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Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

Comerica Closes $10.9B Merger, Wins DFW Corp. Counsel Award for M&A Transaction of the Year

Fifth Third Bank's merger with Dallas-based Comerica was a complex mega-transaction put extraordinary pressure on the Comerica legal department, which was already being pushed to the limit on other matters. But the $10.9 billion transaction announced on Oct. 6 officially closed this morning at 12:02 a.m., a mere four months after the deal was announced. Citing their extraordinary accomplishments, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook this past Thursday night honored the Comerica legal department and its outside counsel at Wachtell Lipton with the 2025 DFW M&A Transaction of the Year.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

Brett Barnes Helps Build Presidio into a Publicly Traded Powerhouse

Brett Barnes is a landman.

His title is general counsel for Presidio Production, a Fort Worth upstream oil & gas company. But Barnes is a landman. Maybe not in the sense of the popular Paramount streamer — "I've never been kidnapped by a cartel," he notes — but a landman, nonetheless.

For the last eight years, he's been GC at Presidio Petroleum, a company that acquires mature, producing oil and gas properties in a market that is hitting a newfound stride. The company is on the cusp of going public thanks to a deSPAC merger announced late last year.

The DFW Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook have named him 2025 GC of the Year for a Solo Legal Department.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

Look Closer, Think Bigger: The M&A Mindset of Celanese’s Adam Shulman

Adam Shulman lives by two lessons from his father: anything becomes interesting when examined closely, and mastery begins with the willingness to be terrible.

As vice president of corporate global strategy and development at Dallas-based Celanese, Shulman applies both principles daily. Celanese is a global leader in producing specialized chemicals and engineered materials essential to countless industries, from cellulose acetate used in glasses and packaging to high-performance polymers found in solar panels and orthopedic implants.

This appreciation for complexity and disciplined curiosity helped earn Shulman recognition from The Texas Lawbook and the DFW Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel as a finalist for the 2025 M&A Transaction of the Year.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

‘What Could Be Better?’: The Scratch-Golfer PGA Deputy GC Who Turned Passion into Profession

Ted Koehler has his dream job. And maybe yours.

He's a near-scratch golfer (a 0.90 handicap at the moment), a game he learned from his father. He makes his living advising the Professional Golfers' Association of America, the premier organization for more than 30,000 PGA professionals nationwide.

He gets to attend events like the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup. And because he's involved in their planning, it could be regarded as a job requirement. He gets to play some of the best golf courses in the world.

If dream jobs were golf balls, Koehler's has the feel of a 375-yard tee shot airmailed from a titanium driver, fairway-flush on the Par Five of Life.

As deputy general counsel in the PGA's three-attorney legal department, Koehler has been nominated by The Texas Lawbook and the DFW Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel as 2025 Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Practice.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

Mark Chavez, GC of Ocean Point Terminals, Creates Success from an Environmental Mess in a Caribbean Paradise

When Mark Chavez was brought on board as general counsel at Ocean Point Terminals in June 2021, he knew he had his work cut out for him. Its major client, a refinery on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, had been shut down by the EPA after a series of environmental incidents and was barreling towards bankruptcy. With the two companies bound together in service agreements that threatened both, all he had to do was negotiate a divorce with the other company, fend off four class-action lawsuits, defend dozens of other lawsuits, arrange more than $100 million in bridge financing and new capital, help re-permit the refinery and salvage the company's relationship with its island neighbors.

He did it; pretty much all of it. And as a result, Mark Chavez is a finalist for GC of the Year for a Small Legal Department (five or less lawyers) in the 2023 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

Will Marsh: This Son-of-a-Son-of-a-Lawyer Deals in the Complex

On what he later described as his best day as GC of Cactus Inc., a Houston-based wellhead and pressure-control provider, Will Marsh brought in the $621 million acquisition of tubing manufacturer FlexSteel Technologies Holdings.

The transformational deal marked a pretty good day for Cactus, as well. And now Marsh, Cactus and Bracewell, their outside counsel, are finalists in the 2023 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards for M&A Transaction of the Year.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

Texas M&A Law Firm Rankings Q1-Q3

The Texas lawyers at 12 corporate law firms were involved as lead counsel in 20 or more M&A deals during the first nine months of 2022. Four firms were lead legal advisors in more than 60 deals. One firm saw its attorneys in Austin, Dallas and Houston hit triple digits in deal count for lead legal advisors during the first three quarters of 2022.

The Texas Lawbook has released its exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker M&A law firm rankings for Jan. 1 through Sept. 30. The mission is to document transactional work done by lawyers in the Lone Star state.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

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