Shannon Cagnina doesn’t think she deserves an award.
In fact, when the Phillips Enterprises general counsel learned she’d been selected to receive a 2025 Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Pro Bono and Public Service from the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook, she told her colleagues that she was inclined to decline it.
Her humility is one of the characteristics that has made Cagnina a steady force behind Phillips Enterprises and the Phillips Foundation’s business and philanthropic work, said Erica Shields, managing director at Phillips Foundation.
“She is a person who just believes she was put on this earth to serve,” Shields said. “She just gets the job done and she serves. She’s never looking for any sort of credit.”
Shields encouraged Cagnina to accept the award, framing it as an opportunity to raise awareness with the legal community about Trey’s Law — landmark legislation Cagnina helped advance that bans nondisclosure agreements in civil settlements for cases involving sexual abuse and human trafficking. Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 835 — known as Trey’s Law — in June, and it went into effect in September.
Advocates say the law restores autonomy to survivors, holds perpetrators and complicit institutions accountable and serves as a national model for other states.
Cagnina insists her role was merely advisory. In an interview with The Lawbook, she emphasized that the credit belongs to Shields and Elizabeth Phillips, sister of the law’s namesake. She also gives all glory to God.
“I attribute anything good that I am able to accomplish to God,” Cagnina told The Lawbook. “He has guided me every step for decades.”
Cagnina was born in Columbus, Ohio, to a father who was both a physicist and fighter pilot and a mother who worked as a nurse. Her father’s career took the family to Texas; first to Lubbock where he was an Air Force flight instructor and later to North Texas as a defense contractor.
After obtaining her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Cagnina worked as an analyst at a niche economic consulting firm in nearby Cambridge. When professional advancement required a graduate degree, she weighed an MBA against law school and decided law would be easier.
“That turned out to be accurate, but with an unexpected nuance,” she said. “I had my first two babies while in law school and was pretty hands-on.”
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Shannon Cagnina discusses the traits she seeks in outside counsel, what outside counsel need to know when working with her and more.
At Boston University School of Law, Cagnina flexed her class schedule and worked intensely during the final weeks of each semester to prepare for the single graded exam.
“It wasn’t easy for about two weeks, but otherwise law school was a lot of fun for me,” Cagnina said.
After law school, Cagnina worked part time as a deputy to the general counsel for the finance secretary of the governor of Massachusetts. There, she got experience advising the governor on all sections of the capital and operating budget legislation for the commonwealth. In a volunteer appointment to a municipal finance committee, Cagnina also got experience allocating capital and operating budget and establishing budget processes. Around this time, Cagnina gave birth to her third and youngest child.
Cagnina and her family eventually moved back to Texas for her husband’s work. She went on to run Mary Crowley Cancer Research and devoted much of her free time to charity work, where she met Laura Carlock, Trey’s mother, who became a dear friend.
Trey and his sister, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, spent many summers at Kanakuk Kamps, a Christian sports camp in Missouri popular among North Texans. There, Trey was groomed and sexually abused by a popular director, Pete Newman, who is now serving a life sentence in prison for abusing multiple campers.
After Newman pleaded guilty to sexual abuse in 2010, Trey and other camp alumni sued and reached settlements with Newman and Kanakuk. The settlements included nondisclosure agreements that prevented Trey from speaking about the abuse. Even in confidential therapy sessions, his sister has said Trey feared discussing what had been done to him out of concern that camp officials would retaliate.
In 2019, Trey died by suicide. He was 28.
Trey’s death galvanized his sister. Phillips, who runs the family foundation with her husband Kevin — and where Cagnina joined in 2017 — began working to create legislation that would end the use of nondisclosure agreements to silence victims from sharing their trauma.
Drafting the bill began just over a year ago, Shields said, and moved rapidly with a team largely new to legislative advocacy. Cagnina drew on her background in Massachusetts state government. Her input helped strengthen the bill, Shields said. For instance, Cagnina recommended outreach to plaintiffs’ lawyers who represent survivors.
“Ultimately, they are the ones who are going to be the legal representation for survivors, and they have the lived experience of what the words on the paper end up meaning in real life,” Shields said.
Trey’s Law passed in Missouri and Texas last year.
It was a “sorrowful, bittersweet victory,” Cagnina said.
Emails poured in from survivors across the country, both praising the law and lamenting that NDAs still silence them in their own states.
And then there’s Trey’s family and Cagnina’s dear friend Laura.
“We have a victory so others can use their voice, but nothing’s bringing Trey back,” Cagnina said. “Nothing is going to heal the giant hole in Laura’s heart.”
The team is now working to advance the law in more states, create a federal version and explore international adoption.
As they considered how best to support future efforts, they created tax-exempt nonprofits called No More Victims. Cagnina advised structuring the organizations broadly — focused on protecting children in institutions rather than narrowly around Trey’s Law.
The foresight proved to be critical. Just weeks after the nonprofit was formed, devastating July 4 weekend floods in the Texas Hill Country killed 25 campers and two counselors. Parents turned to Phillips for advice creating legislation to mandate stricter safety rules for youth camps. The No More Victims entity was able to house what became The Campaign for Camp Safety.
Gov. Abbott signed a package of summer camp safety laws — often referred to as “Heaven’s 27” — during a special session last year.
“Shannon was really helpful in being creative on that and setting us up with a foundation where we could say yes to this,” Shields said.
Cagnina downplays her role in both Trey’s Law and the camp safety laws.
“I really don’t deserve any recognition for my part in Trey’s Law, which was advisory in nature,” Cagnina said. “Elizabeth Phillips’ relentless commitment to change for victims of child abuse is breathtaking. And her COO Erica Shields was more impressive in the legislative process than any lawyer I’ve ever worked with. Elizabeth’s drive coupled with Erica’s brilliant capacity and attention to detail, along with Kevin’s unwavering financial support, have affected life changing results.”
“Again, I don’t deserve personal recognition but served as an advisor,” Cagnina said of the camp safety laws. “The Phillips team was equipped to support passage of the Heaven’s 27 legislation and will convey its expertise to the future [501C3 and 501C4] efforts of Campaign for Camp Safety and No More Victims. These are nascent organizations worthy of support.”
But those who work with her say otherwise.
“Shannon has helped make a real change in Texas law that is already benefitting children and families,” said W. Scott Hastings, partner at Troutman Pepper Locke who nominated Cagnina for the award.
She touched all aspects of Trey’s Law, Hastings said, from coordinating factual investigations and working with journalists to collaborating with survivors, families and lawyers nationwide who specialize in sexual abuse litigation.
“Whatever hats we need, she puts them on or figures out how to get them,” Shields said.
The laws passed in Missouri and Texas are only the beginning, Cagnina said, adding that she is grateful for the opportunity to work on efforts that matter.
“This is a huge blessing,” she said, “to get to do things where you feel like your work changes things.”
Fun Facts: Shannon Cagnina
- Favorite book: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis because that book read me.
- Favorite musician: Andrea Bocelli.
- Favorite movie: Chariots of Fire.
- Favorite restaurant and food at that restaurant: Cappuccino at Caffe Vittoria in the North End of Boston, with my children.
- Favorite beverage: Coffee.
- Favorite vacation: Rome for Christmas 2017 with my children. Rome has a magical peace and stillness at Christmas. Attending midnight mass on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day alongside Caravaggio and having the Sistine Chapel to ourselves, literally, so that we could lie on the benches and stare at the ceiling as long as we wanted was heavenly.
- Hero in life: Boone Powell Jr. I call him my second father, grandfather to my children, model public servant as CEO/founder of Baylor Healthcare System and mentor. I am one among many who call him a hero.