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Driving Ambition: How a Misguided Tee Shot Redirected Champion’s Career

Brennan Champion is assistant general counsel for ECI Software Solutions Inc., a provider of cloud-based business management software serving small and medium-sized enterprises. As one of two full-time lawyers at the Westlake company, he oversees a wide array of litigation and transactional matters across North America. He is praised for his can-do mentality and exceptional legal skills that often surpass those of more experienced lawyers. He has established himself as a trusted advisor within ECI, adeptly balancing legal risks while providing practical, business-focused legal advice across the company's diverse global operations. For these attributes and others, Champion has been recognized as a finalist for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel of the Year Award for Rookie of the Year.

Jason Philyaw

Texas Capital Assoc. GC Ashley Ahn’s ‘Truly Inspirational Story’: ‘We Were Boat People and Refugees’

For six weeks in 1981, three-year-old Ashley Nguyen Ahn was stranded in a small boat in the middle of the ocean with her family in an effort to flee certain execution by the Viet Cong. They ran out of food and then water. She witnessed her eight-year-old neighbor die of starvation and dehydration first. Her uncle died next and then her father, whose body she watched being pushed overboard. Ahn experienced more trauma, death and desperation as a toddler than the rest of us face in a lifetime. And she remembers it all. “All of these early events made me who I am today,” she told The Texas Lawbook in an exclusive interview. Ahn is now the associate general counsel at Texas Capital, where she and her team spent the last three years rebuilding and transforming Texas Capital into a premier financial services firm in the state. And she is a finalist for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.

Mark Curriden

Taxwell’s Willa Kalaidjian and Nicola Hobeiche are ‘Renaissance Women’ Achieving Extraordinary Success Under Great Pressures

Days after becoming the new Drake Software GC in 2022, Willa Kalaidjian learned Cinven was buying Dallas-based digital tax filing platform TaxAct for $720 million. Kalaidjian's assignment: Help develop a new name for the combined businesses and lead the integration. Enter TaxAct senior counsel Nicola Hobeiche, who joined the new company via the merger. The duo immediately started the lengthy process integrating legal, compliance, procurement and legislative affairs. But they also had to simultaneously address a potentially devastating threat to the company: a series of class-action lawsuits filed in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania and separate charges brought by multiple state attorneys general related to the allegations of improper use of personal and financial information by a third-party vendor for TaxAct. Citing the extraordinary achievements of the legal department of five, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Taxwell as one of two finalists for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Corporate Legal Department of the Year.

Mark Curriden

Workrise Associate GC Kelsey Williams Revolutionized Company’s Legal Strategy and Collections

Kelsey Williams almost didn’t become a lawyer. She bucked her parents’ efforts to persuade her to follow in her father’s footsteps. But it was in a specific moment during her undergraduate literature studies that she realized she may be a natural fit for the legal profession. Today, her peers say she has a “signature brand of meticulous and thoughtful legal work” that has transformed Workrise’s profitability and stability. And she is a finalist for the 2024 DFW Senior Counsel of the Year Award. 

Krista Torralva

Steffen Horlacher — American Airlines’ Lawyer for ‘Head-hurting, Complicated Commercial Matters’

Steffen Horlacher has been instrumental at American Airlines during his 26-year career, helping the airline navigate significant challenges like 9/11, the 2011 bankruptcy, the merger with US Airways and the pandemic. He has managed various business initiatives and partnerships that support daily operations.

Recently, Horlacher led negotiations with motorcoach carrier Landline, making American the first airline to offer service in all 50 states. He also advised on a new alliance with Alaska Airlines that created international routes from Seattle and Los Angeles.

In recognition of his contributions, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named him the 2024 Senior Counsel of the Year for Large Legal Departments. This is his story.

Mark Curriden

Texas Capital Bank GC Anna Alvarado ‘Knows What Hard Work Really Is’

Anna Alvarado has an extraordinary life story. And she has experienced extraordinary success. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Alvarado grew up in government-subsidized housing at a work camp in Central California, picking grapes and selling cassette tapes. Neither of her parents spoke English. Her dad was an addict and felon who served prison time.

“Had it not been for all of those things and having to deal with all of those things, I would not be sitting here today,” Alvarado said in a 2022 interview. Today, she is a finalist for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel of the Year Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.

Mark Curriden

P.S. — SPCA and Jones Day: 2024 DFW Creative Partnership of the Year

Jones Day construction litigation partner Joseph Van Asten, the dad to two rescue dogs, was looking for a pro bono project earlier this year. Chris Luna, former T-Mobile chief counsel-turned-CEO of SPCA needed a large corporate law firm with experience in several different practice areas. The result: The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are honoring SPCA's Luna and Jones Day with the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Creative Partnership. During the past year, Jones Day has had 10 different lawyers work more than 200 pro bono hours on seven different matters for the SPCA, including drafting and negotiating construction agreements for the SPCA expansion project, providing advice on SPCA’s corporate bylaws and corporate governance issues and advising the nonprofit on its trademark portfolio. This is how the partnership came together.

Mark Curriden

P.S. — Dallas Cowboys’ Kaleisha Stuart, SPCA’s Chris Luna Win DFW Corporate Counsel Awards

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are awarding the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Diversity and Inclusion to Dallas Cowboys Deputy General Counsel Kaleisha Stuart and the Creative Partnership Award to SPCA of Texas CEO Chris Luna and Jones Day partner Joseph Van Asten. Also in this P.S. column, Munsch Hardt and Paul Hastings share the holiday spirit with those less fortunate.

Mark Curriden

DFW Business Litigation, M&A Deal and Creative Partnership of the Year Announced

The corporate legal departments at Arcosa, Helmerich & Payne, Jacobs Solutions, SPCA of Texas and Texas Pacific Land and their outside law firms are finalists in three key categories at the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Awards. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook announced the finalists for the 2024 DFW awards for Business Litigation of the Year, M&A Deal of the Year and Creative Partnership. These three awards are unique because they celebrate the in-house corporate legal departments and their outside lawyers.

Mark Curriden

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