Tuesday Morning’s GC Jennyfer Gray’s Life in the Fast Lane

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.

January 26, 2023 Mark Curriden

Kelli Roach: A ‘Ferocious Advocate’ for Black Mountain Sand

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.

January 25, 2023 Mark Curriden

GC Bill Dunne Helps Civitas Navigate ‘Tricky Waters’

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.

January 24, 2023 Mark Curriden

MB2 Dental’s Jonathan Koh is ‘The Fixer’

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.

January 23, 2023 Mark Curriden

For GM’s Juli Greenberg, DEI is ‘Part of her DNA’

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.

January 20, 2023 Natalie Posgate

Forney Corp.’s Chelsea Casiano’s ‘Attention to Detail is Impeccable’

Only three years out of law school at the University of North Texas, Chelsea Casiano is the general counsel of the Forney Corporation, a 95-year-old Addison-based manufacturer of front-end combustion components. In 2022, she negotiated more than 100 contracts, implemented a new signature designation policy, updated the company’s noncompete agreements and wrote the business’ new human rights policy to regulate compliance internally and to set expectations for its suppliers and vendors.

“Chelsea has been amazing,” said Forney CEO Tom Demrick. Casiano is also a finalist for the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year, which goes to lawyers who have been in-house counsel for three years or less.

January 20, 2023 Mark Curriden

OpTic Gaming’s Johnathan Jordan Handles ‘Everything Under the Sun and Then Some’

Back in middle school, Johnathan Jordan played Halo, a military science fiction game set in the 26th century in which the player controls a technologically created super soldier to battle evil aliens. But young Jordan also knew he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer. Never did he think the two passions — law and gaming — would come together.

Last year, Jordan became the first GC in Texas of an esports and gaming business, OpTic Gaming. The legal work he has done since has been groundbreaking and the reason he is a finalist for the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year. This is his call to duty.

January 19, 2023 Mark Curriden

American Airlines’ Charlene Wandrisco and Bruce Wark are ‘Masters of Law and Airlines’

American Airlines Deputy GC Bruce Wark has had a three-decade complex, love-hate relationship with sometimes business partner, many times courtroom opponent online ticket distributor Sabre, including two vigorously fought litigation matters last year. American Senior Counsel Charlene Wandrisco, whose office is a 90-second walk down the hall from Wark, spent 2022 helping redesign the airline's loyalty program, implementing a new partnership with Microsoft that streamlined American’s internal operations and improved customer travel experiences for customers and worked to strengthen collaboration with TSA to create a mobile identification pre-check.

The legal work of the two lawyers, a litigator and a dealmaker, achieved major successes that made American into a better global airline. The result is that Wandrisco and Wark are recipients of the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department.

January 17, 2023 Mark Curriden

PepsiCo Foods’ Adrienne Mosley: ‘Out of our poverty came a great, life-changing blessing’

Adrienne Brown Mosley’s mother did not have money for a present for her 18th birthday. Instead, she convinced a lawyer in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to allow young Adrienne to follow her for the day. “This shadowing day changed the entire trajectory of my life," Mosley said.

Mosley is now the deputy GC of PepsiCo Foods North America, where she has developed initiatives to build a culture of compliance in a more stringent antitrust regulatory environment, helped enact innovative product partnerships to address supply chain challenges and worked to reinvigorate the corporate giant's diversity and inclusion efforts through innovative mentoring programs.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Mosley the recipient of the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.

January 12, 2023 Mark Curriden

2022 DFW Finalists Announced for Senior Counsel of the Year, Rookie of the Year

In-house counsel at American Airlines, City Electric Supply, Forney Corporation, MB2 Dental and OpTic Gaming are finalists to be honored for the 2022 Dallas Fort Worth Corporate Counsel Awards. Each year, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter and The Texas Lawbook recognize about two-dozen corporate in-house counsel for the extraordinary legal work and leadership they demonstrated during the previous year.

December 27, 2022 Mark Curriden