Richard S. Lombard

LOMBARD--Richard S. Former general counsel of Exxon Corporation from 1973 to 1993, died at his home in Tucson, Arizona, on October 18, at age 79. A leader of the New York and national bars, he helped to shape the practice of law in the United States and abroad. Born in 1928 in the Canal Zone, Panama, he attended public schools in the Canal Zone, graduated from Harvard College in 1949 after one year's service in the Army Air Corps, and graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1952. He was an associate with the New York firm of Haight, Gardner, Poor, and Havens, from 1952 to 1955. He began work as a lawyer for Exxon's predecessor, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, in 1955, spending ten years in the law department of its Venezuelan subsidiary, Creole Petroleum, and eight years in the law departments of Exxon divisions in New York and Texas before becoming Exxon's general counsel in 1973 (vice president from 1980 to 1993). His career with Exxon, in 1973 the largest oil company and largest publicly traded corporation in the world, spanned a period of expansion in worldwide demand for oil and a major restructuring of the oil business. During the seventies, he coordinated Exxon's legal response to the Middle East oil crisis, including the nationalizations of the Iraqi, Libyan, Saudi Arabian, and Venezuelan oil industries between 1972 and 1976, an oil embargo by Arab members of OPEC, and the oil crisis following the Iranian revolution in 1979. Exxon's and other companies' success in using arbitration and negotiation to win compensation for their nationalized assets helped popularize the use of private international arbitration, now the standard mechanism for private international dispute resolution. During the eighties, he coordinated Exxon's response to increased litigation by expanding the size of Exxon's law department and handling much of the company's legal business inhouse, a model later followed by corporate law departments nationwide. From 1989 until 1993, he coordinated Exxon's legal response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. After his retirement from Exxon in 1993, he was of counsel to the Dallas firm of Baker and Botts until 1996, and served as an arbitrator in domestic and international business disputes until 2002. He influenced the profession as a leader of various organizations, as a former chairman of the boards of trustees of the American Arbitration Association and the Parker School of International and Comparative Law at Columbia University, and as a cofounder in the eighties, along with Cyrus Vance and others, of Volunteers of Legal Services (VOLS), to coordinate the provision of volunteer legal work during a time of cutbacks in federal funding for legal services for the poor. He was a former trustee of the Southwestern Legal Foundation (now the Center for International and American Law) at Southern Methodist University, former member of the advisory board at the Columbia University Center for Law and Economic Studies, and former trustee of the Practicing Law Institute, among other groups. He is the author of one book, "American Venezuelan Private International Law: A Bilateral Study" (New York, 1965) He is survived by his beloved wife of 55 years, Arlene Olson Lombard of Tucson, Arizona, his son James, also of Tucson, his daughter Anne, of Aliso Viejo, California, four grandchildren, and his sister, Elaine Newland of Bluffton, South Carolina. A memorial service will be held October 26, 1pm, at St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona Donations in lieu of flowers may be sent to the Primavera Foundation, 702 S. 6th Ave., Tucson, Arizona 85701.