GW’s Office of the Senior Vice President and General Counsel has been recognized by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Washington metropolitan area chapter with its “outstanding law department” annual award.
WMACCA called proactive work “a hallmark of the GW legal department” and said the legal team is “frequently called on to advise on major and cutting edge institutional initiatives at the university.”
Among the highlights cited by WMACCA in announcing the award was GW’s successful management of “the legal work for the zoning approval and subsequent court challenge of the land use document controlling plans for the Foggy Bottom campus for the next 20 years.”
The process involved “several years of planning, drafting and negotiating the plan, a year of zoning administrative hearings and review, and litigation to support the zoning order against a challenge by a neighborhood association,” WMACCA noted.
The association also said that GW’s legal department played a “key role” in gaining approval from the D.C. Zoning Commission for projects on the Mount Vernon Campus.
In addition, WMACCA noted the legal team’s work in developing and conducting extensive trainings last year for GW staff in a number of issues that employees confront in their daily work. Finally, the publication praised the GW legal team’s attorney fellows program, in which the team “makes the time to mentor the next generation of legal minds.”
“The culture of GW is to include lawyers early and often,” said Beth Nolan, senior vice president and general counsel. “I have a great team that really gets a chance to help shape things and to know what is being planned and to contribute to the planning. From the legal department’s perspective, it really is just a terrific way to run an organization.”