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Professional Background of
Richard L Wise, Counsellor at Law
| Mr Wise is currently a senior, practicing attorney with twenty-nine years in private legal practice, including serving as a founding partner of McCabe/Gordon PC and of Gordon & Wise LLP and, most recently, as a member of the firm of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC, based in their Boston office. Mr Wise also served as General Counsel and Senior Director to WorldWide PCE LLC, a strategic change management firm, |   Global Experience—Local Values Worldly perspective in your language |
| As a member of his firms' Corporate and Business Counseling Division, he has had a broad, transactional corporate practice, focusing particularly on the unique problems of entrepreneurial clients and emerging companies. Mr Wise has represented a variety of individuals and business entities in the formation, restructuring, acquisition, sale, and financing of various commercial enterprises. He advises clients in the development and execution of complex strategies involving succession planning and execution, leveraged buy-outs, business reorganizations, private placements of debt and equity securities, technology licensing, and transfers, and the protection of good will. He also coordinates client representation with respect to commercial litigation matters, having served as co-lead counsel on some of the largest bankruptcy cases in the Northeast. In addition, a large part of his practice traditionally entails developing and implementing litigation strategy in complex commercial cases, both on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants, and ranging from securities issues, leveraged buy-outs, bankruptcy and insolvency matters, fraudulent transfer litigation, breach of fiduciary duty litigation, and the like. Mr Wise regularly provides strategic financial and corporate management planning to clients in a variety of industries, including heavy industry and high tech manufacturing, construction, personal services, broadcasting, technology, marketing and advertising, importing and retail.
In response to the growing globalization of his business clients, Mr Wise completed the Global Master of Arts Program at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 2002, where he focused his research on the problems with the Anglo-American corporate governance system. His thesis, The Current Crisis of Investor Confidence: Corporate Governance and the Imbalance of Power, was hailed by the faculty as "required reading" for anyone seeking to work in that area. Since that time, Mr Wise continued writing and lecturing extensively on the subject. In 2003, he was given the unusual honour of being one of the very few practitioners to be made an Adjunct Faculty Member of The Round Table Group, one of the world's most prestigious think tanks. Mr Wise brings to clients a unique blend of rigorous, methodological philosophy, "street-wise" practical experience, and a global vision of the legal, economic, cultural and diplomatic environment in which all businesses must operate Affiliations: Mr Wise is admitted to practice law within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is an Adjunct Faculty Member of The Round Table Group. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association (sections on business law and member of high technology council) and the Essex County Bar Association. Mr Wise is also a Master Mason and member of the Tyrian-Ashler-Acacia Lodge in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Academics: Mr Wise received his law degree from Northeastern University School of Law and, following his graduation from The Phillips Exeter Academy in 1968, he received his undergraduate degree, cum laudi and with distinction in philosophy, from Boston University. Mr Wise completed the Global Master of Arts Program at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 2002 entitling him to a Master of Arts degree in International Relations (subject to final completion of foreign language proficiency examination). Publications: Author or co-author of the following articles: "The Current Crisis of investor Confidence: Corporate Governance and the Imbalance of Power" the Official Website of the Securities Exchange Commission; "Corporate Governance and Culture: Underpinnings of the European Model" Massachusetts Bar Association Section Review, Volume 8 Number 1 (March 2006) "The Sirens' Song of Failure" The Boston Business Journal; "Finding Competitive Advantages in Corporate Governance, Part II" The Journal of Corporate Renewal; "Finding Competitive Advantages in Corporate Governance, Part I" The Journal of Corporate Renewal; "Sarbanes-Oxley: Fear, Anger, and Director Liability." NACD Directors' Monthly; "Who Was Enron's and WorldCom's Ultimate Guardian of Investor Interest and Corporate Accountability?" Andrew's ENRON Litigation Reporter; "Empowering the Watchdog" US Business Review; "Corporate Reform: Balance the Powers." The National Law Journal. Other Notations: Mr. Wise is the father of four remarkable daughters. |
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