Arming Your Organization Against Critical Infrastructure Cyber Attacks

Leslie T. Thornton is the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of WGL Holdings, Inc. (“WGL”) and Washington Gas where she is responsible for developing, coordinating, and providing legal advice and counsel to WGL and all its subsidiaries on matters including, but not limited to, litigation, regulatory affairs, business transactions, employment and labor law, employee benefits, executive compensation, ethics, compliance, cyber-threats/cybersecurity, mergers and acquisitions, and crisis management, among others. At the chairman’s request, Ms. Thornton serves on WGL's Strategy Council, Risk Management Committee, Anti-Fraud Committee, and SOX Management Committee. An NACD Board Leadership Fellow, Ms. Thornton has also served on the board directors of Career Education Corporation for over ten years chairing the Compliance Committee and serving on Nominating & Governance. She was Lead Independent Director from 2011-2013; currently she continues her chair and also sits on the Audit Committee.

Prior to joining WGL, Ms. Thornton was as a partner at Dickstein Shapiro LLP and Patton Boggs LLP. At Dickstein, Ms. Thornton conducted and managed sensitive, high-level internal corporate, federal government, and state attorney general investigations. At Patton Boggs, Ms. Thornton advised and represented clients before regulatory agencies and helped support their strategic efforts before Congress and the White House.

Beginning with the Presidential Transition of 1992 and until 2000, Ms. Thornton served in the Clinton Administration where she worked with U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, first as Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor, and then as Chief of Staff. During her nearly eight years, Ms. Thornton was selected by the White House in 1995 to serve on the President's White House Budget Working Group when the government shut down, and in 1996, she served in a senior role on Mr. Clinton's presidential debate team. Holding a top-secret clearance, Ms. Thornton was also her agency’s representative for the Continuity of Operations of Government program. Ms. Thornton is often a requested speaker on directorship, general counsel practice, diversity and cybersecurity issues, and has been widely published in newspapers and other outlets including the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and Legal Times/National Law Journal. She co-authors a treatise chapter on data privacy and cybersecurity in the Thomson Reuters/West Law series entitled “Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel.”

In 2016, Ms. Thornton completed her LL.M. in National Security Law at Georgetown Law. She also received MCCA's Innovator Award, Savoy Magazine’s top 300 Directors recognition and InsideCounsel's Transformative Leadership "Catalyst for Change Award.” Ms. Thornton’s legal department won the ACC’s 2016 Community Service Award. Moreover, in May 2017, Ms. Thornton will receive the 2017 “Legends in the Law Award” from the Burton Awards.

Ms. Thornton received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Andrea LeStarge is a Deloitte Advisory Senior Manager within Cyber Risk Services. Andrea has over ten years of experience in strategic, operational, and tactical strategies for physical and cybersecurity efforts. She has expertise in physical and cyber risk analysis and curriculum development centered on the protection of critical infrastructure. Specializing in intelligence, analysis and homeland security, Andrea demonstrates proven abilities in managing a statewide fusion center and supporting various Federal government entities in identifying, detecting and responding to man-made, natural and cyber incidents.

She has an established record of accomplishment for creating and implementing smart practices for the sharing of information, identification of security gaps and corrective risk mitigation options, all while effectively communicating findings to stakeholders, private sector owners and operators, and first-responder personnel. Andrea encompasses analytical tradecraft and demonstrates consistent, repeatable and defensible methodologies pertaining to physical and cyber risk toward the elements of threat, vulnerability and consequence.

Lily Chinn is the managing partner of the San Francisco Bay Area office and the co-chair of the Electronic Discovery and Information Governance practice. She is a litigator that has tried cases across the country. Her practice focuses on civil and criminal defense for environmental, workplace safety, and natural resources matters. As a former prosecutor in the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section and one of the founding co-chairs of the DOJ's Environment Division's E-Discovery Working Group, Lily also provides technologically savvy counsel to her clients on a wide range of issues related to electronic information.