PHOENIX, November 15, 2013: Marshall Stoddard, Morgan Lewis Business and Finance partner and co-chair of the Finance and Restructuring Practice, was called upon by the Commercial Finance Association (CFA) to take on the esteemed task of interviewing former Vice President Dick Cheney as part a Q&A-style keynote address at the CFA's 68th Annual Convention in Phoenix today.
Marshall thoughtfully crafted questions designed to provide the audience with an insider's view of Cheney's tenure under President George W. Bush as well as his thoughts on the recent election, the policies of President Barack Obama's administration and the current economic landscape.
Cheney shared his thoughts on the election and offered suggestions to the Republican party on how to appeal to a wider voter demographic. He also evaluated the current administration's anti-terrorism policies, an area of particular expertise and interest to the former Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. Marshall pointed out during the interview that Cheney had left a unique stamp on the vice presidential position, having exerted substantial power and influence in that role. He had asked the former Vice President if he and President Bush had a historical template to borrow from in shaping Cheney's role. Cheney responded that they had no such template to use as a foundation and that he would not have accepted the vice presidential role had he not been assured a high level of responsibility. Due to his prior history, the President and Cheney had decided that it would best serve the administration for Cheney to focus a large part of his efforts on the national defense strategy, which became a top priority of the administration following to the tragic events of September 11, 2001.
Marshall concluded his insightful interview with Cheney with a conversation centering on the current U.S. economic landscape and a discussion about the looming fiscal cliff. Cheney predicted that a short term resolution may be reached to avert the fiscal cliff, but does not expect a long term solution due to the sharply contrasting views of the two political parties.
A current member of the Board of Directors of the CFA and former chairman of the association's Education Foundation from 2005 to 2007, Marshall is no stranger to interviewing high profile governmental figures. Due to his familiarity with the political-economic landscape, he played a similar role at CFA's 62nd Annual Convention in 2007, when he interviewed former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Marshall, who splits his time between Morgan Lewis's New York and Los Angeles offices, is a transactional attorney and corporate advisor focusing on commercial, banking, and bankruptcy law across a wide range of industries including technology, government contractors, media, transportation and agriculture.