Rachel Barnett is the General Counsel and Secretary of Brooks Brothers Group, Inc., the
country's oldest clothing retailer. Ms. Barnett runs the legal department and is responsible for all
aspects of Brooks Brothers’ domestic and international legal affairs. As General Counsel, Ms.
Barnett manages a wide-range of legal matters for the company, including, among other things,
corporate transactions, employment, intellectual property, real estate, compliance and general
litigation. Prior to joining Brooks Brothers, Ms. Barnett was a member of the Board of Directors
and General Counsel of Travelzoo (NASDAQ: TZOO), a global Internet media company and
trusted publisher of travel, entertainment and local deals.
Before going in-house, Ms. Barnett was a member of the Litigation department at Skadden,
Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP, where she specialized in representing corporations and
their officers and directors in a variety of complex corporate and commercial litigation matters,
including merger and acquisition litigation, shareholder derivative lawsuits and securities fraud
class actions at both the trial court and appellate levels.
In the Spring, Ms. Barnett co-teaches a course at Columbia Law School along with the General
Counsel of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc. The course is entitled “Exploring the Role
of the General Counsel” and teaches students how to combine practical business sense with
legal knowledge to achieve commercial objectives. Ms. Barnett recently authored the book, “A
Short & Happy Guide to Business Contracts,” which is published by West Academic, and
contains a simple roadmap on how practitioners negotiate terms and avoid common pitfalls in
everyday business contracts.
She earned her juris doctor degree from Columbia Law School, where she was a Kent Scholar,
and a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University. Ms. Barnett clerked for the
Honorable Vice Chancellor Stephen P. Lamb of the Delaware Court of Chancery.