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GCs/Corp. Legal Depts.

Total Energies’ Cynthia Redwine Martinez Has ‘Solar-Coaster Street Cred’ in Leading the Energy Transition

During the past two years, TotalEnergies assistant general counsel Cynthia Redwine Martinez has become one of the leading renewable energy law experts in the U.S. But it didn’t happen overnight. And it didn’t happen by accident. The path she took started a couple decades ago as the daughter of a glass-ceiling-smashing, highly respected Houston lawyer who became the first general counsel for Rice University. Fast-forward more than a decade later. Her reputation in the world of renewable and solar energy law is nearly unmatched. From the fourth quarter of 2019 to the end of 2021, Martinez has been a lead lawyer in nearly a dozen major clean energy acquisitions and joint ventures involving offshore wind operations and solar projects.

Mark Curriden

Q&A: Ashley Hill

Premium-Only Content: Ashley Hill reveals her pet peeves regrading outside counsel and makes a case for being hopeful about the future of diversity in the legal profession.

Mark Curriden

For BHP’s Ashley Hill, ‘DEI is Organic, Has Never Met a Stranger’

BHP asked its senior in-house counsel Ashley Hill to help lead the global energy and minerals giant's efforts to diversify its ranks in two historically male-dominated industries: mining and oil and gas. The evidence five years later shows it could not have made a better selection. As BHP's top employment lawyer in the Americas, Hill was part of a thorough review of the company's recruiting, hiring, compensation and retention practices. She was instrumental in implementing a gender pay gap review that resulted in an increase in female salaries of more than $4 million.

Citing these significant successes, the Association of Corporate Counsel's Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Hill as one of the two finalists for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.

Mark Curriden

Q&A: Diane Greene

Premium-Only Content: Diane Greene describes her most life impacting experience and identifies what she looks for in hiring outside counsel.

Mark Curriden

Diane Greene & GSFSGroup Legal Team: ‘No Stopping Until There’s a Solution’

Diane Greene and her legal team at GSFSGroup faced a monumental task: Develop and complete a transformational partnership agreement regarding vehicle product services that required the approval of 23 state regulatory authorities and 15 consumer finance lenders — all in less than three months. And that was before the other side's GC left in the middle of the deal.

The agreement, the largest and most important in the history of GSFSGroup, added $165 million to its revenue stream and grew its product volume 28 percent. Greene and her team are finalists for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Transaction of the Year.

Mark Curriden

Q&A: Bo Shi

Premium-Only Content: Bo Shi shares insights for outside counsel and empathizes with those 5 p.m. Friday requests.

Mark Curriden

Rookie Crescent Energy GC Bo Shi is ‘Premier Example of Immediate Value’

Bo Shi had a crazy 2021. He started the year as a lawyer at Vinson & Elkins representing trading platform TradeZero Holding in a $556 million SPAC merger. Independence Energy hired Shi as GC in October where he spent three intense months in the company's $5.7 billion M&A deal with Contango Oil & Gas.

Nine weeks later, the transaction closed, a publicly traded company called Crescent Energy was created and Shi was named its GC. But there were no holiday breaks. Instead, he handled a $200 million securities offering and engineered an $815 million acquisition. The result: Shi is a finalist for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year.

Mark Curriden

Q&A: Travis Torrence

Premium-Only Content: Travis Torrence discusses his career mentors, what he looks for in hiring outside counsel and how law firms can improve retaining diverse talent.

Mark Curriden

Shell’s Travis Torrence ‘Brings His Authentic Self to the Table’

Travis Torrence was in high school when his aunt, a school teacher-turned-political activist, sued her local government under the Voting Rights Act challenging the “at-large” election system. “She won,” Torrence said. “That was the first time I noticed the law being used to effectuate societal change — change that for that community was historic. I remember thinking that the law was the key to justice, fairness, equity and equality.”

Torrence, the great-great grandson of a slave who is now the leader of Shell USA’s global litigation bankruptcy and credit team, fearlessly tackles diversity, equity and inclusion. He is a pioneer on issues of the diversity pipeline and programs that support the LGBTQ community. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook named Torrence as one of two finalists for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.

Mark Curriden

Q&A: Dona Cornell

Premium-Only Content: Dona Cornell talks about her best day on the job and what she looks for in the next generation of lawyers.

