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Natalie Posgate

Natalie Posgate covers pro bono work, public service and diversity within the Texas legal community.

Natalie Posgate

Natalie Posgate covers pro bono work, public service and diversity within the Texas legal community.

Natalie joined The Texas Lawbook in 2012 as a founding staff member shortly after receiving her Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Southern Methodist University. While at SMU, Natalie and SMU-classmate-turned-Lawbook-colleague Brooks Igo published “Sweeping Rape Under the Rug,” an award-winning investigative piece about SMU’s handling of on-campus sexual assaults. Later that year, Natalie and Brooks published a follow-up piece that broke the news of the first grand jury indictment in decades of an SMU student involving an alleged on-campus sexual assault. She began her reporting career in college as an intern for The Dallas Morning News’ breaking news desk, and before that, interned for Texas Highways magazine.

In the early days of The Lawbook, Natalie served as a general assignment reporter and covered everything from lawsuits to Texas law schools to mergers and acquisitions to legal industry trends. Before launching The Lawbook’s pro bono, public service and diversity beat, Natalie served as senior litigation writer. She has covered numerous high-profile trials gavel-to-gavel, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s 2013 insider trading case against Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban and a 2018 products liability trial that rendered a $242 million jury verdict against Toyota Motor Corp.

In 2021, Natalie profiled former East Texas federal prosecutor Joshua Russ, who went on the record for the first time with Posgate about resigning and filing a whistleblower complaint against the Department of Justice for its alleged political interference in a civil case Russ was leading against Walmart for its role in the opioid crisis. The piece is cited in a chapter of “Servants of the Damned,” a book released in September 2022 by New York Times journalist and bestselling author David Enrich.

Through The Lawbook’s content partnerships, Natalie’s work has regularly reappeared in the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Business Journal and The Dallas Morning News.

Natalie lives in East Dallas with her husband David and German Shorthaired Pointer rescue Stella. She is an avid runner, reader, hiker and coffee drinker.

P.S. — UH Law’s New Immigration Clinic Director, DVAP Pro Bono Awards, The “Why” Behind HBA’s Harvest Celebration

This week’s edition of P.S. features the fundraising outcome of the JL Turner Legal Association Foundation’s annual awards gala, an Arlington nonprofit that received federal funding to help prevent youth homelessness, select quotes from partners at Baker Botts and Hunton Andrews Kurth and LyondellBasell’s general counsel on why supporting this year’s Houston Bar Association Harvest Celebration was important to their organizations, this year’s recipients of the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program’s pro bono awards, and the University of Houston Law Center’s newest legal clinic hire.

Natalie Posgate

Three Senior In-House Lawyers on How to Gain (and Lose) their Business

During a panel discussion last Friday at the Texas Minority Counsel Program’s 31st annual conference in Houston, the three high-ranking in-house lawyers at Goldman Sachs, Energy Transfer and Republic National Distributing went into detail on what they look for in outside counsel, and also offered a plethora of ways law firms could immediately land in the doghouse — if not lose their business immediately. 

Natalie Posgate

P.S. — TMCP Fights DEI Vampires; Haynes Boone Did Not Ghost on 2023 Pro Bono Work 

In this special Halloween edition of P.S., Natalie Posgate highlights details from the Texas Minority Council Program awards, the recipients of A&M Law’s 2023 Alumni Legacy Awards, NAMWOLF’s 2023 law firm MVP, November legal clinic dates in Dallas (the first one falling on Día de los Muertos), a Texas Access to Justice Foundation luncheon that honored a group of individuals for their efforts during the Texas Legislature’s 88th session, and how Haynes Boone celebrated the end of the ABA’s National Celebration of Pro Bono last week.

Natalie Posgate

Three Diverse Managing Partners Talk Shop, Share Wisdom at TMCP

Three diverse managing partners — Quinn Emanuel’s Chris Porter, Reed Smith’s Omar Alaniz and Thompson Coburn’s Nicole Williams — swapped stories, described their leadership styles, shared their approach to DEI in the office and gave career development advice to young diverse attorneys at last week’s Texas Minority Council Program’s 31st Annual Conference in Houston. Natalie Posgate was in the room and has the highlights.

Natalie Posgate

Ed Blum Sues Winston Challenging DEI Fellowship

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Houston federal court, alleges one of Winston’s diversity fellowship programs “has been racially discriminating against future lawyers for years” because the only law students considered for the DEI-oriented fellowship are those who “belong to a group that is ‘diverse,’ ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘historically underrepresented’ — Winston’s shorthand for not a straight white male.” Winston is the third law firm to be sued by conservative legal activist Edward Blum and his organization, American Alliance for Equal Rights.

Natalie Posgate

TMCP Panel: Diversity Fatigue Rampant on Both Sides of the Corporate Aisle

White lawyers, a word of caution: Your colleagues of color are sick of having to constantly educate you on racial issues and the nuances of diversity, equity and inclusion. Lawyers of color: We know you are exhausted, but there are still benefits — both institutional and personal — in continuing to play the game.

These were the two main takeaways during a panel discussion of law firm partners Thursday afternoon at the Texas Minority Counsel Program’s 31st annual conference in Houston.

Natalie Posgate

Four Texas GCs: ‘The Why for [DEI] is Especially Important’

Four Texas-based general counsel — Justin Johnson of Jacobs, Monica Karuturi of CenterPoint Energy, Aparna Dave of the Texas Dow Employees Credit Union and Clay Allen of the Houston Rockets — kicked off the 31st Annual Texas Minority Counsel Program conference discussing the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion to them personally and how it comes into strategic play at their organizations. The four GCs also talked about their preferences and dislikes about law firm business development efforts. Texas Lawbook pro bono, public service and diversity reporter Natalie Posgate is at the event and filed this report.

Natalie Posgate

P.S. — Noche de Luz Honorees, Walls of Honor, A Six-Figure Grant 

This week's edition of P.S. features opportunities to support the ABA's public service, policy and education initiatives, the unveiling of three displays at the University of Houston Law Center honoring notable Hispanic and African American alums and faculty, a group of lawyers recognized by the Dallas Hispanic Bar Association’s annual gala, Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas’ honoring of volunteer lawyers in the Austin area and a six-figure grant gifted from one Dallas-area nonprofit to another. 

Natalie Posgate

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