USD School of Law Alumna Ellen Whittemore '81 (JD) Joins Wynn Macau Board of Directors
Ellen Whittemore '81 (JD) Joins Wynn Macau Board of Directors
SAN DIEGO (January 5, 2023) — University of San Diego (USD) School of Law alumna Ellen Whittemore '81 (JD), executive vice president and general counsel of Wynn Resorts Ltd. became a director of the company's Wynn Macau operations on January 1.
The appointment of Whittemore to the Macau board comes as Wynn Resorts' stock rose nearly 2% Tuesday, to more than $84, after China allowed operations to reopen there following the latest coronavirus closures. The stock rise also was spurred by the December announcement of a 10-year gambling license renewal with the Chinese government, which took effect New Year's Day.
Whittemore has been general counsel of the parent company since July 2018, with subsidiary general counsels in Las Vegas and China reporting to her.
During her 30-year gambling law career, Whittemore ran her own law firm, the Whittemore Gaming Group LLC, and she was a shareholder of U.S. lobbying and law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP from November 2016 to July 2018.
She also was of counsel in the Las Vegas office of Lionel Sawyer & Collins for more than 20 years. In July 2021, Whittemore told Law360 Pulse how her "accidental" career in gambling law began: After she earned her law degree at USD School of Law, she started working for the civil division of the Nevada state attorney general's office. Against her wishes, she said, they pushed her into the gaming division.
Only later did she realize that "it was the best thing that ever could have happened to me," Whittemore said in the interview. "I represented the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Gaming Commission. I got experience in this very discrete, specialized area of law" to use later in private practice and as an in-house counsel.
About the University of San Diego School of Law
Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.
USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 30th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 28th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.