Dallas trial lawyer Shonn Brown had an interesting Friday.
In the early morning hours, she won a 10-digit jury verdict in Dallas County District Court. After lunch, she packed up her office at Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst and moved her litigation practice to Irving-based Kimberly-Clark Corp.
Starting Monday, Brown is the new deputy general counsel at Kimberly-Clark, overseeing the personal care customer product giant’s global litigation docket.
“Shonn is one of my most senior deputies helping take on some of the biggest issues facing the company and taking on regulatory matters and will assist me on some public policy issues,” Kimberly-Clark General Counsel Jeffrey Melucci told The Texas Lawbook in an exclusive interview.
A 1998 graduate of the SMU Dedman School of Law, Brown has been a partner at Lynn Pinker for more than three years. She also practiced at Gruber Hurst Elrod and Locke Lord in Dallas during the past two decades. She has tried 10 civil cases and 14 criminal cases to a jury.
“This is an incredible opportunity that I could not refuse,” Brown told The Texas Lawbook. “I’ve never done legal work for Kimberly-Clark, but I’ve known the company and its values and principles for many years. The fact that it is a consumer-facing business is great because it drives cultural diversity, which is important to me.”
Melucci said that Brown, who is married to Kronos Worldwide General Counsel Clarence Brown, was selected from a national search conducted by the executive headhunting firm Spencer Stuart.
“We fielded candidates from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles and all areas in between and Shonn was the best candidate,” he said. “It is a big bonus that she is a diverse woman. We are really pleased to have someone with such in-depth trial and litigation skills and experience.”
Kimberly-Clark named Melucci as its general counsel 18 months ago. The legal department has nearly 100 lawyers – about half of them are based in the U.S. and about 15 are in the Dallas. The company has an annual legal budget of $110 million – about $25-30 million of it is spent on outside counsel. Kimberly-Clark works with a handful of preferred legal providers, but it uses the Dallas office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher for most of its top litigation and corporate transactional work.
“As a company, we are undergoing a transformation in the legal department as the business expands globally – we are now in 175 countries,” Melucci said. “We face more complex and challenging issues, which require new and different capabilities.
“We have very significant matters all over the world and Shonn will be deeply involved in helping us with them,” she said.
Brown’s big courtroom victories include a 2014 jury verdict in which a Dallas jury ruled that Honeywell committed fraud against Hunt Consolidated and awarded $1.4 million in damages.
“Representing Highland Capital in trials also shaped me as a trial lawyer,” she said. “Highland Capital can be an intense client with extremely complex issues and representing them made me a better advocate.
“As an advocate, I think that I’ve tried my last case,” she said. “Because I’ve been in the trenches, I am able to be a reliable and insightful advisor for my new business client.”
Lynn Pinker partner Michael Hurst, who has worked with Brown for several years, said he is “heartbroken” that Brown is leaving the firm, but that it is an incredible career opportunity for her.
“Shonn is a great lawyer and a great person, and she will be successful at anything she tries,” Hurst said. “But I disagree with Shonn on one thing: I think she will miss the courtroom and we will see her in trial again.”