Bill Neukom | |
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Born | 1942 (age 80–81) San Mateo, California, U.S. |
Education | Dartmouth College (BA) Stanford Law School (LLB) |
William Horlick Neukom (born 1942) is an American former managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants baseball team ownership group. He held this position from May 2008 to December 31, 2011, and he was the managing partner when the Giants won the World Series in 2010, the first World Series win since the team had moved to California in 1958. Prior to holding this position, he was President of the American Bar Association in 2007–08. [1] He was the principal legal counsel for Microsoft for almost 25 years. He was also the chairman of the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP in Seattle, now part of K&L Gates. He is a Co-founder & CEO of the World Justice Project. [2]
Neukom was born in 1942, seven years before his brother, Daniel Neukom, who is a history teacher at Sacramento Country Day School. [3] He was raised in the Bay Area community of San Mateo, California. He was living in the Bay Area when the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958. He graduated from San Mateo High School in 1960.
After receiving an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1964, [4] Neukom returned to the Bay Area where he received a law degree from Stanford Law School in 1967. [5]
After completing his law degree, Neukom served as a clerk for Judge Theodore S. Turner of the King County Superior Court in Seattle in the years 1967–68. [6]
By 1977, he had joined the Seattle law firm Shidler, McBroom, Gates & Lucas (later Preston Gates & Ellis). Neukom's relationship with Microsoft began in 1978 when managing partner Bill Gates Sr. asked him to advise his son's fledgling software business. [4] Neukom started doing legal work for Microsoft when the company had just 12 employees. He would continue to be Microsoft's lead legal counsel for nearly 25 years. [7]
Neukom joined Microsoft as an employee in 1985 and thereafter built its corporate law department from an initial staff of five to more than 600 attorneys and support personnel. [8] He became an Executive Vice President at Microsoft. He spent 17 years as Microsoft's general counsel and chief legal officer, managing the company's legal, governmental affairs and philanthropic activities. [8]
He was actively involved in legally defending Microsoft's intellectual property in several countries, most notably in Apple v. Microsoft . [6] He also was involved in defending Microsoft from a series of complex antitrust suits (i.e. United States v. Microsoft ). [6] Neukom presided over Microsoft's defeat by the U.S. Department of Justice in a case that was referred to as the "trial of the century." [10] While at Microsoft, Neukom also directed the company's community affairs program, which initiated corporate giving programs including the Microsoft Giving Campaign, the Microsoft Matching Gifts Program, and the Microsoft Volunteer Program. In 2002 Neukom retired from Microsoft as Executive Vice President, Law & Corporate Affairs. [6]
After Microsoft, Neukom returned to Preston Gates & Ellis as a partner in the firm's business law practice. [8] In January 2004 he was named chair of that firm. In 2007 Preston Gates & Ellis merged with Kirkpatrick and Lockhart of Pittsburgh to form the large law firm now named K&L Gates. [8] Neukom no longer is affiliated with the firm.
Neukom served as president of the American Bar Association for a one-year term from August 2007 to August 2008. [11]
Neukom had been an investor in the Giants since 1995 and on May 16, 2008, was named the new Managing General Partner for the Giants. [9] He succeeded Peter Magowan, who retired at the end of the 2008 season at the age of 66. [12] Neukom and other investors purchased a portion of Peter Magowan's ownership interest in the team. Neukom became the lead active investor of the team following the reduction of Magowan's ownership interest, the death of Harmon Burns (a leading investor who died in 2006) and the death of Sue Burns, who died in 2009.
On September 14, 2011, Bill Neukom announced he was retiring as the Managing General Partner and CEO of the San Francisco Giants effective January 1, 2012, and he would be succeeded by Giants executive Larry Baer. [13] The San Jose Mercury reported anonymous sources saying that Neukom was forced out due to differences in the ownership group on how to divide up the additional money earned after the Giants won the 2010 World Series. [14] The Mercury also reported Giants shareholder Charles Bartlett Johnson purchased additional interests in the team, becoming the largest individual shareholder at 25%. [15]
Between 1996 and 2007, Neukom was a member of the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College, and he served as chair of the board from 2004 to 2007. Three of his children have attended Dartmouth. He is the founding donor of the Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College, which aims to advance computing resources and applications in multiple aspects of the Dartmouth curriculum. [8] [16]
In 2006 Neukom committed to a gift of $20 million for the planned construction of a new academic building at Stanford University's law school. [5] The structure, named the William H. Neukom Building and opened in 2011, is 65,000 square feet (6,000 m2) and is situated on the existing law school complex. [17]
Neukom is the co-founder, president, and CEO of the World Justice Project, which works internationally to strengthen the rule of law, aiming to promote the development of communities of opportunity and equity. [11]
William Henry Gates II, better known as Bill Gates Sr., was an American attorney, philanthropist, and civic leader. He was the founder of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates, and also served as president of both the Seattle King County and Washington State Bar associations. He was the father of Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft.
