Joseph T. Walsh will work in Duane Morris’ Houston and New York offices and will focus on environmental litigation, products liability, commercial disputes, emergency response and counseling clients on risk management. In between stints at Exxon, Walsh represented Fortune 500 companies at a New Jersey-based law firm where he was a name partner.
Heidelberg Materials North America Names Shonn Brown as GC
Global building materials manufacturer Heidelberg Materials has announced that Kimberly-Clark deputy general counsel Shonn Brown is joining Heidelberg as general counsel and chief compliance officer for its Irving-based North America operations.
The Corporate Client: Sumitomo’s Cindy Dinh is Rookie of the Year
The daughter of Vietnamese refugees, Cindy Dinh was on a proverbial seesaw about going to law school when she did a mock trial for her intro to law class at Rice University on whether a person with limited English proficiency properly waived his Miranda rights.
“This was a topic that spoke to me, since I empathized with how difficult it can be for English-language learners to navigate central aspects of society, including the legal system,” Dinh said. “I spent late nights and weekends on Westlaw and poured myself into this all-consuming project. I concluded that if I was so vested in this mock case, I might as well expend the same time and energy to advocate for others in real life.”
Dinh is now corporate counsel for the U.S. operations of Sumitomo Corporation, a four-centuries-old Japanese global sogo shosha trading giant, where she handled multimillion-dollar M&A deals, oversaw a litigation docket of million-dollar disputes and negotiated master service agreements.
Q&A: Cindy Dinh
Sumitomo’s Cindy Dinh shares what outside counsel need to know about her and her thoughts on DEI and public service.
Travis Torrence’s Road to U.S. Head of Legal for Shell USA
Travis Torrence is the great-great-grandson of slaves who worked on plantations along the River Road in Louisiana — a swath of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge — just footsteps away from a Shell USA refinery in Convent and just miles away from Shell’s petrochemical plant in Norco. He is the great-grandson of Mississippi sharecroppers. His dad was a truck driver and his mother was a public high school teacher. Three months ago, London-based energy giant Shell named Torrence as its head of legal for its U.S. operations and associate general counsel over global litigation — the first Black person to hold the position.
“My story and my family’s history are not lost on me,” Torrence told The Texas Lawbook in an interview. In this story, Torrence talks family, his days at Shell and the attributes of the outside counsel he seeks to hire.
Exxon Mobil Names Former Fox Lawyer as New GC
Following its pattern of promoting former top federal prosecutors and regulators to leading corporate positions, Exxon Mobil announced Wednesday that former Fox Corporation general counsel and former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeff Taylor, will be the energy giant’s next top lawyer. Exxon Mobil announced Wednesday that Craig Morford, also a former federal prosecutor who has been the company’s general counsel since 2020, will retire on July 1 and that Taylor will be his replacement.
Houston Corporate Counsel Award Winners: Phillips 66, LyondellBasell, First Reserve, McDermott, Cardinal Systems
More than 220 corporate in-house counsel and their outside lawyers gathered last week at the Four Seasons in downtown Houston to recognize more than two-dozen general counsel and senior in-house counsel who achieved extraordinary success during the past year.
Shell’s Hector Pineda: A ‘Change Agent’ for DEI
Hector Pineda is kind of a big deal at Shell. Throughout his nearly three-decade career at one of the world’s largest oil companies, he’s gone from battling a snake wrangler in a West Texas courtroom to handling major projects and commercial transactions to providing strategic advice to top executives and managers leading Shell’s downstream and renewables businesses in the Americas. But no matter how high he climbs in the company, it is his ability to advance others and be a microphone for diverse voices that he is most proud of.
Pineda is one of three finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Diversity and Inclusion, and the winner will be revealed Wednesday at an awards ceremony hosted by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.
SilverBow Resources’ Asst. GC Jennifer Cadena Knows How to Win ‘The Litigation Chess Game’
One month before the Texas Supreme Court revived a novel lawsuit SilverBow Resources Operating lodged against Energy Transfer alleging it had interfered with its drilling rights via underground contamination linked to an injection well, Jennifer Cadena was promoted to become the company’s assistant general counsel and senior land manager after three years as senior exploration and production counsel.
