The Out-of-Towners: How Law Firms From Outside Metro D.C. Shape the Business of Law in the Nation's Capital

James J. McAlpine, Jr.

Chairman, Executive Committee and Board of Partners
Powell Goldstein LLP
Atlanta, GA

Mr. McAlpine, resident in the firm's founding office inAtlanta, Ga., assumed the firm chairmanship in March 2004. He previously served in a number of leadership positions at Powell Goldstein, most recently as the chair of the corporate and technology department and as a member of the firm's executive committee. He joined the firm in 1985 and in 1997 became the youngest member to be elected to the firm's board of partners. He previously led the firm's business transactions and corporate finance practice and has chaired the firm's compensation committee.

Mr. McAlpine received his B.S. cum laude From the University of Alabama and his J.D. from the university's School of Law in 1984.

William J. Perlstein

Partner, co-Chair, Management Committee
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
Washington, D.C.

William J. Perlstein, co-chair of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP's Management Committee and former head of the firm's Bankruptcy and Commercial Department, represents creditors¿ committees, bank groups, debtors, trustees and claims acquirers in bankruptcy and workout cases around the country.

Practice:
Mr. Perlstein's practice has included significant representations of creditors' committees, bank groups, debtors, trustees and claims acquirers in many bankruptcy and workout cases throughout the United States, including EPIC Associates, AM International, AOV Industries, LTV Corporation, General Development Corporation, SpectraVision, Lomas Financial and the Orange County bankruptcy.

Mr. Perlstein has had significant roles in the drafting of bankruptcy and bank receivership legislation, including amendments affecting repurchase and swap agreements. He has testified before committees of both houses of Congress and presented a paper on bank insolvencies before the Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development in Paris.

Recent Highlights:
Mr. Perlstein's recent experience includes:

Eva Rodriguez

Executive Editor
Legal Times and Influence
Washington, D.C.

Ms. Rodriguez is the editor in chief of Legal Times and Influence. Ms. Rodriguez has held a variety of editorial positions at Legal Times and its parent company, ALM. She started her journalism career at ALM's Miami Daily Business Review in 1988. Two years later, Ms. Rodriguez moved to a reporting position at The Miami Herald. In 1992, she joined Legal Times as a federal courts reporter and eventually covered the U.S. Supreme Court as the paper's news editor. In the mid-1990s, she also appeared as a Supreme Court correspondent for Court TV, then owned by the company as Legal Times. After a stint as Justice Department correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Ms. Rodriguez returned to Miami in 1998 to become the Daily Business Review's managing editor. In 1999, she rejoined Legal Times as executive editor. She has been the editor in chief since May 2004.

Stephanie Tsacoumis

Co-Partner in Charge, Washington, D.C. Office
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Washington, DC

Stephanie Tsacoumis is co-partner in charge of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington, D.C. office. She has extensive experience in representing business organizations and has handled a broad range of transactional and advisory matters for public and private entities. Ms. Tsacoumis came to the firm in 1996 from Morrison & Foerster, where she was a partner.

Ms. Tsacoumis has broad experience in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance in a variety of regulated and unregulated industries. She regularly advises domestic and international corporations, principal investors, financial advisors and Special Committees of Boards of Directors in mergers, acquisitions and dispositions. Her M&A experience includes mergers of equals, unsolicited offers, leveraged recapitalizations, acquisitions and dispositions of public and private companies, tender and exchange offers, proxy contests and significant equity investments. Ms. Tsacoumis's corporate finance experience has included a wide variety of complex transactions involving both equity and debt securities on a secured and unsecured basis. Representative transactions include public equity financings, venture capital financings, initial public offerings, high yield offerings, offerings of equity and debt securities for real estate investment trusts, rights offerings, and offerings of convertible and exchangeable securities. Ms. Tsacoumis also has represented clients in matters involving mortgage loan, credit card, commercial real estate loan and other receivables.

In addition to her transactional work, Ms. Tsacoumis serves as advisor to public company boards of directors and senior management with respect to securities disclosure and compliance issues, internal corporate investigations, and corporate governance and investor relations matters.

Ms. Tsacoumis graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the College of William and Mary in 1978 with a degree in economics and received her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1981. She is the co-author of "Proxy Solicitation and Stockholder Voting Using Electronic Media," Securities in the Electronic Age (Glasser Legal Works 2001 edition), Corporate Communications and the Federal Antifraud Rules (Global Financial Press 1992), and is on the adjunct faculty at Georgetown Law School. She also is a frequent speaker on securities and corporate law-related matters, including, most recently, Securities and Exchange Commission developments.

Ms. Tsacoumis is a member of the District of Columbia, Maryland and American bar associations.

Cynthia Weber

Managing Partner
Sughrue Mion PLLC
Washington, D.C.

Founded in 1957, Sughrue Mion started in Washington, D.C., to be close to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In the 1980s, the firm opened an office in Tokyo, followed a few years later by an office in Moutain View, Calif. The three-office firm is home to 43 lawyers.

Mrs. Weber joined Sughrue Mion as an attorney in 1978, following a clerkship at the D.C. Court of Appeals, and became a partner in 1983.

She received her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1972 and her J.D. from the Cathlic University School of Law in 1976.