OREANDA-NEWS. October 21, 2015. General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) announced today that it has appointed Ann Cathcart Chaplin as Deputy General Counsel for Litigation, effective Dec. 14, 2015. She will report to Craig Glidden, executive vice president and general counsel.  In addition, Jeffrey A. Taylor is joining the company effective November 1 as Deputy General Counsel for Federal Oversight. He will also report to Glidden.

Cathcart Chaplin, 42, is currently the Litigation Practice Group Leader at Fish & Richardson, a global patent, intellectual property litigation and commercial litigation law firm with more than 400 attorneys and technology specialists across the United States and Europe. In this role, which she has held since 2011, Cathcart Chaplin oversees 245 lawyers in 12 offices worldwide. She is a member of the firm’s management committee and previously served as Managing Principal of the firm’s Minneapolis office for more than five years. For the past 11 years, the firm’s Litigation Group has handled more patent litigation in the United States than any other firm.  

In her new position at GM, Cathcart Chaplin will lead all general and product litigation.

“Ann is a great addition to our team. She is an experienced trial lawyer, an exceptional leader, and her work in litigation project management has been innovative,” said Glidden.  “Having her expertise at GM will be an incredible asset as we manage complex legal issues, and deploy advanced technology to transform our vehicles and the way we manage the business.”

Cathcart Chaplin earned her juris doctor degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1998. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1995.

Taylor, 50, is currently vice president and general counsel of Tewksbury, Mass.-based Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. Before that, he led a team of more than 300 professionals as chief executive of Ernst & Young’s Fraud Investigation and Dispute Services practice in the Americas.

He served in the United States Department of Justice for 15 years as an assistant U.S. attorney, senior advisor to Attorneys General John D. Ashcroft and Alberto R. Gonzales, and as the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. from 2006 to 2009.

Among Taylor’s duties, he will work with the federal monitor who will be appointed as part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement GM has entered into with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The monitor will review and assess the company’s policies and procedures in certain discrete areas relating to safety issues and recalls. 

“Jeff is a highly accomplished attorney who has managed extremely complex legal issues and his appointment demonstrates how seriously we take our commitment to the federal government and our customers to build the best safety organization in the industry,” Glidden said.

Taylor earned his juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University.