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Match Litigation Team Took on the 800-pound Gorilla and Won

When Google changed its policy in 2020 to require all businesses selling apps through the Google Play Store to use Google’s electronic bill pay system, officials at Match Group quickly realized that this meant hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. The alternative was even more devastating — being booted off Google Play, which generated billions in revenues from Android users for Match brands, such as Tinder, PlentyofFish and Match.com. The Match legal team — including Chief Legal Officer Jared Sine, Associate General Counsel Jeanette Teckman, Senior Litigation Counsel Stephen Myers and Litigation Counsel Katie Johnson — tried to work with Google on a resolution for two years, but finally decided in March 2022 to sue its largest business partner on allegations of market manipulation, broken promises and abuse of power.

The challenges for the Match legal group included Google’s extraordinarily positive public reputation and its army of successful lawyers, three million documents of discovery to review, an expedited trial plan set by the judge and co-plaintiffs combined into the litigation that did not always see eye-to-eye with Match on all issues. Winning at trial was anything but a sure thing. In fact, Apple had defeated a nearly identical lawsuit in 2021 and 2023. Efforts to reach an out-of-court agreement were fruitless.

Q&A: Katie Johnson of Match Group

When Google changed its policy in 2020 to require all businesses selling apps through the Google Play Store to use Google’s electronic bill pay system, officials at Match Group quickly

Q&A: Stephen Myers of Match Group

When Google changed its policy in 2020 to require all businesses selling apps through the Google Play Store to use Google’s electronic bill pay system, officials at Match Group quickly

Q&A: Jeanette Teckman of Match Group

When Google changed its policy in 2020 to require all businesses selling apps through the Google Play Store to use Google’s electronic bill pay system, officials at Match Group quickly

GC Mark Robinson Navigated GameStop Through Memes, Short-squeezes, NFTs and Seven CEOs

When Mark Robinson joined GameStop in 2015, the Grapevine-based gaming retailer needed him to be an absolute generalist handling garden-variety contracts, basic commercial disputes and employment issues. All that changed in 2020 and has continued changing ever since.

There was the Covid pandemic in 2020, which exacerbated steep declines in retail brick-and-mortar operations. Then GameStop became the poster child for both short-squeezes and meme stocks, even as Robinson was promoted to GC. He navigated the company through complex regulatory issues related to the new NFT marketplace and digital assets business. He temporarily served as GameStop’s principal executive officer after the company’s board fired its CEO. And then there’s the movie on GameStop starring Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen and Vincent D’Onofrio.

Updated: Toyota’s Kelly Chen is a DEI ‘Doer’

When it comes to DEI, Kelly Chen of Toyota is a person whose actions match her words. She says hiring diverse outside legal teams is important; she gives legal work to diverse teams. She values mentoring young diverse attorneys and law students because she didn’t have anyone to ask questions (“whether they looked like me or not”) when she was starting her career. She says the legal industry is full of people with smarts, advocacy and creativity to figure out how to move the needle forward despite a challenging DEI climate. And she doubles down to do her part to lead programs and collaborate with outside counsel on solutions.

“When I think about what ‘commitment and service to diversity’ means, what comes to mind is a person who shows up, rolls their sleeves up — in ways both big and small, and works — over and over again — not for one time, one event, one year … Kelly Chen comes to mind,” said Toyota’s Mey Ly Ortiz.

The Texas Lawbook and Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW chapter have named Chen the recipient of the 2023 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion. This is her story.

(Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include comments from a law student mentored by Chen).

Q&A: Kelly Chen of Toyota

When it comes to DEI, Kelly Chen of Toyota is a person whose actions match her words. She says hiring diverse outside legal teams is important; she gives legal work

Envoy Air’s Chris Pappaioanou — ‘Doing the Right Thing’ and Getting Results

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.

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