one of the nation’s leading law firms with 900 attorneys in offices in Boston, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Washington, D.C. Goodwin Procter is a leader in the creation and operation of private investment funds, including private equity funds, real estate funds, funds of funds, hedge funds, mezzanine debt funds and emerging market funds. The firm’s core areas of practice are corporate, litigation and real estate, with specialized areas of focus that include financial services, private equity, technology, REITs and real estate capital markets, intellectual property, tax and products liability. Information may be found at www.goodwinprocter.com.