Fordham University School of Law, in partnership with DLA Piper, is launching an in-house counsel institute on Sept. 5, 2025, featuring weekly online classes and aimed at mid-career lawyers everywhere.
Toni Jaeger-Fine, senior counselor and adjunct professor of law at Fordham who will co-lead the institute, spoke with Law360 Pulse following the announcement.
The institute is led by Toni Jaeger-Fine, senior counselor and adjunct professor of law at Fordham, and Amadeu Ribeiro, a DLA Piper partner in New York and Brazil, who also teaches corporate law at Fordham. They are guided by an advisory board of in-house counsel, including Allen Waxman, a former general counsel at Pfizer Inc. and now of counsel at the law firm.
Jaeger-Fine told Law360 Pulse that the online course will be one hour per week, for 14 weeks, focusing on best practices for in-house lawyers. There will also be a number of in-person and online networking events, she said.
Scheduled speakers include noted in-house counsel from leading companies, including AB InBev, Ericsson, Interpublic Group, McKinsey, Microsoft, Pepsi, TED Conferences, UBS, Verizon, Walmart and Warner Music Group. But some speakers also will be in-house experts on technology or compliance or litigation, depending on the topic of that day’s class, Jaeger-Fine said.
“We saw that there are a lot of programs to help develop lawyers that work in private practice,” she explained. “But there is very little by way of training for in-house counsel and people who aspire to be in-house counsel.”
As the role of in-house counsel expands and the number of in-house lawyers continues to grow, she added, “We saw an emergent need.”
Jaeger-Fine expects from 40 to 100 people to enroll, including those from other countries.
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