In this guest essay, Sidley Austin associate Maegan Quejada discusses times she’s been underestimated and othered as well as times she’s been supported and believed in, how her formative years shaped her to be the attorney she is today and the impact of who you spend most of your time with.
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Following the Path Mapped by Chance
In this essay, Chamblee Ryan partner Reagan Boyce discusses how she went from being a witness in a case for her former employer to entering a career in the law, the lessons she’s learned along the way and the obstacles she’s faced as a female litigator.
P.S. — An Award with Donated Winnings, A Pro Bono Award, A Pledge to Diversify Renewable Energy
This week’s P.S. column features a Houston in-house lawyer who has joined the board of a national renewable energy-focused nonprofit, a nomination period that has opened for in-house lawyers dedicated to pro bono work benefiting legal aid organizations and an award recently received by Vinson & Elkins’ head of pro bono.
Other legal departments mentioned in this edition include CenterPoint, Chevron, Pattern Energy, ExxonMobil and Toyota North America.
Retired Dallas FBI Agent’s Accomplice in Bizarre ‘Secret Probation’ Scam Gets 70 Months
Joseph DeLeon, who helped former FBI agent Bill Stone cheat a Granbury woman out of more than $750,000, apologized and said he, too, was a victim of the grift. But U.S. District Judge Ada Brown was having none of it.
Munsch Hardt Begins Transition to New CEO
The Dallas-based firm announced key leadership changes this week. Phil Appenzeller, the longest serving CEO in Munsch Hardt’s history, informed the firm of his decision to transition out of leadership at its annual management meeting at the end of January.
Q&A: ‘Serving Clients in the Spotlight’ with an ‘Entertainment Litigator of the Year’
In this Q&A with distinguished entertainment litigator Mathew Rosengart, the Greenberg Traurig shareholder recalls clerking for Justice David Souter, identifies some of the unique aspects of representing high profile clients like Steven Spielberg and Sean Penn, and talks about his transition from federal prosecutor to Hollywood/commercial litigator.
Houston Justices: Sexual Assault Isn’t Health Care Liability Claim
Dr. Azul Shirazali Jaffer is being sued by Michelle Maestas in Fort Bend County district court for
allegedly sexually assaulting her as she woke up in the recovery room in October 2022 following a
breast augmentation procedure. A Houston appellate court this week agreed with the Fort Bend
County district judge who declined to dismiss the suit in July 2023.
Paul Hastings Chair: ‘A Ton of Opportunity for Us in Texas’
As eight new corporate finance partners settle into their new Houston and Dallas digs at Paul Hastings this week, the law firm’s leader told The Texas Lawbook that “we are not going to stop there.”
“There are other practice areas we are exploring,” Paul Hastings chair Frank Lopez said in an interview. “There’s a ton of opportunity in Texas. Texas may be our No. 1 priority. It is fertile ground for us.” Just six months ago, Paul Hastings operated a sleepy Houston outpost of 22 lawyers. Since September 2023, however, the law firm has been on a hiring spree in Texas, nearly doubling their numbers in the state with lateral hires from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Akin Gump and Vinson & Elkins. And firm leaders believe they could be at 60 lawyers in Texas by summer and possibly 100 attorneys within a year.
The Myth of Work-Life Balance
In this essay, Winston & Strawn partner LeElle Slifer makes the argument for why work-life balance is a fallacy and provides an alternative perspective for working mothers to consider.
“The problem doesn’t lie with how much we have to do but rather with how we frame the problem itself,” Slifer writes. “Time to dispense with that masochistic construct of ‘balance.’ Instead, we strive for excellence in our personal pursuits just as we do in our careers, expanding our ambitions rather than balancing them. I want to be as good of a wife and mother as I am a lawyer, so life gets slotted in right alongside work.”
Honeywell, Phillips 66 Finalists for 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel M&A Transaction of the Year
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have selected Honeywell International and Phillips 66 as the finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for M&A Transaction of the Year. For 2023, a year that recorded some huge mergers and acquisitions, an independent panel of judges selected by The Lawbook and ACC Houston cited the extraordinary legal work of the in-house counsel and outside lawyers on Phillip 66’s $3.8 billion take-private transaction of DCP Midstream and Honeywell’s $670 million acquisition of Compressor Controls Corporation.