Arkansas Alpha Phi Alan Bryan is Senior Associate General Counsel for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. where he leads the Office of Outside Counsel Management for Legal Operations, overseeing certain internal operations and processes, as well as the relationship with all company law firms throughout the United States. His office reviews and improves legal department processes, policies, and cost control, as well as procuring and evaluating law firms and legal department vendors. Mr. Bryan previously managed litigation at the nation’s largest retailer for many of its approximately 5,000 Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs across the United States. Before joining Walmart in 2011, he was a partner with Arkansas’s largest law firm and focused his practice on litigation of insurance defense, medical malpractice, trucking/transportation, and complex/toxic tort matters.
The Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel (“FDCC”), which limits international membership to approximately 1,400 attorneys worldwide, initiated Mr. Bryan into membership in 2013. He is a member of FDCC’s Diversity Committee, Corporate Counsel Committee, Premises & Security Liability Committee, and Trial Tactics, Practice, & Procedure Committee. He has served as Program Co-Chair for FDCC’s Corporate Counsel Symposium and serves as the overall Co-Chair in 2016.
In 2014, Alan helped develop an “International Integration” program to incorporate best practices of the company’s U.S.-based legal department in its Latin American markets. An extraordinary and simultaneous opportunity arose allowing Alan and two colleagues to create a diversity initiative aimed at changing the landscape of the legal profession in Latin America. The effort included meetings with local stakeholders (private practitioners, law professors, bar representatives, NGOs, headhunters, etc.) in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Costa Rica, to determine how best to impact diversity and inclusion in the profession while increasing diverse attorneys in the talent pipeline of each country. In October 2014, Alan traveled back to Santiago, Chile, and helped Walmart announce an English language and talent development program for underrepresented members of the Chilean legal community which was a direct result of these efforts. The pilot program won Walmart’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Visionary Award and was nominated for the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s 2015 George B. Vashon Innovator Award.
In October 2014, Mr. Bryan joined the board of DirectWomen, a national non-profit organization that works to increase the representation of women lawyers on corporate boards. He also serves on its Advisory Council, Strategic Planning Committee, Steering Committee, as well as an advisor to its International Boards Committee. He additionally supports the 30% Coalition through his work on its chief legal officer initiative.
In 2015, Bryan began serving on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Diversity & Inclusion 360. Created by ABA President Paulette Brown, the Commission is formulating methods, policy, standards, and practices to best advance diversity and inclusion over the next ten years. The Commission is reviewing and analyzing diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, the judicial system, and the American Bar Association, with a goal of developing sustainable action plans. Practical tools will be produced and other action items undertaken in order to move the needle on diversity and inclusion in an impactful way.
Mr. Bryan is also an active member of the National Association of Women Lawyers (“NAWL”) and has served on its Annual Meeting and GCI Committees, as well as participating in its mentorship program. He was a founder of the NAWL Challenge Club, designed to help meet the NAWL Challenge and increase to at least 30% the number of women equity partners in our nation’s law firms. Mr. Bryan is an active participant in the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (“NAMWOLF”). He serves on the NAMWOLF In-House Advisory Council, as a NAMWOLF Practice Area Committee liaison, and as a mentor in its Emerging Leaders Program. He also serves as his company’s representative in the Inclusion Initiative, a collaborative effort of companies committed to an immediate and measurable increase in the retention and utilization of minority and women owned law firms by America’s corporations.
Mr. Bryan is a frequent speaker, panelist, and moderator for his company, diverse bar organizations, and affinity groups. The Association of Corporate Counsel, a global legal association representing more than 35,000 in-house counsel employed by over 10,000 organizations, named him one of its “Top Ten 30-Somethings.” In 2015, the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal named Mr. Bryan one of its “40 Under Forty,” an annual honor for 40 individuals under the age of 40 who are nominated as best in class by their peers in all industries. In July 2016, he will receive the Lead By Example Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a male lawyer by the National Association of Women Lawyers, for his role as a leader and advocate for the advancement of women in the profession.
He has served in the Arkansas Bar Association House of Delegates, as an officer of the Arkansas Association of Defense Counsel, as a committee member for the Defense Research Institute, and as a barrister of both the W.B. Putman and William Overton Inns of Court. Mr. Bryan participates in Walmart’s Medical-Legal Pro Bono Partnership with Arkansas Children’s Hospital and is a past United States District Court pro bono attorney.
Mr. Bryan graduated cum laude from the University of Arkansas School of Law after serving as Managing Editor of the Arkansas Law Review. He was a Phi Delta Theta International Graduate Fellow and a Charles Pearson Fellow while in law school. Prior to law school, he graduated as a J. William Fulbright Senior Scholar and Phi Delta Theta International Fellow from the University of Arkansas.
Bryan is originally from Morrilton, Arkansas, and is married to the former Monica Fuller, a 2006 graduate of the University of Arkansas School of Nursing and member of Delta Delta Delta Sorority. They are the parents of Luke and Reagan Bryan.
