Halliburton General Counsel Robb Voyles stepped to the podium at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Houston to accept his award for being the General Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department and looked up at the picture of himself on the ballroom’s big screen.
“I’m not getting this award for picture of the year obviously,” Voyles told the audience at the 2019 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards. “They told me to look tough.”
See photos of the event in our gallery, which will be updated throughout the day.
More than 300 of Houston’s top corporate lawyers – from general counsel at the world’s largest energy companies to partners at the state’s most elite law firms – gathered Thursday night to recognize the best of the legal profession and celebrate their successes in 2018.
“What a great event to honor so many great business lawyers and the great work they have done,” said Plains All American President and Chief Commercial Officer Harry Pefanis, who presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to recently retired Plains General Counsel Lawrence Dreyfuss.
The Houston Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook co-hosted the Houston Corporate Counsel Awards, which honored 14 corporate legal departments and their lawyers for leadership, great legal work and specific achievements.
Jessica Roper, president of ACC Houston and co-moderator of the ceremony, called it a “spectacular evening” that “showcased the best of the corporate law profession.”
“There were a lot of very funny moments and some very serious ones, but everyone had a wonderful time,” Roper said. “ACC Houston and The Texas Lawbook are definitely going to be doing more programs and events in the future.”
The General Counsel of the Year awards went to Voyles, Peak Completion Technologies GC Timothy Johnson for GC of the Year for a Small Legal Department and Precision Drilling GC Veronica Foley for General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.
Foley told the audience that she moved to the U.S. from Colombia when she was 16 and had a very thick accent. Foley said a school counselor “laughed in her face” when she said she wanted to become a lawyer.
“This award is really for all the people who believed in me,” she said.
Tim Johnson, who was honored for leading litigation against the estate of the company’s founder who had secretly siphoned off millions and millions of dollars to pay for a $250,000 pirate ship for his backyard and a fleet of Ferraris, Bentleys and Porsches, said lawyers go in-house for different reasons.
“For me, it was more of an existential crisis where my head was always in the rules of civil procedure, and I asked myself, ‘Is this what I do for a living?'” Johnson said.
Voyles, in accepting his award, pointed out that Halliburton is celebrating its 100-year anniversary. He said the oil and gas industry is facing a new set of challenges today, including commodity prices, shareholders changing their expectations, and the “mean green machines” that are politicians.
“This world doesn’t work without oil and gas,” Voyles said. “Oil and gas is the most affordable, reliable source of energy.”
Superior Energy Associate General Counsel Blaine Edwards, who sued two of his company’s executives for taking tens-of-millions of dollars in kickbacks from vendors, said he couldn’t have been successful “without the outstanding work of our outside lawyers and the work of my legal assistant, who essentially did all the work.”
Edwards, who was awarded Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department, also commended his corporate executives who “all got deposed” in the case.
“It was intense, that’s the best way to put it,” he said.
PetroChina senior counsel Amber Shushan, who was recognized for the Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department, recalled her first meeting with the company’s accounts director.
“I need to know, are you a wimp?” he asked. Shushan has shown him that she is not.
“I love waking up each and every day … to grow PetroChina’s business throughout the Americas,” she said in accepting the award.
Andrew Gratz, associate general counsel at LyondellBasell and winner of the Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department, echoed the comments of most of the 2019 Houston Corporate Counsel Award recipients by thanking the legal and business teams that worked with him on the $2.25 billion acquisition of A. Schulman Inc. last year.
The Rookie of the Year Award went to Amelia Xu of Tidewater Inc., who has been involved in 14 separate corporate transactions valued at $100 million or more – two of them exceeded $1 billion – despite being only 30 years old.
“This is an amazing recognition beyond my imagination,” Xu said accepting the award. “Chinese by birth, Texan by choice.”
Carriage Services Senior Counsel Mike Elliott, who won the Creative Partnership Award with his outside counsel Shook Hardy Bacon, said that businesses “need to be able to trust our lawyers on the outside.” Elliott said the trust he has with the Kansas City-based law firm allowed him to develop a unique relationship with a cadre of lawyers to strategically analyze and address matters in the most efficient and cost effective manner.
The Diversity of the Year Award went to Belinda Senneway and Matthew Coward of Shell Oil.
“It means so much that Shell’s efforts are recognized,” Senneway told the audience. “We try not to just talk the talk.”
ACC Houston and The Texas Lawbook chose U.S. Zinc Corp. General Counsel Richard Rosenberg to receive the Public Service/Pro Bono Award for his leadership at The Center, a 69-year-old nonprofit that serves approximately 500 adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the Houston area.
Rosenberg used his acceptance speech to encourage people to get involved in public service. The Center, he said, is just “one of thousands” of charity organizations in Houston.
“I encourage you to find something you’re interested in,” he said. “Regardless of your motives, volunteer work is great for the soul and gives our profession a great name.”
The 2019 Houston Corporate Counsel’s Business Litigation of the Year Award went to Buc-ee’s Deputy General Counsel Tracy Richardson for winning a federal trademark infringement trial against competitor Choke Canyon last May.
“Trying this case was so much fun,” Richardson told the audience. “Getting in front of a jury that was saying they love your client … it was magic.
“I didn’t think we’d win the case, so there wasn’t much pressure,” he said, nodding to the fact that his opposing counsel had been an intellectual property professor at St. Mary’s School of Law.
“As an East Texas boy, I had no idea what IP law was,” he said.
CenterPoint Energy Associate General Counsel Monica Karuturi and her outside lawyers at Akin Gump and Baker Botts won the 2019 M&A Transaction of the Year for leading a highly complex, transformational $6 billion merger that actually involved nine separate transactions.
Karuturi praised her outside lawyers at Akin Gump and Baker Botts for helping guide her and CenterPoint through the maze of securities offerings and financings required to get the deal closed.
The biggest applause for the evening went to legendary oil and gas lawyers Total E&P USA Associate General Counsel David Houck and retired Plains All American GC Larry Dreyfuss, who received Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Akin Gump partner Rob Shearer described Houck as the dean of the energy bar and has been involved in transformational domestic and international mergers, acquisitions and financings.
“Everyone I’ve worked with at Fina and Total has been smart and easygoing,” Houck said. “For the last 35 years I’ve been looking forward to going into work every day.”
Lee Dreyfuss accepted the award on his father’s behalf and thanked Plains officials for the recognition.
“You all are his second family,” Lee Dreyfuss said to the Plains colleagues in the room. “I realize I have very, very big shoes to fill, so I should probably get working on that.”