The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are awarding the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Diversity and Inclusion to Dallas Cowboys Deputy General Counsel Kaleisha Stuart and the Creative Partnership Award to SPCA of Texas CEO Chris Luna and Jones Day partner Joseph Van Asten.
For Luna, a former Dallas city council member who was chief counsel for T-Mobile until he retired a year ago, this is his second DFW Corporate Counsel Award. He received the DFW Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. The Creative Partnership Award is one of three annual honors that recognizes the in-house counsel and their outside lawyers.
Stuart is a nine-year veteran of the Dallas Cowboys’ in-house legal department. The DFW Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion recognizes the dedicated work and successes of an in-house lawyer in seeking to encourage economically disadvantaged and underrepresented groups to become lawyers and leaders in the Texas legal profession.
The Texas Lawbook plans to publish in-depth profiles of all the DFW Corporate Counsel Award finalists in January. The Lawbook previously announced the finalists for General Counsel of the Year, Senior Counsel of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Business Litigation of the Year, M&A Deal of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement Award. Next week, ACC-DFW and The Lawbook will announce the finalists for 2024 DFW Corporate Legal Department of the Year.
ACC-DFW and The Lawbook will celebrate the finalists and announce the winners at the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Awards ceremony on Jan. 30.
Paul Hastings, Munsch Hardt Spread Holiday Blessing
The Dallas office of Paul Hastings stepped up this holiday season to support the Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support and the North Texas Food Bank.
The Genesis Women’s Shelter aids women and children affected by domestic violence and raises awareness about related issues. The lawyers and staff at Paul Hastings collected unwrapped gifts and gift cards to help cover expenses like gas, food, clothing and holiday shopping. The office is hosting a virtual food drive for the North Texas Food Bank, which works with 500 partner organizations across 13 counties to help alleviate hunger.
Paul Hastings’ Houston office supported the Houston Bar Association’s Holiday Adopt-A-Family program and the Houston Food Bank. For Adopt-A-Family, the firm hosted a raffle to raise funds for the organization and also wrapped and delivered gifts for sponsored families. And the Paul Hastings team hosted a virtual food drive for the Houston Food Bank, which serves more than 150 million meals annually across 18 counties in southeast Texas and is the country’s largest food bank by size and distribution.
The lawyers and staff at Munsch Hardt partnered with Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support (Genesis) in Dallas and Houston Young Lawyers Foundation’s Adopt-An-Angel program in Houston for holiday giving programs in all three of its markets.
In Austin, the Munsch Hardt team collected gifts for Dell Children’s Medical Center, a part of the Ascension system that provides comprehensive pediatric care for children and families in Central Texas. Ascension is one of the nation’s leading nonprofit health systems, with a mission of delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention provided to persons living in poverty and those who are most vulnerable.
In Dallas, Munsch Hardt attorneys and staff contributed Walmart, Target, Amazon and Visa gift cards to support women and children who have been impacted by domestic violence. Munsch Hardt’s partnership with Genesis has evolved throughout the years, with attorneys previously serving on its board of directors and sponsoring the organization’s Young Leaders Masquerade event.
And in its Houston office, Munsch Hardt teamed with the Houston Young Lawyers Foundation’s annual Adopt-An-Angel program to donate gifts — including bikes, toys, clothing and school supplies — to Houston’s most underserved children. The annual gift drive brings the Houston legal community together to create holiday magic for children (the “Angels”) through local elementary schools and charities.
The Lawbook thanks the lawyers and their colleagues at Munsch Hardt and Paul Hastings for their public service contributions to our communities.