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Celanese GC Lynne Puckett Led DFW’s 2022 M&A Transaction of the Year

As a CIA intelligence officer focusing on Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lynne Puckett “got a ringside seat to the dissolution of Eastern Europe as communist-controlled in 1989. It was also when she realized she wanted to go to law school.

Three decades later, Puckett is the general counsel of Celanese Corporation, an Irving-based global chemical and specialty materials company with a market cap of $12 billion. In November 2022, Puckett and her legal team closed an $11 billion acquisition of a majority ownership in DuPont’s mobility and materials business.

Citing the deal’s extraordinary complexity, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook named Puckett, her in-house legal team at Celanese and outside counsel at Baker Botts as the recipient of the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for M&A Transaction of the Year.

Q&A: Lynne Puckett of Celanese

The Lawbook visited with the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel M&A Transaction of the Year Award winner about what she looks for in outside counsel, hourly rates, pro bono and diversity.

Harris Co. Attorney Christian Menefee at ‘The Perfect Intersection of Law and Policy’

As a third-year associate at Norton Rose Fulbright, Christian Menefee attended an election night watch party in November 2016 that ended in a way no one in attendance expected. But it also was the night that changed his life and career path. Exactly four years later, Menefee became the youngest lawyer and the first African American to be elected county attorney of Harris County. In an interview with The Texas Lawbook, Menefee discusses his first two years as Harris County’s top legal officer, the current Texas legislative session, how he hires outside counsel and his plans for reelection. Photo credit: Marie D. De Jesús/Houston Chronicle

Lauren Brogdon: A Crisis Manager and Survivor Helping Other Survivors

Lauren Brogdon is adept at putting out fires. At her day job in Haynes and Boone’s Houston office, Brogdon specializes in energy litigation and serves as chair of Haynes and Boone’s crisis management practice group. In her free time, she helps put out other fires ignited by the wrath of domestic violence. She works with domestic violence victims through her pro bono work with Houston Volunteer Lawyers, the Houston Area Women’s Center and AVDA.

But something many billable and pro bono clients alike may not know about Brogdon is that she is a domestic violence survivor herself. Natalie Posgate recently talked with Brogdon about her pro bono work, her own experience and how it shaped her into the lawyer she is today.

Lawmakers Advance 15th Court of Appeals Bill

In the face of varied and robust opposition to the proposal to create a new, statewide appellate court with exclusive jurisdiction over disputes involving the state or a state agency, lawmakers last week voted to send the bill to the full senate for a vote. Texas for Lawsuit Reform has championed the bill as an opportunity to establish a court with specialized expertise to hear matters of statewide importance.

CDT Roundup: 15 Deals, 10 Firms, 141 Lawyers, $8.8B

Inflation results in more than high prices for tomatoes and toilet paper. After nearly a decade in which the price of money hovered near zero, persistent inflation has apparently hammered down the appetite for M&A from private equity, dropping global M&A by 48 percent and global private equity deals by 57 percent — 46 percent in the U.S. Claire Poole analyzes reasons for the current drought in this week’s Corporate Deal Tracker Roundup, along with the names of the lawyers who fought the headwinds against last week’s deals.

PUC Appeals Court Decision Striking Down $9K Electric Rates During Winter Storm Uri

The Public Utility Commission of Texas claims that a decision issued 11 days ago by a Texas appeals court declaring that the emergency pricing orders issued by the agency in 2021 during Winter Storm Uri were unlawful needs to be immediately reversed because it “has thrown Texas’s electricity and associated markets into confusion.”

Lawyers for the PUC filed an official petition for review with the Texas Supreme Court on Friday arguing that the Third Court of Appeals in Austin “had no jurisdiction to validate or invalidate already-expired orders.”

Beyond Fraud: How the SEC’s Activision Case Portends Expansion of the Agency’s ESG Reach

The Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t regulate everything a public company does. Or does it?

SEC practitioners are grappling with that question in the wake of the agency’s recent $35 million settlement with video game developer Activision Blizzard, where the SEC leveraged an inconspicuous internal controls rule to sanction alleged corporate conduct that had no evident impact on the company’s public reporting. Despite the hefty civil penalty, the Activision settlement does not entail allegations of fraud or deceit, or that Activision misstated or omitted anything at all. There are also no allegations that investors were harmed or put at risk.

Erin McDowell: Range Resources New GC in ‘An Especially Dynamic Industry’

When Range Resources long-time GC David Poole retired 10 days ago, the board named his handpicked successor Erin McDowell to fill his role. In an exclusive interview with The Texas Lawbook, McDowell discusses the factors that impacted her career, the path she took to become a chief legal officer of a $6 billion natural gas company and the challenges she and Range face.

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