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.

June 14, 2022 Natalie Posgate & Mark Curriden

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.

June 13, 2022 Mark Curriden

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.

June 10, 2022 Mark Curriden

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.

June 7, 2022 Mark Curriden

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.

May 20, 2022 Mark Curriden

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.

May 19, 2022 Mark Curriden

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.

May 16, 2022 Mark Curriden

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.

May 16, 2022 Mark Curriden

For BHP’s Ashley Hill, ‘DEI is Organic, Has Never Met a Stranger’

BHP asked its senior in-house counsel Ashley Hill to help lead the global energy and minerals giant's efforts to diversify its ranks in two historically male-dominated industries: mining and oil and gas. The evidence five years later shows it could not have made a better selection. As BHP's top employment lawyer in the Americas, Hill was part of a thorough review of the company's recruiting, hiring, compensation and retention practices. She was instrumental in implementing a gender pay gap review that resulted in an increase in female salaries of more than $4 million.

Citing these significant successes, the Association of Corporate Counsel's Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Hill as one of the two finalists for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.

May 13, 2022 Mark Curriden

Diane Greene & GSFSGroup Legal Team: ‘No Stopping Until There’s a Solution’

Diane Greene and her legal team at GSFSGroup faced a monumental task: Develop and complete a transformational partnership agreement regarding vehicle product services that required the approval of 23 state regulatory authorities and 15 consumer finance lenders — all in less than three months. And that was before the other side's GC left in the middle of the deal.

The agreement, the largest and most important in the history of GSFSGroup, added $165 million to its revenue stream and grew its product volume 28 percent. Greene and her team are finalists for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Transaction of the Year.

May 12, 2022 Mark Curriden