Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Pier 1 endured changes in style, changes in market, changes in judges and changes in its legal leadership to beat back stockholder charges of securities fraud in epic fashion. And as a result they are finalists for Litigation of the Year in the 2019 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Awards.
But in addition to those challenges, the company is now also coping with the untimely death of its general counsel.Ashlie Alaman returned home Monday after a four day mission trip to Reynosa, Mexico, which is one of the most dangerous towns on the border. She and seven other women from their church delivered food, clothes, sewing machines to 400 migrants in a shelter hoping for asylum in the U.S. Alaman is a "force of nature" in the pro bono world. "I absolutely love being a lawyer ... to help change people’s lives,” she says.
When royalty owners sue oil and gas producers in Oklahoma, you play by Oklahoma rules. Because of those rules, the results can be ugly. But when Range Resources was sued in Oklahoma, GC David Poole decided to fight. And the results of that decision are now nominated for Litigation of the Year in the 2019 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Awards.
James Sheppard took his first flight on Southwest Airlines when he was a high school freshman. Twenty-five years later, Sheppard is a senior litigation attorney for Southwest who took two major multimillion-dollar lawsuits to trial in California last year and won both of them. This is the story of how he did it.
The general counsel remained cool under pressure during Aimbridge's sale to Advent International (with outside counsel keeping the deal moving along), which helped the company go on to become the global leader in hotel management with its acquisition of Interstate.
Navin Rao led Michaels Stores through an IPO, two major acquisitions, the liquidations of its Aaron Brothers and Pat Catan’s store chains and the issuance of a $500 million senior notes offering. But did you know that Sabrina the Teenage Witch bought Rao drinks? Or that he now has a new GC job? The Texas Lawbook has the details.
Stephanie Zapata Moore has been busy the past couple years. The Vistra GC was instrumental in the company's spinoff from Energy Future Holdings. It didn't stop there. Last year, she finalized the integration of the legal and compliance functions related to the Dynegy acquisition, oversaw the purchases of Ambit Energy and Crius Energy Trust and engineered a $1 billion private securities offering. And, of course, there's the marathon she ran in Fargo, N.D.
Two lawyers - CIA operative-turned-GC Lynne Puckett and associate GC Anne Brooksher-Yen - developed a model to do pro bono projects with two different law firms that they believe will be a roadmap for their relationships with outside counsel on all legal matters going forward. At the core of these creative partnerships is identifying unique opportunities of the corporate legal department with the resources of the law firms to tackle meaningful issues.
AT&T senior counsel Belinda Boling is a pro bono ball of fire. She has handled multiple asylum cases, including a heartbreaking representation of a teenaged girl whose mother’s murdered body was found by the FBI. She recruited more than a dozen other lawyers at AT&T to help asylum-seekers with their applications. She expanded AT&T’s pro bono program to its Latin America offices and joined forces with Akin Gump to help about 2,000 U.S. military veterans get legal assistance.
Ben E. Keith Assistant GC Punam Kaji is the hands-on GC of the future. She walks her company's food distribution warehouse and rides along with sales people to catch issues before they become problems. Oh, and this is important, she actually cares about the people she works with.
Burton Brillhart won a $3.1 million trade secrets case and a copyright victory at the U.S. Supreme Court. He finalized Bain Capital's $2.5 billion acquisition of Varsity. But Brillhart's really good stories are about his grandfather, Homer Dean, a South Texas lawyer for 60 years and a close personal friend of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Dean was the Jim Wells County Attorney in 1948 when the infamous Precinct 13 ballot dispute occurred giving the U.S. Senate election to LBJ. Now that's news.
For years, Jeff Hunt piloted E-2C Hawkeye planes for the Navy, including several encounters with the Russians. Now, he's senior counsel at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems in Dallas, where he navigates the military contractor through a labyrinth of global laws and regulations on contracts and transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As The Texas Lawbook reports, Hunt also had an amazing career as a Navy JAG officer.
In the 2nd grade, Adelle Casey watched a movie about the Supreme Court and told her mother she wanted to be a judge. Today, she is the associate general counsel of The Freeman Company, the world’s largest event marketing business, where she is leading business-changing deals. She is not, however, on the Supreme Court. Yet.
Michaels Stores Associate GC Janie Perelman is a brilliant legal strategist and courtroom tactician who seems to be able to go without sleep. She's led the defeat of several class action lawsuits and helped prevent even more. No lawyer has ever handled a major data breach as successfully as she did. Just one warning: Don't call her crafty.
Barry Thomas' earliest memories as a boy were with his dad out in the oil patch. Now an associate GC at Pioneer Natural Resources, Thomas is one of the most respected energy lawyers in Texas. He is also the top lawyer for a non-profit consortium of 20 energy companies that are investing time and money to improve living conditions for the people of the Permian and West Texas.
To Kimberly-Clark executives, Chasity Henry is a critical strategic advisor. To the legal profession, the associate GC is a disruptor who is forcing much needed change. To scores of young women lawyers of color, she is a role model who has made a substantive difference for diversity in the world of corporate law. To Henry herself, she is just being the lawyer she always wanted to be.
Alan Dorantes worked on the set of Oliver Stone’s "Born on the Fourth of July." He was once Matthew Broderick’s stand-in and he is almost certainly the only corporate lawyer in Texas with an award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The AT&T senior counsel is a national expert on diversity in the legal profession and is involved in several groundbreaking public service projects in Texas. He's also packing his bags and leaving town.
Former American Airlines GC Gary Kennedy was at the center of extraordinary growth, extreme tumult and radical change at one of the world’s largest commercial airlines. He implemented groundbreaking mandatory pro bono and diversity efforts. He navigated American through the tidal wave of litigation set in motion after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks and negotiated an historic agreement that settled a decades-long dispute with Southwest Airlines regarding Dallas Love Field. Most of all, Kennedy guided American through one of the largest, most complex and financially successful bankruptcies in U.S. history.
Chris Luna won his Dallas City Council election by 156 votes, earning him the nickname Landslide Luna. Now chief counsel for Metro by T-Mobile, Luna is one of the leading and most influential voices in the Texas corporate legal community. During his 35-year career, Luna has played a critical role in several major corporate transactions and advocated tirelessly for increased diversity in the legal profession. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are honored to give the 2019 Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement to John Christopher Luna.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook announced Monday the finalists for both the 2019 Pro Bono and Public Service Award and the M&A Deal of the Year Award.
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