© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
Finalist: Non-GC of the Year for a Small Legal Dept.
By Mark Curriden
(Jan. 22) – Every year, Sky Chefs serves 65 million breakfasts, lunches and dinners to passengers on commercial airlines in North America. The Irving-based company employs more than 11,000 people to prepare those meals at 40 kitchens strategically located near airports.
Because the industry is highly regulated, each of the thousands of Sky Chefs workers are required to read the employee handbook and follow detailed, specific guidelines regarding the company’s operations.
Enter Michelle Brookshire, deputy general counsel at LSG Sky Chefs.
For the past two-and-one-half years, Brookshire has handled all matters related to labor and employment for the airline catering service, including development of the employee handbook, guidelines for recruiting, oversight of insurance and employee benefits, immigration matters and employment disputes and litigation.
While many lawyers consider winning a lawsuit or dispute as the ultimate victory, Brookshire has a different definition.
“A bigger success than prevailing in a lawsuit is avoiding litigation altogether,” she says. “My main goal is to prevent litigation from happening in the first place.”
That thoughtful approach is one of the reasons the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have selected Brookshire as a finalist in the Outstanding Corporate Counsel Awards as Non-GC of the Year for a Small Legal Dept. She and other finalists will be honored—and the winners revealed—at the annual awards event Jan. 25 at the Bush Institute.
In her nomination of Brookshire, Sky Chefs General Counsel Anne Sparks was effusive about Brookshire’s talent and attitude.
“Michelle is simply an amazing lawyer – very smart, practical, quick on her feet and an excellent mentor, counselor and trainer,” Sparks says. “The pace of the job is breathtaking.
“The issues are extremely varied and she guides the company on all applicable federal, state and local laws with clarity and a sense of humor,” she says.
Born in Arlington, Brookshire was the first person in her family to go to college. Her mother worked in retail and her father was a blue-collar production employer. There were no lawyers in the family.
“I had no understanding of what attorneys did,” she says. “All I know is what I saw on TV.”
After graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of Texas at Arlington with a bachelor’s degree in political science, she went to the SMU Dedman School of Law, where she graduated Cum Laude in 2009.
Littler Mendelson hired Brookshire as a lawyer handling employment matters – a position she held for six years.
In September 2015, Sparks lured Brookshire to join the Sky Chefs legal department.
“An important part of this job has been becoming more of a counselor and business partner to the team,” she says. “I spend a lot of time getting to know the business and the people and doing a lot of training.”
Brookshire has been leading a team that is reworking the employee handbook for union and non-union employees.
“We have gone through each policy one by one with our HR folks, which has been quite labor intensive,” she says. “The goal is to make sure that employees can understand it and that they are not overwhelmed.”
With the rash of reports regarding sexual harassment, Brookshire says the team paid special attention to implement “very robust complaint procedures and reporting mechanisms.” She says she investigates all management-related complaints.
“The key is to have a safe place for employees to make a complaint and to make sure every complaint is aggressively investigated,” she says.
Brookshire says it was difficult leaving Littler, but she has loved every minute of her time at Sky Chefs.
“Being a small legal department has its own challenge, including the fact that we take work calls at 11 p.m. sometimes,” she says. “But I have learned so much and being closer to the business side has helped me be a better lawyer and legal counselor.”
© 2018 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with our subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.