Although William McKeown earned a master in divinity from the Union Theological Seminary in 1971, he had no plans to become a minister. The son of an army colonel, McKeown was just “interested in matters of faith and intellect.” That interest took him to law school and instilled in him a deep desire to help society. After working for 24 years at a law firm, McKeown seems to have finally found his calling.

McKeown is the chief legal officer the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Although it's perhaps a name few people recognize, WCS operates some of most popular educational facilities and tourist destinations in New York City. Once know as the New York Zoological Society, the WCS is responsible for the Bronx Zoo, the New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo and Prospect Park Zoo.

McKeown has been with the non-profit for eight years. Previously he was a partner at New York-based Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler where he represented non-profit organizations. His clients included the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kaplan Foundation and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Although a number of his clients asked him to come in-house while he worked at Patterson Belknap, McKeown turned them down. It was a different story with the WCS.

Q: Why did you join the WCS?

A: They were a client and had never had a general counsel before. They were going through some changes [the president was leaving after 30 years]. The organization was operating on a very personal level. And legal issues weren't dealt with in an organized and rational way. I thought it would be a worthy thing to do to try to help move this organization from where it was to where it ought to be.

Q: Was there a crisis situation that made them want to bring in a lawyer?

A: No. It was just an anticipatory change. The organization was going through a rebuilding process.

Q: What was the toughest transition you faced going in-house?

A: Well, I had to learn to be a player on the inside. Many people in the organization were worried that I was going to interfere with their objectives and that I would make them spend time doing useless things.

Q: How did you get them to accept you?

A: You have to listen, offer assistance and be helpful. I always say that practicing law is a performance art. It's something you do in real time. You prepare and you plan and you maybe even rehearse. But what it comes down to is helping the client on the spot when you're needed.

Q: Do you have a seat at the management table?

A: I didn't initially. They didn't know what to do with me. They do now. Our current president understands the significant role law has in the functioning of a not-for-profit organization like ours. He thinks lawyers are important to solve the problems of this organization and that it is foolish not to have a lawyer in the room.

Q: Where do you spend most of your time?

A: The first couple of years I spent most of my time dealing with contracts, lawsuits and solving particular problems. My role has changed because the organization has changed and I now have more staff. I now have five lawyers working for me. When I joined it was just me.

Q: That's a big department for a non-profit. Why so many lawyers?

A: We have a very significant international conservation program. When I joined we had operations in about 30 countries outside the U.S. and our budget for international programs was about $15 million. Now we are in

65 countries and our budget is approaching $50 ?? 1/2 million.

Q: What's your proudest accomplishment since joining WCS?

A: Probably helping bring in Goldman Sachs' gift of a large tract of land in Tierra del Fuego, Chile, in 2004. The territory is almost the size of Rhode Island. It was a huge transaction and a huge responsibility for us to take on.

Q: What was your role in that?

A: I had to manage it legally from the point of view of WCS. It caused all kinds of issues for us. We are normally involved in animals. Our mission has not been to own and operate reserves as the owner. We usually help other people, governments and NGOs operate them.

Q: What did you do with the territory?

A: It is a preserve and it's going to be managed for conservation and scientific purposes. There is going to be some level of public use that's consistent with a conservation and scientific program. It's a tremendous quantity of space and there are a tremendous number of animals and plants that inhabit the land.

Q: What's the most interesting legal issue you have had to deal with?

A: It involves a new species of monkey that one of our scientists discovered in Bolivia. The parties that found it thought they would like to auction off the right to name it and give the proceeds to the Bolivian organization that we work with there. So we conducted an auction.

Q: How did it turn out?

A: The Golden Palace online casino company, which is organized and operates outside the U.S., had the winning bid. Because they cannot do business in the U.S. in the conventional way, they have the practice of seeking publicity where and whenever they can get it. So they decided to bid $650,000 [the second highest bidder was Ellen DeGeneres]. I had to negotiate them away from calling it the goldenpalace.com monkey.

Q: What did they end up naming it?

A: The Golden Palace Monkey.

Q: That's not too bad.

A: No. We could live with that.

Q: Will you ever do that again?

A: I don't know. If we ever do that again we're going to start out differently.

Q: What's the strangest legal issue you have had to deal with?

A: There is a lot of strange stuff that happens when you are dealing with animals and people. It wasn't really a legal issue but in 2003 there was a tiger that was found in an apartment in Manhattan. Some guy was keeping it as a pet. Did you hear about that?

Q: I did. How were you involved?

A: The police department called us up and said, “We found this tiger. Can you help?” One of our people asked me if we should get involved. I told him we should if we could help the situation and the city. He thought we certainly could help, and I didn't see any major legal issues involved in helping them.

Q: I read about a father who sued WCS when a gorilla at the Bronx Zoo threw a rock that hit his son on the head. Do you get a lot of those types of cases?

A: It is rare for an animal to hurt a visitor. We get a lot of slip and falls, though. And occasionally we will have somebody drive off the Bronx River Parkway and hit our fence.

Q: You also settled a case with Eliot Spitzer involving the clean up of the Bronx River [the river runs through the zoo and Spitzer alleged that animal waste was polluting the river]. What was he like to deal with?

A: He's very tough. I got out of that one pretty well because we are a non-profit. Also, it was earlier in his career. He wasn't a publicly visible person back then. But I don't want to say anything to provoke him–though I don't think he really cares about us anymore.

Q: Is this your dream job?

A: I don't have a dream job.

Q: What keeps you up at night?

A: Nothing.

Q: What is your favorite animal at

the zoo?

A: I don't have a favorite animal. I like them all.