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GCs/Corp. Legal Depts.

Baker Hughes’ ‘Fearless’ VP of Litigation: Teresa Garcia-Reyes 

Baker Hughes shifted from defendant to plaintiff in a years-long legal battle with LiquidPower Specialty Products, overcoming patent infringement claims through inter partes review while building a strong antitrust case. This strategy, spanning U.S. and Canadian courts and the Patent Office, enabled Baker Hughes to settle in December 2024 and clear the way for a new product launch. Vice President of Litigation Teresa Garcia-Reyes, who oversees about 80 attorneys, emphasized the high stakes involved. “We are an energy technology company, so we take IP cases and the effect that they have on the ability to market our products very seriously,” she said. “There was real money at stake here, and it had been going on for so long, that it was nice to drive this one to closure.” The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook congratulate Garcia-Reyes for being selected as one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year. The awards ceremony is set for May 22 at the Four Seasons downtown.

Michelle Casady

Hines’ Richard Heaton ‘Listens But Does Not Hesitate’

To build a global group of lawyers from the ground up, a leader needs to communicate clearly about the culture being created while also earning the trust of business partners and scaling the function across geographies and practice types. In a dozen years at Hines, the private, Houston-based real estate investment giant, Chief Legal and Compliance Officer Richard Heaton has done just that by recruiting and training lawyers to work as one team across the 30 countries where the company operates. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook congratulate Heaton for being selected as one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston General Counsel of the Year Award. The awards ceremony is set for May 22 at the Four Seasons downtown.

Jason Philyaw

Phillips 66’s Kathleen Bertolatus is ‘the Full Package’

Kathleen Bertolatus had a “pivotal family conversation” with her dad three decades ago when she was looking at colleges. “His advice to me was that, since the most important role in my life was going to be as wife and mother, I should go to the least expensive school,” Bertolatus told The Texas Lawbook. “While my mother didn’t work outside the home, I already knew at that young age that I wanted to make a broader impact in the world.” Today, Bertolatus is a wife, a mother and one of the most respected environmental and regulatory lawyers in the energy industry, where she serves as managing counsel for Phillips 66. "I’m proud of 18-year-old me, and all those versions in between, for holding fast to a vision that has made my family and career successful,” she said. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Lawbook have selected Bertolatus as one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston Senior Counsel of the Year Award for a large legal department. The awards ceremony is set for May 22 at the Four Seasons downtown.

Mark Curriden & Jason Philyaw

With Ivett Hughes at the Helm in Houston, ‘Baker Hughes is a Corporate Leader in Pro Bono Service’ 

In the first quarter of 2024, Baker Hughes launched a global legal and compliance diversity, inclusion and belonging counsel with the mission of infusing those values into the legal department through internal and external engagement. Led by Ivett Hughes in Houston, a regional team of lawyers and staff partnered with Houston Volunteer Lawyers to represent four clients — roughly one pro bono case per five lawyers. They blew past their goal by 500 percent. The Houston Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook have selected Hughes and Baker Hughes as its 2025 Achievement in Pro Bono and Public Service award recipient. 

Krista Torralva

Kathryn Hand Achieves a Host of Early Successes at Enbridge

Kathryn Hand’s first job out of college in 2013 was, in her words, “not-so-great — it felt mindless to me. I knew I needed a career that was going to be challenging,” she told The Texas Lawbook. In the dozen years since, Hand obtained her law degree, spent five years getting trial experience and has spent the past two years scoring litigation achievements as senior counsel for litigation at Canada-based midstream energy giant Enbridge, including winning a case at the Ohio Supreme Court in which hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake. Citing her remarkable achievements in such a short time, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Hand as one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year.

Mark Curriden

Cheniere AGC Latest In-House Lawyer Going Back to Practice

Victoria Salem left her liquified natural gas law practice at Latham & Watkins in London in June 2015 to join the corporate legal department at Occidental Petroleum handling major transactions. Today, Salem joins a growing number of in-house lawyers rejoining law firms by becoming the newest partner in the Houston office of the Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance.

Mark Curriden

BWEL — A Creative Partnership that Enhances the Entire Legal Community

Chevron Phillips Assistant GC Cheryl-Lynne Davis and Baker Botts associate Teresa Jones — both women of color and lawyers who specialize in environmental law — shared Thanksgiving dinner in 2023. Over turkey and all the fixings, Davis and Jones discussed professional struggles they faced and together started working on a solution that now benefits some of the largest corporations in South Texas.

“What started as a casual conversation quickly became a shared mission: to create space for people like us to build community, exchange knowledge and uplift one another,” Jones said.

The seeds Davis and Jones sowed that day led to the creation of Black Women in Energy and Environmental Law, an organization that focuses on their professional purpose as lawyers and personal mission to support and ensure the wellness of Black women engaged in energy and environmental law. BWEL has witnessed tremendous success in the 16 months since it was founded. ACC Houston and The Texas Lawbook are honoring Davis, Jones and the members of BWEL with the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Creative Partnership.

Mark Curriden

Julia Wright ‘Sets the Example for All General Counsel Globally’

Julia Wright was a third grader when she did a book report on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “I didn’t know women could be lawyers until I read that book,” Wright told The Texas Lawbook. “I knew then that it was what I wanted to do. Throughout the 1980s, my dad would cut out newspaper articles showing the data of increased enrollment in law schools of women, showing me it was possible.” Forty-two years later, Wright is the general counsel at ChampionX, where she is one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston General Counsel of the Year Award for a Midsized Legal Department.

