Q&A: Kelly R. Welsh

Kelly R. Welsh

Age: 55

Family: He is married to Ellen Alberding, president of The Joyce Foundation, and has two daughters, Kate, 18, and Julia, 16.

Education: A 1974 graduate of Harvard College, a 1975 graduate of the University of Sussex, and a 1978 graduate of Harvard Law School.

Professional: Executive vice president and general counsel of Northern Trust for almost eight years. He was with Ameritech Corp. from 1993 to 1999 in such positions as executive vice president and general counsel. He served as corporation counsel for the City of Chicago from 1989 to 1993, and also worked for Mayer Brown from 1979 to 1989.

• Why did you become a lawyer?

It’s probably a mix of a lot of different things. A number of adults I knew — friends of my parents, parents of my friends — were lawyers. I always had an interest in government, politics and law. I debated in high school, and it’s amazing how many ex-debaters become lawyers. Once you do that you’re almost committed to being a lawyer.

• What is the weirdest thing that ever happened to you as a lawyer?

I would say the strangest was when I got a call at the city when I was corporation counsel that the Michigan Avenue bridge was up and stuck and that call came several months after the city had gone through a flood in the underground tunnels, which was strange enough.

But when I got the call about the bridge, having lived through the flood, I first thought it was a joke. But I say the combination of those two events, dealing with the invisible flood in downtown Chicago and the bridge, was a big deal.

The flood happened on what was Opening Day for the White Sox and a number of people were planning to go. One by one it became clear that nobody who was working in City Hall was going. I still have my ticket stub from Opening Day.

• What is the last big deal or case you worked on that you can talk about, and what did it entail?

The two biggest things I’ve worked on here recently — one is a case and one is a more proactive side of what I’ve been doing.

The case involved Enron. Northern Trust was a defendant in an Enron retirement lawsuit. We ended up settling within our insurance limits, and for far less than the plaintiffs’ demands. Our legal efforts focused on demonstrating the limited legal responsibilities of a custodian as opposed to a sponsor of a retirement fund.

The other major thing I’ve been working on is really something that has been a continuous project during the eight years I’ve been at Northern Trust. Northern Trust has been vastly expanding its non-U.S. client base and operations all over the world, and developing its own legal teams and infrastructure in Europe and Asia, which has been interesting and exciting. We just created our first general counsel for the Asia Pacific region this past year.

• If you could have lunch with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Abraham Lincoln.

He was an extraordinary human being, politician, president, and lawyer. And he clearly had a profound introspective side that would make his description of the decisions he made and why he made them very interesting.

• What advice do you have for new lawyers or those wanting to become lawyers?

I would say work hard and learn as much as you can as early as you can in your career so that you have a great skill set to bring to whatever you do longer-term in your career. And, in thinking about your career, think broadly about what you enjoy doing rather than narrowly. The better lawyer you are the more opportunities you will have.

• What do you like the most and the least about being a lawyer?

In terms of the most, it’s the skill set that you develop to be able to jump into any situation and analyze it, ask questions, and be able to provide either good advice or good leadership in terms of whatever the organization you work with should do about a situation.

What I like least, for some lawyers, and for most lawyers early in their careers, is there’s pressure to narrow the scope of what you think about to more technical legal tasks as opposed to thinking broadly, creatively, and analytically about a wide variety of problems.

• What is your favorite book, television show, or movie about lawyers, and why?

My favorite movie is ”The Godfather,” just because it is such a great movie and Robert Duvall, playing Tom Hagen, has a great lawyer role and performance in that movie. It’s also a good lesson about the role of lawyers, because when Tom Hagen is closely involved with the godfather and all the senior people in his organization things seem to go well. But when Tom Hagen is isolated from the big decisions Michael is making, it’s a symptom of how the family is disintegrating.

I loved ”Hill Street Blues.” The lawyers were somewhat peripheral, but it was a great show.

My favorite book about the law has to be ”One L” by Scott Turow. It is not the greatest work of literature and is certainly not Scott Turow’s best book, but it is about my section in the first year of law school, so I know the people and the anecdotes described in the book.

• If you didn’t become a lawyer, what career would you have chosen?

I’ve always thought and still think that what architects do is incredibly interesting and seems like a lot of fun. But since I can’t draw, more realistically I probably would have done something in social sciences or policy or something like that.

— Interviewed by Olivia Clarke