AT&T GC Wayne Watts Retires

© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.By Mark Curriden (Aug. 21) – AT&T announced Thursday that Wayne Watts, widely recognized as one of the most influential business lawyers in the U.S., is retiring as general counsel and senior executive vice president. The Dallas-based communications giant said that David McAtee, its assistant general counsel for litigation, will replace Watts as its chief legal officer on Oct. 1. McAtee, a 1994 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, is a former partner and antitrust law specialist at Haynes and Boone in Dallas. During his nearly 32 years at AT&T, Watts was directly involved in negotiating dozens of mergers and acquisitions with a combined value of nearly $250 billion. He did the legal work on nearly every deal that transformed Southwestern Bell, the smallest of the Baby Bells, into the world’s largest communications business. And he personally negotiated AT&T’s recent purchase of DirecTV for $49 billion. AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, in a written statement, said that Watts has been “a key leader in transforming AT&T into a mobile, Internet and entertainment company. “He is without question one of the top legal minds in corporate America, a well-respected and trusted counselor and…