She worked alongside outside counsel at Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing to ensure when the McMullen County jury finally got to hear the case, they would agree SilverBow was entitled to damages from Energy Transfer.
When the jury awarded SilverBow $24.5 million in damages in February 2023, it was a hard-fought result eight years in the making.
Virage Capital Asst. GC Leslie Hillendahl is ‘Leading an Industry Constantly In Flux’
Leslie Hillendahl wanted to be a lawyer since the fifth grade, but she faced an obstacle. Her father, a Houston police officer, “was quite adamant about steering me away from a legal career. He insisted that if I were to pursue law, I needed to first obtain what he called a ‘solid’ degree in accounting or finance.”
“While I initially resisted, I now appreciate his guidance, as it ultimately led me to a fulfilling career path that I love,” Hillendahl told The Texas Lawbook. Hillendahl earned degrees in accounting and law and is now the assistant general counsel at Virage Capital Management, a Houston-based litigation funding operation with an estimated $1 billion in assets. During the past two years, she and outside counsel have scored several multimillion-dollar courtroom victories and she currently manages more than $350 million invested in disputes spanning several states. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Lawbook have named Hillendahl the winner of the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.
Kristina McQuaid of Phillips 66: A Reluctant Lawyer in a Purposeful Career
In her role as senior counsel at Phillips 66, Kristina McQuaid is asked to do more than M&A. Much more.
“At first, I did not want to be a lawyer. I really enjoyed math and wanted to be a stockbroker,” she says.
Now she finds herself nominated as a 2024 finalist for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.
Texas GCs: Litigation Spend Soars in Post-Covid Era
Litigation spend by Texas companies with revenues of $1 billion or more reached an average of $3.9 million, according to Norton Rose Fulbright’s 19th annual trends survey of corporate general counsel. Two top lawyers from the firm discussed with The Texas Lawbook what is driving up the costs.
‘Many Lawyers Shrink in the Face of Crisis’ — Not LyondellBasell’s Brittany Ringel Walton
LyondellBasell senior counsel Brittany Ringel Walton had just put her children to bed in July 2021, when she received an urgent call about a leak at her company’s La Porte Complex. More than 100,000 pounds of acetic acid had been released. There were two fatalities, and another 30 people were taken to the hospital. Within minutes, Walton was on her way to the scene. Her first concern was the health and safety of her LyondellBasell colleagues at the La Porte facility but she also quickly comprehended the legal and regulatory issues that would come from the tragic event and immediately took the steps necessary to start investigating and addressing those issues and concerns.
The injuries and deaths of the workers — combined with the onslaught of governmental and civil investigations and lawsuits — exposed the companies to potentially hundreds of millions in legal claims and penalties. Instead, Walton’s thoughtful and proactive leadership that hot, humid night, the next day and throughout the legal processes during the past three years since the tragedy led to widespread praise and acclaim from company leaders, the board of directors and employees. Citing Walton’s success and leadership under pressure, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Walton a finalist for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department.
Phillips 66: Taking Two Deals to Take a Midstream Private
When Jenarae Garland arrived as a new managing counsel at Phillips 66, she could be excused for not being fully prepared for the part she would come to play in the $3.8 billion take-private purchase of DCP Midstream LP. She was the junior member of a three-attorney team leading the deal, ranking behind Deputy General Counsel Rob Task and Managing Counsel Maine Goodfellow. Along with their outside counsel Bracewell, the deal has also resulted in their nomination as finalists for 2024 M&A Transaction of the Year by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.
Spire’s Sean Jamieson Diversifies Voices in the Natural Gas Industry
When you hear the phrase diversity, equity and inclusion, your mind probably goes to the boilerplate topics that are the subject of so many panel discussions in Corporate America — diverse candidate pool, hiring and retention practices, mentorship versus sponsorship, to name a few. But for Spire General Counsel Sean Jamieson, DEI became a life-or-death matter in the summer of 2021 as a whopper regulatory battle put an existential threat to the existence of one of Spire’s natural gas pipelines. Critics thought Spire only designed its STL Pipeline project to line its own pockets. Jamieson and Spire viewed the pipeline as a means to diversify the natural gas source in eastern Missouri to lower the cost of delivering reliable energy to the people who need it the most: a widely vulnerable, underrepresented customer base.
