Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
David Poole, who worked on an oil rig out of high school and rose to become the top legal officer at two major energy companies in Texas, retired as the GC of Range Resources Friday. In an interview with The Texas Lawbook on Sunday, Poole discusses his passion for oil and gas law, his challenges and successes as a GC for two decades, his best day on the job and his plans for the future at Wick Phillips.
The Texas Lawbook interviewed 15 corporate GCs and senior in-house counsel in Houston and the DFW area about the role of diversity in hiring outside counsel, specific steps law firm leaders can take to improve diversity and address the pipeline.
Corporate counsel at Keurig Dr Pepper, McAfee, Schlumberger, Noble Corp, HF Sinclair, Ocwen Financial, Tuesday Morning, Talen Energy, PepsiCo Foods, American Airlines, Shell USA, Phillips 66, MB2 Dental and BHP give their insight related to DEI issues.
Debbie Bartlett's college psychological profile gave her two career options: Be a lawyer or a movie director. Texas Instruments has been the beneficiary of Bartlett deciding to go to law school. For the past 27 years, she led or played a critical role in 208 domestic and international transactions, including 54 acquisitions at TI with a combined deal value of more than $15 billion.
In January, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook honored Bartlett with the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement. This is her story.
Vaishali Bhatia experienced five crazy months in 2022. As HollyFrontier's GC, she and her team closed the $400 million acquisition of the Puget Sound Refinery, negotiated and closed the $2.7 billion acquisition of Sinclair Oil Corporation and Sinclair Transportation, which required multiple regulatory approvals and the creation of an entirely new publicly-traded entity. That was immediately followed by a $400 million senior notes offering and a new credit facility.
Citing those extraordinary successes, the ACC DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook named Bhatia as the 2022 DFW General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook announced the winners in four competitive categories – Business Litigation of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department and General Counsel of the Year for a Solo Legal Department – and presented awards to in-house counsel in a dozen different categories.
Jennyfer Gray knows what it means to take it to the limit one more time. As interim general counsel of Tuesday Morning, Gray is helping lead the Dallas-based retailer through turbulent times. Facing severe economic challenges like most retailers, Tuesday Morning and Gray went through multiple financings and credit facilities, including a $110 million asset-based loan, and the transition to a new executive leadership team and corporate board. In recognition of Gray's achievements, she is the recipient of the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award recipient for General Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.
Kelli Roach became Black Mountain Sand's first GC in July 2020, when the frac sand provider had closed two of its five mines and let go of half of its 500 people because of the Covid pandemic. Roach focused on how she would strategically help her new employer the fastest. She identified contract breaches and filed lawsuits, which led to $54 million being added to Black Mountain Sand's bottom line. At the same time, she led the defense to have the company dismissed from a tragic wrongful death lawsuit, renegotiated several commercial contracts at considerably more favorable terms and implemented Black Mountain Sand’s first ESG program.
Citing these accomplishments, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Roach as a finalist for the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Solo Legal Department.
Every day, Bill Dunne deals with overlapping, even conflicting, interests as the GC of Civitas Capital Management — deal team members wanting to close on our latest endeavor, our international team needing immediate answers on the intricacies of marketing laws in up to 40 countries. But Dunne worked day and night for several months reading and analyzing hundreds and hundreds of pages of Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and guidelines to successfully register Civitas as an official investment advisor. The achievement had a huge impact on Citivas' business operations. As a result, Dunne is a finalist for the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Solo Legal Department.
Jonathan Koh won his first court case in the sixth grade when he was the prosecutor in a mock trial in a speeding case. He was hooked on becoming a lawyer. Two decades later, Koh is the assistant GC at MB2 Dental, which provides support to more than 500 dental practices in 41 states. His mornings start with questions from dentists on the East Coast offices on payroll taxes and the day ends with doctors in California asking about California’s Covid paid sick leave law. Plus, he implemented a process that allows him to get involved early when conflicts arise between the dentists and patients and insurance providers, which helped avoid scores of lawsuits.
“I’m the fixer of the legal department, so I usually hear from people on their bad days,” Koh said. He is also a finalist for the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.
General Motors counsel Juli Greenberg was sitting in a conference room in 2018 getting CLE ethics credit when everything changed. What she learned sent her on a quest to create DEI initiatives and do her part to improve the diversity pipeline in the legal profession.
Fast forward nearly five years, and the product of Greenberg’s work has reached hundreds of people from every stage of the pipeline. She’s also the recipient of the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.
© Copyright 2026 The Texas Lawbook
The content on this website is protected under federal Copyright laws. Any use without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
