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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 2026 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

Staying Busy: Baker Botts, Five Other Firms Top H1 CapM Rankings

During a down year for the capital markets practice in Texas, a handful of law firms stayed busy. None were busier than the lawyers at Baker Botts. Latham, V&E, Gibson Dunn, Hunton AK and Bracewell also had impressive showings for the first six months of 2022, according to The Texas Lawbook’s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker, which tracks securities offerings handled by lawyers in Texas.

Updated

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

Elite Law Firms Dominate Corp. Deal Tracker Law Firm M&A Rankings

Forty-four corporate law firms with offices in Texas reported that their lawyers in Texas played a substantive role in representing buyers, sellers, targets, conflicts committees, financial institutions and other third parties in various kinds of transactions in which assets were bought, sold or merged. A handful of elite law firms – Sidley, Kirkland, V&E, Latham, Gibson Dunn, to name a few – topped The Texas Lawbook’s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker law firm rankings for the first half of 2022. Several Texas-headquartered corporate firms also experienced a strong six months, including Haynes and Boone, Baker Botts, Akin Gump and Locke Lord. Four law firms had Texas lawyers who worked on nearly three-quarters of all the transactions that had deal values of $500 million or more.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

CDT: H1 2022 – A Time for Smaller Deals

The first half of the year in Texas M&A was dominated by the mid- to lower-market transactions, according to data gathered by The Texas Lawbook Corporate Deal Tracker. Although dealmaking was robust, the values of those deals declined dramatically. Of 507 deals reported by Texas lawyers, only a handful were valued at $5 billion or more, and deals valued at more than $1 billion declined dramatically from 2021. On the other hand, deals valued under $100 million help push the year's deal counts to impressive levels. The Texas Lawbook has the details.

Allen Pusey & Mark Curriden

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