A volatile stock market has economists uttering the “R” word: Recession. And while most analysts are discounting the likelihood of full-blown downturn, Andrew Akers of PitchBook has three scenarios that could affect dealmaking for the near future. Those possibilities, and a review of last week’s deals in the CDT Roundup.
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Q&A: Kathleen Bertolatus
Premium-Only Content: Kathleen Bertolatus offers advice for outside counsel and shares why she believes pro bono work helps make lawyers better.
Phillips 66’s Kathleen Bertolatus: Pro Bono ‘Can Truly Change the Lives of Our Clients’
Seven weeks ago, a 15-year-old West African who had never been in an airplane before and who speaks very little English walked through the international arrival terminal at Bush International Airport with three bags containing everything he owned. The teen’s mother, her body stricken with cancer and worn from years of being beaten by male relatives in her homeland, raced to hug her son after nearly four years and 6,000 miles of separation.
The reunion was the result of four long years of legal work by Phillips 66 Senior Counsel Kathleen Bertolatus, who represented the mother in a series of immigration proceedings that resulted in the mother obtaining asylum and being reunited with her teenaged daughter after both faced forced female genital mutilation by their family and certain death if they didn’t comply. That was in 2019. On March 30 of this year, the great pro bono legal work of Bertolatus allowed mother, son and daughter to be together and to be safe.
Q&A: Cynthia Martinez
Premium-Only Content: Cynthia Martinez discusses the biggest challenges facing renewable energy today and identifies life and career mentors.
Total Energies’ Cynthia Redwine Martinez Has ‘Solar-Coaster Street Cred’ in Leading the Energy Transition
During the past two years, TotalEnergies assistant general counsel Cynthia Redwine Martinez has become one of the leading renewable energy law experts in the U.S. But it didn’t happen overnight. And it didn’t happen by accident. The path she took started a couple decades ago as the daughter of a glass-ceiling-smashing, highly respected Houston lawyer who became the first general counsel for Rice University. Fast-forward more than a decade later. Her reputation in the world of renewable and solar energy law is nearly unmatched. From the fourth quarter of 2019 to the end of 2021, Martinez has been a lead lawyer in nearly a dozen major clean energy acquisitions and joint ventures involving offshore wind operations and solar projects.
Texas Justices Issue Mixed Decision on Child-Abuse Investigations Over Family Decisions on Transgender Minors
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas AG Ken Paxton have no legal authority to order state child-abuse investigators to act against parents and doctors who participate in medical and mental-health actions involving transgendered minors, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday. The state’s highest court, in a fractured opinion mostly confined to procedure, upheld a lower court injunction stopping the state’s child welfare agency investigation into the specific case being challenged, but adding that lower courts exceeded their authority by making the injunction statewide.
Q&A: Ashley Hill
Premium-Only Content: Ashley Hill reveals her pet peeves regrading outside counsel and makes a case for being hopeful about the future of diversity in the legal profession.
For BHP’s Ashley Hill, ‘DEI is Organic, Has Never Met a Stranger’
BHP asked its senior in-house counsel Ashley Hill to help lead the global energy and minerals giant’s efforts to diversify its ranks in two historically male-dominated industries: mining and oil and gas. The evidence five years later shows it could not have made a better selection. As BHP’s top employment lawyer in the Americas, Hill was part of a thorough review of the company’s recruiting, hiring, compensation and retention practices. She was instrumental in implementing a gender pay gap review that resulted in an increase in female salaries of more than $4 million.
Citing these significant successes, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Hill as one of the two finalists for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.
Talen Energy Picks Weil Gotshal to Lead Bankruptcy and Restructuring
Houston-based Talen Energy filed the largest Texas corporate bankruptcy case of 2022 late Tuesday citing more than $3 billion in debt. A plethora of large law firms – Akin Gump, Paul Weiss, Kirkland & Ellis, Davis Polk, V&E and King & Spalding – are involved, but Talen GC Andrew Wright chose Weil Gotshal as lead debtor’s counsel.
Q&A: Diane Greene
Premium-Only Content: Diane Greene describes her most life impacting experience and identifies what she looks for in hiring outside counsel.