Eileen Burns Lerum is Vice President - Legal, U.S., and Chief Counsel, Litigation Management for Rio Tinto Alcan in Chicago, Illinois. Rio Tinto Group is a multinational mining company with headquarters in London. Eileen is responsible for management of litigation and provides counsel in the areas of environmental, employment, trade regulation, compliance, corporate governance, and tort liability. Her accomplishments include significant recoveries in insurance coverage cases and substantial patent infringement litigation, as well as coordinating the defense of complex environmental, patent, antitrust, and commercial cases.
Eileen began her practice with a Chicago law firm where she concentrated in civil litigation. Prior to joining Rio Tinto Alcan, she was litigation counsel to the former Container Corporation of America and was a member of the Motorola law department.
Eileen has spoken at legal conferences in the areas of legal ethics, discovery, records issues, management of litigation, international dispute resolution and outside counsel relationships. Eileen graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School and is admitted to practice in the State of Illinois, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.