Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
For the past year, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation GC Eunice Nakamura has led a team of lawyers from law firms such as DLA Piper in fundamentally restructuring Komen through a series of 61 corporate transactions that brings Komen affiliates around the U.S. under the HQ's full control.
It was a week ago Thursday at 11:30 p.m. Dawud Crooms' cell phone buzzed. "There's an issue holding it up," the caller told the 7-Eleven senior counsel. It was the Dallas-based convenience store chain’s $21 billion acquisition of Speedway. “It’s not an M&A if something doesn’t pop up at the last minute that threatens the whole deal,” Crooms laughs. This is the story of Crooms, a 38-year-old Morehouse alum who worked with dozens of lawyers and bankers for more than a year through a pandemic from the bedroom of his four kids to get one of the biggest M&A deals of the year completed.
PREMIUM CONTENT The Texas Lawbook, visited with Dawud Crooms about his mentors, pro bono and public service involvement and how he selects outside counsel.
Mergers and acquisitions that end up in high-stakes litigation are often about two issues: the fine print of the transaction agreement and the intent of the buyers and sellers. No one knows this more than Forterra GC Lori Browne, who spent the past six years battling the German company that sold the water and drainage pipe maker to private equity fund Lone Star for $1.3 billion on Christmas Eve 2014. Browne won the case and the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
FOR PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS Forterra GC Lori Browne spent six years battling the German company that on Christmas Eve 2014 sold the water and drainage pipe maker to private equity fund Lone Star for $1.3 billion. Texas Lawbook founder Mark Curriden had the opportunity to speak with Browne about what she looks for when hiring outside counsel, how her job evolved during those six years of litigation and what personal experiences have have most impacted her life.
Mark Shaw has seen a lot of crises during his 21 years as a lawyer at Southwest Airlines, but nothing like the Covid-19 pandemic. Shaw and his legal team were front and center in dealing with nearly all aspects of the pandemic. Critical were multiple securities offerings, convertible notes and federal loans and grants from the federal government that allowed Southwest to raise an extraordinary $18.5 billion in capital in a period of a few months - moves that allowed the airline to avoid drastic budget cuts.
PREMIUM CONTENT Mark Shaw has seen his share of crises. Maybe more than his share. Mark Curriden, founder of The Texas Lawbook, grabbed an opportunity to chat with Shaw about what he looks for when hiring a law firm: what he values most in making those decisions, as well as what turns him off in working with other lawyers.
Shonn Brown was 12 years old and walking home from school when a car of white men called her the N-word and sprayed her with orange soda. Fast-forward 35 years – a Friday night last May – Brown learned that a Sonic manager threatened to call the police on her 17-year-old son and his friends – all African American – if they didn’t leave the premises.
“This is my life. This is my Black son’s life. This is our reality,” Brown wrote on Facebook. Now a year later, Brown, a highly successful commercial trial lawyer and deputy GC at Kimberly-Clark Corporation, has become one of the strongest voices for diversity and inclusion in Texas. This is her story.
PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Mark Curriden, founder of The Texas Lawbook, talked to Brown about her best day at Kimberly-Clark, steering an essential business through the pandemic and diversity in the legal profession.
The largest business immigration law firm in Texas is expanding into Dallas-Fort Worth. Houston-based Foster LLP announced Thursday that it has acquired Elise Healy + Associates, which also specializes in representing large and mid-sized companies in a host of immigration-related employment matters.
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