The top lawyers at Jacobs Engineering Group, Southwest Airlines and El Rancho Supermercado spent Tuesday’s lunch hour speaking about multiple aspects of diversity within the legal profession — what diversity means for them and their organizations, why it’s important in both the in-house and outside counsel context and how it could be improved. The Lawbook attended the event, which was organized by the Dallas Regional Chamber, hosted by UNT Dallas College of Law and sponsored by Munsch Hardt and Carrington Coleman.
Alana Matthews Leaves Dallas Stars to Be Pioneering Entrepreneur
Last month, Matthews left the Dallas Stars to pursue another deeply-held passion: creating a business that focuses exclusively on custom-made luxury workwear for professional women.
Updated: Ryan GC ‘Seeks to Set the Record Straight’ With Lawsuit Against USA Today
Ryan General Counsel John Smith said the Dallas-based tax services provider sued USA Today and parent company Gannett Co. because the media company published allegedly defamatory articles about Ryan’s business practices but never disclosed in its articles that Gannett employed Ryan to identify potential tax savings and then failed to pay for its services. Ryan, in the lawsuit filed Monday in Montgomery County, accuses the national newspaper chain of defamation, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, quantum meruit, suit on a sworn account and fraud.
Siltstone Capital’s Mani Walia Wins Houston Legal Innovation Award
When the Houston private equity firm Siltstone Capital decided to expand its investment portfolio beyond energy, minerals and real estate into the arena of litigation finance, it had the perfect advisor already in the house. Siltstone General Counsel Mani Walia has leveraged his background in Big Law, plaintiffs’ IP litigation and private equity to create a new model for litigation finance investments. Citing Walia’s creativity and achievements, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook awarded the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Legal Innovation to the Siltstone Capital general counsel.
Archrock GC Stephanie Hildebrandt – A Lifetime of Achievements and a ‘Never-ending Education’
Stephanie Hildebrandt has been an in-house lawyer and general counsel at some of the nation’s largest energy companies and has been involved in some of the biggest and most complicated civil lawsuits and M&A transactions in Texas. For three decades, corporate executives from Texaco and El Paso Energy to Enterprise Products to Archrock have relied on Hildebrandt’s legal knowledge, ability to analyze an issue, wisdom and creativity to develop and execute a successful strategy.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook honor Hildebrandt with the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Hines Real Estate’s Theresa Terrell is 2022 Houston Senior Counsel of the Year
Theresa Terrell was a rookie litigator at Jackson Walker when she realized the trial practice was not a good fit for her and a partner at the firm
encouraged her to try real estate. “I still remember the first project I worked on was reviewing leasing in connection with a portfolio acquisition of office buildings, and I never looked back,” she said. “I love that real estate transactions can feel non-adversarial – deals can get contentious, but both sides ultimately want to get to a mutually beneficial outcome.”
Sixteen years later, Terrell is still in the real estate law practice – only now as an assistant general counsel at Hines, a privately held real estate investment firm operating in 28 countries with $90 billion of investments under management. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook honor Terrell with the 2022 Houston Senior Counsel of the Year Award.
Houston Corp. Counsel Award Winners: Theresa Terrell, Niko Lorentzatos, Travis Torrence, Bo Shi and Diane Greene
Nearly 200 Houston general counsel and corporate lawyers packed the Four Seasons Hotel Thursday night for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards.
The big winners of the fourth annual awards, which highlight the successful legal work of corporate in-house counsel, involved general counsel and senior counsel at Shell USA, Crescent Energy, Hines, GSFSGroup and Oasis Petroleum.
William Turcotte’s Big Year: Bankruptcy, Two Major Mergers, a Pandemic, Marriage and a Cowboy’s Common Sense
Growing up the son of a South Texas rancher and educator, William Turcotte learned about facing tough times, long days of manual labor and the importance of a great education. Turcotte needed those principles the past two years as the general counsel at Noble Corporation. In a matter of months, he led the offshore drilling contractor in and out of bankruptcy, eliminating $3.4 billion in bond debt. Only weeks after emerging from Chapter 11, Noble acquired Pacific Drilling. In November 2021, Turcotte and Noble were at it again, closing a $3.13 billion all-stock merger with Maersk Drilling.
“The joke was ‘You can always sleep when you’re dead,’” Turcotte told The Texas Lawbook. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Turcotte as one of two finalists for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.
Phillips 66’s Kathleen Bertolatus: Pro Bono ‘Can Truly Change the Lives of Our Clients’
Seven weeks ago, a 15-year-old West African who had never been in an airplane before and who speaks very little English walked through the international arrival terminal at Bush International Airport with three bags containing everything he owned. The teen’s mother, her body stricken with cancer and worn from years of being beaten by male relatives in her homeland, raced to hug her son after nearly four years and 6,000 miles of separation.
The reunion was the result of four long years of legal work by Phillips 66 Senior Counsel Kathleen Bertolatus, who represented the mother in a series of immigration proceedings that resulted in the mother obtaining asylum and being reunited with her teenaged daughter after both faced forced female genital mutilation by their family and certain death if they didn’t comply. That was in 2019. On March 30 of this year, the great pro bono legal work of Bertolatus allowed mother, son and daughter to be together and to be safe.
Total Energies’ Cynthia Redwine Martinez Has ‘Solar-Coaster Street Cred’ in Leading the Energy Transition
During the past two years, TotalEnergies assistant general counsel Cynthia Redwine Martinez has become one of the leading renewable energy law experts in the U.S. But it didn’t happen overnight. And it didn’t happen by accident. The path she took started a couple decades ago as the daughter of a glass-ceiling-smashing, highly respected Houston lawyer who became the first general counsel for Rice University. Fast-forward more than a decade later. Her reputation in the world of renewable and solar energy law is nearly unmatched. From the fourth quarter of 2019 to the end of 2021, Martinez has been a lead lawyer in nearly a dozen major clean energy acquisitions and joint ventures involving offshore wind operations and solar projects.