Kate Nanney had been practicing law merely three years and was corporate counsel at Bedford-based State National Companies for only a few months when she was given a new assignment: work with some of the most experienced M&A lawyers in the world at Skadden Arps on a transaction to sell the company to a mega-insurance and investment firm for $919 million.
For a few months, Nanney and the deal team worked at breakneck speed day and night to negotiate the terms of the transaction with Virginia-based Markel Corp., which has a market cap of $14.3 billion.
“I was the boots-on-the-ground lawyer, coordinating with outside counsel, working on the deal documents, helping with due diligence and then working on the integration,” she says. “We looked for a business partner that allows us to grow and do what we do. This deal more than doubled the value of those who held our stock.”
Lawyers familiar with the transaction say Nanney’s work on the deal was exceptional and allowed her to showcase her legal skills and business judgment.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are pleased to announce that Nanney is a finalist for the 2018 Outstanding Corporate Counsel’s Rookie of the Year Award.
Nanney was born in Denver. Both parents were engineers in the oil and gas industry. The family moved to Midland and later to Dallas for her parents’ work.
In 2003, Nanney went to the University of Texas, where she was part of the Business Honors and Plan II program. She also was very active in student politics, including being elected the president of the Senate of College Councils and chaired the executive board for the student governance organization that oversees all the college councils.
“My mom joked that I majored in extracurricular activities,” she says. “I enjoyed the politics of it, and I thought the strategy part of politics and law school was a fit.”
Nanney applied to and was accepted at UT Law School, but she convinced administration officials to grant her a two-year deferral so she could spend the time teaching math to middle school students and be a department head for Teach for America.
“The experience was amazing. I loved the planning and developing lessons for different levels of students to ensure that I was having an impact,” she says. “I probably worked harder at that job than anything in my life.
“I struggled with the decision to leave teaching to go to law school,” she says. “It was one of the toughest choices I made in my life.”
Nanney graduated from the University of Texas School of Law with honors in 2012 and then spent 19 months clerking for Judge Edward Prado of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He is now the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.
In 2014, she joined the complex civil disputes practice at Norton Rose Fulbright.
“I enjoyed working with some really excellent trial attorneys,” she says. “But it became clear to me that I didn’t love litigation – at least not as much as much my husband does.”
Nanney is married to George Padis, a litigator at Vinson & Elkins who clerked for Judge Prado after she did.
Thinking she wanted a change, Nanney called a recruiter at Newhouse+Noblin, who said she had a position that might be a good fit for her.
“She was right,” Nanney says. “I have really enjoyed the work.”
Months later, Nanney was working on the deal that sold State National to Markel.