Mr. Heineman brings a breadth of legal knowledge and experience to WilmerHale. With his wide-ranging background, Mr. Heineman will serve as a counselor to the firm and its clients in a number of areas, including globalization, public policy, corporate citizenship and governance, mediation and arbitration, and the role of multi-national corporations in the global economy and in society.
Practice
From 1987-2003, Mr. Heineman was the Senior Vice President-General Counsel for General Electric. He then served as Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs until his retirement at the end of 2005. Mr. Heineman was responsible for managing a team of 1,100 in-house lawyers in over 100 countries around the world. Under his guidance, GE's legal department became world-renowned for its excellence, not only in legal service, but also for the major role that its attorneys play in business and management.
Prior to joining General Electric, Mr. Heineman was a managing partner at Sidley & Austin, focusing on Supreme Court and test case litigation. Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation with the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Carter. Mr. Heineman began his career as a staff attorney for the Center for Law & Social Policy in Washington, D.C., and moved on to become a litigator at Williams & Connolly.
Professional Activities
Mr. Heineman is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Program on the Legal Profession at the Harvard Law School, and a Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He researches and writes on a variety of topics, including globalization, anticorruption, corporate citizenship, dispute resolution, and the legal profession. Mr. Heineman also serves on the boards of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Transparency International-USA and The National Constitution Center. He is the author of books on British race relations and the American presidency.
Honors and Awards
- Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by Corporate Board Member magazine, 2008
- Named one of the The National Law Journal's "The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America," 2006
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2006
- American Lawyer Lifetime Achievement Award, 2005
- Welfare Law Center Economic Justice Award, 2005
- National Legal Aid and Defenders Association Exemplar Award, 2004
- GE Chairman's Leadership Award, 2003
- American Corporate Counsel Association Excellence in Corporate Practice Award, 2002
- ABA-Section of Business Law National Public Service Award, 2000 (awarded to GE Corporate Legal Department)