The Texas Lawbook and the Association of Corporate Counsel’s San Antonio Chapter have agreed to a new media content partnership similar to partnerships The Lawbook has with ACC chapters in DFW and Houston. And as part of the partnership, ACC San Antonio has announced that it is honoring St. Mary’s University School of Law professor Vincent R. Johnson and San Antonio labor and employment lawyer Christine Reinhard with the 2024 Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life and Leadership Award.
This week’s P.S. column also highlights the new leadership of the Houston Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, led by chapter president and Pattern Energy Senior Counsel Lauren Haller. And the University of Houston Law Center announced that long-time mediator Alan Levin and his wife have donated $1.2 million to the law school.
San Antonio ACC Honors Lawyers for Ethics, Leadership
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s San Antonio Chapter announced last month that it and The Lawbook have entered into a partnership in which The Lawbook will help highlight the successes of San Antonio ACC members, including appointments and promotions to new positions and pro bono and public service work performed by San Antonio in-house counsel. In addition, The Lawbook and ACC San Antonio will co-host a corporate counsel awards program recognizing the achievements of general counsel and corporate counsel in the San Antonio region. The two organizations will also partner on a handful of CLE programs annually.
The president of the ACC San Antonio Chapter is Vericast Corp. Chief Corporate Compliance Officer Shelayne Clemmer. Whataburger Restaurant’s VP of Legal Affairs and Compliance Jeffrey Hagelman is the group’s president-elect. The organization’s vice presidents include CPS Energy Deputy General Counsel Devi Kumar-Nambiar, Southwest Research Institute Principal Attorney Kellyann Curll, Valero Energy Managing Counsel Megan Quinn and Travelers Senior Counsel Veronica Judith Lane. Amber Clark is the chapter’s executive director.
Each year, San Antonio ACC recognizes two lawyers with its prestigious Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life and Leadership Award, which honors one in-house lawyer or legal department and one private lawyer or law firm that exemplify exceptional ethical behavior and leadership in the practice of law.
Cusenbary was the general counsel of Mission Pharmacal Company for 17 years before he semi-retired in 2020.
The 2023 Lee Cusenbary awards went to Sarah Martino Dingivan and Jeff Gifford. Dingivan served in the U.S. Air Force as a judge advocate from 2010 to 2016. For the past six years, she has been the CEO of San Antonio Legal Services Association, which recruits volunteer lawyers to provide free legal aid to those in need but cannot afford counsel. Gifford is a corporate securities lawyer at Dykema in San Antonio.
The 2024 Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life and Leadership Award goes to professor Vincent R. Johnson at St. Mary’s University School of Law and Christine Reinhard, a partner at Schmoyer Reinhard in San Antonio.
A 1999 graduate of St. Mary’s Law School, Reinhard was a labor and employment lawyer at Akin Gump for eight years before she started her own highly successful law firm. Certified in labor and employment law, Reinhart represents employers in National Labor Relations Board proceedings and regularly defends businesses in matters involving the Texas Workforce Commission.
Johnson received his law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1978 and subsequently earned LLM degrees from Yale University and the London School of Economics. As a law professor at St. Mary’s, he holds the Katherine A. Ryan Distinguished Chair for Global, Comparative, and International Law and teaches torts, legal malpractice and professional responsibility. His articles have been cited in more than 200 law reviews and 65 state and federal court decisions.
The Lawbook plans to publish in-depth articles about Johnson, Reinhard, Dingivan and Gifford in the coming weeks.
Houston ACC Leadership Election
The 1,000+ members of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter have elected Pattern Energy Senior Counsel Lauren Haller as its president and MRC Global Assistant GC Emily Katherine Shields as its president-elect for the coming year.
The Texas Lawbook and ACC Houston recognized Haller in 2020 with the Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion. A full profile of Haller can be read here. Haller is also one of the founding board members of the Texas Lawbook Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) that funds a full-time pro bono, public service and diversity reporter position for The Lawbook.
The other Houston ACC leaders selected for 2024-25 include:
Honeywell International General Counsel Dionne Hamilton, who received the 2023 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department, was elected to be the organization’s secretary;
Omni Bridgeway Legal Counsel Raj Duvvuri is the group’s treasurer; and
Five Star Management General Counsel Melanie Koltermann is the ACC Houston past president.
University of Houston Law Center Endowment for Mediation Training
Long-time Houston mediator and arbitrator Alan Levin and his wife, Diane, have donated $1.2 million to the University of Houston Law Center for the endowment of a mediation clinic. A 1969 graduate of UHLC, Levin has handled more than 10,000 mediations during his four-decade career. He also has served as an adjunct professor at the law school.
Scholarships for Law Students
The Texas Lawbook is seeking information from law firms and organizations that provide scholarships to low-income and disadvantaged students who have an interest in law school. Please email me at mark.curriden@texaslawbook.net.