Mary Bridget Neumayr
Attorney
Alumni Profile -- (Winter 1999-2000 Newsletter)
"Mary hails from the two most mysterious places on earth:
the White House and Thomas Aquinas College." This was
how Mary Bridget Neumayr ('86) was introduced to a table of
senior law partners in New York City at the start of her legal
career. Since then, she has done her best to dispel the air
of mystery.
Currently, Neumayr is a senior associate at one of the nation's
most prestigious law firms, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae,
in San Francisco. Her work there has involved insurance regulatory
matters, including work for large international clients. She
is responsible for resolving various regulatory and legal
issues, including the issue of the recovery of Holocaust-era
assets. "That issue is extremely interesting," she
says, "because it presents so many complex matters that
cut across legal, political, cultural and historical lines."
Neumayr also assists large corporate clients with complex
insurance and energy litigation, such as cases involving antitrust,
contract, or unfair competition issues, and she provides legal
advice to clients regarding compliance with the antitrust
laws. She has also worked on trade practices litigation, such
as sweepstakes cases involving American Family Publishers
and has represented entertainment personalities like Ed McMahon
and Dick Clark.
Following graduation from the College, she attended Hastings
College of the Law in San Francisco, where she distinguished
herself as an editor of the Hastings International & Comparative
Law Review. At the end of her first year there, she obtained
the coveted honor of serving in the Office of Counsel to the
President under Ronald Reagan.
This proved to be during an enormously active period, as
her internship placed her squarely in the middle of two raging
political controversies: the Iran Contra hearings and Judge
Robert Bork's confirmation hearings. "It was very exciting
to work on those matters with the White House lawyers,"
she said. "You think of things differently when your
client is the President of the United States."
Her contacts in Washington proved to be lasting and instrumental
in shaping her extracurricular interests. While there, she
became involved in The Federalist Society, a national organization
of lawyers and judges dedicated to traditional principles
of jurisprudence and the rule of law. The Federalist Society
has been at the forefront of the Federal judicial nomination
process, ensuring that good judges are supported and bad judges
opposed. In addition, it provides a rich intellectual and
social forum for like-minded attorneys to network in a haven
apart from the liberal hegemony that dominates in most legal
quarters.
For the past three years, Neumayr has served as the President
of the San Francisco Lawyers Division of The Federalist Society,
and has used her office to continue to support traditional
legal principles and to host meetings designed to provide
a forum for prominent speakers to address Bay Area attorneys.
"Mary has been essential in making sure that conservative
legal ideas see the light of day in the Bay Area," says
Leonard Leo, Director of the Lawyer's Division in Washington,
D.C . "She has good strategic judgment and has been able
to present our ideas in a way that commands the respect of
people who might not otherwise agree with us. She manages
to attract speakers from different viewpoints, while ensuring
that debates are very civil among audiences that are philosophically
and ideologically diverse."
Following graduation from law school in 1989, Neumayr was
recruited to the renowned international law firm of Coudert
Brothers in New York City, where she worked as an antitrust
lawyer and was assigned to large transactions and cases (and
where she received the auspicious introduction mentioned above).
She acquired a wide range of experience in government investigations
of mergers, and price fixing and monopolization proceedings
which she uses in her practice today. In 1993, she transferred
to the firm's San Francisco office to be closer to her family
on the West Coast. Three years later she was recruited to
LeBoeuf, Lamb because of her antitrust litigation skills.
A member of three state bars - New York, the District of
Columbia, and California - Neumayr has also managed to publish
scholarly legal articles with titles that would make the layman's
head spin: "Practice and Procedure in Obtaining Antitrust
Clearance in the United States" (in the European Competition
Law Review) and "Water Marketing/Transfers and the Antitrust
Laws" (in the California Water Law & Policy Reporter).
She was also published in the Hastings International &
Comparative Law Review. Among her other professional interests,
she serves on the Executive Council of the Federal Bar Association.
As a diversion from her toil of many billable hours, Neumayr
is also an active tennis player. She was a member of a No.
1 ranked doubles tennis team in the Bay Area and serves on
the Executive Council of the Youth Tennis Foundation. She
also actively supports several local Catholic organizations.
She remains effusive in her praise for the College, which
her father, Dr. John Neumayr, co-founded and where he continues
to teach. "TAC was excellent preparation for law school
and for a legal career. The College's emphasis on reading
the classics and on analysis and discussion gives alumni an
advantage in law school and in the practice of law over others
who have not had a similar undergraduate education."
As far as Neumayr is concerned, that's sound legal advice.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Winter 1999
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