Lawyers in the world of natural gas know Williams Companies Senior Counsel Kathryn McCoy, a former FERC lawyer who has led groundbreaking legal work developing a partnership involving LNG bunkering for ships in the U.S. She played a leading role in Southern Company’s sale of subsidiary Pivotal LNG to Dominion Energy, tackled legislation involving efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and handled major force majeure issues related to Winter Storm Uri. McCoy’s knowledge of the energy industry is unparalleled and her value to her new employer, the Williams Companies, is immeasurable. She is the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.
Houston Corporate Counsel Awards to Chevron, METRO, EP Energy and Prosperity Bank
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook handed out the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards Thursday night to 14 in-house lawyers who achieved extraordinary success during the past two years.
Two Final DFW Corporate Counsel Awards Finalists/Winners
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook announce the finalists for the last two 2021 DFW Corporate Counsel Awards categories: GC of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department and Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department. In-house counsel at Pizza Hut and City Electric Supply are the winners.
Siva Barnwell Adams Led Chevron Through Covid Gauntlet to Close Noble Deal
Chevron senior counsel Siva Barnwell Adams worked mornings, nights and weekends in 2020 as the top lawyer representing the energy giant in its $13 billion acquisition of Noble Energy, which was the largest oil and gas transaction during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her inspiration to give it her all came 37 years earlier, when she was working part-time at Arby’s and faced an angry Clear Lake High School track coach. “Today, when I think of giving 100%, I think of her.”
CenterPoint’s Dynamic Duo Karuturi & Ryan: Pro Bono is in their Bones
Monica Karuturi and Jason Ryan remember their first pro bono cases. Karuturi, now the GC at CenterPoint Energy, represented a middle-aged woman who had been violently assaulted by her long-time boyfriend. Ryan, now CenterPoint’s top regulatory and governmental affairs leader, handled a family law case involving a child-custody dispute. These were cases that deeply impacted them as lawyers. Both said their parents instilled in them a passion for community service and that they have not lost their commitment for helping those who are less fortunate and in need of legal services.
Last week, CenterPoint promoted both lawyers to executive VP of the $17.5 billion energy giant. Karuturi and Ryan are the recipients of the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Pro Bono and Public Service.
Southwest Airlines’ Chief Legal Officer Mark Shaw – A Lifetime of Achievements
Since Mark Shaw joined Southwest Airlines 22 years ago, he has faced some monumental challenges, including the repercussions from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; the 2008 financial crisis; the $1.4 billion acquisition of AirTran Airlines in 2010; litigation with the grounding of Boeing 737 Max planes in 2019; and the Covid pandemic, which led SWA to raise an extraordinary $18.5 billion in capital from multiple securities offerings of debt, equity and convertible notes, as well as loans and grants from the federal government. To be sure, Shaw is not close to being finished.
Even so, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are pleased to announce that Shaw is the recipient of the 2021 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Sempra CLO Carolyn Benton Aiman: ‘DEI Should Be in a Corporate Legal Department’s DNA’
[Diversity, equity and inclusion] “should be more than an initiative or a once-a-year conversation. This has to be part of the DNA, like safety in a corporation, like culture in any relationship,” said Sempra Infrastructure Carolyn Benton Aiman. “You must tend to it. Legal departments and law firm leadership should set an expectation, and leaders should be selected for their ability to develop people across all demographics. Leaders not only talk diversity, but their actions should match their words, including who they surround themselves with and with whom they work.”
The Association of Corporate Counsels Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook agree and have named Aiman as a finalist for the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.
HP’s Hartz: ‘People Were Going to Jail. We Knew We had a Great Case’
For a decade, HP battled a Taiwanese-based CD-ROM maker in courts from Texas to California over allegations of price fixing. HP senior counsel Brad Hartz and his team worked several thousand hours on objections, motions to dismiss, depositions and intense fights over discovery. HP’s outside counsel, Beck Redden, worked another 5,000 hours. It all paid off on June 5, 2020, when a federal appeals court handed Hartz and Beck Redden a $438 million victory. This is the behind the scenes story of one of the biggest judgments upheld by the Fifth Circuit in a decade and the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
Photo (credit Dylan Aguilar): Brad Hartz (center right) with attorneys from Beck Redden
Charlotte Rasche Helped Prosperity Bank Survive PPP Avalanche
Charlotte Rasche and her team at Prosperity Bank worked days and nights in the early weeks of 2020 to integrate its $2.1 billion merger with LegacyTexas Bank. Then March came and Covid hit. With 273 banking locations across Texas and Oklahoma, Prosperity had to decide whether to close branches, require face masks or just operate drive-throughs. Each jurisdiction had different rules. And then the federal Paycheck Protection Program launched and 14,000 PPP loans with a combined value of more than $1 billion had to be processed. These were the challenges that faced Rasche as Prosperty’s general counsel.
2021 DFW Corporate Counsel Awards Finalists Revealed
They led multibillion-dollar deals and won billion-dollar disputes. They are young lawyers who made their mark and seasoned leaders whose companies benefited from their wisdom. They used technology and good ole fashioned legal smarts to change the corporate law profession and how companies do business. They are the finalists for the 2021 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Awards, which recognizes the hard work and successes of the corporate in-house legal community in North Texas. The Texas Lawbook has the names.
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