Corporate in-house counsel from companies including Flowserve, NexTier, Pinnacle Propane and Seabed Geosolutions are among the recipients of the 2020 Magna Stella Awards.
Jing Bian ‘Proves that Nice People Can Finish First’
International corporate mergers often hinge on the meaning of a single term or the interpretation of a response. Enter Energy Transfer senior counsel Jing Bian, a Chinese-born, Harvard Law-educated M&A lawyer used her knowledge of Chinese culture and fluency in Mandarin to help guide the pipeline giant through a crucial joint venture. Citing Bian’s extraordinary success in less than two years in-house, Jing Bian is the 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards Rookie of the Year.
Q&A: Kevin McDonald
Citing his extraordinary leadership and legal acumen throughout the merger, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have awarded the 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department to NetTier General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer Kevin McDonald.
Marlie Ruth’s Cancer Fighting, Mutton Bustin’ Gives GC Kevin McDonald Perspective
Kevin McDonald has experienced extraordinary career successes. He has rung the opening or closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange three times with three companies. In 2019, he helped engineer a $1.8 billion merger between Keane Group and C&J Energy, creating an oil field services powerhouse with more than $4 billion in annual revenues. For those achievements and more, McDonald is the 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department. The Texas Lawbook has his complete story – and an amazing story it is.
Veronica Foley Is Precision Drilling’s ‘Key to Success’
Veronica Foley was five when her grandfather, a lawyer in Columbia, was assassinated for being a political activist. The family lived in constant fear. She took different routes to school daily. Nearly four decades later, Foley is the general counsel at Precision Drilling. She and lawyers at Norton Rose Fulbright last year won a heated 8-year FLSA battle that could have been devastating for the Houston company. Foley and the law firm are the recipients of the 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel Business Litigation of the Year Award. The Texas Lawbook has the exclusive inside story.
GC Leanne Oliver’s Long and Winding Road to Law and Corporate America
Leanne Oliver could write the ultimate guide to girls about growing up. She lived in hippie communes, an old blue-green school bus, in the woods of North Idaho, in a 100-year-old log cabin and then back on the old school bus. That was just in elementary school. Today, Oliver is the GC of PepsiCo Foods North America and one of the most influential voices in the Texas corporate law community. She has a story to tell and she tells it to The Texas Lawbook.
Jared Sine’s So Far, So Good, Very Remarkable Year
While the rest of us have been dodging disaster, Jared Sine has been having a very, very good year. After settling with Bumble, the chief legal officer for Match helped guide the company through a reverse-split from Barry Diller’s IAC. Even in the best of times, it’s a complicated transaction that requires intense attention, a firm sense of direction and lots of luck. But add to that an economic collapse and a global pandemic and you … well, Sine explains what it took to The Texas Lawbook.
Eco-Bat Hires Daniel Terrell as new GC
Fresh out of bankruptcy, Dallas-based Eco-Bat Technologies has hired former Stream Energy general counsel and Baker Botts special counsel Daniel Terrell as the company’s first chief legal officer.
Toyota’s Scott Young Receives Texas Access to Justice Award
The Texas Access to Justice Commission has presented its 2020 Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Award to Toyota Managing Counsel Scott Young. Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman said Young “has an unwavering commitment to pro bono work.”
Five Texas GCs Ask Congress to Increase Legal Aid Funding
The chief legal officers at AT&T, Dell, Kimberly-Clark, LyondellBasell and Pioneer Natural Resources joined colleagues from across the U.S. in asking the U.S. Congress to significantly raise the amount of funding it provides to the Legal Services Corporation.
