Who is Lisa Sawaya Willmer?

Director of Corporate Counsel, Lisa Sawaya Willmer recently issued a written response to one of Attorney Oscar Michelen’s client letters. Because of her higher corporate position, we did a Google and Yahoo search on her.

According to Lisa Willmer’s LinkedIn profile and FindLaw.com, Lisa went to University of Geogia School of Law in Athens, Georgia until 1998 where she got her J.D. She also attended University of Philadelphia, PA and got her B.A. degree in 1993. She was admitted to the Washington State Bar in 2001.

She was admitted to the Hawaii State bar in May 1999, JD # 7232. It appears she is no longer authorized to practice law in Hawaii.

According to the ACLU, Lisa worked for the law firm of Perkins Coie in September 2001.

In 2004, WorldBank.org states she worked in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

According to Professor Mark Vinet’s Entertainment Industry Blog, Lisa worked for Microsoft as an anti-piracy attorney in April 2006. She was quoted in the article.

There is obviously more to Lisa’s career than can be found but these are her career highlights as reported on the Internet. Taken as a whole, she has always been a corporate attorney which means she has always taken the corporate perspective. I am not optimistic she can view the perspective from the “other side”.

Based on loose calculations, I estimate Lisa Sawaya Willmer to be 39 with approximately 11 years of legal experience. In my view, definitely more experienced than any newbie attorney but not a heavy-hitter when compared to Attorney Oscar Michelen. Nevertheless, she does have the resources of Getty Images behind her.

In January 2010, Lisa hosted a Getty Images-produced video called Copyright Issues: Photographer POV which I think is worth watching.

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