The August 2024 letter from Brinker Corporate Counsel Cameasha Turner to the Huntsville parole board office was simple:
I am writing as a daughter who has lived her entire life without her father. My name is Cameasha Turner, and my father, Vincent Roland, TDC # 00758004, has been incarcerated since I was one year old. I have no memories of him tucking me in, walking me to school, or showing up when I needed him. Not because he did not want to but because he was taken away before I ever had the chance to know him as a father.
Turner’s childhood and the story of her father, who is up for a parole later this year after being sentenced in 1994 to 60 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, is the reason that Turner is the successful corporate lawyer and community leader that she is today.
“We lived in apartments in West Dallas most of our life, surrounded by violence, gangs and constant uncertainty,” she told The Texas Lawbook. “There were many nights when I didn’t know what our next meal would be, and plenty of days when I went to school without having eaten anything close to three meals a day or anything nutritional. But even in all of that, we protected each other. That closeness is what carried us through.”
“That’s the world I grew up in — one that forced me to grow up fast, but also shaped my resilience, my perspective and my drive,” she said.
Turner was in third grade when her mom “told me my dad’s story.”
“It changed my life. It was truly a life-altering moment for me,” she said. “My dad was 18 when he was wrongfully convicted. He had fallen in with the wrong people, refused to point the finger at the person who committed the crime and ended up with a life sentence that was later reduced to 60-to-life. Hearing that as a child was heavy. I didn’t know how to process the shame or the hurt, but I did know one thing: It wasn’t right.”
“Wanting justice for my dad is what sparked it, but understanding the power of education is what carried me the rest of the way,” she said.
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Cam Turner discusses the traits she seeks in outside counsel, what outside counsel need to know when working with her and more.
More than two decades later, Turner, a former Academic All-American college basketball player, is having a direct business and legal impact as the principal legal counsel at Brinker, a Dallas-based, publicly traded, multinational hospitality company with 2025 revenues exceeding $5.38 billion and whose restaurant brands include Chili’s and Maggiano’s Little Italy.
During the past two years, Turner has developed and implemented new contract policy guidelines and processes for all their restaurant managers to follow regarding their supply chains. She has fostered better collaboration and communication among departments across the global operation by providing a non-intimidating venue she calls “Cam’s Corner,” where managers can informally drop by to visit with her and discuss supply chain and training issues.
And Turner now leads Brinker’s contract lifecycle management initiative, which drives process innovation and ensures consistency and scalability in contract management. This effort has positioned the legal department as a strategic partner in the company’s operational success.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Lawbook have named Turner as a finalist for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year, which is awarded to counsel who have been in-house for three years or less.
The DFW Corporate Counsel Awards ceremony will be held Jan. 29.
“Cam’s work in establishing these standardized processes across the company has created a measurable impact — saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars from a risk standpoint, as evidenced by vendor feedback,” said Sidley Austin partner Courtney Gilberg, who nominated Turner for the honor.
Brinker Assistant General Counsel Julie S. Feldman said Turner’s background as an athlete “has given her the focus and team mentality that I believe makes her a great lawyer, particularly in-house.”
“She has a collaborative approach, with an eye toward coaching,” Feldman said. “She is the legal lead for our commercial contract function and has created a fabulous partnership with our team in procurement. But what sets her apart is that she isn’t just marking up documents and sending back, she’s coaching the team on the ‘whys’ and empowering them to better understand our business contracts.”
Turner said one of her biggest accomplishments has been addressing recurring supply-chain contracts at the 1,600 restaurants across 29 countries.
“Vendors across multiple cities and states were entering restaurants and getting managers to sign contracts on the spot,” she said. “Our managers are focused on running their restaurants and supporting their teams, not reviewing legal agreements. Over time, we started to see a pattern. Individually, these contracts involved small dollar amounts. Collectively, they created significant financial exposure through one-sided terms, liquidated damages and lack of termination-for-convenience provisions.”
Turner said she initially negotiated the agreements one by one, but then she set out to prevent it from happening altogether. She “pulled together a cross-functional group” from different departments “to approach the issue systemically.”
