The native Houstonian shares his early HLSR memories, what he’s learned 18 months into the job, how he manages all of the logistics of an event serving more than 2 million people over 20 days, and why it’s the best job he’s ever had.

Akshar Patel has always been a prodigy, graduating summa cum laude at 19 and law school at 21, where he was an editor at SMU Dedman School of Law’s International Law Journal. He had four years of corporate law practice on his resume and was associate general counsel at Flowserve Corporation at 26. Now a ripe old 38, Patel is the corporate secretary and vice president of legal at Pioneer Natural Resources, where he played a critical role in the October 2023 $64.5 billion acquisition of Pioneer by Exxon Mobil.

“He played an instrumental role in orchestrating the largest deal signed in the entire world in 2023,” said Gibson Dunn partner Jeff Chapman. “To quote the great sage Adam Sandler, ‘Not too shabby.’”

Citing his extraordinary work on the Exxon Mobil deal, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are honoring Patel with the 2023 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Corporate Secretary/Legal Counselor of the Year.

Chris Pappaioanou was a customer service agent with Great Lakes Airlines at Telluride’s airport in 2001 when he handed his résumé to Mesa Airlines CEO Jonathan Ornstein, who was boarding a plane. Weeks later, Pappaioanou was hired to be Mesa’s vice president of legal affairs. Two decades later, he is one of the most influential and respected lawyers and executives at Irving-based Envoy Air. During the past two years, Pappaioanou negotiated a transformative, industry leading collective bargaining agreement that reversed attrition within Envoy Air’s pilot ranks and attracted hundreds of new pilots to the airline. He also led several legal victories, including the resolution of a biometrics privacy suit in Illinois and a successful resolution to a wage and hour class action suit in California. And he was instrumental in the restructuring of Envoy Air’s human resources and legal departments to better align with the airline’s current needs as it continues to experience growth. But it all points back to the cold Colorado day when Mesa’s CEO saw something special in the guy loading his luggage.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook announce that Pappaioanou is one of two finalists for the 2023 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department, which is less than five attorneys. This is his story.

Growing up, Carolyn Lam had no interest in being a lawyer. Her parents, immigrants from Vietnam, were against her becoming an attorney. “They were extremely concerned about my decision to become a lawyer, and what they saw on TV wasn’t promising,” Lam said. “Who wants your kid to learn how to weasel their way out of the truth and subvert the law?”

Lam did fine. Better than fine, actually. She is now the deputy GC at Dallas-based Ecobat, the world’s largest battery recycler. And her successes during the past year and a half include settling a major class action lawsuit against Ecobat for pennies on the dollar, the divestiture of seven different business operations across three countries in southern Africa and the implementation of the company’s first global anticompetition training program and global code of conduct.

In October 2022, the U.S. government imposed novel and complex semiconductor export control rules designed to limit Chinese access to advanced integrated circuits for artificial intelligence and other technology innovations with potential military applications. The 139-pages issued by the U.S. Commerce Department forced semiconductor companies to interpret and immediately comply with the massive new regulatory regime. Tokyo Electron, an $84 billion Japanese-based global innovative semiconductor production equipment maker with significant U.S. operations, turned to a 32-year-old Dallas lawyer only four years out of law school for guidance. Maria G. Alonso did not disappoint.

“Maria immediately pulled up her sleeves and went to work, advising company executives in the U.S. and Japan on the nuances of the new rule and how it would impact the company in the U.S. as well as its operations abroad,” said Stinson international trade partner Elsa Manzanares. “There is no doubt Maria Alonso was the right person at the right time.” Citing her success, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Alonso one of two finalists for the 2023 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year.

Clinton Willett was a teenager when his mother waged a mighty battle against cancer — a fight she heartbreakingly lost. “Being a lower-middle-class family, I saw the devastating financial implications of such a fight,” said Willett, noting that his father was a career U.S. Postal Service employee. “I knew I had to find a career that would allow me to provide a different lifestyle and comfort level for my family if I worked hard enough.”

Fifteen years later, Lynne Willett would be mighty proud of her son. Willett earned a bachelor’s degree from Dallas Baptist University, graduated cum laude from the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law and is now corporate counsel of City Electric Supply in Dallas. He has been so successful during his first two years at City Electric that the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Willett as one of two finalists for the 2023 DFW Corporate Counsel of the Year Award for Rookie of the Year. This is his story.