Stephen Reynolds of Gibbons in Newark, New Jersey. Courtesy photo.

Not bad for one's first day on the job.

Wednesday was “technically” Steve Reynolds' first day back with Gibbons after several years' absence.

Reynolds flew into San Francisco International Airport with his wife by midafternoon on Wednesday and was in a rental car cruising the city's hilly streets by 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, en route to his hotel for the two-and-a-half-day Association of General Counsel confab attended by Fortune 500 companies.

“This trip was planned months ago,” Reynolds, 60, said on his cellphone as he walked to his rental car.

Apparently, so was his return to Gibbons.

Reynolds, a former partner at the Newark-based firm, recently retired as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary at Aramark in Philadelphia. He previously served as senior vice president and general counsel at Alcatel-Lucent, and before that was vice president in litigation at Aventis and Sanofi-Aventis.

Reynolds officially rejoined Gibbons on Wednesday as a partner in its commercial and criminal litigation department—or simply, “contract director,” as he put it. He'll work out of a new Red Bank office for the firm.

“I am going home, literally and figuratively,” Reynolds, a 1980 Princeton University graduate, said. After serving as global general counsel at two Fortune 200 companies since 2005, he said it was time to go back where it all began for him.

“Gibbons honed me as a lawyer,” Reynolds said. “It is the best law firm I ever worked at, and I'm not just saying that. It helped mold me as a lawyer and get involved with what I love: the practice of law.”

He spent 16 years there as a commercial and corporate litigator from 1985 to 2001.

In September 2001, the week of 9/11, he joined Aventis, a pharmaceutical firm that later merged with Sanofi to become Sanofi-Aventis, which is now just Sanofi. He stayed until early 2005.

Reynolds steered Aventis through its resolution of price-fixing claims relating to the 1999 settlement between Rhone Poulenc, several major pharmaceutical companies, U.S. regulators, and other impacted countries.

In mid-2005, Reynolds joined Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, which merged with Paris-based Alcatel later that year. He was general counsel of the combined company.

While at Lucent, he managed the legal and regulatory issues relating to the company's merger with Alcatel in 2006, which included obtaining approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Reynolds also negotiated the settlement of a major global Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation involving Alcatel in 2010.

Reynolds was with Alcatel-Lucent until the summer of 2012. He started at Aramark in September that year.

At Aramark, Reynolds navigated the company through a complex and ultimately successful IPO in 2013, and the legal and regulatory issues in two billion-dollar acquisitions of Avendra and AmeriPride in 2018, according to his bio.

It's this experience and know-how in the pharmaceutical, technology, and services industries—all key segments of Gibbons' client base—that has managing partner Patrick C. Dunican Jr. excited at Reynolds' return.

“While Steve was an exceptional practitioner during his first go-round here at Gibbons, his nearly two decades in-house have provided him with key industry experience and firsthand knowledge of corporate business environments—essentially, the ability to 'think like a client,'” Dunican said in a news release Wednesday announcing Reynolds' hire.

The same release said Reynolds will use his background and experience as a public company general counsel to assist Gibbons clients in managing complex litigation, regulatory issues, corporate governance, and compliance matters.

“I am excited to return to the firm where I developed skills that were so valuable to me during my in-house career, through guidance from incredible lawyers like John Gibbons, Mike Griffinger—the best commercial litigator I ever worked with—and so many others,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said he was particularly impacted by John Gibbons, former Third Circuit chief judge, after whom the firm is named. Gibbons died last year.

“It is a privilege and an honor to be associated with him,” Reynolds said. “I look forward to going back home to connect again.”

He said his experience as GC gave him unique insight into being “on the inside” of major companies instead of “on the outside” fighting their legal battles.

“It's been 14 years where I was general counsel at two firms,” said Reynolds. “The average tenure is three and a half years for a GC, just like an NFL running back.”

But the 1983 Fordham University Law School grad is nowhere near hanging up the legal cleats, he said.

“I have lots of game left in me. … I turned 60 in September and I was deciding on whether to land another GC gig or to go back to a law firm. There are a lot of great law firms in New York and Philadelphia.”

But Reynolds said the “perfect storm” coalesced and helped him make up his mind: Gibbons is opening an office in Red Bank.

Reynolds' family home is in Spring Lake, where he, his wife and four grown sons and a 12-year daughter gather.

He was leery of the commute from Center City Philadelphia to Spring Lake every weekend from his Aramark job to see his wife and daughter.

“I was living in an apartment in Philly Mondays through Thursdays, and commuting to Spring Lake on Fridays to spend the weekend with the family,” he said. “It all kind of fell into place. This gives me an opportunity to be close to home.”

As well as a homecoming to where it all began for him, where the former mentee becomes mentor.

“I'll be mentoring lawyers and giving them an in-house general counsel perspective,” he said. “I've gotten to know what corporations really want from their outside counsel. I have unique experience to handle that.”

But first he'll be sharing advice at the GC conference in San Francisco.

“We meet twice a year and talk about dealing with pressures and issues,” Reynolds said. “I remain a member but I'm no longer a GC with this group.”

That ended Wednesday.