“We developed guidance and a clear policy for restaurant managers, including a practical guide sheet explaining what not to sign and when to escalate,” she said. “The impact was significant. We reduced financial exposure, eliminated recurring liquidated damages and relieved stress on managers who had been dealing with conflicting vendors and unclear direction. What started as ‘low-dollar’ issues, when viewed holistically, had been materially impacting restaurant profitability. By addressing it at scale and securing (executive leadership team) support, we were able to stop the behavior entirely, not just clean it up after the fact.”
“For me, this work reflected the evolution of my role at Brinker, stepping back, understanding the root cause, building alignment and implementing solutions that protect the business while making life easier for our teams,” she said.
Jacobs Deputy General Counsel Chasity Henry first met Turner when Turner was a first-year law student.
“From the very beginning I was struck by her tenacity, curiosity and deep intellectual drive,” Henry said. “Even then, she was intentional about building relationships, seeking guidance and continuously expanding her understanding of the profession.”
Henry and Turner stayed in contact in the years that followed.
“I’ve had the privilege of watching her continue to grow — from developing her skills in private practice, to moving into M&A work, and ultimately making the transition in-house,” Henry said. “The reason Cameasha is thriving today is the same reason she stood out years ago: her growth mindset, her commitment to lifelong learning, and her determination to keep pushing herself forward. Those qualities already make her a strong and trusted attorney and leader, and I have no doubt they will continue to propel her success and impact as her career unfolds.”
Turner is also a member of the professional advocacy group The New Roundtable, which Henry founded.
Now 31, Turner is the oldest daughter in a family of nine. She was raised by a single mother in two- and three-bedroom apartments in West Dallas. One bedroom was for her six brothers and the other bedroom for her mom. She and some of her siblings slept on the living room floor.
“I grew up in what some would consider the projects — a poor and very tight-knit community where survival was a daily focus for many of us,” she said.” My mom did not work, relied on Section-8, government assistance and Medicaid, and she still did everything she could to keep us afloat.”
Her father dropped out of school after fifth grade and worked construction jobs and at a barbershop.
Turner was only a few months old when her father was arrested.
“Mom could not always be home, so it was my responsibility to keep my siblings safe, get my siblings up every morning at 6 a.m. to make sure they were dressed, and would walk them to and from school,” she said. “I cooked, cleaned, handled bedtime and kept us moving through each day. I wasn’t just the oldest sibling; I was the adult in the room more often than not when mom wasn’t around.”
Turner was the first in her family to go to college and the first and only lawyer in her family.
“I frankly had to chart my own path from scratch, without a blueprint or anyone to call for guidance,” she said.
“The idea of becoming a lawyer started when I learned the truth about my dad,” she said. “I grew up in an under-resourced community with crowded classrooms, missing textbooks and teachers who were stretched thin or absent. Even then, I knew I wanted more, but I didn’t yet know what ‘more’ looked like.”
“My first instinct was simple; I wanted to get him out,” Turner said. “And the more I talked to teachers and the more I paid attention in school, the more I understood that the only real path to helping him, and people like him, ran through education and the law. That was the moment the idea of being a lawyer became real for me — not abstract, not a dream but direction.”
Turner also credits her second-grade teacher, Cathey DeRouen, whom she said “truly changed the course of my life.” DeRouen taught her older siblings, as well, and she understood the challenges Turner’s mom faced as a single parent raising nine children.
“She invested in me in ways I didn’t yet know how to ask for. That investment went far beyond the classroom,” she said. “She introduced me to God and sat me down one day to talk to me about Jesus, something I had never really learned before. That was the moment I accepted Christ into my life. I learned that no matter my circumstances, God was with me every step of the way. I learned that I was loved, that I had nothing to be ashamed of and that God was forgiving and full of grace. I also learned that He does not put more on us than we can bear, which helped me understand that there was a reason for my struggle.”
“My upbringing was not easy. I saw violence, instability, trauma and the realities of poverty in my community and schools,” Turner said. “My faith became the thing that grounded me, kept me steady, and helped me make sense of a world that often felt unfair. That foundation shaped my character just as much as my ambition. I give all credit to my teacher and to God for where I am today.”
Besides her academic drive, Turner found she has a passion and talent for basketball. She graduated valedictorian from her high school in South Dallas. She earned her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the University of Texas at El Paso, where she was also a Division I student-athlete and a standout leader on the women’s basketball team. In fact, she was named an NCAA Top 2 Woman of the Year finalist, an Academic All-American and a recipient of the NCAA Scholar Athlete Award.
