The D&O Diary was on assignment this week at the PLUS D&O Symposium. As reflected the accompanying picture of Times Square, the weather in New York was uncharacteristically sunny and warm for this time of year. The Symposium itself was also superlative; the event was surprisingly well-attended and the sessions were great. My congratulations to the event co-chairs, and to the PLUS staff and volunteer leadership for another successful event.

The highlight of the event for me was having the privilege of moderating the Securities Litigation Update panel, which as it turned out was the event’s final panel. I always feel that if I am having fun when I am doing a panel that it must be going pretty well, and this panel was a lot of fun.

Here’s a picture of the panel taken after the session. From left to right, after me, there’s Audra Soloway of the Paul Weiss law firm; Jeremy Liberman of the Pomerantz law firm; Anita Bandy of the Skadden law firm; and Professor Wendy Couture of the University of Idaho College of Law. PLUS and the Symposium audience were fortunate to have these illustrious panelists for the session.
One of the great things about PLUS events is the opportunity to make the acquaintance of people I have not met before. Here’s a picture with Herasme Taire of Argo Pro, who I was very happy to meet at the Symposium. She told me that she had been introduced to The D&O Diary while she was doing a law school internship at Argo, and that helped her through her internship, which in turn let do her joining the industry. It was great meeting you, Herasme!
At the PLUS Reception on Tuesday evening, I met for the first time Amy Pines of AmTrust. It turns out that Amy is good friends with Sarah Abrams of Bowhead, whom many of you may know as a frequent guest post contributor on this site. While Amy and I were talking about Sarah, of all things, up walked Sarah, so we had to get a picture of that.
Between sessions I had a chance to meet and to talk D&O with Anivette Rodriguez of Hub in Puerto Rico. Anivette is a lively and enthusiastic D&O practitioner.

One of the things I particularly liked about this year’s version of the PLUS D&O Symposium was the significant number of international attendees. I enjoyed the chance to meet so many of our professional colleagues from outside the U.S.

On the night before the Symposium actually began, I met one of the event’s international attendees, Shabnam Karim of the Norton Rose Fulbright law firm’s office in Dubai. It was great to meet Shabnam, especially because we learned that we have many interests in common.
One of the people I was happy to meet at this year’s event was Lucinda Conlon of Swiss Re Corporate Solutions in Sydney, Australia. Lucinda was a very special guest at this year’s event. Lucinda attended the event as the 2021 Australasian Professional Indemnity Group (APIG) Gilchrist Connell Frank Earl Scholarship award winner. The scholarship, available for APIG members and funded by the Gilchrist Connell law firm allowed Lucinda to travel to and attend the event.
At lunch on the first day of the Symposium I had the chance to meet with several professionals from the European D&O market. From left to right, Dr. Carola Barzen of Munich Re; Birgit Freund of Munich Re; Alexander Wiebke of Munich Re; and Guillaume Deschamps of Willis Towers Watson (Paris).