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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ocwen Financial’s Joel Israel is ‘The Gold Standard’
Joel Israel oversees about 500 mortgage foreclosure-related lawsuits as the assistant GC at mortgage giant Ocwen Financial. He tries to foster a compassionate approach as most are single-plaintiff cases with customers in unfortunate financial distress. But there are lawsuits by those abusing the system, fabricating facts and just seeking nuisance settlements.
Using innovative research techniques and an aggressive litigation strategy, Israel and his outside counsel at Womble convinced California judges to reject two such lawsuits. In doing so, they sent a message that frivolous litigation would not be tolerated. They also are finalists for the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
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.
Keurig Dr Pepper’s Legal Department – ‘$1 Billion Profit Center’
This is the story of three lawyers at Keurig Dr Pepper — Jim Baldwin, Anthony Shoemaker and Stephen Cole — who took a huge risk in leading a normally conservative, litigation-adverse company in suing a business partner, the business partner’s profanity-spewing founder and Dr Pepper’s biggest and universally feared competitor, Coca-Cola. Along with outside counsel at Gibson Dunn, they took a highly complex dispute and boiled it down to one sentence in a contract. By the end, they had opposing counsel pleading with the judge to push for a settlement weeks before trial. The result: a $925 million victory and a finalist for the 2022 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
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.
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.
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