In the 11 months that Gerald J. Pappert has been general counsel of Cephalon Inc., he has restructured the company's legal department and dipped his hands into its litigation matters alongside his new colleagues, all while helping his family cope with the loss of his only son.
Cephalon Inc., a pharmaceutical manufacturer named to Forbes magazine's list of the Platinum 400 of the Best Big Companies in America in 2008, lured Pappert from his lucrative and satisfying position as a litigator with Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll in Philadelphia in May. Although he was not looking to leave Ballard Spahr, Pappert says he developed a good relationship with Cephalon's CEO, Dr. Frank Baldino, in the course of representing the company.
"It happened as an outgrowth of my representation and the relationship I developed with" Baldino, he says.
The Cephalon opportunity also presented Pappert the license to learn about the inner workings of a public company, something he says has always intrigued him.
Another major benefit of his new position is that Pappert and his family did not have to relocate, an undertaking he says they would not have considered for very personal reasons. In early 2008, Pappert's only son, George, died just days short of his fifth birthday. Pappert says he, wife Ellen and daughter Mary, age 9, simply would not have pondered a move away from their neighborhood in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
"My ties to the area are deep," he says.
In fact, other than the three years he lived in South Bend, Ind., to attend Notre Dame Law School, Pappert has lived on the East Coast his entire life.
While he might be partial to the eastern seaboard, his legal career has not been stunted by his self-imposed geographic limits. He describes it as diverse, challenging and "eclectic."
From broad-based to far-reaching
Upon graduating from Notre Dame Law in 1988, Pappert became an associate with the Phil...