“This would have been bad for our business. But it would have been terrible for people,” Jamieson said. “I had spent the months before working with the technical analysts and modeling what it would mean if we didn’t have this pipeline, the number of customers we would potentially lose. I learned and internalized all the mechanics associated with what would actually happen.”
Jamieson’s sleepless, behind-the-scenes work to bring together diverse viewpoints to solve complex problems is why Spire’s STL Pipeline is still running. It’s also why he’s a finalist for the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook’s 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.
PURIS GC Thomas Gottsegen Gets Into the Weeds and Solves Problems
During his five years as general counsel at PURIS, Thomas Gottsegen has helped lead an acquisition of an equal-sized competitor that transformed the company in 2022 and 2023 and undertook a complicated streamlining of the organization that included eliminating corporate entities that were no longer necessary due to the merger. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Gottsegen as one of two finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Solo Legal Department.
But Gottsegen’s journey to PURIS was initiated by a Category Five hurricane that destroyed his house and caused his family to flee New Orleans. This is his story.
First Reserve Litigation Team Notched Win for Entire PE Industry with TPC Victory
Erica Radcliffe and First Reserve teamed up with Vinson & Elkins in a landmark case to convince the courts that investors should not be held liable for the damages under state law. They prevailed and the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling provides a roadmap for other investors on how they can protect themselves from liability.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Radcliffe, First Reserve and its outside counsel at Vinson & Elkins as one of three finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
Sara-Ashley Moreno ‘Takes Ownership of Every Aspect of Her Job’
In the three and a half years since joining Cardinal System Holdings, General Counsel Sara-Ashley Moreno has led several significant and highly complex financial transactions, including three projects in 2023. Some of the projects, such as an $185 million hybrid/synthetic lease structure in Florida, are highly complex because Cardinal’s holdings span across operators, real estate and venture investments. Citing her extraordinary work in 2023, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook named Moreno a finalist for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Solo Legal Department.
Gindi Vincent: ‘Type-A Planner Chick’
Gindi Vincent has a website where she writes about her worries. She worries aloud about her weight. She leans into her faith. She worries about being too busy for her kids: three teens — triplets. She worries about how she will busy herself when they depart for college four years out. She is a self-described “Type-A Planner Chick” as well as serving as General Counsel for Integrated Supply Chain and Procurement for Honeywell’s Energy and Sustainability Solutions.
Vincent, Honeywell and their outside counsel Arnold & Porter have been named a finalist for M&A Transaction of the Year by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.
Forum Energy’s ‘No-ego GC’ John Ivascu has ‘Banner Year’ in 2023
Forum Energy Technologies General Counsel John Ivascu remembers the moment outside counsel from Yetter Coleman, whom he had hired to defend against patent infringement claims, let him know they had found something that would likely change the outcome of the case.
“It was fairly early in the case that we discovered it … and it really kind of changed the path of the case,” he told The Texas Lawbook.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Lawbook have named Ivascu and outside counsel Yetter Coleman as one of three finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
Mitsui GC Linda Primrose’s ‘Trailblazing Leadership a Precedent for Future Generations’
Linda Primrose has a passion for education. It is in her genes. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology, a master’s degree in environmental sciences, a law degree and a senior executive program certificate from the London Business School. “I love to learn … and would gladly still be in school obtaining additional degrees,” Primrose told The Texas Lawbook. “Unfortunately, that isn’t practical.”
Primrose discovered the second best thing: Being a lawyer at Mitsui & Co., an international company with 10 business divisions ranging from iron and steel products, mineral and metal resources and infrastructure projects to mobility business, foods and retail, wellness and IT and communication. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Primrose a finalist for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.