Q&A: Shonn Brown
PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Mark Curriden, founder of The Texas Lawbook, talked to Brown about her best day at Kimberly-Clark, steering an essential business through the pandemic and diversity in the legal profession.
Match’s Jared Sine – ‘Not your Everyday $30B Reverse Spin-off’
In the middle of Covid and locked down at home, Match Group CLO Jared Sine guided a massively complex $30 billion reverse corporate spin-off, settled a highly contentious IP lawsuit with competitor Bumble and negotiated a $1.7 billion acquisition of South Korea-based Hyperconnect.
Sine made news last month when he told U.S. Senators about anticompetitive practices of Apple and Google regarding their domination of the app platform space.
“And yes, we are fighting the two biggest and most powerful companies in the history of the world,” he said. “All in a day’s work.”
Q&A: Jared Sine
PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Mark Curriden, founder of The Texas Lawbook, talked to Sine about his biggest challenges during his nearly five-year tenure at Match and his pet peeves with outside counsel.
‘It was like Lord of the Flies’
For Yuki Whitmire, it was the perfect storm, though at times it may have felt like the Bermuda Triangle. Last March, the securities and corporate transactional lawyer accepted a new job as Vistra Energy’s associate general counsel and corporate secretary with a start date in early April. In those few weeks in between, Covid-19 hit. But Whitmire, who has still never stepped inside her office at work, has done such an amazing job that she is the 2020 DFW Senior Counsel of the Year for a Mid-sized Legal Department. This is the story of her first year at Vistra.
Q&A: Yuki Whitmire
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, PREMIUM CONTENT Vistra Energy, like nearly every company during the pandemic, sent their employees home to work remotely. At the same time one of their new hires, Yuki Whitmire was moving with her family into a new house. What happened over the next year proved remarkable, and in a special Q&A, Yuki spoke with Mark Curriden about what she learned from the experience.
Methodist’s Ashley Yen Excels in a Challenging Year for Healthcare
Ashley Yen was in kindergarten when she drew a picture of herself in the future: a stick figure of herself in a suit and glasses holding a briefcase, “I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer,” said Yen, who is associate in-house counsel and assistant vice president at Methodist Health System. She is one of the youngest and arguably the most important in-house counsel in North Texas in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of Yen, Methodist was one of the first hospitals in DFW to administer the vaccine.
Q&A: Ashley Yen
Premium Subscriber Content From the day the Center for Disease Control issued its initial coronavirus warning for U.S. hospitals, Methodist Health System need to lean on its youngest vice president. Ashley Yen and her legal team responded, answering and engaging the plethora of legal issues and regulatory procedures critical to dealing with a global pandemic. Mark Curriden had the opportunity to discuss those challenges and a variety of other issues in a special Q&A.
GC Priya Aiyar Gives American Airlines the Legal Advantage
American Airlines GC Priya Aiyar may be the smartest lawyer in corporate America. So say lawyers and executives who watched her in action during the pandemic. She clerked for Judge Merrick Garland and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. She's been the GC of the U.S. Treasury and a chief legal advisor at the FCC. Every bit of those smarts were needed to address the plethora of legal issues American faced during the past year.
“Priya has no ceiling,” AA Executive VP Stephen Johnson said. “If she remains in the airline industry, the industry will experience a revolution in operations and Priya will be a key reason for that evolution. She is unlike any other lawyer who has ever worked in the airline industry.”Q&A: Priya Aiyar
PREMIUM ONLY Priya Aiyar is general counsel at American Airlines. Like many in-house counsel she was tested by the pandemic in ways that seemed unfathomable when she took the job i 2019. But her performance at the legendary air carrier has brought praise from all quarters in the business world.
Mark Curriden, founder of The Texas Lawbook, talked to her at length about the obstacles she faced and the challenges still ahead of her. Here is a portion of that conversation.
‘Head First Into the Fire’
At 35, Ricky Torlincasi is one of the youngest GCs in the oil patch. He’s been on the job at Blackbeard Operating less than two years, but he's already helped integrate three mergers, led the acquisitions of Anadarko Basin assets from BP and ConocoPhillips’ legacy Waddell Ranch, and the divestitures of assets in Oklahoma and South Texas. Then there's the litigation he's handled.
