FHTM Legal Advisory Council
FHTM is firmly committed to upholding the values of honesty, respect and responsibility that form the foundation of our company. We constantly strive to operate with the highest level of ethics and integrity, and we ask the same of our Representatives. In order to better ensure that we are meeting these goals, FHTM has created its Legal Advisory Council. The Council is comprised of two former state attorneys general. Chris Gorman served as Kentucky attorney general from 1992-1996, and Robert Stephan served as Kansas attorney general from 1979-1995.
FHTM's Legal Advisory Council offers advice in matters relating to the company's policies and procedures. Thanks to the expertise its members have attained through their extensive backgrounds, the Legal Advisory Council is able to assist FHTM in operating with the highest level of compliance. The Council reviews company practices, regulations and marketing materials to verify that they are in accordance with the standards of the Direct Selling Association, state and federal laws and FHTM’s own set of ethical guidelines.
F. Chris Gorman
F. Chris Gorman joined the FHTM Legal Advisory Council in May of 2010, bringing an extensive array of experience to the company. He received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Kentucky in 1965 and his Juris Doctor in 1967. He also attended Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government in 1987.
Gorman’s 32 years of private practice encompass a wide variety of legal experience, including litigation for plaintiffs and defendants before state and federal courts as well as appellate briefings and oral arguments before state and federal appellate courts.
As District Commissioner of Kentucky’s Jefferson County, he spent six years representing over 250,000 constituents. He then served four years as Kentucky’s Attorney General, during which time his duties included prosecuting Medicaid fraud and public corruption, overseeing consumer protection litigation and mediation and drafting legislation on a variety of topics. During his tenure as Attorney General, Gorman helped Kentucky enact anti-stalking laws and helped create a Child Sexual Abuse Task Force. He has advocated legislation that would combat fraud against the elderly and assist children whose parents fail to pay child support. He also worked to make it a felony to possess a deadly weapon on school grounds.
FHTM is pleased to have an experienced legal expert such as Mr. Gorman now offering his expertise to add to the company’s success.
Robert T. Stephan
FHTM welcomed Robert T. Stephan to the company’s Legal Advisory Council in May of 2010. Stephan brings to FHTM a great deal of valuable expertise, as he has served many professional positions in law and government, most notably his 16 years as Kansas Attorney General.
In 1957, Stephan graduated from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas with a B.A. in Political Science and from the Washburn University School of Law. That same year, he began practicing law in Wichita and continued to do so for the next eight years. Later, Stephan spent several years as a municipal court judge and a district court judge. He has also worked as an instructor at both Wichita State University and the University of Missouri and Kansas City, teaching Freshman Speech and Political Science, respectively.
In 1979, Stephan became Attorney General of Kansas, a position to which he was elected four times and served until 1995. During that time, he argued before the United States Supreme Court, and he presented his legal viewpoints at international conferences in locations such as Spain and Moscow. His work on the behalf of Kansas citizens led him to cut off the activities of a white supremacist group and shut down the activities of a number of puppy mills. He also fought for the passage of the Kansas Crime Victims’ Bill of Rights, a law that was enacted in 1989.
Throughout his career, Stephan has worked for various causes. In 2004 Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius appointed Stephan chair of the Governor’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board. In 1997, he received the Kansas Special Olympics Leadership Award and was named the 2009 State Ally of The Year from the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. In 2003 he received the Fred Ellsworth Medallion, the University of Kansas Alumni Association's highest honor for service to Kansas University.
Stephan is a former president of the National Association of Attorneys General. He currently serves as a Representative of the Kansas Bar Association on the Board of Kansas Legal Services, which provides legal services to the poor. He also chairs the Kansas Attorney General's Senior Consumer Protection Advocacy Council as well as the Johnson County Kansas Criminal Justice Advisory Council.
From 1996 to 2003, he served on the Lawyers Council and the Government Relations Committee for the Direct Sellers Association. His experience with this organization makes Stephan a particularly strong asset for FHTM, and we are pleased to have him as part of our Legal Advisory Council.