Phillips 66 Team Used 11 p.m. Nightly Calls and Creative Legal Work to Complete $3.4B Transaction

Each night at 11 p.m. for nearly a year, Robert Task, Julie Pradel and Maine Goodfellow were on the phone discussing the problems they faced, the challenges lying ahead and the successes achieved that day. The three senior-level in-house counsel at Phillips 66 spent hundreds and hundreds of hours negotiating the terms, handling due diligence, doing the paperwork and getting the necessary approvals to push Phillips 66’s $3.4 billion acquisition of its limited partner, Phillips 66 Partners, over the finish line. Task, Pradel and Goodfellow faced multiple headwinds: stresses from the lingering pandemic, fluctuating oil and gas prices, rising interest rates, a tumultuous global economic environment and wild swings in stock prices. But they got the deal done and it is a finalist for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Transaction of the Year.

May 17, 2022 Mark Curriden

Medical Informatics Associate GC Alyssa Desgranges-Ellett Helps ‘Save Lives Bit by Bit’

Alyssa Desgranges-Ellett was nine when her grandfather needed a heart transplant. She was there when doctors used an artificial heart machine to keep him alive while he waited his turn on the transplant list. “I couldn’t believe how this one piece of technology was not only keeping him alive, but vastly improved his quality of life,” she said. “All those experiences I lived through with him led me to end up where I am today, working for a healthcare-technology company that creates software to make the jobs of healthcare professionals more efficient and accurate, in order to save more lives.”

Twenty-five years later, Desgranges-Ellett is the associate general counsel and compliance officer at Medical Informatics Corp., a healthcare-technology company where she helped create and implement the company’s first contract-management system, led the company’s internal-ethics initiative and mentoring program and is designing the formal return-to-work policies and procedures. She is also a finalist for the 2022 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year.

May 17, 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

Registered Series in Texas LLCs are Almost Here

On June 1 amendments to the Texas Business Organizations Code adopted in the 2021 Texas Legislature will become effective. This article highlights how one of those amendments can be expected to bring better transparency and usefulness for series of Texas limited liability companies.

May 3, 2022 Daryl Robertson

2021 Capital Markets in Texas: An Extraordinary Year ‘Across the Board’

Capital markets deals in Texas were up — way up. The value of those deals were down — way down. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, say our lawyer/dealmakers. Reduced capital budgets, acquisitions made with a clearer sense of purpose and a broader base of issuers created a market in which IPOs made their comeback — and SPACs made their presence felt.

March 16, 2022 Claire Poole & Allen Pusey

Is Diversity a Pipeline Problem, or a Reservoir Problem?

Many assumptions animate the backlash to Black people’s audacity to be highly educated. The one that really angers me is the suggestion that Black families do not value education as highly as other families. As a result, the theory goes, Black children are destined to fail when admitted to prestigious (aka predominantly white) schools. I always roll my eyes at this one. I have never known a Black child who was not ashamed to bring bad grades home. Also, I did just fine at the two predominantly white schools that I attended — Harvard and Duke Law.

February 28, 2022 Chelsea Glover

Once Alone, Now Empowered

I embrace the opportunity and recognize the magnitude of being a Black female associate in Big Law, especially one who graduated from UNT Dallas College of Law. But my comfort in this did not happen overnight. It was cultivated by seeing others who look like me navigate the legal field and exude confidence even when they may have been the only Black lawyers in the room. And while it may seem cliché, it started with my mother.

February 28, 2022 Ashley Jones Wright

One Generation Removed from Drinking from a Water Hose Out Back

The stories of Black people in this country are the stories of people who have achieved great success in all areas of life while nearly always starting at a deficit. My story and the stories of those like my father affect my practice every single day.

February 25, 2022 Damian N. Williams

On the Eve of Black History Month, the Very Real Specter of Violence Against HBCUs

From Jan. 31, 2022 through February 1, 2022, more than 20 historically Black colleges and universities were forced to lock down their campuses and, in some cases, cancel classes after receiving bomb threats. Sidley attorney Marian Fielding, a graduate of Florida A&M University, describes how the threats, though thankfully did not result in any physical harm, still leave collateral damage.

February 25, 2022 Marian Fielding

Law Firm Culture: Inclusion Is Not Assimilation

The biggest impediment to achieving true diversity does not lie in a failure to recruit diverse attorneys; the failure is in retaining them. This article explores how firms can build more inclusive cultures.

February 18, 2022 Mariah Berry