Amy Van Prooyen

Amy Van Prooyen, Esq. is the founder and managing partner of Van Prooyen Greenfield LLP.

Ms. Van Prooyen's expertise is in providing strategic communications counsel for clients involved in high-profile litigation and other matters affecting corporate reputation.  She specializes in helping clients develop customized communications platforms that support and enhance their legal strategies in both criminal and civil cases.  She also provides strategic counsel regarding crisis communications and has helped many companies manage a variety of challenging circumstances, including global product recalls, government investigations, questioned business practices, social responsibility and environmental issues.  Her team’s work was recently named winner of the 2009 PR News’ Legal PR Awards.

Ms. Van Prooyen has provided counsel to both leading law firms and corporations, including Johnson & Johnson, Wyeth, Aventis-Behring, Huawei, Swiss Reinsurance Co., Samsung, Henry Schein, Inc., Globalstar LP and Morgan Stanley, among others.  Her clients have covered the full spectrum of industries, including legal, healthcare, financial services, telecommunications, consumer products and environmental. 

Among her notable representations, she counseled the Official Committee of Equity Security Holders in the Adelphia Communications cases and the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the WorldCom, Inc. cases – two of the largest bankruptcy cases ever filed.  She recently handled communications for a leading professional baseball player in the very high-profile investigation and report by former Senator George Mitchell into the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball and the subsequent Congressional hearings.

Prior to founding Van Prooyen Greenfield LLP in 2003, Ms. Van Prooyen was a vice president in Edelman’s Issues and Crisis Management practice, where she oversaw Litigation Communications for Edelman New York.  She has served as legal counsel to several Wall Street institutions.  She previously worked for Fleishman-Hillard International Communications in New York, where she advised on public relations for global health care corporations and at FHP Healthcare in Salt Lake City. Earlier, she was a reporter for Utah’s skiing industry.

Ms. Van Prooyen has lectured on litigation communications issues before Georgetown University, the Legal Marketing Association and for numerous law firms.  She currently serves as a faculty member of Lawline, a provider of continuing legal education.  She is the co-author of “Litigation Communications: Providing Context and Protecting Legal Privilege,” a chapter in PR News Crisis Management Guidebook, (2008, Access Intelligence LLC).

She is a member of the Bar of the State of New York and is also a member of the New York State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association and the Legal Marketing Association.  Ms. Greenfield currently serves as a member of the College Partnership Board at the University of Utah, and was recently selected as the Distinguished Alumna of the University of Utah College of Humanities for 2009. 

Ms. Greenfield received a B.A. and a M.A., summa cum laude, in Communications from the University of Utah, where she was elected to Phi Kappa Phi, the national honor society.  She received a J.D. from The University of San Francisco School of Law, where she was president and founder of the Entertainment, Media and Sports Law Society. 

Bar Admissions

• New York

Education

• J.D., University of San Francisco School of Law, 1999
• M.A., summa cum laude, Communications, University of Utah, 1995
• B.A., Mass Communications, University of Utah, 1992

Noteworthy

• Member, Phi Kappa Phi

Memberships

• Member, Federal Communications Bar Association
• Member, Legal Marketing Association
• Member, New York State Bar Association

Seminars & Speeches

• "Advanced Corporate Communications," Georgetown University, June 2008
• "Litigation Communications," Legal Marketing Association, Midwest Conference, Chicago, 2007
• "Litigation Communications," Lawline, New York, September 2007
• "Attorney Advertising," Lawline, New York, May 2007
• "How to Leapfrog from 2.0 to 20.0," Legal Marketing Association, Annual Meeting, Chicago 2006