Breaking itself into three pieces, the ITT spinoff underway will result in the promotion of two of its lawyers to the new top spots. As laid out in Corp. Counsel, Aug. 2011 at 32, the former ITT corporate secretary, Burt Fealing, will head the lawyers of the new company that retains the old name. The former ITT general counsel, Frank Jimenez, will continue in that role for the water-technology spinoff. As for the third piece, the defense business, Ann Davidson, who was the original company’s chief compliance officer, will become its new general counsel.
As a career path, to move to a spun off company as the general counsel ranks at the very top. You then get to create a law department as you see fit, although your raw material has been working together for years. My other thought went to the ratio of spin-offs to mergers: the creation of new law departments to the end of law departments. What is that ratio in the United States?