For six weeks in 1981, three-year-old Ashley Nguyen Ahn was stranded in a small boat in the middle of the ocean with her family in an effort to flee certain execution by the Viet Cong. They ran out of food and then water. She witnessed her eight-year-old neighbor die of starvation and dehydration first. Her uncle died next and then her father, whose body she watched being pushed overboard. Ahn experienced more trauma, death and desperation as a toddler than the rest of us face in a lifetime. And she remembers it all. “All of these early events made me who I am today,” she told The Texas Lawbook in an exclusive interview. Ahn is now the associate general counsel at Texas Capital, where she and her team spent the last three years rebuilding and transforming Texas Capital into a premier financial services firm in the state. And she is a finalist for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.
More Stories
Taxwell’s Willa Kalaidjian and Nicola Hobeiche are ‘Renaissance Women’ Achieving Extraordinary Success Under Great Pressures
Days after becoming the new Drake Software GC in 2022, Willa Kalaidjian learned Cinven was buying Dallas-based digital tax filing platform TaxAct for $720 million. Kalaidjian’s assignment: Help develop a new name for the combined businesses and lead the integration. Enter TaxAct senior counsel Nicola Hobeiche, who joined the new company via the merger. The duo immediately started the lengthy process integrating legal, compliance, procurement and legislative affairs. But they also had to simultaneously address a potentially devastating threat to the company: a series of class-action lawsuits filed in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania and separate charges brought by multiple state attorneys general related to the allegations of improper use of personal and financial information by a third-party vendor for TaxAct. Citing the extraordinary achievements of the legal department of five, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Taxwell as one of two finalists for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Corporate Legal Department of the Year.
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Willa Kalaidjian and Nicola Hobeiche
In this Q&A with The Texas Lawbook, Taxwell’s Willa Kalaidjian and Nicola Hobeiche discuss the traits they seek in outside counsel, what outside counsel need to know when working with them and more.
Removal Waiver Front and Center in En Banc Fifth Circuit Arguments
The en banc oral arguments came in a dispute between Abraham Watkins Nichols Agosto Aziz & Stogner and former associate Edward Festeryga, who the firm alleges tried to take its clients with him when he left. The whole court agreed to hear the dispute after Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan — who sat on the panel that sided with the law firm and affirmed a ruling that sent the case back to state court — called for the move in a July 2024 concurring opinion that said the crux of the court’s 1980 holding in In re Weaver was “incorrect.”
Dallas Firm Defeats $150M Lawsuit Against Energy Transfer in New York Trial
Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann secured a major win for Energy Transfer in a complex fraud and breach of contract claim mounted by investment funds associated with Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. After a three-week trial in New York, the judge ruled Jan. 17 that Energy Transfer was not liable on any counts, effectively avoiding a potential $200 million judgment including pretrial interest.
Workrise Associate GC Kelsey Williams Revolutionized Company’s Legal Strategy and Collections
Kelsey Williams almost didn’t become a lawyer. She bucked her parents’ efforts to persuade her to follow in her father’s footsteps. But it was in a specific moment during her undergraduate literature studies that she realized she may be a natural fit for the legal profession. Today, her peers say she has a “signature brand of meticulous and thoughtful legal work” that has transformed Workrise’s profitability and stability. And she is a finalist for the 2024 DFW Senior Counsel of the Year Award.
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Kelsey Williams
In this premium subscriber Q&A, Workwise GC Kelsey Williams discusses the traits she seeks in outside counsel, what outside counsel need to know when working with her and more.
Litigation Roundup: Texas Sues Biden Admin One Last Time
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the Fifteenth Court of Appeals decides a case of first impression in favor of Google in the biometric data lawsuit Texas is pursuing, the state and W&T Offshore join forces to sue the outgoing Biden administration, and a jury in San Antonio determines a barbecue restaurant owes millions in a suit over hot barbecue sauce.
Texas White-Collar Experts Predict Trends Under Trump
Amid uncertainty about the new administration, top Texas litigators who specialize in white-collar criminal law and securities enforcement say healthcare fraud will continue to be a top priority for federal prosecutors, though immigration cases will likely see a surge. The Texas Lawbook asked eight leading white-collar specialists what they see as the most important legal trends in the state and what they predict regarding white-collar prosecutions this year. Cybersecurity, foreign bribery, elderly abuse and privacy law violation offenses are best bets. But then again, it is President Trump, so who knows?
Baker Botts Boosts International Disputes and Antitrust Practices with High-Profile Hires
Ben Love returns to Texas after working out of Boies Schiller Flexner’s New York and Washington D.C. offices. Former Texas-based lawyer Edward Duffy joins Baker Botts from the U.S. Department of Justice.