Jones Day partner Joseph Van Asten was walking past one of his law firm’s conference rooms in January 2024 when he spotted then-Dallas office managing partner Hilda Galvan meeting with Chris Luna, who had retired as chief counsel from T-Mobile in 2023 to become the new CEO for SPCA of Texas.
Luna, a former Dallas city council member, was seeking a law firm to represent the nonprofit on a pro bono basis. SPCA had an immediate need for representation in an employment law dispute but also sought a broader partnership to help with a plethora of efforts.
“I reached out to Hilda, an old friend, to see if we could formalize the relationship,” Luna said. “This is what led to this innovative partnership where Jones Day handles most of the SPCA’s legal matters on a pro bono basis.”
Van Asten, who specializes in construction law disputes and has two rescue dogs, jumped at the pro bono opportunity.
“I went to Hilda later that day to ask about her meeting with Chris [and] she told me about Chris’s proposed partnership, and I immediately volunteered to lead the effort,” Van Asten said. “Hilda reconnected me with Chris either that day or the next, and within a week we worked out the administrative details and were handling the employment matter I mentioned that we ultimately settled for nuisance value.”
During the past year, Jones Day has had 10 different lawyers work more than 200 pro bono hours on seven different matters for the SPCA. Those legal needs included drafting and negotiating construction agreements for the SPCA expansion project, providing advice on SPCA’s corporate bylaws and corporate governance issues and advising the nonprofit on its trademark portfolio.
SPCA and Jones Day “have partnered to have Jones Day provide critical legal assistance to the SPCA of Texas and support its mission to protect and improve the welfare of animals across Texas,” Luna said.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are honoring SPCA and Jones Day with the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Creative Partnership.
The Creative Partnership Award is one of three awards that honors both the in-house counsel and their outside law firms. ACC-DFW and The Lawbook will celebrate finalists and announce the winners of the DFW Corporate Counsel Awards at a ceremony on Jan. 30.
Luna was the recipient of the DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2020.
During his 42-year career, Luna has had many remarkable achievements as a lawyer and a public servant. Born and raised in Houston, Luna is the second youngest of eight children. His father served in the Army in North Africa and later became an oil and gas engineer. His mother was a registered nurse. They were first-generation Mexican Americans who were the first in their respective families to graduate from high school and college.
“My parents believed education was the great equalizer,” Luna told The Lawbook in a 2020 interview.
Luna earned an accounting degree from the University of Texas in 1983 and a law degree from UT in 1986. Upon graduation, he clerked for U.S. Chief Bankruptcy Judge Robert McGuire, just as the Texas real estate market was tanking and the savings and loan crisis was hitting full force. In 1987, Akin Gump hired Luna to join its corporate restructuring and reorganization practice.
“I never thought I would work for a large corporate law firm, but my years at Akin Gump were incredible,” he says. “I learned so much from the partners at the firm and our clients.”
When U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer declared that Dallas’ method of electing its representatives-at-large violated the federal Voting Rights Act, a new seat was created for the Dallas City Council that included Luna’s district. So, he threw his hat into the ring.
On election night in November 1991, Luna gathered with his supporters in Oak Lawn to watch election returns. The early results were not good.
“The mood was getting somber,” he said. “So, I walked down to a 7-Eleven a couple of blocks away to get some fresh air and collect my thoughts. I was thinking about what to say in my concession speech to my supporters, friends and families. The common wisdom throughout the campaign was that I was going to lose the election.” By the time Luna returned to his campaign headquarters, the vote count had flipped. Luna won by 156 votes — one of the closest elections in Dallas history.
Supporters gave him a new nickname: “Landslide Luna.”
As a city council member, Luna focused his time and city dollars on long-neglected minority neighborhoods. He successfully advocated for the adoption of a nondiscrimination policy for city employees and pushed for the construction of the Grauwyler Recreation Center on Harry Hines Boulevard. He aggressively supported the building of the American Airlines Center and was elected as the city’s first Hispanic deputy mayor pro tem.
After six years on the Dallas City Council, Luna returned to the private sector, becoming the general counsel of Tri-City Health Centre and serving on the board of directors for Laredo National Bank.
In 2004, he played a key in-house role in the sale of Allegiance Communications to XO Communications for $631 million. A year later, he joined MetroPCS, where he was critical in the company’s $1.15 billion initial public offering in 2007 and its $1.5 billion sale to T-Mobile in 2012.
Throughout his career, Luna has used his position to advocate for Hispanics in the legal and business communities and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Latinos to go to college and law school.
Luna said his dealings with Jones Day lawyers go back decades.
“When I was in-house at MetroPCS and T-Mobile, Jones Day represented us in various matters,” he said. “In fact, the firm conducted a major internal investigation where Joe was one of the lead associates on that investigation, which helped clear the way for MetroPCS and T-Mobile to merge in 2013.”
Jones Day’s relationship with SPCA dates back many years. Patricia Villareal, a former Jones Day partner, served on the board from 2016 through 2022 and chaired the board for three years.
Luna said that the work Jones Day has already done for SPCA this past year has been impressive, including excellent client service.
“As a global law firm, they have outstanding legal talent across multiple disciplines and can handle our matters from soup to nuts, such as employment, intellectual property, litigation and complex contracts,” Luna said. “The firm’s responsiveness, quality of the work and results are outstanding. The collaboration internally and with us is seamless.”
“They wanted to learn about our business and are passionate about helping the animals in our care. They truly focus on the client’s needs,” he said. “Joe and his team treat us like a paying client, which is both refreshing and rewarding.”
Van Asten also has a history in matters involving SPCA. He pointed to a probate dispute he handled early in his career that Jones Day “litigated and eventually secured a settlement that ensured that SPCA of Texas would still have an interest in the estate at issue as the decedent intended.”
“As a junior associate, I also have the SPCA to thank for providing me with significant experience,” he said. “In the probate matter I mentioned above, I took my very first deposition in my career on behalf of the SPCA. That history that I had with the SPCA on that matter and others are part of the reason I jumped at the opportunity to start this partnership with the SPCA of Texas. And I look forward to continuing to provide legal services to this world-class organization for many years to come.”
The SPCA also turned to Van Asten to handle a matter in the Eastern District of Texas involving an individual who was arrested by local authorities. Dozens of abused animals were seized, many of them ended up in the SPCA’s former Collin County facility.
“That individual sued the SPCA and every other animal shelter she could think of, representing herself, alleging a myriad of claims,” Van Asten said. “We filed a motion to dismiss that the court granted, dismissing the claims against the SPCA with prejudice.”
Jones Day is also the legal advisor for SPCA in the expansion of its campus, including the construction of a new 42,000 sq. ft. building. The firm represented the SPCA in connection with the drafting and negotiation of the complex construction agreement it signed with the general contractor the SPCA selected to build that new facility. The new building will significantly expand the SPCA’s capacity and capabilities to better serve the growing community.
And two lawyers in the Houston office of Jones Day are handling the SPCA’s trademark portfolio, “ensuring that its registrations are renewed and in compliance with federal trademark regulations,” Van Asten said.
“One of the amazing aspects of this partnership is that Chris and the SPCA encourage us to provide opportunities for our younger lawyers to take the lead on its matter,” he said. “Clients can often be hesitant to allow younger lawyers to take on significant, ‘first chair’ responsibilities, but Chris wants to help us foster the development of our younger lawyers. Chris doesn’t merely communicate through me to our junior associates regarding our matters. He wants to be the one talking directly to the associate handling the matter to help give them the experience of working directly with clients.”
“I absolutely love it for our associates and am very grateful that Chris shares that mission with us as a firm,” Van Asten said.