2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards Celebration

More than 225 leaders of the corporate legal profession in Houston celebrated the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards, which recognized general counsel and senior managing counsel from companies ranging from Phillips 66 and Shell to Enbridge, Baker Hughes and Transocean. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook hosted 20 corporate in-house counsel who had been nominated for awards in 14 categories, from Rookie of the Year and Lifetime Achievement to M&A Transaction and Business Litigation of the Year.

May 27, 2025 Mark Curriden

How Waste Management and Charles Boettcher Sealed the Stericycle Deal

Waste Management’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Stericycle was highly complex, merging WM’s $20 billion solid waste business with Stericycle’s $2.6 billion medical waste operation. The deal faced hurdles including class action litigation, a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation, and major integration challenges. Over several years, WM’s Chief Legal Officer, Charles Boettcher, played a key role in strategy, evaluation, and execution — culminating in one of 2024’s most significant transactions, with outside counsel Vinson & Elkins. As a result, Waste Management's acquisition of Stericycle is one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for M&A Transaction of the Year. The award will be presented by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook today at the Four Seasons in Houston.

May 22, 2025 Allen Pusey

McDermott Legal Department is ‘More than the Sum of its Parts’

McDermott, a key contractor on the multibillion-dollar Freeport LNG facility, faced lawsuits seeking nearly $2 billion in damages. Freeport’s insurers sought over $1.3 billion in subrogation claims, while Freeport LNG itself alleged design defects. Both lawsuits were filed as adversary proceedings in the bankruptcy of McDermott’s joint venture partner, Zachry Construction. The cases involved complex engineering and contract issues among multiple partners. The cases involved complex engineering and contract issues among multiple partners. Ultimately, the insurers’ claims were dismissed as well as the consequential damages portion of the defect suit, though the insurers have appealed the dismissal. For navigating the complexities, McDermott's in-house legal team is one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year. The award will be presented by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook on Thursday at the Four Seasons in Houston. 

May 21, 2025 Michelle Casady

Phillips 66’s Kathleen Bertolatus is ‘the Full Package’

Kathleen Bertolatus had a “pivotal family conversation” with her dad three decades ago when she was looking at colleges. “His advice to me was that, since the most important role in my life was going to be as wife and mother, I should go to the least expensive school,” Bertolatus told The Texas Lawbook. “While my mother didn’t work outside the home, I already knew at that young age that I wanted to make a broader impact in the world.” Today, Bertolatus is a wife, a mother and one of the most respected environmental and regulatory lawyers in the energy industry, where she serves as managing counsel for Phillips 66. "I’m proud of 18-year-old me, and all those versions in between, for holding fast to a vision that has made my family and career successful,” she said. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Lawbook have selected Bertolatus as one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston Senior Counsel of the Year Award for a large legal department. The awards ceremony is set for May 22 at the Four Seasons downtown.

May 15, 2025 Mark Curriden & Jason Philyaw

With Ivett Hughes at the Helm in Houston, ‘Baker Hughes is a Corporate Leader in Pro Bono Service’ 

In the first quarter of 2024, Baker Hughes launched a global legal and compliance diversity, inclusion and belonging counsel with the mission of infusing those values into the legal department through internal and external engagement. Led by Ivett Hughes in Houston, a regional team of lawyers and staff partnered with Houston Volunteer Lawyers to represent four clients — roughly one pro bono case per five lawyers. They blew past their goal by 500 percent. The Houston Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook have selected Hughes and Baker Hughes as its 2025 Achievement in Pro Bono and Public Service award recipient. 

May 14, 2025 Krista Torralva

Kathryn Hand Achieves a Host of Early Successes at Enbridge

Kathryn Hand’s first job out of college in 2013 was, in her words, “not-so-great — it felt mindless to me. I knew I needed a career that was going to be challenging,” she told The Texas Lawbook. In the dozen years since, Hand obtained her law degree, spent five years getting trial experience and has spent the past two years scoring litigation achievements as senior counsel for litigation at Canada-based midstream energy giant Enbridge, including winning a case at the Ohio Supreme Court in which hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake. Citing her remarkable achievements in such a short time, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Hand as one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year.

May 13, 2025 Mark Curriden

BWEL — A Creative Partnership that Enhances the Entire Legal Community

Chevron Phillips Assistant GC Cheryl-Lynne Davis and Baker Botts associate Teresa Jones — both women of color and lawyers who specialize in environmental law — shared Thanksgiving dinner in 2023. Over turkey and all the fixings, Davis and Jones discussed professional struggles they faced and together started working on a solution that now benefits some of the largest corporations in South Texas.

“What started as a casual conversation quickly became a shared mission: to create space for people like us to build community, exchange knowledge and uplift one another,” Jones said.

The seeds Davis and Jones sowed that day led to the creation of Black Women in Energy and Environmental Law, an organization that focuses on their professional purpose as lawyers and personal mission to support and ensure the wellness of Black women engaged in energy and environmental law. BWEL has witnessed tremendous success in the 16 months since it was founded. ACC Houston and The Texas Lawbook are honoring Davis, Jones and the members of BWEL with the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Creative Partnership.

May 12, 2025 Mark Curriden

Julia Wright ‘Sets the Example for All General Counsel Globally’

Julia Wright was a third grader when she did a book report on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “I didn’t know women could be lawyers until I read that book,” Wright told The Texas Lawbook. “I knew then that it was what I wanted to do. Throughout the 1980s, my dad would cut out newspaper articles showing the data of increased enrollment in law schools of women, showing me it was possible.” Forty-two years later, Wright is the general counsel at ChampionX, where she is one of two finalists for the 2025 Houston General Counsel of the Year Award for a Midsized Legal Department.

May 6, 2025 Mark Curriden & Jason Philyaw

Maverick Natural Resources’ Sarah Payne is ‘Like Having a Cheat Code Against the Other Side’

Sarah Payne went to college and graduate school to be a journalist covering the music industry with the dream of writing for Rolling Stone. Her father, then a Houston trial lawyer, had other ideas. “I was worn down by my tenacious father over the course of two decades,” Payne told The Texas Lawbook. “My entering the profession was likely inescapable. It’s in my veins for better or worse." Payne recently led her employer, Maverick Natural Resources, to a huge courtroom victory after a four-year contract dispute with XTO Energy regarding revenue sharing as part of a joint venture. Citing the jury trial success, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Lawbook named Payne the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award recipient for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.

May 5, 2025 Mark Curriden & Jason Philyaw

Former PepsiCo GC Leanne Oliver Joins Phillips Murrah

Oliver achieved many successes during her nearly three decades at PepsiCo and was promoted six times. She successfully defended the multinational food and beverage company against major class-action lawsuits, led strategic corporate acquisitions, and developed innovative employment policies and management training programs. Ex-PepsiCo General Counsel Larry Thompson told The Texas Lawbook in a 2021 profile of Oliver that, “No one really knows PepsiCo as well as Leanne. She has brought enormous value to the company and to the entire legal profession.”

May 5, 2025 Brooks Igo