Friday, January 8, 2010
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Northrop Grumman Move to Include General Counsel’s Office
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Northrop Grumman’s announcement that it will move its headquarters from Los Angeles to the Washington, D.C., area means its general counsel’s office will move too, the company confirmed yesterday.
Spokesman Dan McClain said that the corporation will relocate most if not all of the 20 attorneys in the office as part of its move to an as-yet-undetermined site, currently scheduled to take place by summer 2011.
The company, which employs 100 lawyers worldwide, announced Monday that it was engaged in a search to identify a specific location within the Washington, D.C., region—including the district, Maryland and Virginia—which it plans to complete this spring.
However, McClain told the MetNews it was “way too early to talk about” which aspects of the office might remain in Los Angeles, noting the ongoing search.
The general counsel’s office is headed by Stephen D. Yslas, who joined Northrop Grumman in 1975 and became vice president and general counsel in January of last year after serving in a number of roles in the office.
A Los Angeles native who joined the State Bar in 1973 after college and law school at UCLA, Yslas served on the City of Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners from 1980 to 1990. He was also previously a member of the legal staffs of the National Labor Relations Board and the Atlantic Richfield Company.
Online website The Blog of Legal Times reported yesterday that Northrop Grumman has long ties to several firms with offices in Washington, most notably Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.
The National Law Journal reported in September that Sheppard, Mullin represents the company in corporate transactions and commercial law and contracts litigation.
In 2007, John Mullan stepped down as the company’s corporate vice president and secretary to join Sheppard Mullin’s corporate practice in L.A., and Yslas’ deputy, Joseph Coyne Jr., previously served on the firm’s executive committee.
Northrop Grumman reportedly said when Coyne joined the company in January of last year that he had represented it on “a number of important legal matters” since 1981.
The National Law Journal’s report also indicated that the company is represented in other matters by several other firms with Washington-area offices, including Hunton & Williams, Jackson Lewis, Littler Mendelson, Alston & Bird and Andrews Kurth.
Northrop Grumman is currently in talks with government officials as part of its site-selection decision, and is expected to base its decision on the amount of financial incentives each jurisdiction is prepared to offer.
Copyright 2010, Metropolitan News Company