Jay Old was 12 when his father, a family physician and pilot, died in a tragic plane crash.
The family was devastated, leaving Old’s mother with three children under 16. A lawsuit was filed. As a jury was seated the case settled.
“The lawsuit and the resulting settlement, while not large by any means, exposed me to the significance of our legal system and how the system can change the lives of those who are touched by tragedy and loss,” said Old, who is now the general counsel at San Antonio-based Zachry Group.
“As I progressed through law school and selected my career path, I always kept [in mind] that group of lawyers who worked to help my family have sufficient financial support to get my sisters and me educated and gave my mother a chance to regroup after an unexpected loss at a very young age. I have tried to honor that experience throughout my career,” he said.
Five decades later, Old is widely regarded as one of the most prominent and successful business lawyers and leaders in San Antonio.
But the biggest achievements of Old’s 38-year career have come during the past two years when he and his legal team helped guide Zachry through a highly turbulent period and led the energy services company to an extraordinarily successful corporate restructuring earlier this year.
In addition, Old and his team of six attorneys and 17 other professionals in August helped negotiate an historic engineering, procurement and construction contract with Duke Energy for a natural gas power plant in North Carolina and in June signed a memorandum of understanding with Hyundai Engineering and Construction that created a partnership focused on nuclear power construction.
“We are experiencing a dynamic moment, where demand for EPC contractors with experience building power plants is unparalleled,” Old told The Texas Lawbook. “In my opinion, there is no EPC contractor in the country better positioned to respond to this demand than Zachry Group. We are working nonstop to help our business units evaluate, pursue and land new projects at a pace never before experienced by our organization. And, while that is happening, our lawyers have helped renew critical industrial maintenance services contracts, while also supporting new customers for our engineering and services groups.”
Citing the Zachry legal team’s achievements in 2024 and 2025, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s San Antonio Chapter and The Lawbook are awarding the 2025 San Antonio Corporate Counsel Award for Corporate Legal Department of the Year.
ACC San Antonio and The Lawbook will honor Old and the Zachry legal team and 11 other award recipients Nov. 6 at the first-ever San Antonio Corporate Counsel Awards ceremony.
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Old shares his approach to developing in-house talent and offers advice for lawyers interested in the construction industry.
“In the face of extraordinary challenges, the department has not only safeguarded the company’s interests but also played a pivotal role in its transformation and resurgence,” Jackson Walker partner Patrick Tobin wrote in nominating Old and the Zachry team for the award. “Emerging from restructuring, Zachry is now poised to lead in the engineering, procurement and construction of gas-fired power plants, data centers, chemical facilities and next-generation nuclear power plants. The legal department has been instrumental in enabling this growth.”
“Jay Old has fostered a culture within the legal department that emphasizes collaboration, creativity and solution-oriented thinking,” Tobin wrote. “A guiding principle — ‘getting to yes’ — has become a mantra repeated across meetings and embraced by the team. This philosophy encourages lawyers to find innovative paths to support business goals without compromising legal integrity.”
Bojan Guzina, a partner at White & Case, said the Zachry legal department is “a tightly knit group” who “punch above their weight.”
“They have decades of collective experience navigating EPC contracts, complex litigation dockets and insurance coverage issues,” Guzina said. “It is rare to find a corporate legal department that can cover so many substantive areas of the law with such a modest headcount. They have seen it all.”
“This is a deeply experienced legal team that has handled every possible issue that can come up in industrial construction,” he added. “Their combined experience is a real advantage for Zachry, whether in contract negotiations or complex litigation.”
John Thomas, a partner at Hicks Thomas, said the Zachry legal team is “loyal to the core.”
“They own the legal issues being presented,” Thomas said. “This is a big factor in obtaining positive outcomes. Obviously, overcoming the challenges faced by the company over the past 18 months involved a series of important successes. But perhaps more importantly is the fact that Jay is directing the legal department into a new era with renewed energy and esprit de corps among the entire team.”
