News & Events

Stephen W. Gauster is executive vice president and general counsel of MetLife. He is responsible for leading the company’s global legal operations and Corporate Secretary’s Office. In addition, Compliance Risk Management reports into Gauster as part of a matrix organizational structure.

 

Mr. Gauster was appointed MetLife’s interim general counsel in July 2017. He joined the company in January 2016 as senior vice president and chief counsel of the General Corporate Section of Legal Affairs.

 

Prior to joining MetLife, Mr. Gauster was senior vice president, chief corporate counsel and assistant secretary at Assurant. In that role, he was responsible for the company’s corporate center legal functions and corporate governance of the parent company and subsidiaries. Before Assurant, Mr. Gauster was vice president, corporate counsel and assistant secretary at Prudential Financial from 2004 to 2008. During his tenure, he supported Prudential’s treasury functions, capital market transactions and public company disclosure. He also served as secretary to the Finance and Investment Committees of the Board of Directors. Previously, Gauster was an associate with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and a law clerk for the Honorable Jane R. Roth, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

 

Mr. Gauster is admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey (as in-house counsel) and the District of Columbia (inactive). He earned his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was books and commentaries editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also earned a master’s degree from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.

 

Mr. Gauster is a member of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Securities Regulation, New York State Council of Business Leaders in Support of Access to Justice, the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the National Association of Corporate Directors, the American Bar Association, and the Hispanic National Bar Association. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Northfield Mount Hermon School and Chair of its Investment Committee.

 

Shaimaa M. Hussein is a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in the Litigation Department and serves as Co-Chair of the firm’s M&A Litigation Practice Group. Her practice focuses primarily on the representation of multinational corporations and financial institutions in complex commercial litigation and enforcement actions, including government investigations under the federal securities laws, litigation arising out of mergers and acquisitions and other corporate control transactions, and class action litigation. Ms. Hussein also regularly represents clients in international and domestic arbitration proceedings before the ICC and AAA. Her clients span public and private companies in various sectors including finance, media, technology, and consumer retail. Shaimaa also acted as an in-house advisor to Goldman Sachs during a secondment to the company’s Anti-Bribery Group.

Ms. Hussein has been recognized for her contributions to the legal practice, including being named a 2022 Notable Diverse Leader in Law by Crain’s New York, and her inclusion on the 40 and Under List in the 2023 edition of Benchmark Litigation. She has also received number awards for her pro bono work. In 2018, Shaimaa was honored as a recipient of both the Federal Bar Council’s Thurgood Marshall Award and the New York State Bar Association’s President’s Pro Bono Service Award in recognition of her ”extraordinary commitment to pro bono service.” In 2017, she was recognized by The American Lawyer as “Litigator of the Week” for her role in reuniting a 12-year-old Iranian child with her mother in the U.S. to proceed with vision-saving surgery, after the child had previously been denied entry as a result of President Trump’s Executive Order barring entry by Iranian nationals. Additionally, she has been recognized multiple times by the NYSBA as an Empire State Counsel® honoree for her pro bono contributions

AIG

Arnold & Porter

Bloomberg

Compass Lexecon

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P.

Dentons LLP

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Jenner & Block LLP

Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP

Latham & Watkins LLP

Mayer Brown LLP

MetLife

Milbank LLP

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Pfizer Inc

Barclays

Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman LLP

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Morgan Stanley

The Morrison & Foerster Foundation

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP

USI Insurance Services

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Cornerstone Research

GFP Real Estate, LLC

Goodwin Procter LLP

Jones Day

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

KLDiscovery

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Sidley Austin LLP

Wollmuth Maher & Deutsch LLP