Doris Speer,’90, finds a creative outlet in
her role as ALSTOM corporate counsel

BY PATRICIA MAJHER

Doris Speer

What’s the best way to prepare for a job as corporate counsel to a huge multinational corporation? Would you believe musical theater or touring with a symphony orchestra?

That’s exactly how Doris Speer, ’90, did it. After graduating from high school in 1975, she knew she wanted to be a lawyer, “but my love for music was so strong, I decided to pursue a degree in that first.”

With a diploma in percussion performance in hand, she took a job with a musical theater company and later moved to Paris, France. “I’d always wanted to live there,” she explained. She also took the LSAT before she left America. “I knew the score would be good for three years, and I wanted to leave my options open.”

Speer made the most of her “tour de France,” performing with an opera company and a youth orchestra and immersing herself in the culture of the country.

Speer wears a variety of hats. She’s involved in the procurement process, negotiates international and domestic mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and financing, serves as corporate secretary and provides general legal support to the company’s U.S., Canadian and Mexican subsidiaries.

In 1987, she returned to the U.S. and entered the evening program at Detroit College of Law. “I’d had a lot of fun [abroad],” she said, “but figured it was time to return to my earlier goal.”

Her first job out of law school was at Shearman and Sterling, one of New York City’s largest and most respected law firms. But she really longed for a different experience, and later found it at a smaller, “boutique” firm—Boulanger, Hicks and Churchill—that had several French clients.

In 1996, her firm merged with another. Then a headhunter called, looking to fill a corporate counsel position for a French company. “I said to her, ‘you’ve just described my dream job!’”

A short time later, Speer started work at ALSTOM, described by her as “the global specialist in energy and transport infrastructure.” ALSTOM, listed on the Paris Bourse and the London and New York stock exchanges, operates in more than 70 countries. Speer acts as North American corporate counsel for the company’s transport sector, which overhauls, maintains and services products for the rail industry (such as the Amtrak Acela, a new high-speed train servicing Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston.)

At ALSTOM, Speer wears a variety of hats. She’s involved in the procurement process, negotiates international and domestic mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and financing, serves as corporate secretary and provides general legal support to the company’s U.S., Canadian and Mexican subsidiaries.

Speer’s work includes structuring transactions and negotiating a wide variety of agreements as well as handling leasing, environmental, labor and employment and information technology issues. Speer travels extensively from her New York City office to locations such as Paris, Montreal, Mexico City and Chicago, and much of her work involves several cultures, languages and legal systems.

Juggling all of these responsibilities doesn’t leave a lot of time for her other love—music. But she feels her job with ALSTOM helps satisfy what music once did. “There’s more creativity in this job than any other I’ve had so I feel less need to play.”

Clearly, Speer loves what she does, and she gives credit for much of her success to her law school. “DCL helped keep alive my dream of being a lawyer. They took me in with my unconventional background and gave me a chance to succeed. For that, I’ll be forever grateful.”