Claire Miller most recently served as associate general counsel for Alcoa Corporation, before retiring in 2021. Alcoa Corporation is one of two companies that resulted from the November 2016 separation of Alcoa Inc., the Fortune 150 integrated aluminum company, into Arconic Inc. and Alcoa Corporation. Throughout her 30-year tenure with Alcoa, Professor Miller advised the company in a variety of capacities, focused mainly on commercial matters, with an increasing global reach.
While at Alcoa, Professor Miller advised her clients on all aspects of international business transactions, including international sales of goods, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures. In addition to her business unit work, which regularly involved counseling her clients in buying and selling goods throughout the world, Professor Miller served as lead lawyer on various domestic and international commercial transactions ranging in size from $32 million to over $1 billion, including a sophisticated joint venture with a state-owned enterprise in China, and other foreign transactions in Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, China, Egypt, Germany, Jamaica, Poland, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. Professor Miller regularly provided legal support on critical complicated transactions, including the Alcoa Inc. separation, a European privatization, and sale of her rolling mill business unit with revenues of approximately $1 billion, a key component to achieve the company’s recent strategic objective to sell non-core assets. Professor Miller also served as lead Treasury counsel, advising on various finance and treasury matters, including Alcoa’s revolving credit agreement and other debt facilities, and lead trade compliance counsel, advising on trade matters such as dumping cases in the U.S. and Canada, Russian sanctions, Section 232 aluminum tariffs, and general compliance with trade laws. She also worked closely with litigation counsel, assisting with various litigation matters and arbitrations involving her business units and commercial transactions.
Professor Miller received her undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Finance. She graduated from the Duquesne University School of Law in 1991, where she served as an author and editor of the Law Review.