Trinity Industries hired Sarah Teachout in 2015 to help the Dallas industrial supply company battled a mountain of litigation claiming that the highway guardrails it manufactured were fatally flawed.
An East Texas jury had slapped Trinity with a record-smashing $663 million False Claims Act verdict and scores of other lawsuits across the country piled up as a result.
Teachout, a former partner at Akin Gump and Haynes and Boone in Dallas, put together an all-star team of lawyers to battle the litigation. The result was the FCA verdict was completely reserved and many of the other cases were tossed or withdrawn.
On Wednesday, Trinity rewarded Teachout for her success by naming her the company’s new chief legal officer and senior vice president.
Teachout replaces Trinity’s long-time general counsel, Theis Rice, who retains his senior VP title and assumes the title Chief Compliance Officer.
In addition, Trinity named Jared Richardson, a former partner at Locke Lord, to be its Corporate Secretary.
A Harvard Law School graduate, Teachout has served as Trinity’s deputy general counsel for the past four years. As CLO, she leads the company’s legal, compliance and ethics, government relations, and environmental health and safety functions.
Richardson, also a Harvard Law alum, has been with Trinity since 2010 and served as general counsel of the company’s TrinityRail division.
Rice, who received his law degree at South Texas College of Law, joined Trinity in 1991.