Torlincasi's successes have him as a finalist for the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel’s Rookie of the Year Award.Q&A: Ricky Torlincasi, GC Blackbeard Operating
Ricky Torlincasi has seen a lot in less than 20 months as general counsel of Blackbeard Operating. Mark Curriden, founder of The Texas Lawbook had a chance to talk with Torlincasi at length about what he's learned about himself, what he likes about in-house legal work and what he looks for in outside counsel.
Todd Barton: A ‘Steady Hand’ at Fannie Mae
Imagine a law practice in which you serviced tens of thousands of real estate transactions annually and oversaw the litigation in thousands of cases a year. Welcome to the world of Fannie Mae Deputy GC Todd Barton and his team, who provide legal support for all properties in the U.S. that are acquired by Fannie Mae in foreclosure. How does he do it? The answer rests in the fact that Barton is the recipient of the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Innovation. The Texas Lawbook has his story.
Q&A: Todd Barton
FOR PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS
Todd Barton is Deputy GC of Fannie Mae. His legal department Fannie Mae handles thousands of real estate transactions annually. As a result, important decisions come fast and furious with consequences that extend far beyond the daily grind. How does he do it? How did he learn to do it? The Lawbook's Mark Curriden had a chance to ask him.
‘The Most Heartbreaking Situation of My Life’
No corporate in-house counsel saw her or his world turned upside down any faster or more severely because of the Covid-19 pandemic than CEC Entertainment CLO Rudy Rodriguez. The 741 Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper restaurants in 47 states were shut down within days last March, thousands of workers were furloughed and then came bankruptcy.
The situation required extraordinary legal work, strong leadership and a tender heart. Rodriguez provided it. CEC survived and is poised to thrive. And Rodriguez, as a result, is a finalist for the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department. This is his story.Q&A: Rudy Rodriguez
For Premium Subscribers No corporate in-house counsel saw her or his world turned upside down any faster or more severely because of the Covid-19 pandemic than CEC Entertainment CLO Rudy Rodriguez. The 600 Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper restaurants in 47 states were shut down within days last March, thousands of workers were furloughed and then came bankruptcy.
A Pro Bono ‘Ball of Fire’
Toyota Managing Counsel Meyling Ly Ortiz has won a major wage and hour class action lawsuit, developed and implemented cutting-edge programs to address bias in the workplace and played a huge role in guiding the world's largest carmaker through Covid-19 restrictions. But Ly Ortiz is a finalist for the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Pro Bono and Public Service for one reason: she has a servant's heart, which she attributes to extraordinary decisions her parents made 7,800 miles away four decades ago.
Q&A: Meyling Ly Ortiz
For Premium Subscribers Only Meyling Ly Ortiz is managing counsel for labor and employment law for Toyota North America. Mark Curriden, founder of ,em>The Texas Lawbook had the chance to ask her about her philosophy regarding pro bono and its importance in considering outside counsel.
Neiman Marcus’ Tasha Grinnell – Standing Up and Standing Out
Tasha Grinnell started at Neiman Marcus exactly one year ago. Days after she started, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Stores needed to be closed and some employees furloughed. Two months later, the luxury department store filed for bankruptcy - a brutal and costly process that Grinnell and her predecessor Tracy Preston conquered. "We had a lot of balls in the air, and we still do," Grinnell, who became Neiman Marcus' interim GC on Friday, told The Texas Lawbook in an exclusive interview.
PepsiCo’s Leanne Oliver – 2020 DFW Corporate Counsel’s Lifetime Achievement Award
For a quarter of a century, Leanne Oliver has been a corporate in-house lawyer for PepsiCo and Frito-Lay. She has been a groundbreaker in developing family leave policies and internal training efforts to eliminate sexual harassment. She’s also a highly successful labor and employment lawyer.
2020 DFW General Counsel of the Year Finalists
American Airlines and Chuck E. Cheese. Farmer Brothers and HMS Holdings. Southwest Airlines and Aventiv. The CLOs and GCs at these six North Texas companies utilized their legal acumen and business leadership skills to lead their employers through a monumentally challenging year. They are finalists for the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Awards.