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GCs Feted at Annual Business Journal Event

A crowd of more than 400 members of Orange County’s corporate and legal communities gathered to honor this year’s top in-house lawyers at the Business Journal’s eighth annual General Counsel Awards.

The event, held Nov. 8 at Hotel Irvine, honored four lawyers and one legal team in five categories, with Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean at the University of California-Irvine School of Law, serving as master of ceremonies. Chemerinsky became the 13th dean of the University of California-Berkeley School of Law in July.

Private attorney Wayne Gross, a managing partner at litigation firm Greenberg Gross LLP in Costa Mesa, was among the presenters.

“The most important part of your job is behind the scenes,” Gross said in reference to the evening’s 50 general counsel nominees. “When you make decisions, those are decisions that may save an entire company.”

B. Shayne Kennedy, the managing partner of the OC office of Latham & Watkins, presented the award for in-house legal team. “It’s amazing to be with the cream of the crop of the Orange County legal community.”

The GCs in the room represented about every large public and private company based here, and many emerging ones as well—companies from every economic silo in the county’s increasingly diverse ecosystem.

Jenny Wang is an attorney at fast-growing retailer MerchSource LLC in Irvine. Her presenter, John Sganga, litigation chair at the Irvine office of Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP, expressed surprise that Wang could attend much less stand—MerchSource closed two acquisitions in the last 12 months and secured a new high-profile headquarters.

“It’s all worth it,” Wang told her fellows. “You’re going to hear about this company. And it was started by OC grads, UCI,” Wang said. “You young people, my [UCI] Anteaters, Chapman, Fullerton. Stay here, start a company.”

Wang’s enthusiasm captured the energy of the evening. She was also a winner in the private company category. Here’s the company she kept last night, selected from a record pool of 50 nominees:

• Robert Davis, senior vice president and general counsel of Glaukos Corp. in the public company category.

• Jenny Wang, general counsel at MerchSouce LLC in the private company category.

• Ursula Guzman, vice president of employment counsel at CoreLogic Inc. in the specialty counsel category, a new award this year.

• Sheniece Smith, associate general counsel at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in the rising star category

• PIMCO LLC for its in-house legal team.

The Business Journal will profile each of the honorees in the Nov. 20 issue.

— Pete Weitzner

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