Seattle Lawyer William H. Neukom is Named President-Elect of American Bar Association

HONOLULU, Aug. 8 – Seattle lawyer William H. Neukom was named president-elect of the American Bar Association, at the association’s annual meeting. He is slated to become president in August 2007, at next year’s annual meeting of the world’s largest association of lawyers.

Neukom is chair of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, and also worked 17 years as executive vice president of Law and Corporate Affairs at Microsoft, managing the company’s legal, government affairs and philanthropic activities.

As Microsoft’s lead counsel, Neukom led the company’s efforts to establish, distribute and protect intellectual property rights around the world. He was instrumental in securing the landmark legal victory in the Apple Computer v. Microsoft Corporation case, which spanned 1988-1995. Neukom also led Microsoft’s defense of antitrust claims brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Department of Justice and the European Union, which culminated in consent decrees in 1994 and 2001.

He has been active in organized bar work, serving as chair of the Young Lawyers Division of the Seattle-King County Bar Association from 1972-73 and in the same capacity with the American Bar Association from 1977-78. Neukom also served on the ABA Board of Governors as secretary of the ABA from 1983-1987, and as Washington State Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates from 1999 to present. He chaired the ABA Fund for Justice and Education from 1997-99; the ABA Task Force on Goal VIII from 2002-03, which examined the association’s rule of law programming; and the ABA Governance Commission from 2003-05.

Neukom serves as chair of the Dartmouth College Board and as a board member of the Dean’s Council at Stanford Law School, the Pacific Council on International Policy, the Policy Consensus Center, and the YMCA of Greater Seattle. He chairs the Gates Challenge Endowment Campaign of the United Way of King County, and is general partner in San Francisco Baseball Associates, L.P., the ownership group of the San Francisco Giants.

Neukom earned his LL.B. from Stanford University in 1967 and clerked for Judge Theodore S. Turner of the King County Superior Court from 1967-68. He received his A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1964.

With more than 410,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law in a democratic society.