Terry Mutchler, Head of the Nation’s First Transparency Practice Group at Pepper Hamilton LLP

Topic: The Politics of Secrecy: From Lion’s Paw to Pennsylvania Government

Location: Ballroom, Nittany Lion Inn

Introduction / Moderator:  Blannie Bowen/ Patty Satalia

Terry is an attorney, former award-winning author, appointed as Pennsylvania’s first Executive Director of the Office of Open Records, ensuring government transparency.

Currently, Terry is heading the nation’s first Transparency Practice Group at Pepper Hamilton, helping corporations, news media, and government officials navigate the complex world of records-access laws.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Terry was a journalist for The Associated Press, she covered politics in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Alaska, and Illinois, where she was the first woman appointed AP Statehouse Correspondent and was the then youngest appointed in the nation. She won several Keystone Awards, Pennsylvania’s top honor for reporting, and was the AP’s state nominee for Young Writer of the Year. While at Penn State, Terry working for The Daily Collegian, holding posts from reporter to managing editor.

Terry is also the author of Under This Beautiful Dome, A Senator, A Journalist and the Politics of Gay Love in America. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the book also won a Silver Medal in the international Independent Publishers Book Awards from a field of 5,300 entries in 10 countries. She also appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show to talk about the book, which tells the true story of her secret five-year relationship with Penny Severns, a powerful Illinois Senator who mentored Barack Obama. Forced to engage in an elaborate ruse to keep their relationship a secret, the two women constantly fear discovery in their conservative town. Denied legal access to the altar, they face even greater hardships when Penny is diagnosed with cancer and begins undergoing treatment.

Set in the political arena, Under This Beautiful Dome reminds us why the march to legalize same-sex marriage is both personal and political. This vivid, beautiful story paints an intimate portrait of a loving relationship and the vast impact pro-equality legislation has on couples and families in America today.

Terry received her bachelors from Penn State; her juris doctor from The John Marshall School of Law in Chicago and was selected as a Bohnett Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, joining senior executives in public service from around the world studying government.