Fidelity funds' top lawyer quits to teach law

Fidelity Investments' top lawyer for its fund management business, Eric Roiter, has quit to take up full-time teaching of law, according to the world's biggest mutual fund company.

Roiter, senior vice president and general counsel of Fidelity Management & Research Co, left the Boston firm on May 31 and has been succeeded by Scott Goebel, a senior attorney with Fidelity, company spokesman Vin Loporchio said today.

"Eric has accepted appointments from both Harvard Law School and Boston University Law School as an adjunct professor, beginning in the fall," Loporchio said.

As chief legal officer for Fidelity's mutual funds, Roiter was the group's main public voice in its ongoing battle with human rights activists, who are campaigning for screening of the funds' investments for links to genocide in Sudan.

Before joining Fidelity in 1997, he was a professor at Columbia University Law School and was also with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Roiter was a part-time law professor during his tenure with based Fidelity.

Roiter is the latest in a string of senior executives to leave or retire from Fidelity since Rodger Lawson rejoined as president in August.

Since then, Fidelity has seen the departure of Ellyn McColgan, who was president of distribution and operations, Peter Smail, head of its Pyramis Global Advisors unit, and Jeff Carney, a top executive in its retirement business.

Privately owned Fidelity manages $1.5 trillion in assets. (Reuters)