CHAIR’S COLUMN

Niall E. Lynch

Latham & Watkins LLP

San Francisco, CA

The Antitrust, Unfair Competition Law & Privacy Section of the California State Bar is pleased to provide you with another edition of Competition. Special thanks to Editor-in-Chief, Peter Huston and his team at Sidley Austin for their work putting this issue together. The bulk of this issue represents a written version of last fall’s Golden State Institute. We are grateful to our friends at Barkley Court Reporters who transcribed the presentations allowing edited versions to appear here. The GSI, as those of you who have attended know, provides a wealth of information from leading lawyers, enforcers, judges and thought leaders. It is a key part of the Section’s mission to educate the bar, promote dialogue and bring together practitioners from both sides of the plaintiff/defense divide. Following the GSI each year, the Section holds its Lawyer of the Year award dinner which provides an opportunity to honor the achievements of a California lawyer who has established him or herself as leader in the field. In 2016, we honored, toasted and roasted Paul Griffin of Winston & Strawn. Please save the date of October 26, 2017 for what is already shaping up to be another great GSI, and another fun-filled Lawyer of the Year award dinner. As in year’s past, the event will take place at the Julia Morgan ballroom in the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District.

As you may be aware, changes are coming to the California Bar and to our Section. Legislation is proceeding in Sacramento that will split the Sections, including our Antitrust, Unfair Competition Law and Privacy Section, from the California Bar. This will allow the Bar to better focus on its regulatory and disciplinary functions. The Sections will spin off into a new separate organization. While this change in structure and governance is significant and all the details are not yet settled, the Executive Committee of the Section wants to assure you that our commitment to educating our membership will remain intact. The Section will continue to sponsor the GSI and will continue to publish Competition. We will also continue to publish the seminal treatise, California Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law and blast out e-brief on new developments. We will also continue to sponsor webinars and symposia on hot topics. Thanks to the leadership of past chair Paul Riehle and those who preceded him, the Section is in excellent shape as we open this new chapter. And special thanks to Lee Berger for taking an active role in helping to establish the new organization and ensuring that it will be set up in a way that serves our Section members. We are confident that we will thrive in the new entity. Indeed, the new structure will allow us to be more flexible and nimble as we pursue our mission.

In closing, let me thank our members and advisors for their participation and ideas and reiterate our interest in hearing from you. If you have thoughts about the direction of the Section, please contact me or any member of the Executive Committee. If you have article ideas for Competition, please contact Peter Huston. If you have ideas for webinars, please contact Lee Berger. If you have ideas for an e-brief, please contact Robert Freitas. If you would like to volunteer to help update the treatise please contact Qianwei Fu.