Scores of Texas companies and law firms hired thousands of corporate lawyers and paralegals over the past 25 years for one reason: Because Susan Pye told them to.
Pye, a pioneer in legal recruiting and trusted advisor to dozens of corporate general counsel and law firm leaders, died Thursday. She was 69.
“She was a smart, tenacious, and compassionate businesswoman and a generous supporter of a wide range of non-profit organizations,” Stacy Humphries, managing director of Pye Legal Group’s Houston and Austin operations, wrote in an email to clients.
“Over the course of three decades, she built the legal staffs of hundreds of law departments and boutique law firms, advised general counsels and other corporate executives on best practices, counseled and launched the careers of countless lawyers and championed diversity,” Humphries wrote. “One would be hard-pressed to point to anyone who has had more impact in shaping the careers of professionals in the Texas legal community.”
Born in Chicago, Pye graduated from the University of Texas with both an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in special education. She taught for six years and then earned her law degree from South Texas College of Law, where she served as an editor of the South Texas Law Journal.
For a decade, Pye worked in the corporate legal departments at Texaco, Enron and Cabot Corporation.
“The energy business was in trouble in the early ’90s,” Pye told then-Houston
Chronicle legal affairs writer Mary Flood in a 2008 interview. “I was in a pretty high position, and there was not a good opportunity for me in the energy business. I went to a search firm to see if they could help me find a good job, and they asked me to work for them, and it went from there.”
Pye originally worked for Prescott Search Group in Houston and then in 2006 started her own shop, Pye Legal Group, which now has three offices and 14 full-time recruiters – many of whom are former corporate lawyers. They work with some of the largest and most prestigious companies in Texas. Pye also worked closely with leaders of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston chapters and the Texas General Counsel Forum.
“She taught me that legal recruiting is about long-term relationships and doing the right thing, and not about the placement fee,” said Electra Harelson, Pye managing director in Dallas. “She believed in teamwork and built a search firm where all of the recruiters work together to do the best possible work for the clients and candidates.”
Pye “was truly a pioneer in supporting women in the legal profession,” said
Maria Parigi, who worked with Pye for two decades.
“Susan helped people find jobs that really worked for them, worked for their families and worked for the businesses,” Parigi said. “Susan had a loyalty for her colleagues and her clients that ran so deep. People trusted their legal departments to Susan because they knew she would send them great people.”
Pye was a long-term board member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and she and her daughter have been national spokeswomen for diabetes research funding.
Pye’s husband, Walter Pye, is the president and chief executive officer of Houston-based western fashion retailer Pinto Ranch.