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Vice President and General Counsel:
Peter Erichsen of the White House

Peter C. Erichsen, Associate Counsel to the President of the United States, will become the new Vice President and General Counsel of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, effective December 8. His appointment to the new post created jointly by the University and the Health System was announced Friday by President Judith Rodin and PennMed's Dean William Kelley, CEO of the Health System.

In the new position, Mr. Erichsen will serve as principal legal advisor to Dr. Rodin, Dr. Kelley and the Trustees of the University and the Health System. He will also assume responsibility for management of the separately established legal offices of the University and of the Health System, headed respectively by Shelley Z. Green and Thomas M. Tammany, and will continue and enhance coordination between the two offices. Mr. Erichsen will work closely with senior officers and staff across the University and the Health System to "advance strategic goals and anticipate legal issues facing higher education and health care," the announcement said.

A Harvard alumnus who graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1981, Mr. Erichsen is a former partner at Ropes & Gray in Boston, where he was also a founding director of Trinity Hospice of Greater Boston, Inc.--the first hospice to serve downtown Boston--and a member of the governing board of Trinity Church, one of the largest Episcopal churches in the United States.

He comes to Penn from the Office of White House Counsel where, among other duties, he has coordinated the selection and confirmation of federal judges and supervised the Counsel's Office's work in the Presidential appointments process, including the 1996-97 Cabinet transition. From 1993 to 1996, he was deputy assistant attorney general, managing the Department of Justice judicial selection working group.

"Peter Erichsen is an outstanding lawyer with impeccable credentials," said President Rodin. "He has had a splendid career inside the White House, at the Justice Department and in one of the country's leading law firms. He will be a tremendous addition to the University and our leadership team, and we eagerly await his arrival."

Dr. Kelley added that "Peter Erichsen has had broad and deep experience managing complicated, sophisticated legal transactions in his private practice in Boston. In Washington he has gained a rare insider's knowledge of how our federal government operates. His unique experience and strategic legal advice will be extremely helpful to me and our Health System as we plan to meet the future challenges of health care delivery in this region."


Return to:Almanac, University of Pennsylvania, November 4, 1997, Volume 44, No. 11