Mark Curriden & Jason Philyaw

Maverick Natural Resources’ Sarah Payne is ‘Like Having a Cheat Code Against the Other Side’

Sarah Payne went to college and graduate school to be a journalist covering the music industry with the dream of writing for Rolling Stone. Her father, then a Houston trial lawyer, had other ideas. “I was worn down by my tenacious father over the course of two decades,” Payne told The Texas Lawbook. “My entering the profession was likely inescapable. It’s in my veins for better or worse." Payne recently led her employer, Maverick Natural Resources, to a huge courtroom victory after a four-year contract dispute with XTO Energy regarding revenue sharing as part of a joint venture. Citing the jury trial success, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Lawbook named Payne the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award recipient for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.

Mark Curriden & Jason Philyaw

Former PepsiCo GC Leanne Oliver Joins Phillips Murrah

Oliver achieved many successes during her nearly three decades at PepsiCo and was promoted six times. She successfully defended the multinational food and beverage company against major class-action lawsuits, led strategic corporate acquisitions, and developed innovative employment policies and management training programs. Ex-PepsiCo General Counsel Larry Thompson told The Texas Lawbook in a 2021 profile of Oliver that, “No one really knows PepsiCo as well as Leanne. She has brought enormous value to the company and to the entire legal profession.”

Brooks Igo

2025 Houston General Counsel, Corporate Legal Departments of the Year Announced

The general counsel and chief legal officers of Transocean, Hines Real Estate, Microvast Holdings, ChampionX, LGI Homes and Applied Optoelectronics have been selected by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook as finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards for General Counsel of the Year. And the in-house lawyers at Phillips 66 and Talen Energy are finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Legal Department of the Year.

Mark Curriden

2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards Finalists Unveiled

Energy and infrastructure dominated a significant portion of the corporate legal work of Texas lawyers in 2024. Calpine, Chevron Phillips Chemical, Energy Transfer, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Phillips 66, Shell and Weatherford International all played integral roles. So, it should not be a surprise that corporate in-house counsel for these companies are among the finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards, which recognizes the legal and business successes achieved by lawyers employed by these iconic companies.

Mark Curriden

Remembering Lynn Bozalis — ‘Such a Vivid Light Now Gone’

Texas General Counsel Forum CEO Lynn Switzer Bozalis lost her battle with cancer. She was 60. North Texas Tollway Authority GC Dena Stroh said Bozalis "brought energy, good humor and drive to succeed. FullSpeed Automotive General Counsel Kelvin Sellers said she “had such an incredible spirit” and is “a big reason for the success of the Forum.” And Halliburton CLO Van Beckwith said Bozalis was "the consummate leaders’ leader. She brought an extraordinary excellence to every situation. Lynn simply made life better."

Mark Curriden

P.S. — 2024 DFW Corp. Counsel Awards Big Winners: Keurig Dr Pepper, Texas Capital, Arcosa, Toyota, Texas Pacific Land

More than 400 corporate general counsel, senior in-house counsel and prominent business lawyers across North Texas celebrated the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Awards Thursday night at the George W. Bush Institute. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook presented awards to 15 in-house counsel who achieved extraordinary successes during the past 18 months. 

Mark Curriden

FirstService Residential GC LaToyia Pierce Frink is a ‘Proactive Agent of Change’

Change management requires a leader who values continuous learning and team building. It begins with empathy and effective listening to identify how to best utilize each person’s skills for team success. This role is similar to that of a point guard or a quarterback, where collaboration and a broad perspective are key to achieving larger organizational goals efficiently.

Upon becoming vice president of legal affairs and general counsel at FirstService Residential Inc., LaToyia Pierce Frink began the task of uniting six regional offices into one cohesive team to consolidate the company’s legal approach and streamline its strategies, and improved internal communication to inform managers about cross-regional legal issues that could impact their work. 

For these attributes and more, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have selected Pierce Frink as one of two finalists for the 2024 DFW General Counsel of the Year Award for a Midsize Legal Department, which is six to 20 lawyers. 

Jason Philyaw

Dallas Cowboys Deputy GC Kaleisha Stuart is ‘Absolutely Unwavering in Her Commitment to D&I’

Kaleisha Stuart was the only Black lawyer working in-house for an NFL team when she joined the Dallas Cowboys legal team in 2016. “Over the years, legal departments have grown and diversified,” Stuart told The Texas Lawbook. “Noticing this trend, I decided to create a group for the Black women lawyers working at NFL teams. The goals of the group were to make Black women taking on these new roles feel immediately welcome, to have a safe, supportive outlet to share ideas or ask questions and to make new friends."

As deputy GC for the most valuable sports franchise in the world, Stuart has achieved some extraordinary successes in business, law and diversity. “I can’t think of anyone more deserving of recognition for the DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion than Kaleisha,” Cowboys CFO Tom Walker said. “Kaleisha’s leadership ‘off the field’ in our internal DEI initiatives has been instrumental since early in her career here, which is matched only by her success ‘on the field’ in helping guide our legal department through a period of unprecedented business growth. If you get five minutes to spend with her, you’ll understand why I feel as strongly about her recognition as I do.”

Mark Curriden

Keurig Dr Pepper Legal’s ‘Visionary Leadership’ and ‘Transformational Influence’

Anthony Shoemaker tracks his success as a lawyer and a leader back to his high school days when he worked at a local golf club repair shop in the Houston suburbs. He learned a lot and has implemented those life lessons in his three years as the chief legal officer at Keurig Dr Pepper. The results have been extraordinary successes for Shoemaker, for the corporate legal department he leads and for the $15 billion Plano-based company, which is why the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Keurig Dr Pepper as one of two finalists for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Corporate Legal Department of the Year. 

Mark Curriden

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