A Lawyer in a Family of Doctors
Old was born and raised in Beaumont. His mother was a homemaker while his father, the doctor, “did everything from deliver babies to minor surgery and even house calls.”
His two closest uncles and his grandfather were also doctors, although his grandfather never practiced medicine but owned a medical clinic.
“When I told my uncle I wanted to be a lawyer instead of medical school, he responded that if I sued a doctor, I would no longer be welcome at holiday meals,” Old said.
Old said his grades in biology and chemistry at Texas A&M University were clear signs “that I was not destined to be a doctor.” But an elective political science class and a class on the constitution “ultimately pointed me in the direction of law school.”
In 1988, Old earned his law degree at Texas Tech University and joined Andrews Kurth as a lawyer in its litigation practice. He joined Germer Gertz in 1996 as a partner, where he practiced litigation defense for 17 years.
In 2011, he got the political bug and decided to run for the congressional seat for Texas’ 14th District, which was being vacated by popular libertarian Republican Ron Paul.
“I felt called to give back to my community in a way that my community-related volunteer roles had not fulfilled for me,” he said. “I had never given thought to politics as an outlet, but when our congressman announced he would not run again, I felt called to run in his place.”
“I would not give back the year that I ran for office,” he said. “I am proud to say that I maintained a docket of about 200 cases while I also worked 12-hour days traveling our congressional district. Throughout that process, I gained a greater understanding of the community in which I lived and made lots of friends, many of whom I remain in touch with today. Running for office taught me to respect the efforts of those who make the sacrifices necessary to engage in politics. Those sacrifices are far more than financial.”
“Now, I realize there are lots of ways to affect change, perhaps far better ones from outside of the beltway than from inside,” he said.
Old said his decision to join Zachry Group in 2023 was the result of a “calling.”
“I felt called to change my career direction and make a contribution in a different way,” he said. “Thirty-five years into my law practice, I felt I had nothing more to prove in the courtroom. On the other hand, Zachry Group had been a client for almost all my career, and I was very proud of my association with the company.”
Company Chairman John Zachry called Old two years ago saying he was looking for a general counsel.
“When I was asked to join the company, I was floored,” Old said. “It took a while to decide to leave a thriving law firm surrounded by good friends who happened to be my law partners, but I found myself intrigued by the challenge of retooling and taking on a completely different role than I had held in the past.”
Guzina said Old’s “decades of experience as a trial lawyer in private practice set him apart from most GCs.”
“He’s not afraid of a fight but is not looking for one either,” he said. “He’s a strategist, first and foremost, and is able to navigate complex legal issues with calm. He also likes to roll up his sleeves and work alongside his outside counsel, whether in preparing for litigation or overseeing a transaction. He is with us in both the boardroom and the courtroom.”
Eileen E. Sommer, a commercial real estate and transactional partner at King & Sommer, said Old and the Zachry legal team’s leadership through the “recent strategic restructuring in Chapter 11 was a tremendous legal accomplishment.”
“Jay Old is very effective because he emphasizes working through legal matters in a team structure, the team being the in-house attorney, the outside attorney and the business decision-makers,” Sommer said. “He understands the importance of a good flow of shared information in pursuit of the strategic goals of the company. At the same time, Jay gives value, respect, support and recognition to the individual contribution of each member of that team.”
“From my perspective, what sets the Zachry legal department apart is the degree to which attorneys work hand in glove with business counterparts, integrated into the entire project team,” she said. “Like the rest of the team, there is a high level of expectation with respect to the ability of the attorney to deliver, but also a high level of respect that gives rise to that expectation.”
What ‘Getting to Yes’ Looks Like
Old said that his workday starts as early as 7 a.m.
“My calendar is filled every day, mostly with meetings others have set for me. I never had less control of my calendar even in the busiest times of my trial practice, but I enjoy the variety of opportunities to interact with my coworkers,” he said. “The meetings I attend give me a ton of energy and bring a sense of momentum with them. I am amazed at the unique challenges I face every day. Working for a company with over 10,000 employees scattered all over the nation and beyond leads to a vast array of challenges, thankfully the vast majority of which are very positive and rewarding to work on.”
