By Mark Curriden
Energy Future Holdings has named its leading in-house trial lawyer, Stacey Doré, as its new senior vice president and general counsel effective immediately.
The Dallas-based power company also announced that Stephanie Zapata Moore is the new general counsel and vice president at Luminant, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EFH.
Doré and Moore are part of a small but growing number of women who are general counsels of large energy companies. At age 39, both also are among the youngest.
Doré said in an interview Monday that EFH’s legal issues “mirror our business issues,” which include the issue of restructuring some of the firm’s debt.
“It is no secret that we have balance sheet issues and we are working on that,” she said. “We face increased regulations from the EPA and from Dodd Frank (Act), some of which we are challenging in court.”
Last fall, EFH sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to block regulations designed to curb cross-state pollution.
But Doré said that one of her tasks is to make sure that neither the “balance sheet issues” nor the litigation over regulatory controls impact the company’s service to its clients.
EFH has about 20 in-house lawyers but spends several million dollars a year to outside lawyers at law firms such as Gibson Dunn, Vinson & Elkins, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Doré said she has no plans to make any dramatic shifts in the outside law firms that the company employs.
“I have no intention of shaking things up for the sake of shaking things up,” she says. “We have some great lawyers who work with us. But we are also always looking for additional lawyers if they are the best to meet our legal needs.”
A 1997 Harvard Law graduate, Doré led some of EFH’s biggest litigation during the past four years. In 2010, she was the lead lawyer defending Luminant in a $500 million lawsuit brought by aluminum company Alcoa. Not only was Doré successful in getting Alcoa’s case dismissed, she convinced the court to award Luminant $12 million in damages.
Rob Little, a transactional lawyer who has represented EFH in the restructuring of some of its debt, says Doré is “one of the smartest lawyers I have ever worked with.”
“Stacey being a litigator is a strong positive for EFH,” adds Little, who is a partner at Gibson Dun, “because the deals that EFH does are highly scrutinized and she has that litigator’s eye for detail.”
EFH’s selection of Dore, as well as its choice of Moore at Luminant, received applause from women legal organizations. It should be noted that TXU Energy, another EFH subsidiary, also has a woman, Cecily Gooch, as general counsel.
Moore joined the Luminant legal team in 2005 from Gardere Wynne Sewell and has extensive experience representing the company’s interests, from commercial wholesale trading to generation, mining and environmental matters. Gooch has led both legal and regulatory compliance for TXU Energy since joining the company in 2004 from Hunton & Williams LLP. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas and received her law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.
“We are very pleased and excited at this news,” says Linda Chanow, who is the executive director of the Center for Women in Law at the University of Texas. “Energy companies like these spend a lot of money on outside legal counsel. Having a woman as general counsel opens the door for younger women lawyers – doors that once were not open.”
Five other major Texas-based energy companies, including Valero Energy Corporation, Marathon Oil Company, ConocoPhillips, Enterprise Products Partners, and Holly Corporation, have women as general counsel.
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