Musical Comedy Ethics Training Program Receives National Recognition

Follies is a musical comedy which parodies popular Broadway shows and popular music. The original scripts are presented to licensed professionals and corporate executives as ethics training.

The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), South/Central Texas Chapter, produces the original musical each year and was presented the "Outstanding Chapter Achievement Award for Innovative Programming" by the ACC in Washington, D.C. The award was announced at the ACC Annual Meeting Award Ceremony on Tuesday, October 17, 2017.

Mission Pharmacal Company ("Mission") General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer Lee Cusenbary created the Ethics Follies annual event 12 years ago and is the creative mastermind behind the Ethics Follies productions. Each year, he writes and directs a new musical comedy utilizing parodies of recognizable songs to raise legal and business ethics issues for discussion of attendees who network after the shows with sponsored receptions. Past parodies include Scamalot, Mia Culpa, and How to Succeed in Business Without Even Lying.

Fellow Mission associate Susan Breidenbach has also been an annual participant in the Ethics Follies programs. She is in her second year as the sound manager and previously served as the stage manager for seven years.

Now in its 12th season, this year's production, Being Walter Decent, will premiere in San Antonio on October 25 as the centerpiece for the South/Central Texas Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel's (ACC) annual ethics and compliance conference, now in its 20th year. Ethics Follies was invited to perform in San Antonio's historic Charline McCombs Empire Theatre 10 years ago by the Las Casas Foundation, which restored the theatre to its original appearance as an opera house in the early 1900's.

The current Ethics Follies production will also be performed on November 10 in Whippany, New Jersey, for the New Jersey ACC Chapter as a fundraiser for Hurricane Harvey Relief. The fundraiser will provide attorney attendees with two hours of continuing legal ethics education (CLE). The premiere will be filmed and shown by streaming video to subscribers of the ethics course.

"I worked as an actor for years prior to attending law school so it was interesting to combine my passion for the stage with my work as an attorney," says Cusenbary. "Watching scenarios of ethics issues taken from the media with an original storyline is more memorable than a lecture. A judge stopped me recently to say he had an 'Ethics Follies moment,' recalling a scene from a show that reminded him of an ethics rule he needed to raise in a trial setting.

"Our 60-person troupe of attorneys and professionals actors works hard to ensure that each production of the Ethics Follies reflects the prior year's most significant ethics and compliance issues facing management and their legal counsel. We also try to provide unusually good production quality as well since the streaming video of the show is seen all over the country by lawyer associations."

Each year, the "Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life Award" is presented to a law firm and in-house law department to highlight how good ethics are good for business.

"I'm fortunate that Mission Pharmacal leadership is supportive of my work in creating these productions," says Cusenbary, who has worked with Mission since 2003. "With their help and the help of many volunteers, Ethics Follies has raised more than $400,000 for the Community Justice Center, which provides free legal services to those in need in Central and South Texas.

"When I first began to write and produce the Ethics Follies in 2005, I had no idea how popular these creative continuing education performances would become. DVDs of our shows have been used in Russian law schools to teach American ethics. We have toured with shows and donated funds raised to charity. Everyone associated with the productions is thrilled and honored to be named 2017's most innovative corporate counsel program in the United States by the Association of Corporate Counsel."

Corporate executives, attorneys, and accountants interested in registering online for two hours of ethics CLE or regular continuing professional education (CPE) for accountants can purchase tickets to any performance of the show at EthicsFollies.com.

Mission Pharmacal Company is a privately held pharmaceutical company based in San Antonio, Texas. For more than seven decades, the company has been improving the lives of people through every stage of life by identifying unmet healthcare needs and delivering innovative, high-quality prescription, over-the-counter, and dietary supplement products to meet these needs using only the purest ingredients and FDA-approved methods of manufacturing. Mission is recognized as a pioneer and leader in the therapeutic areas of women's health and urology and also offers leading products through its pediatric, dermatology, primary care, and long-term care service lines. With the shared objective of improving the health of all moms and babies, Mission is proud to support the March of Dimes Foundation, the leading nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health.

Using an innovative business model, Mission created the Mission Family of Companies, a collection of wholly-owned subsidiaries including BioComp Pharma, Inc., a generic drug marketer; Alamo Pharma Services, Inc., a specialized contract sales organization; ProSolus, Inc., a transdermal drug developer and manufacturer; Espada Dermatology, Inc., a prescription and esthetic dermatology company; as well as BexR Logistix, LLC and their subsidiary company, EPIC Fulfillment, Inc., the logistics and fulfillment arms of the organization. Each company functions independently while their product and service offerings can be linked together to offer customizable solutions to a wide array of forward-thinking pharmaceutical and biotech companies. To learn more, visit missionfamilyofcompanies.com.

Pictured: Mission Pharmacal Company General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer Lee Cusenbary is the creative writer/director behind ACC's Ethics Follies. His original musical parodies teaching ethics to corporate executives and in-house attorneys have garnered national recognition.

To post a comment, you must register and login.