William H. (Bill) Neukom is the managing general partner and CEO of San Francisco Baseball Associates L.P., which owns the San Francisco Giants baseball team who won the World Series in 2010. Mr. Neukom has been a member of the Giants ownership group since 1994 and a general partner since 2003. For the 25 years prior to that, Mr. Neukom served as the lead lawyer at Microsoft, the last 17 of which as the General Counsel and head of Microsoft’s legal, government affairs and philanthropic activities. Before and after his service at Microsoft, he was a partner in the international law firm of K&L Gates, working out of its Seattle office.

Mr. Neukom has been active for many years in bar association and community activities. He served as president of the American Bar Association in 2007-2008. In 2006, Mr. Neukom founded the World Justice Project, a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative to strengthen the rule of law worldwide. Through a multi-pronged approach, the Project seeks to create an international network of stakeholders who undertake programs to create communities of opportunity and equity around the world. In 1995, Mr. Neukom and four of his children founded the Neukom Family Foundation, which supports not-for-profit organizations principally in the fields of health and human services, education, justice and the environment. In addition, Mr. Neukom has been actively involved in community work serving Dartmouth College, the University of Puget Sound, Stanford Law School and the YMCA of Greater Seattle, among others.

A graduate of San Mateo High School, Dartmouth College and Stanford Law School, Mr. Neukom was raised in San Mateo, California.

Spindle Law: It’s just over a year since the Giants won the World Series. How would you compare that championship with winning a big case

Bill Neukom: There are several similarities, in the sense that winning a big case involves a team effort. Everyone from clerks and assistants to paralegals and witnesses have to perform well and work together. Both require a strong sense of teamwork and giving all the players – both on and off the field – the credit they deserve.

Of course, there are differences, particularly in scale. Unless the case you’re working on has tremendous social significance, something like Brown v. Board of Education, cases often don’t affect a lot of people. The Giants’ season last year and ultimately winning the Series had a considerable positive impact on our community, especially because we’ve never had that here in San Francisco. There was a tremendous outpouring of goodwill, all over Northern California.

SL: What corollaries do you see between sports and the legal profession?

BN: Professional athletes take their craft seriously. Professional means something more than getting paid to play. We talk about “The Giants’ Way,” which means we’re ambassadors to the community. We know it matters how we behave ourselves on and off the field. Here’s an example: last year when we won the first round of the playoffs in Atlanta, that was the Braves’ manager, Bobby Cox’s, last game. We were celebrating on the pitcher’s mound but when Bobby Cox came out of the dugout, all of our players stopped to salute him and the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Being a professional means playing good, clean baseball, not showboating or showing off. If there’s a game in which you are outplayed, it’s a tip of the hat to the other team and time to move on to prepare for the next game.

In the legal profession, we have a code of professional responsibility. Lawyers have the privilege of representing strangers. And the only reason someone feels comfortable putting his or her most important affairs in the hands of a stranger is that we have this code of conduct. We’re bound by the code to be ethical, to support the community, and to perform well for our clients.

Further, the baseball season is like a marathon. There’s lengthy preparation and you play almost every day during the season. Lawyers, like our players, must have the strength and resilience to show up every day, to find ways to seize opportunities, to see the big picture and allocate time and effort accordingly.

SL: People talk about “five-tool baseball players” like the Giants’ Willie Mays. What traits does the ideal lawyer have?

BN: It starts with having a keen intellect. Law is a demanding craft. There are many nuances and subtleties and details, but it’s set in a policy framework. A lawyer must have an agile mind and be curious. Law is continually evolving and a lawyer must be willing to evolve with it. The resilience I mentioned is quite important: the ability to show up every day and do one’s best.

A commitment to service is essential. We are a service profession. Every time we look at a legal problem, our first thought should be, “What’s in the client’s best interest?” Not, “What’s in my firm’s best interest – financially or otherwise, or what’s in my own best interest?”

