Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Financial services giant Charles Schwab, which just relocated its HQ on Jan.1, is expected to announce next week that it is hiring former Securities and Exchange Commission regional director and former federal prosecutor Shamoil Shipchandler as its new chief counsel.
Houston-based Marathon Oil has chosen Kimberly Warnica, the former general counsel at Alta Mesa Resources, to replace Reginald Hedgebeth as its new general counsel.
Westlake-based Goosehead Insurance terminated the employment Thursday of its assistant GC, Paul Davis, who posted a video on Instagram Wednesday that appears to show himself inside the Capitol building as part of the Trump protest that turned into a riot. Davis, who posted several social media messages claiming the elections were a fraud, said Thursday that he was "fired for exercising my First Amendment rights."
One year ago, Halliburton Chief Legal Officer Robb Voyles hired Baker Botts litigation partner Van Beckwith to be the oilfield service giant’s general counsel with the idea that he would eventually replace Voyles. Eventually has arrived. In exclusive interviews, Beckwith and Voyles tell The Texas Lawbook about their moves and what is ahead.
Kevin McDonald has experienced extraordinary career successes. He has rung the opening or closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange three times with three companies. In 2019, he helped engineer a $1.8 billion merger between Keane Group and C&J Energy, creating an oil field services powerhouse with more than $4 billion in annual revenues. For those achievements and more, McDonald is the 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department. The Texas Lawbook has his complete story - and an amazing story it is.
Everyone has biases. Not everyone tries to identify theirs. Some don't realize they are discriminatory. And lawyers who see prejudice with judges or other lawyers "need to pushback against it," U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore told the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter in a CLE webcast last week called “Implicit Bias in the Courts.”
Charlotte Rasche has handled more than 30 M&A transactions for Prosperity Bank – first as a lawyer at Bracewell and now as the financial institution’s chief legal officer. None of those deals, however, were close to being as large or important as Prosperity’s $2.1 billion purchase of Plano-based LegacyTexas Bank a year ago. Working with Bracewell's Will Anderson, Rasche completed one of the largest bank deals in Texas history in less than five months. Rasche and Anderson are the winners of the 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for M&A Transaction of the Year.
The 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Creative Partnership goes to Chevron senior counsel Aylssa Schindler and Lauren Brogdon of Norton Rose Fulbright. The duo normally handle multimillion-dollar transactions and lawsuits, but they came together to co-engineer a major pro bono effort involving more than 20 lawyers from the energy giant and the global law firm to help 10 low-income victims of Hurricane Harvey.
Christina Ibrahim’s accomplishments at Weatherford International include multiple large M&A deals and guiding the oil services company through a highly successful bankruptcy and restructuring that eliminated $6 billion in debt. But her achievement was much different, much deeper and much more important. The Association of Corporate Counsel Houston and The Texas Lawbook award the 2020 Houston Corporate Counsel’s General Counsel of the Year Award for a Large Legal Department to Ibrahim.
Diversity and inclusion must be personal. Making history and even just experiencing it can be difficult. Words followed up by actions on mandatory diversity by corporate general counsel equals progress and success. These were the messages that came from the Texas Minority Counsel Program's two-day annual meeting.
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