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students; it is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation of model ethical codes related to the legal profession. As of fiscal year 2017, the ABA had 194,000 dues-paying members, constituting approximately 14.4% of American attorneys. In 1979, half of all lawyers in the U.S. were members of the ABA. The organization's national headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois, and it also maintains a significant branch office in Washington, D.C.
Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis is the largest law firm in the world by revenue and the seventh-largest by number of attorneys, and was the first law firm in the world to reach US$4 billion in revenue.
K&L Gates LLP is an American multinational corporation law firm based in the United States, with international offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Its namesake firms are Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, a Pittsburgh-based firm founded as Kirkpatrick, Pomeroy, Lockhart & Johnson in 1946, and Preston Gates & Ellis, a Seattle firm founded in 1883 whose prominent partners included William H. Gates Sr., the attorney, philanthropist, and father of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Kirkpatrick & Lockhart merged with Preston Gates in 2007 to form K&L Gates, LLP.
Peter Alden Magowan was an American businessman. He was the managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball from 1993 to 2008. He was the chief executive officer of Safeway Inc. from 1979 through 1993.
Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP, also known as Preston Gates, was a law firm with offices in the United States, China, and Taiwan. Its main office was in the IDX Tower in Seattle. In 2007, the firm merged with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham to form K&L Gates.
Mary Ann Gates was an American banker, civic activist, non-profit executive, and schoolteacher. She was the first female president of King County's United Way, the first woman to chair the national United Way’s executive committee where she served most notably with IBM's CEO, John Opel, and the first woman on the First Interstate Bank of Washington's board of directors.
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The University of Washington School of Law is the law school of the University of Washington, located on the northwest corner of the main campus in Seattle, Washington. The school is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and has been a member of the Association of American Law Schools since 1909.
F. William McCalpin was an American attorney, who throughout his career was a strong advocate for legal services within the American Bar Association. He was involved in a variety of leadership positions supporting both the private bar and legal services. He was named Chair twice of the national Legal Services Corporation and served on that organization's board of directors across four decades. Hillary Clinton, who served as Chair of the Legal Services Corporation between McCalpin's two terms as Chair, wrote of him, "He was an extraordinary man, a valued mentor and a true champion for equal justice and access to legal services for the poor. Through his work Bill changed lives and made an indelible impact upon the legal community."
Betty Binns Fletcher was an American lawyer and judge. She served as a United States circuit judge of the San Francisco-based United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit between 1979 and 2012. Fletcher was one of the first women to become a partner in a major American law firm and the second woman to be appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Theodore W. Ullyot is an American lawyer and former government official. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, leading the firm's policy and regulatory affairs group.
The World Justice Project (WJP) is an international civil society organization with the stated mission of "working to advance the rule of law around the world". It produces the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, a quantitative assessment tool that shows the extent to which countries adhere to the rule of law in practice. WJP's major activity is the World Justice Forum, a global gathering at which prominent leaders from all parts of the world and a variety of disciplines come together to articulate how the rule of law affects their disciplines and regions and to develop collaborative actions to strengthen the rule of law.
Laurence Monroe Baer is an American businessman. He is best known as the president and chief executive officer of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball. He succeeded Bill Neukom on January 1, 2012.
Warren Neil Eggleston is an American lawyer who served as the White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. Eggleston was the fourth person to hold this post during the Obama administration.
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Bradford Lee Smith is an American attorney and business executive who became Vice Chairman of Microsoft in 2021, and President in 2015. He previously served as a senior vice president and general counsel from 2002 to 2015.
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