Mark Curriden

University of Houston System GC Dona Cornell is a ‘Force and Trailblazer’

Dona Cornell took the GC job at the University of Houston System in 2002 because she thought it would be a slower pace. "I was so wrong," Cornell said. "It is more like being in trial all the time." Twenty years later, Cornell is still the chief legal officer for the university system, which has an annual budget of more than $1.8 billion, more than 10,000 employees and 77,000 students. She and her legal team confront groundbreaking issues, including the university’s invitation to join the Big 12 Conference, significant changes to higher education law including Title IX and how to handle classes during the pandemic.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook award the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Nonprofit/Public Institution to University of Houston System General Counsel Dona Hamilton Cornell.

Mark Curriden

Q&A: Andy Wright

Premium-Only Content: Andy Wright dishes on what he sees as the most important business issue facing corporate legal departments and what he looks for in hiring outside counsel.

Mark Curriden

Talen GC Andy Wright – ‘No Issue He Won’t Tackle’

No corporate general counsel in the history of the Texas power industry has been involved in more multibillion-dollar deals or guided companies through as many business-threatening crises as Andrew Wright. He played a lead role in 2007 when private equity bought energy giant TXU for $45 billion. He co-led Energy Future Holdings through the eighth largest bankruptcy in the U.S. and co-led the subsequent spin-offs of Vistra Energy and the $18.8 billion Oncor sale.

Wright is now the GC at Talen Energy, where he is once again handling groundbreaking deals, dealing with the litigation aftermath of Winter Storm Uri and helping navigate his company through significant energy market challenges. Wright is also the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award recipient for General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.

Mark Curriden

Houston Transaction of the Year Finalists: Phillips 66 and GSFSGroup  

The panel that judged the Transaction of the Year category stated that both legal teams are “highly deserving” of the award. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook will honor the four and more than a dozen other corporate in-house lawyers on May 19 at the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards. The Texas Lawbook has exclusive details.

Mark Curriden

TX GC Forum Honors Mary Kay’s Julia Simon for Ethics and Law

Last week, the Texas General Counsel Forum honored Mary Kay Chief Legal Officer Julia Simon with its Robert H. Dedman Award for Ethics and Law. Kimberly-Clark Deputy GC Shonn Brown introduced Simon, calling her “a fierce advocate for justice and equity.” Simon said she accepted the award “knowing it’s my job to strive to live up to standards this award represents every day. I accept it knowing it’s not just for what I have done in the past but what I intend to do, now and in the future.” The Texas Lawbook has the exclusive details.

Mark Curriden

Dawud Crooms Joins Atlantic Aviation as GC

Dawud Crooms, an in-house lawyer who led Dallas retail giant 7-Eleven through 15 acquisitions with a combined deal value of about $30 billion during the past seven years, is the new general counsel at Atlantic Aviation, a private airline support-services operation. During his seven years at 7-Eleven, Crooms played a leading role in the convenience store chain’s purchase of Sunoco for $3.3 billion and its 2020 acquisition of Speedway for $21 billion.

Mark Curriden

Texas Mutual’s GC Retires After 26 Years as Workers’ Comp System’s Most Ardent Advocate

Mary Barrow Nichols retires Friday after 26 years as general counsel with a new startup building upon the wreckage in the mid-1990s of the Texas workers' comp system. The new startup? Texas Mutual Insurance Co. “You are now the person who cares more than anyone else about how the new Texas workers’ compensation law works,” her then-mentor, David Brown, told her as she left Vinson & Elkins. “It turns out," she says, "he has been right for 26 years.”

Mark Curriden

Exxon Mobil’s Tom Sikora: ‘The Master of International Arbitration’

Exxon Mobil senior counsel Tom Sikora has argued cases in scores of courts and tribunals in countries around the world. Sikora has led more than 50 international arbitrations with more than $80 billion at stake. He has tried cases against countries and national oil companies in more than 20 countries, including Argentina, Chile, Trinidad, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, Brazil, Canada, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, India, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Iraq.

“There are few people in the world with the experience and skillset of Tom Sikora,” said Norton Rose Fulbright partner Kevin O’Gorman.

Sikora's first international law case was in 1980. He was just 15. His family's freedom was at stake.

Mark Curriden

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