Turner earned her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 2019.
Turner spent two and a half years as an associate at Locke Lord and two more years as an associate in the corporate practice at Sidley Austin.
Turner said that Covid-19 “completely reshaped my career.”
“I graduated law school in 2019 excited, motivated and had finally found my footing in big law. I was learning fast, doing meaningful work and beginning to grow into the attorney I wanted to become,” she said. “Then the world shut down.”
“Almost overnight, work slowed. Opportunities disappeared. Development stalled. I went from an excited young associate to feeling invisible,” she said.
Turner used the Covid-19 shutdown to accept a clerking position with U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant of the Eastern District of Texas. Then she returned to Locke Lord.
“When I returned to the firm, I had clarity,” she said. “During Covid, I rarely saw my corporate friends because they were always working and overwhelmed. I knew the firm needed help, and I knew I could be that help. I told the firm I wanted to pivot into corporate, even knowing it meant starting over as a brand-new attorney in many ways. I trusted my ability to adapt.”
Turner said she gravitated toward her corporate mentors, who “seemed happier in their careers.”
“They had more direct client interaction, more people engagement and more opportunities to lead teams earlier,” she said. “They were expected to speak with clients, represent the business and help shape decisions. From the outside, it looked like they had more control over their careers and more ability to intentionally build the path they wanted.”
“I genuinely enjoyed working with clients who were deeply invested in their businesses,” she said. “I enjoyed hearing how they talked about their goals, their priorities and what mattered to them. Even though I might be supporting multiple clients, each one cared about different things, and that nuance excited me. The work was still challenging, but it felt more connected, more practical and more aligned with who I am. That clarity is what ultimately pushed me toward going in-house.”
Then, “almost out of nowhere,” Turner received a message from a Brinker recruiter.
“I didn’t fully know Brinker as a company, but I knew Chili’s and Maggiano’s,” she said. “Chili’s had been my favorite restaurant in college, and while Maggiano’s was a little out of budget back then, I remembered the family-style meals and how it made people feel when I went during my time attending Notre Dame.”
Turner had not considered the restaurant industry, but she met with Brinker’s general counsel and the supply chain team she would be handling and “everything clicked.”
“People were wearing jeans, sleeves were rolled up, hats were on and yet these were some of the smartest people in the industry,” she said. “From the first conversation, it felt right. I don’t say that lightly, it truly felt like a natural fit. They talked about culture, about the idea that life is short and work should be fulfilling. That philosophy matched how I had always felt. Law school felt overly serious to me. Firm life often felt political and rigid. I just wanted to be myself and do great work.”
“That has been exactly my experience,” she said. “I’ve had the opportunity to work on meaningful matters, support a passionate supply chain team and be part of something bigger than myself. Looking back, joining Brinker was not just a career move, it was the right personal and professional fit.”
Turner said that her biggest challenge at Brinker has been managing her own mindset.
“From day one, I saw how much there was to do and how much I could help,” she said. “My instinct was to fix things immediately, identify the problem and provide the solution. That is how I am wired, and that is how I was trained. What I had to learn was to slow down. I had to give myself the space to truly learn the business, learn the people, and understand the culture before jumping into solutions.”
Turner said that an important leadership lesson she realized was to “understand why something has been done a certain way for a long time, recognizing that it may have worked and then figuring out how to build buy-in for change.”
“I am naturally solution-oriented and very practical,” she said. “I want to give actionable advice and be a trusted advisor. But I learned quickly that trust is not built by coming in with all the answers and telling people what needs to be fixed. The real work has been rethinking how I show up as a trusted advisor and leader. That meant shifting from ‘here is the solution’ to listening first, understanding context and earning credibility.”
“In firm practice, we are trained to take ownership immediately, be solution-driven and let our individual style shine,” she said. “That is how you advance. In-house, it truly requires a different posture — stepping back, slowing down, learning the lingo, understanding the why and then bringing people along with you before proposing change.”
Gilberg, the Sidley partner, said Turner’s “achievements go far beyond her distinguished legal career.”
“Cam embodies excellence, resilience, and purpose, bringing the same focus that defined her on the basketball court to her career in law, leadership and service,” she said.
Retired U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn, who has been a mentor to Turner, said she “is a good listener and always strives to do her best.”
