About

As pointed out by one of his many admirers, Stanton Dodge’s story is compelling. He is a true home-grown talent within DISH, having started out at its predecessor company as an unpaid intern, and today is viewed as a ‘true leader’, but ‘without airs and graces’. Mark Nadeau of DLA Piper LLP explains: ‘With foresight most of us lack, he determined that the Satellite TV industry was going to boom’. Joshua Rosenkranz and Peter Bicks of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP pick up the theme, adding that Dodge has ‘championed the rights of consumers’ and successfully advocated for standards that promote technological innovation.’ Bryan Tramont, of Wilkinson, Barker & Knauer says that Dodge has created a ‘super interesting and diverse business model’ and has had ‘some huge wins’. His achievements are numerous, but include obtaining the necessary approvals in paving the way for DISH’s entry into the mobile broadband business, and developing the strategy for a new law – the so-called STELA of 2010 – that permitted DISH to get out from under a debilitating injunction imposed by a federal court. And in 2012, when the company introduced its AutoHop feature, the company was hit by multiple lawsuits, but Dodge and his team refused to back down. Dodge himself says he is most proud of the e-discovery system he has implemented, and of turning around the company’s reputation in Washington, D.C when he became GC six years ago. Nadeau says ‘in all, few of us achieve at this level. To have achieved it in barely 20 years of legal practice is remarkable. He is surely one of the most powerful and influential general counsels in the nation’. Dan Dufner of White & Case LLP says Dodge has ‘built an exceptional team of loyal and gifted attorneys and staff who demonstrate a meticulous passion for the work they do’. Dodge agrees that mentoring junior staff and seeing them develop is the part of his job he enjoys most. Commenting on his use of outside counsel, he says ‘I have heard of some GCs hiring so-called big name firms as ‘insurance’ in case something goes wrong. I have never done that and never will – at DISH, the responsibility for everything done and supervised by the Legal Department rests squarely on me, regardless of the “name” of the firm that I ultimately chose to support us on a particular matter’.