Making a Difference, Behind the Scenes

Nancy Hendry and Bill Baer speak with the thoughtful, measured cadence born of decades of public service in top posts in Washington, D.C. They have managed to meld family life and vibrant careers with the same balance—Hendry with the Peace Corps, the Public Broadcasting Service, and the International Association of Women Judges, Baer with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. • The pair, both JD ’75, met and fell in love at Stanford Law School. Meeting Bill was “inevitable,” Hendry says. “We lived in the same dorm and were virtually in all the same classes, in the same small section.” • Their commitment to public service and to each other has allowed Baer and Hendry to navigate challenging careers and the delicate balance of work and life—leaving their mark in different ways. And for both, the work continues.

In early 2012, Baer was nominated by President Obama to become assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division—the appointment the culmination of a career immersed in antitrust work. He was confirmed on December 30, 2012, in a rare Sunday session of Congress and became the nation’s top antitrust cop. Baer was at his desk the following Wednesday and within a month had jumped to block Anheuser-Busch InBev’s takeover of Grupo Modelo. In April 2013, he ramped up litigation previously filed against Apple over the pricing of e-books. And just months later, his office challenged the merger between American and US Airways. On the eve of the trial, the airlines agreed to significant divestitures to address competition concerns.

“Antitrust has changed significantly over the last 25 years,” Baer says. “There is now strong bipartisan consensus on the Hill that antitrust enforcement, when done right and relying on solid analytical frameworks, improves trade and competition and benefits consumers.”

And Baer should know: He has been one of the leaders in the antitrust field, responsible for shaping it. The child of public school teachers, he was fascinated by politics and the formulation of public policy. After graduating from law school, he had his pick of jobs in Washington and “stumbled into antitrust” when he hired on with the FTC. He had two separate stints at the FTC, the last as director of its Bureau of Competition, where Businessweek dubbed Baer an “eager sheriff.” In between were successful tenures at Arnold & Porter, where he headed the law firm’s antitrust practice.

From 1995 to 1999, under Baer’s tenure as director of competition, the previously sleepy FTC doubled down on trust busting, particularly when it came to mergers. In 1996, he led the challenge to the proposed merger of Staples and Office Depot. The government had not won a major merger challenge in many years, yet Baer secured an injunction blocking the deal. “We won that case—and won it big.” The accomplishment landed him on the cover of American Lawyer magazine.

It wasn’t his first big win. Several years prior, as head of antitrust at Arnold & Porter, Baer, with Dan Webb, won a seven-week jury trial defending General Electric of criminally conspiring with De Beers on the pricing of industrial-quality diamonds. Defendants rarely go to trial in such cases. “The judge took the case away from the jury and entered a verdict of acquittal. We beat the very office in which I now sit. We even got a brief mention in Jack Welch’s biography for that.”

No longer arguing cases himself, Baer says he doesn’t miss the courtroom. In fact, his greatest sense of accomplishment has been rebuilding the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, which had become understaffed after losses due to sequestration and budget cuts. “I am working hard to integrate and train a whole new generation of attorneys, economists, and paralegals. We are in the midst of the biggest hiring bubble in antitrust.”

As such, Baer will leave his mark on generations of antitrust public servants. “We hire smart, then we invest in training and mentoring of individuals who will continue in public service. This is the most challenging and rewarding thing I have done in my life.”

Meanwhile, Hendry took an entirely different path into public service.

Growing up abroad and in university settings, Hendry always believed she would work internationally or as an academic. After undergraduate studies at Radcliffe College, she served in the Peace Corps, in Senegal. It was during this time that her interest in the law took hold, as she began to understand how it could be used as an instrument of social change. She arrived at Stanford during a heady time, when enrollment of women was on the rise and tenure-track women, such as Professor Barbara Babcock, were finally joining the faculty.

Making a Difference, Behind the Scenes
Nancy Hendry and Bill Baer, photographed at their home in Bethesda MD, 18 March 2015, for Stanford Lawyer Magazine.

Hendry embraced everything Stanford Law had to offer, studying with some of what she fondly remembers as “the best,” taking Professor Paul Brest’s seminar on the constitutional aspects of equality and Babcock’s clinical course on gender discrimination. Hendry recalls being encouraged to ask questions and to speak her mind—essential training for all lawyers. During one special meeting that Babcock had arranged with Justice Lewis Powell and the 12 clinic students, Hendry recalls, “I asked Justice Powell about Geduldig v. Aiello, a 1974 equal protection case seeking to have pregnancy discrimination treated under the law as sex discrimination.” Hendry was intrigued by a footnote that stated a denial of benefits for work loss for pregnant women was not gender-based discrimination because the category of non-pregnant persons included both men and women.

