Message From The Executive Committee, DD 12/06

Defense Digest

Message From The Executive Committee

On Friday, October 6th, our firm celebrated Employee Appreciation Day. This is a tradition that has been practiced in our firm for as long as I have been a member of the firm. This happens to be one of my favorite days of the year for, as the managing attorney of our Philadelphia office, I have the privilege of honoring those employees who have worked at our firm for many years. I am always struck by the length of service so many of our people have given to the firm. This stability is a testament to the fine work done by our firm's Administrative Directors. In past issues of this publication, you have learned about the managers of our firm, as well as the attorneys. I would now like to introduce you to the dedicated people who administer our firm.

Our Director of Administrative Services is Marianne Boyne. Marianne started working for the firm in 1975 as a secretary, just a few days after her high school graduation. Throughout her secretarial career, Marianne excelled in all respects. She was promoted to a floor supervisor and then to the position of manager of our Philadelphia office. In 1998, Marianne became the first and only Director of Administrative Services for the firm. As such, Marianne oversees the performance of over 400 staff members, including our paralegals. Needless to say, Marianne gets very little sleep.

Sixteen years ago, as we were growing, it was becoming apparent that we needed to develop a technology strategy. Our Chairman and CEO, Bob Coleman, was struck by the intuitive competency of one of our vendors, Liz Brown. Consequently, Liz was hired to be our IS Department. Through her vision and guidance, there are now 23 people in our IS Department, fully capable of providing our firm's needs in almost all aspects of application development, engineering, desk top and network service, telecommunication services, and help desk needs. Liz has made it her mission to understand and ensure that our technology lifeline to our clients is effective.

Our Director of Billing and Accounting is Pattie Day. Pattie first joined the firm as a secretary in 1973. She worked her way up the ladder to the position of the manager of our Philadelphia office. Pattie then took some time off to raise her children. When Pattie returned, she assumed many management roles. In 2003, Pattie assumed the role as Director of Billing and Accounting for our firm. This department has over 40 people in it. Among other tasks, this department has the daunting task of generating a significant number of bills each year. With the ever increasing variety of billing guidelines, formats, and systems, Pattie's background in the "trenches" as a secretary and office manager give her the unique ability to devise policies and procedures that are practical and effective in accomplishing the mission of delivering to our clients bills that comply in every respect with their needs.

Our "money man" is Ernie DiFilippo. In his capacity as Director of Finance, Ernie is in charge of the books. Ernie joined the firm in 1997 after serving a similar role for two prior law firms: Clark, Ladner, Fortenbaugh and Young and Rawle and Henderson. Among his many responsibilities, Ernie negotiates with almost all of our firm vendors. Through Ernie's efforts, we have been able to dramatically reduce the costs of such file disbursements as photocopying, Federal Express, etc. These savings have been passed directly to our clients and have measurably assisted in our firm's efforts to provide our clients with reduced costs of litigation.

In 1996, Karen Rudderow joined our firm as Director of Human Resources. Karen and her department provide our employees with the full range of payroll and benefit services. Through Karen's hard work, we have been able to provide our employees with a work environment that encourages long-term employment. Thanks to Karen, our employee turnover rate is far below industry norm. This continuity of employment enables our clients to benefit from staff who know what they want and are able to assist without delay.

Finally, Colleen Bannon serves as our firm's Director of Legal Information Resources. Colleen is the person that our attorneys and paralegals turn to when technology is needed with respect to litigation tasks such as electronic discovery, electronic document management, esoteric electronic legal research, etc. Colleen has a unique background which typifies what our firm is all about. Colleen started with our firm in 1980 as a secretary. As time passed, she attended college at night. After receiving her degree, Colleen worked in our IS Department. She then decided to attend law school. Upon graduating from law school, Colleen split her duties between our IS Department and our Employment Practices Group. Eventually, we decided to capitalize upon Colleen's many talents by asking her to establish our Information Resources Department. Colleen is a big reason why our attorneys are now able to compete with anybody in court room technology.

As you can see, the backbone of our firm is a corps of multi-talented people who have one thing in common; they have been a part of our firm for many years. Because they have grown up in the defense industry, they are uniquely qualified to translate the needs of our clients into services by our firm. Fortunately, for all of us, they are tremendous leaders. Each of their departments has a "can do" attitude. No matter how great the challenge, our Administrative Directors will achieve a solution that is both practical and cost effective.

The stability of our firm's administration is just one more reason why our Executive Committee is able to assure our clients the highest level of service possible.