Lawyers should be effective in the community. They should give both through pro bono, which is providing legal services without fee, as well as public service, which is lending one’s professional judgment, skills, and intellect in non-legal service settings. Service to the profession is important as well, through work with bar associations.

As the dean of my law school once said, lawyers also must be able to see matters through an intellectual microscope as well as an intellectual telescope. That is, to give learned advice to a client that takes into account the broad landscape, including legal policy, economics, other disciplines, yet understand the minute details that matter most in this particular case to this particular client.

Lawyers must represent clients zealously. Lawyers earn their salt when they are able to tell the client what he or she needs to hear, not just what the client wants to hear. Being skilled in delivering bad news as well as good news is important.

Lawyers thrive on teamwork. They should make work fun, when possible, and the best way I know how to do that is by giving every player involved the credit that is due to him or her for a job well done. Lawyers need to maintain a personality that enables them to get along with all types of people, especially those with whom they may be adversarial.

SL: You were quite recently President of the American Bar Association. What were the highlights of your tenure?

BN: It was a high honor to lead the largest voluntary professional organization in the world. The ABA has nearly 400,000 members and, because membership is voluntary, it must continually prove its worth to those members. The ABA has responsibility for promulgating our rules of professional responsibility. Of course, each state adopts its own version of the rules but it starts with the ABA Model Rules, for both lawyer conduct and judicial conduct.

The ABA has done a great job of screening nominees for the federal judiciary. It also provides excellent leadership in the areas of pro bono and public service, especially criminal defense and access to justice for those in poverty. The ABA helps ensure that these core responsibilities are discharged effectively.

SL: As a director of The World Justice Project, what aspect of the organization makes you most proud?

BN: The World Justice Project is premised on the notion that if you want to live and work in communities of opportunity and equity, you must lay a foundation of the rule of law. The government needs the rule of law in order to effectively provide for its people, and people need this to be secure about how they order their lives. We work to get people from all walks of work and life to buy in, come to a roundtable, and incubate projects to strengthen the rule of law and thereby make the world a better place.

Have a look at The World Justice Project’s website to learn more.

SL: Who were your professional mentors and how did they influence your career?

BN: I’ve had the good fortune to learn from many people throughout my career. It started with my folks: my father was with McKinsey and Company and was a professional role model for me. My mother was quite active in our community. Certainly Bill Gates, Sr., my colleague in practice at Preston Gates & Ellis, has been an exemplary mentor to me, as well as many other lawyers.

SL: What has been the most important development in the legal profession during your career?

BN: The increase in women entering law school and joining the profession. The legal academy is better for it, and the profession is better for it. Unfortunately, we haven’t solved some of the problems a woman faces when rising through the ranks. There are women out there in the “super mom” role who do it all, but that’s not a fair standard. We need tracks that support women in being the best lawyers while allowing them time and flexibility to do what they need to do in and around the home. We should better accommodate women at all levels of the profession.

SL: Finally, what advice would you give to young lawyers and law students?

BN: My best advice is to be over-prepared. The law is a very demanding profession. To do well, it will require very considerable application of time, energy, and skill. There is no nonchalanting your way through the law. The best thing you can do to ensure that you’ll do well is to be over-prepared. Appreciate the rigors and demands of the job and devote yourself to it. In doing so, realize you are not alone. Appreciate the fellowship of this profession. Even solo practitioners are part of this fellowship with the common goal of the best possible service to our clients.

Finally, I encourage firms and lawyers to put a premium on mentorship. It’s tough, because this often means that some of the best attorneys give up some time to it. But we all benefit from mentorship: it makes better new lawyers and gives good attorneys the chance to reinforce their best attributes through teaching. I know that the more law firms are run as businesses and less as vehicles of a learned profession, the more difficult setting aside the time for successful mentor programs can be. But the value is there. Mentors make us better lawyers and better people.

Tags: ABA, American Bar Association, baseball, Gates, Giants, K&L Gates, Microsoft, Neukom, pro bono, public service, World Justice Project, World Series

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