“We recently executed EPC contracts to build power plants for different customers in North Carolina and Indiana,” Old said. “We are also pioneering nuclear consulting agreements as well as exploring construction of next-generation nuclear power plants. While the country is experiencing a transformational moment in the generation of its power, our legal department is supporting Zachry Group as it assumes a leadership role along the way.”
“We are busier than ever, and our lawyers have stepped up to the challenge,” he said.
Troutman Pepper Locke partner David C. Mancini said Old has several talents that make him a great general counsel, including judgment, experience, respect and professionalism, demeanor and humility.
Old has “an especially keen understanding of Zachry’s underlying business model and industry sectors, and a collaborative spirit with the company’s C-suite of non-lawyers,” Mancini said. “Jay adds to this collaborative spirit, but it’s been a part of the Zachry legal department for the 30 years I have represented them.”
“Make no mistake, this a very smart, savvy and skilled group of lawyers,” he said. “But they also will work with you to resolve issues if the opposition is respectful, decent and reasonable.”
Tobin said that Old’s appointment as GC two years ago this month “marked a turning point for Zachry Group” and “helped steer the company through existential risk.”
“Old assembled a legal team composed of both seasoned professionals and new talent, united by a shared mission: to guide Zachry through one of its most challenging periods,” he said. “The department’s work during this time was not just reactive, it was transformative. Their efforts helped Zachry emerge from bankruptcy protection stronger, more focused and better positioned for future growth.”
Sommer and others say Old deserves special recognition for creating the Zachry Champions Award, which recognizes the work of outside counsel. The honor comes in the form of a Zachry Hard Hat, which is autographed by the entire leadership team, and is accompanied by a lengthy letter from Jay describing in detail the legal work performed by the counsel and how the legal work resulted in the betterment of the company group.
But overwhelmingly, lawyers and business leaders alike say Old, while a great lawyer, is simply one of the good people on the planet.
“In a world where high-priced and accomplished professionals are often self-absorbed, Jay is humble, often self-effacing, interested in others and understated in his accomplishments,” Mancini said. “This not only makes him a better person, he encourages others to trust, believe and work hard on his and Zachry’s behalf.
Fun Facts: Jay Old
- Favorite book: Most recently, I have completed a series by C.J. Box, which features a character named Joe Picket, a fictional Wyoming game warden. Books with a lasting impact on me include Empire of the Summer Moon [by S. C. Gwynne], Blood and Thunder [by Hampton Sides] and Gates of the Alamo [by Stephen Harrigan]. They all give life to the frontier that was once Texas.
- Favorite movie: It’s a toss-up: The Natural, Field of Dreams and Sound of Music. Sorry, I love baseball and my sappy streak goes way back.
- Favorite vacation: We used to spend summers at Port Bolivar, just across from Galveston. There is very little that approaches the memories that I have from my childhood spent on the beach with family and friends. One of the first things I did when I returned to Beaumont was to purchase a beach house so my kids could have similar experiences. My favorite memories at the beach span my entire lifetime.
- Favorite restaurant: If not Clark’s on Sixth Street in Austin, then Sartin’s in Sabine Pass. Sartin’s is not around anymore, but in its heyday there was nothing more fun than the “all-you-can-eat” smorgasbord of barbecued crab, fried frog legs, fried shrimp, fried catfish and fried oysters that came served on paper plates with rolls of paper towels scattered strategically down the family-styled picnic tables. There is no way my cardiologist would approve of this today.
- Hero in life: My mother. She really got a raw deal in life. She was not prepared to be a single mom with three kids under the age of 16. Life has not been easy for her, but she preserved and made sure that I stayed on course to be successful. Her main admonition survives today: “Remember who you are!” It echoes in my head all the time. She is 92 now, still strong and full of life. I’m enjoying helping care for her as she did so much for me.