DIVERSITY NEWS
BY JOSHUA H. SHIELDS
MCCA WELCOMES NEW PRESIDENT AND CEO, JOSEPH K. WEST
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JOE WEST, MCCA’S NEW PRESIDENT AND CEO, IS NOT SOMEONE TO PASS UP A CHAL- LENGE. AFTER A SUCCESSFUL STINT IN LEADERSHIP AT THE WORLD’S LARGEST COMPANY—WALMART—HE IS NOW READY TO LEAD AN ORGANIZATION WHICH IS DECIDEDLY SMALLER BUT WHOSE MISSION HE SEES AS BEING EXTREMELY IMPOR- TANT. From Bentonville to the Beltway, West is ada- mant about helping all attorneys be the best lawyers they can be—and there are many who agree with this point and recognize his value. Marc Morial, the president and CEO of the National
Urban League, describes West as “a catalyst for positive change in the legal community. His innovative ideas for the inclusion of women and people of color in the halls of corporate America and blue-chip law fi rms have enriched those institutions immeasurably. For the future of the modern-day civil rights movement, Joe has both the temperament and skill set to make a quantifi able diff er- ence at the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. T e National Urban League looks forward to working closely with Joe and we wish him the best.” His former boss, Jeff Gearhart, Walmart’s executive
vice president and general counsel, says his departure is bittersweet. “Joe has been an important contributor to our diversity initiatives, and we are thrilled that he has the opportunity to continue work on diversity with an outstanding organization like MCCA, but we are sorry to see him leave Walmart,” he says. At Walmart, West headed up Outside Counsel
Management, where he was responsible for managing all aspects of Walmart’s relationship with its 600 external law fi rms and 25,000 timekeepers. His duties included decid- ing which fi rms and individual lawyers would be allowed to handle Walmart work, negotiating billing rates, decid- ing confl ict waiver requests and ensuring compliance with
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
Joseph K. West, MCCA’s new President & CEO
Walmart’s outside counsel guidelines. He was also responsible for managing the legal department’s eff orts to help increase retention, advancement, and inclusiveness for diverse attor- neys both internally and with these external law fi rms. He succeeds Veta Richardson, who is now serving
as president and CEO of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and is a nationally recognized diversity
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