“I asked him what it meant. He paused a bit and then responded, ‘Did we really say that?’ He mentioned the exchange later at a meeting with the larger student body and went on to comment briefly on the decision,” Hendry says.

After law school graduation, Hendry joined Wald, Harkrader and Ross in D.C., lured by its commitment to pro bono and its treatment of women. “I had interviewed almost exclusively with government agencies, but the firm practiced law in a way that stood out,” says Hendry. She focused on antitrust and trade regulation law but handled matters in other fields as well.

Hendry next worked at the Department of Education, but later jumped to a post with national exposure—as vice president, deputy general counsel, and assistant corporate secretary of PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service. She served there from 1981 to 1995, during a very dynamic time that saw increased criticism of some of PBS’s programming, which threatened to compromise its government funding.

She negotiated a large acquisition of the public television satellite replacement system, helped develop journalism standards for the network, and worked on important First Amendment issues. She was also very involved in the “must-carry” rules mandating that cable television providers carry local stations. “I told my three-year-old that Mommy helps keep Big Bird on the air,” says Hendry.

In 1996, she returned to her roots, as general counsel for the Peace Corps. During her tenure, the program added some 3,000 volunteers, coming close to its goal of deploying 10,000 Americans around the globe. It was Hendry’s job, among other duties, to oversee the Peace Corps’ legal interests. And she was instrumental in negotiating a country agreement with China, allowing the program to expand its reach there.

Returning to China, where she was born, was, she says, very meaningful. “I was working with our embassy in Beijing, and I remember standing on the steps of the Great Hall in Tiananmen Square when President Clinton was received there. It was an incredible experience.”

When George W. Bush was elected president, Hendry, like all political appointees, resigned, and she decided to stay home with the couple’s two sons. “It was very rewarding,” she says.

Now, with both sons launched in life, Hendry has been focusing again on issues important to her. Since 2010 she has been senior advisor to the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ). One of her main responsibilities is managing the IAWJ’s groundbreaking project, “Naming, Shaming and Ending Sextortion,” originally funded by a grant from The Netherlands. “We coined the term for our proposal,” she says. “And women instantly get it. Quid pro quo sexual harassment is classic ‘sextortion’ but so is an immigration official who demands sex in exchange for a green card. That’s not covered under employment or sexual harassment laws.” By striving to eliminate the corruption and sextortion caused by abuse of power, Hendry says, “we can support women’s aspirations in a variety of domains, which, in turn, helps create a more peaceful, stable, and democratic world.”

Her work with judges who serve on international tribunals in The Hague leverages the leadership of women judges to help improve the handling of sexual violence cases. Working with judges in South Asia and West Africa, the program aims to reform court procedures that can revictimize a woman and to remove barriers to reporting and prosecuting such crimes.

Hendry calls the job the “perfect fit between my interests and experiences.” Prior to joining the IAWJ, she made a difference locally, changing individual lives through the Children’s Law Center, where she helped secure adoption by relatives or foster parents. But with the IAWJ, her work has a global impact. And as senior advisor, Hendry is privileged to meet and support women at the highest levels of the judiciary worldwide. “It is so rewarding to be able to meet and interact with these inspiring women,” she says.

In their few off hours, Hendry and Baer like to spend time with each other and their family. And as they have for decades, the pair travel widely with their sons—from rafting down the Grand Canyon to a safari in Tanzania. “It’s a wonderful shared experience,” says Hendry.

They also make time to return to the place they met. Forty years on from their graduation from Stanford Law and a world away, Baer and Hendry have maintained their ties to their classmates and to the school—giving back when they can. Baer has returned several times to share his experiences from the field with students, and he and Hendry have served on the Board of Visitors and helped with alumni reunions, and alumni events in D.C. They were also instrumental in establishing the Mark Eastwood Fund, in memory of their “wildly popular” classmate, to support clinical programs in the education sector.

“Stanford positioned us to pursue our respective interests and passions,” says Baer. “We met there, and one of our sons has followed that path to law. I’m grateful to Stanford for the opportunities that have opened up to us.”  SL