AT&T Names David McAtee II To Lead Global Litigation Efforts

by Mark Curriden, Senior Legal Affairs Writer

David McAtee Sr. was preparing to argue a landmark case before the Texas Supreme Court in 1993. His client, Walmart, had been hit with a big jury verdict for gross negligence after a customer had been seriously injured when she tripped over an uneven sidewalk outside a South Texas store.

At dinner, McAtee explained the case to his son, who was then a second-year law student at the University of Texas.

“David immediately put his finger on the critical issue and he told me that the Supreme Court is going to want to know why it shouldn’t not be considered gross negligence when it would have cost Walmart only a few dollars to repair the sidewalk,” says McAtee, who is a partner in the litigation section at Akin Gump in Dallas. “My son was exactly right. The justices focused on that exact question and it was the key to us winning the case.”

Nineteen years later, AT&T officials cite the same kind of strategic thinking in naming the son, David R. McAtee II, as its new senior vice president and assistant general counsel for AT&T.

AT&T General Counsel Wayne Watts selected McAtee to be his top lieutenant overseeing all litigation and antitrust matters for the Dallas-based telecommunications giant, which has more than 400 in-house lawyers in its corporate legal department and employs scores of lawyers at outside law firms.

McAtee, who had been a partner at Haynes and Boone in Dallas, has represented AT&T in numerous antitrust matters since 2005.

A 1994 graduate of the University of Texas Law School, McAtee led the team of lawyers last year that sought Federal Communications Commission approval of AT&T’s proposed $39 billion T-Mobile acquisition, which ended unsuccessfully in December.

McAtee reports directly to Watts and will participate in his first AT&T board meeting and audit committee meetings next week.

Widely regarded by his peers as one of the best young litigators in Texas, McAtee was believed by many to be on the shortlist for the managing partner’s position at Haynes & Boone at some point in the future.

“It was a blockbuster opportunity,” McAtee said in an interview with The Texas Lawbook.

McAtee was part of the Haynes and Boone legal team that advised SBC on antitrust matters in 2005 when the then-San Antonio-based company purchased AT&T in a deal reportedly valued at $16 billion.

One of his top priorities, McAtee says, is to restructure the litigation reporting process at AT&T so that all in-house lawyers involved in litigation and antitrust matters for all of the company’s subsidiaries report to him. Previously, those matters were handled by subject matters, such as intellectual property or contract disputes, or based on geography.

“The goal is to bring all litigation for all the AT&T companies under one person, and then I report to Wayne,” he says. “We want to make it a more cohesive and uniform way to manage litigation companywide and to sweep away the legacy distinctions and provide greater efficiency.”

But McAtee says he doesn’t expect to make many changes in how it handles its work with outside law firms.

“AT&T has a stable of law firms that we feel very comfortable with and that we’ve been able to obtain a good balance between costs and good results,” he says.

Haynes and Boone partner Barry McNeil says Wayne Watts could not have selected a better lawyer to head AT&T’s litigation practice.

“David’s middle name is organization,” says McNeil. “He is perfect for this position.”