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Barshefsky Joins Washington Law Firm
by Bara Vaida, with contributions by Drew Clark and the Tech Daily staff
Former U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky has joined Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering as the firm's senior international partner. Barshefsky was the USTR under former President Clinton between 1996 and 2001. At Wilmer, Cutler, she will provide global business, investment, regulatory and negotiating advice on worldwide markets.
During her years with Clinton, Barshefsky helped negotiate the conditions for China's entrance into the World Trade Organization, as well as trade agreements in almost every major market in the world. Since leaving the administration earlier this year, Barshefsky has been a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
Elsewhere on the legal front, Wiley Rein & Fielding has hired Patricia Paoletta as a partner in the firm's 70-lawyer communications practice. Paulette will head the firm's International Telecommunications Group. She joins the firm from Level 3 Communications, where she served as vice president of government relations.
Educating The Educators ... And Broadcasters
In the corporate world, Sylvan Learning Systems has named Paula Singer as the president and CEO of Online Higher Education, a new division of the company. Singer's division will focus on broadening Sylvan's presence and reach in the fast-growing distance-learning sector. Jeffrey Cohen will replace Singer as president of Sylvan's Education Solutions division.
Microsoft, meanwhile, named Skip Pizzi to a new position within its Microsoft TV Group: TV standards and regulatory affairs manager. Pizzi will be based in Washington. The position is part of an ongoing effort by Microsoft to strengthen its relationships with broadcast regulators, share expertise on interactive television and ensure that Microsoft TV products work well with U.S. digital TV standards, the company said.
On the Trail of Justice
R. Hewitt Pate has been appointed to serve as the Justice Department's deputy assistant attorney general in charge of regulatory matters. Pate will oversee airline, transportation, energy and other issues before the division.
From 1990 until assuming his post at Justice, Pate practiced law at Hunton & Williams. He was a partner on the firm's antitrust team and gained significant experience litigating cases involving antitrust law, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, false advertising and other business torts.
In other Justice Department staff news, Deborah Herman and Michael Katz also were named deputy assistant attorneys general. Herman previously practiced at Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, where she became a partner in 1999 and worked on antitrust-related issues for high-tech and telecommunications clients, among others.
Katz previously was an economics and business professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Within Justice, he will supervise all economic analysis within the antitrust division and will direct the division's Economic Analysis Group.
From the Lobbying Files
According to the latest lobbying files, San Bruno-Calif. based IP Wireless has hired Brownstein Hyatt & Farber to lobby on telecommunications and spectrum issues. EMC Corp., meanwhile, hired the Conaway Group to lobby on defense issues and to help the company market its computer storage and software systems to defense agencies. Commerce One has hired Marshall Brachman to lobby for on postal and e-government reform. And Enron has hired Mindbeam, formerly known as Simon Strategies, to lobby on telecom competition issues.
On (And Off) The Hill
Reps. John Larson, D-Conn., and Mary Bono, R-Calif., have agreed to serve as co-chairmen of the new House Digital Divide Caucus. Larson and Bono plan to hold an event following the August recess to highlight bipartisan legislation aimed at closing the "digital divide," a spokesman for Larson said. "The hard part was finding a Republican" to cosponsor the caucus with, the spokesman said.
In other congressional news, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., and Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Ill., will be leading the group of House Republicans on a trip to Silicon Valley early next month to discuss high-tech policy with executives. Davis, a former executive with Litton PRC, has long been an advocate of high-tech policy, while Weller recently formed the New Economy Republicans. The New Economy Republicans is a nonprofit group that aims to educate House Republicans on high-tech issues.
On the other side of the Capitol, Virginia Republican George Allen, the chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Working Group, hosted a lunch last week with high-tech officials to discuss the economy, cyber security and presidential trade-negotiating authority. Participants offered competing predictions on how long the high-tech economy will remain in its slump.
Executives who attended the event included: Keith Bennett, the vice president of ASTA Networks; John Darke, the vice president of Lexmark International; Robert Fortna, the vice president of federal government procurement for Siemens; Gerry Kennedy, the principal vice president for Bechtel Telecommunications; Jim Palumbo, the senior vice president of external affairs for Sony Electronics; General Ross Pinkus, the vice president for business development at Computer Associates; Tom Rubin, Microsoft's general counsel for copyright and intellectual property; and Patrick Sweeney, the president and CEO of ServerVault. GOP Sens. Robert Bennett of Utah and John Ensign of Nevada also attended.
Words Of Privacy Wisdom
Also last week, Allen, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and officials with a group of technology companies on Wednesday urged a group of high-school sophomore to stay abreast of Internet privacy issues.
"You have a lot to learn about technology, the Internet and Internet privacy," Lincoln told the members of the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership Group sponsored by George Washington University. "I spend a lot of time understanding them, and I'm not exactly computer literate."
Business representatives at the event stressed students' responsibility to safeguard their own privacy online. The increasing capability of computer tracking means that students should be careful about the postings they leave on Internet message boards, said Hart Rossman of SAIC. Shane Tews, VeriSign's director of public policy for VeriSign, urged the young people to be cautious when visiting Web sites and buying goods from sites without privacy policies.
Doug Koelemay of the public relations firm Williams Mullen said students should ask themselves some questions before deciding to support privacy legislation: "Is there a market failure that customers and companies aren't fulfilling? ... What are the benefits of regulations, if any? And what are the costs of regulation?"
Software Association Elects Leaders
The Software and Information Industry Association has elected new board leaders. The trade group tapped: Michael Morris, Sun Microsystems' senior vice president, general counsel and secretary, as its board chairman; Graham Beachum of Edge Technologies as vice chairman; Glenn Goldberg of McGraw-Hill as secretary; and Daniel Cooperman of Oracle as treasurer.
Tristani Wins Award From Hispanic Group
FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani last week received the Ruben Salazar Award for Communications from the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) at the organization's 2001 annual conference. The annual award goes to an individual who has dedicated his or her life to promoting a positive portrayal of Latino historical, political, economic and cultural contributions to U.S. society.
An E-Mail Tribute To A 'Great American Writer'
Eudora Welty, the inspiration for the popular Qualcomm Eudora e-mail program, died Monday. Welty, 92, was a well-known Southern writer whose story "Why I Live At The P.O." inspired the creators of Eudora when they were looking for a name for their new "Post Office Protocol" e-mail program. In "Why I Live At The P.O.," the narrator, Sister, gets fed up with her family and moves all of her belongings to the local post office. The Eudora Web page characterizes Welty as "one of the great American writers."
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