The news that King & Spalding partner Sally Yates and O’Melveny & Myers partner Lisa Monaco are in the running to be the next Attorney General highlights the rising tide of women in the field of corporate crime prosecution and defense. 

The Women’s White Collar Defense Association now has 43 chapters with more than 2,200 members throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

And on Tuesday December 1, 2020, the association will hold its annual awards gala. The master of ceremonies is scheduled to be Yates. 

Also attending will be the David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Karen Seymour, the general counsel of of Goldman Sachs,  three former Attorney Generals – Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder and Yates, Mary Jo White, Alice Fisher, Joan McPhee, a musical performance by Elton John’s keyboardist, Kim Bullard, a tribute to Justice Ginsburg featuring Professor Amanda Tyler who was writing a book with the Justice when she passed, and law firm chairs for Paul Weiss, Cadwalader, King & Spalding, and Farella.

In an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter in 2016, association founder Karen Popp, a partner at Sidley & Austin, said that twenty years ago, there were not a lot of women in corporate criminal defense.

“We went to the American Bar Association’s White Collar Conference that year — 1999,” Popp said. “We had just left the government where there were a number of very strong, prominent women in positions of power within the government. We were surprised that there were not more women in the private sector.”

“The few of us in Washington and New York that were in this practice — we started meeting as a group. And our first meeting that we had in Washington was hosted at Latham. Attorney General Janet Reno was our first guest speaker. And as I recall, we had about ten women in the room. That was in 1999.”