“Cam is an excellent team player and motivates others to perform at their highest levels,” said Lynn, who is now a partner at Lynn Pinker in Dallas. “She is a lifelong learner and uses that learning and her excellent instincts to improve any challenging situations.”
Turner devotes considerable time and energy to pro bono work through the Dallas Volunteer Attorneys Program, where she has focused on helping people with prior convictions clear their official records.
“This work is deeply personal to me,” she said. “I have seen time and time again is how difficult it is for people with records — even minor ones — to find meaningful employment. Regardless of how someone arrived at that moment, if the offense is not egregious and does not warrant lifelong consequences, people deserve the opportunity to start over.”
“I genuinely believe we all deserve second chances. Our faith teaches forgiveness and grace, and I believe our justice system should reflect that value wherever possible,” she said.
Then there is the Denton County case against her father. In 1994, a group of young men who were friends of her father robbed a pizza delivery guy. Her father did not participate in the robbery, but those who did pointed the finger at him. At trial, he refused to point the finger back.
“Our family was threatened if he testified against them,” Turner told The Lawbook.
An all-white jury found him guilty and the white judge sentenced him to life in prison, even though the pizza delivery guy was not seriously injured.
In July, Turner’s father will have a hearing for his first chance at parole.
In her letter to the parole board, Turner said she is simply a “daughter who wants her father home.”
Despite his absence, my father never stopped being a source of strength to me. Through letters, calls, and limited contact, he encouraged me to keep going when life felt overwhelming. His resilience and faith inspired me to pursue a career in law, rooted in justice and fairness.
If my father is released, he will not be returning to uncertainty. He will be returning to family who loves him and is ready to support him fully. I am prepared to help him secure housing, employment, and stability. I own rental properties, have a strong professional network, and am actively working to ensure he has structure and purpose upon release. More importantly, he will finally be surrounded by people who believe in him and want him to succeed. Our family has already paid a heavy price for his absence. I paid that price as a child, growing up without protection, guidance, or a father’s love. Allowing my father to come home would not undo the past, but it would give us something we have never had, the chance to move forward together. My father wants to live the rest of his life as a present parent, a supportive family member, and a law-abiding citizen. I believe deeply that he deserves that chance.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story and consider what his release would mean, not just for him, but for the daughter who has waited her entire life to finally have her father home.
Fun Facts: Cam Turner
- Favorite book: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I love this book because it teaches you how to be a good person and a great friend. While it’s often considered a business book, the lessons are universal: The way you show up in life truly shapes how people see and remember you. If you’re business-minded or just want to improve your relationships, I highly recommend it. It’s practical, timeless and impactful.
- Favorite music group: I don’t have a single favorite group, but I really enjoy Maverick City. It’s a collective of gospel artists, and their music is just so uplifting. I listen to it in the mornings, while cleaning on Sundays or anytime I need a boost. I am a believer, so it is my favorite genre of music. Even if you’re not a believer, this music is good for the soul, truly energizing and inspiring.
- Favorite movie: The Notebook. I’m a sucker for romance, and this movie is a beautiful love story about two people who find each other through life’s twists and turns. It’s heartbreaking yet heartwarming, and it reminds me that what’s meant to be usually finds its way.
- Favorite restaurant: Chili’s, of course! My favorite dish is the Honey-Chipotle Chicken Crispers, burgers and street corn. So if you go, make sure to try all of them, as they are my personal favorites. Run, don’t walk — Chili’s is the place to be these days!
- Favorite beverage: For nonalcoholic, it’s lemon-ginger tea with honey. I drink it every morning during my devotional or sometimes before bed while reading. For alcoholic, my go-to is a gin gimlet, the ingredients are lime juice, simple syrup and gin. Perfect combination.
- Favorite vacation: I love to travel. My favorite trip so far was to Cabo, Mexico. I stayed at an all-inclusive resort, went on excursions, rode jet skis, learned about the local history and even saw a Michael Jackson impersonator in concert, which was an amazing performance. I love Michael Jackson! It was relaxing, fun and memorable, and it reminded me how much I love exploring new places and cultures.
- Hero in life: My mom. She’s the strongest woman I know. She provided for my siblings and me, instilled values I carry to this day and showed unwavering love. Even through the struggle, her strength, resilience and dedication inspire me every single day. I would not be who I am today without her.